The Somali Doctrine

by James Grenton

  ‘The timing wasn’t right. I’d seen your file. You’d just recovered from your wife’s death when you joined us. On top of that, you still had lingering post-traumatic stress from Iraq.’

  They sat in silence. Jim didn’t know whether he wanted to scream at Nicolas or just run away and never have anything to do with Interpol again. Maxine touched his hand gently. He clasped hers and closed his eyes.

  ‘Speaking of Harry, where is he?’ Fabienne said.

  Nicolas pointed out of the window into the night sky. A light was getting closer. They could hear the sound of a plane’s engine. ‘Just approaching, along with that warlord, Othman.’

  ‘What will you do with them?’ Fabienne said.

  ‘Bring them to justice. We’re opening a criminal investigation. We want to find out all that Universal Action has been up to. That’s why we’ll need to know everything Jim found out.’

  ‘What about the wider implications?’ Fabienne said.

  ‘Which ones?’

  ‘Such as questioning the role of NGOs?’ she said. ‘UA was totally unaccountable. Nobody knew what it did with its money. It deliberately chose to work in countries where the rule of law’s collapsed, with few checks and balances. All this could easily happen again.’

  ‘There’s not much we can do apart from highlight it. It’s for the UN and governments to take action. Hopefully, they’ll learn their lesson from this.’

  ‘What about MainShield?’ Maxine said. ‘They’re an army for hire. It’s crazy.’

  ‘We’ll be looking into that too. The trouble is they have the support of the Bush administration.’ Nicolas paused, looking embarrassed. ‘And we’ve just done a deal with them, through Jenny.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘MainShield’s promised they will deliver Harry and Othman to us alive, along with that IDP. They sent in an aircraft to pick them up. In exchange, we’re granting MainShield immunity from prosecution.’

  Jim shook his head in disbelief. ‘They’ve been gun running, involved in massacres and all kinds of other crimes and you’re letting them go free? That’s a huge mistake.’ Jim turned to Maxine. ‘Explains why they were in such a hurry to take Harry from us.’

  ‘We also wanted to ensure your safe return,’ Nicolas said. ‘Without this deal, it’s highly likely MainShield would’ve silenced you.’

  The roar of the plane blocked out all sound. They looked out through the window. Small whirlwinds of dust swirled as the Cessna landed. Once the propeller had slowed, Nicolas left the building and marched up, head tucked between his shoulders, followed by Jim and Maxine. The Kenyans stayed back, watching.

  Nicolas banged on the driver’s door. The pilot and two men inside ignored him. They were waving their arms, arguing.

  Nicolas banged the door again. Still no response.

  Nicolas gestured to Jim, Maxine and Fabienne to follow him. He put his hand on the door handle to the passenger section and tugged. Just then, the pilot opened his window and shouted, ‘No. Don’t!’

  Nicolas opened the door. They peered inside and were met with a scene of pure horror. A disfigured corpse lay on the floor, a long knife stuck in its face. Its torso was hacked to pieces. Another corpse was lying on a seat, its head hanging down, bulging eyes wide open and tongue sticking out. A gaunt, thin Somali man was huddled in a corner, arms round his knees, staring at them.

  The pilot was scrambling out of the front, yelling something. Nicolas put out a hand to silence him. Maxine and Fabienne had taken a few steps back and were looking away.

  Jim gritted his teeth. ‘You must be Abdi,’ he said to the Somali man.

  He climbed into the plane and put out his hand. Abdi’s eyes focused on him. Jim helped the frail man to his feet.

  Nicolas pointed at the two corpses. ‘Looks like MainShield haven’t kept their part of the deal after all.’

  Epilogue

  London, UK

  13 October 2003

  Two weeks later, Jim was sitting in an apartment on Upper Street, in Islington, watching a mindless reality TV show. After attending Lesley’s funeral in Cambridge, Jim and Maxine had decided to move to London to recover and grieve and decide what to do next. He shifted on the sofa. His body still hurt from all the punishment it had taken. His cheek was permanently scarred, making eating painful.

  Maxine was in the kitchen, cooking. A smell of fried mushrooms and melted cheese pervaded the air. Bored, Jim flicked through the newspaper on the sofa next to him. The Somaliland famine had receded from the headlines, with a few stories that aid was now reaching the starving populations. There had been little in the press about the troubles at Universal Action: just some speculation about Edward’s murder, but nothing about Harry or MainShield.

  Interesting how the media were never willing to admit their mistakes. Not a single news channel or paper would say that they’d been manipulated. That was if they realised, of course. Maybe Interpol had crushed the story so effectively that nobody even knew what had happened.

  On page eight, a headline grabbed his attention: ‘Aid agencies call for armed intervention as famine looms in Sudan’. The story was familiar: warring factions in Sudan had led to a breakdown in the food supply, setting the conditions for famine ‘on a biblical scale’. The usual aid agencies were putting out appeals and press releases, quoting ridiculously inflated estimates of ‘millions facing imminent death’ and calling for armed intervention to ‘restore order and protect aid deliveries’.

  A quote half way down the article was from a senior official in the US government calling for more aid agencies to have their own military forces ‘following the success of Universal Action’s military intervention in Somaliland’.

  Jim threw the paper away in disgust. The pages separated in mid-air and scattered across the room. It looked like Harry had set in motion a debate that was not going to die out any time soon.

  Maxine came into the lounge, carrying on a tray two plates of steaming pasta covered in mushroom sauce. She placed it on the coffee table and plonked herself next to him. He draped his arm round her. She cuddled up to him, her cheek on his chest.

  He looked at the TV. It was showing the closing credits for the reality show. Then followed the dramatic opening theme tune of the 10 o’clock BBC news. Jim kissed Maxine.

  The news anchor began reading the headlines. ‘In an unprecedented move, the United Nations has launched a major initiative to reform the NGO industry amid allegations that it is plagued by widespread corruption and misuse of resources.’

  They spun their heads to stare at the screen.

  ‘A secret report from Interpol obtained by the BBC reveals that Universal Action, the world’s largest NGO, misspent hundreds of millions of pounds and was on the verge of sparking a major conflict in the Horn of Africa.’

  Their jaws dropped. The image shifted to footage of MainShield mercenaries in Somaliland. A voice-over from a BBC journalist went on to recount the story of the past few weeks: UA’s deal with MainShield and Othman, deliberately starving IDPs in the camps, Harry’s responsibility in the murder of Edward, Victor and others—everything exactly as Jim and Maxine had recounted it to Nicolas and the Interpol team when they’d arrived back at the Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France, two weeks ago. It ended with a sound bite from ‘George Stephens, Universal Action’s interim CEO’, explaining how ‘the fight against poverty will continue despite the recent hiccups.’

  The news moved onto other items, then the sport and weather. Jim and Maxine sat there, then looked at each other in astonishment.

  Jim’s phone rang, strident, insistent. It was on the coffee table. They stared at it as though it was from another world. Jim picked it up gingerly and looked at the screen: ‘caller unidentified’.

  ‘Hello?’ he said. Nobody had called him for days.

  ‘It’s Nicolas,’ said the now familiar voice. ‘Did you watch the news?’

  ‘I sure did. Was that you?’

  ‘It definitely was.’


  ‘Why? You seemed pretty resigned last time we spoke about it.’

  ‘I changed my mind,’ Nicolas said. ‘I realised we had to make this public. I leaked the report. Otherwise, I knew the governments and everyone else would hush this up and things would continue as before. It was the only way to make the UN react.’

  ‘What about the mercenary groups?’ Jim said.

  ‘They’ll be next. Don’t you worry. But we’ll need some help for that.’

  ‘What kind of help?’

  ‘Your help, Jim. I’d like you to lead what will be a major international criminal investigation into a particular private military company. Interested?’

  Jim glanced at Maxine, who was looking back expectantly. His mind went back to everything he’d found out about MainShield’s role in Harry’s plans.

  ‘Jim?’ Nicolas’s gentle voice brought him back to reality.

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I’m in.’

  Notes from the Author

  This novel is pure fiction. Universal Action is not meant to represent any of the major NGOs. MainShield is not another name for an existing private military company. All the characters are entirely made up. Nevertheless, I based the story on in-depth research into a number of matters that should concern us all. I explain below what these issues are and which sources I used.

  First, the massive growth in the number of NGOs working, with next to no accountability, in developing countries, should be a significant concern. Some of the world’s largest NGOs have annual budgets in the hundreds of millions even billions of dollars. They have supporter bases of hundreds of thousands of individual members of the public giving them anything from two dollars to millions of dollars. Yet the public has no idea how well these NGOs are run. All we get in return are glossy magazines, TV appeals, billboard ads and marketing materials full of heart-touching photos and stories that often have little to do with the reality of failed projects and misused funds on the ground. Government aid is no better, with billions being siphoned off by corrupt governments and little to show as positive impact.

  Books are starting to emerge about the problem with aid. The best one, though very academic, is The Samaritan’s Dilemma, by Gibson et al. Using economic theory, it explains why the aid system is flawed and provides case studies showing how aid encourages corruption and dependency. Less good, though still worth the read, is Dead Aid, by Dambisa Moyo. The author is a Zambian and a former World Bank economist. Her argument about how aid is part of the problem rather than the solution is a sound one. Less polemical is Does Foreign Aid Really Work? Written by Christian Aid’s former head of programmes, Roger Riddell, it gives a solid overview of the available evidence.

  Second, the use of spin by NGOs comes up as an important theme in my story. NGOs have become experts at manipulating the press for fundraising. Most NGOs have marketing and media departments to assist with this, drawing on the media’s insatiable appetite for sensationalism, celebrity and instant news. This creates situations where NGOs have to rely on shocking imagery and overinflated facts in order to gain media coverage of issues that would otherwise be ignored. Unfortunately, NGOs are much less effective at using the press to create serious debate. For instance, development economist Paul Collier, in his book The Bottom Billion, is hugely critical of Western NGOs for using spin and misleading studies to make their point.

  This leads me to my third point: about the power of the media in the disinformation of the public. There’s a consensus among media scholars that the mainstream press is failing as a means of educating the public about the wider world. Instead, increasing commercial pressure on the media, falling journalistic standards and celebrity-driven news are threatening the quality of public debate within Western democracies. A key problem, as Susan Moeller in her book Compassion Fatigue shows, is that the media use famine, war, death and disease to sell more copies and make profit. Then comes the issue of the media as a willing tool for pro-war propaganda. A prime example of this is Ross Kemp On Afghanistan. It’s a gripping and well-written tale by embedded journalist Ross Kemp of the life of British soldiers in the ongoing Afghan campaign. However, Kemp commits the unforgiveable journalistic sin—common to many embedded journalists—and ends up writing to please his new friends in the army, providing a one-sided view of the conflict that disappointingly reads like pro-war spin from the British government.

  Recommended books about the role of the media in the promotion of war include The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker from the Crimea to Kosovo, by Phillip Knightley; War and the Media, by Philip Taylor; and Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky. For a wider view of the links between the media and power elites, read Mediation of Power: A Critical Introduction, by Aeron Davis, which looks at how those in power use and are influenced by the media. Message Received, edited by Greg Philo, has some fascinating audience research into how media portrayal of African conflicts reinforces common negative stereotypes about Africa among the public in the West.

  Fourth, the situation in Somaliland and Somalia is important to me. Having visited Somaliland and worked in an NGO that was doing development work there, I took a strong liking to its people and culture. I was shocked to discover that while Somaliland has been making great strides towards democracy, it has been ignored by the international community and remains unrecognised as an independent state. I was impressed by the resilience of the people of Somaliland and their desire for peace in the face of major upheavals in Somalia that often spilled over into their territory. Mark Bradbury’s Becoming Somaliland is by far the best source of information on the country. Judith Gardner and Judy El Bushra’s Somalia: The Untold Story – The War Through the Eyes of Somali Women was a huge source of inspiration and narrative ideas for Abdi’s journey with his son and their attempt to escape Somalia. Some of the testimonies in that book are harrowing and deserve to be read. For an account of the life of an aid worker in Somalia, I went to John Burnett’s wonderfully written Where Soldiers Fear to Tread, which is the true story of the UN World Food Programme’s problematic attempt at delivering food aid to starving Somalis during the major floods of 1998. It captures the challenges of aid work in the field and the internal contradictions of the large bureaucratic UN organisations in a revealing way. For information on conditions in refugee camps, I used Cindy Horst’s Transnational Nomads: How Somalis Cope with Refugee Life in the Dadaab Camps of Kenya. It comes out of years of painstaking research and paints a vivid picture of the hardships facing refugees. For a wider view of the history and politics of Somalia and East Africa, I used Martin Meredith’s The State of Africa, a tour de force in story-telling and explaining the troubled history of Africa.

  Fifth, I wanted to show a glimpse into the grim reality of war, particularly its psychological effect on people. While most thrillers tend to glorify violence, I’ve tried to show a more human angle, particularly through the story of Abdi. I was inspired by Gardner and El Bushra’s book mentioned above, but also by a beautifully written yet chilling autobiography of a child soldier in Sierra Leone, A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah. It is one of the most striking stories I have ever read and brings home the psychological devastation caused by military conflict. The massacres committed by Othman and his militia in the IDP camps are well within the realm of reality if Beah’s account of the civil war in Sierra Leone is anything to go by.

  Sixth, the rise of private military companies under the Bush administration from 2000 to 2008 is seriously worrying. Jeremy Scahill in his book Blackwater: the Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army paints a bleak picture. Bush and Cheney’s drive to privatise every area of government unleashed forces that are now out of control. Private military companies such as Blackwater (now renamed Xe), Dyncorp, ArmorGroup and others have large armies of ex-soldiers, with even less accountability or checks and balances than in the NGO community. The consequences of this, in war zone
s such as Iraq and Afghanistan, have been disastrous, with an escalation in the viciousness of conflict and in the human rights abuses committed by the West. For a considered first-hand account, I read ex-SAS soldier Bob Shepherd’s The Circuit, a rivetting tale of the dangers facing private security staff in war zones and the lack of support they often get from the profit-motivated firms that hire them. If you’re interested in the argument in favour of the increasing use of well-regulated private military companies, read John Geddes’s Highway to Hell. Geddes, also ex-SAS, spent years as a self-described mercenary in Iraq. His account is an exciting read, although I wasn’t convinced by his defence of the private military industry’s track record.

  Seventh, I use this novel to explore the well known but little understood psychological world of the psychopath. For this, I am particularly indebted to Robert Hare and his book Without Conscience: the Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us, which provides scientific evidence about the mental disorder known as psychopathy or sociopathy (depending on whether it is described by psychologists or sociologists). Psychopaths are people with no sense of remorse or guilt, who cheat and steal their way through life oblivious to the hurt and damage they are causing—and even seem to relish it. They are not necessarily murderers, which is why some people prefer to call them sociopaths because the word psychopath is too linked with serial killers. They may be fraudsters, scamsters, serial liars, spouse-beaters and other such unscrupulous individuals. Many of us will have met a psychopath and been negatively affected by them, but without understanding why. As the novel shows, psychopaths tend to thrive in vulnerable and fragile contexts where there is little accountability and oversight.

  All the books mentioned above are worth reading and were huge sources of inspiration for The Somali Doctrine, from information for action scenes and descriptions to background data on the Horn of Africa. I hope you enjoyed reading this novel as much as I enjoyed researching and writing it.