Kasinof - Dont be afraid of the bullets: an accidental war correspondent in Yemen

DONT BE AFRAID
OF THE BULLETS

AN ACCIDENTAL
WAR CORRESPONDENT IN YEMEN

LAURA KASINOF

ARCADE PUBLISHING NEW YORK

Memoirs by definition are written depictions of events in peoples lives. They are memories. All the events in this story are as accurate and truthful as possible. Some names and places have been changed to protect the privacy of others. Mistakes, if any, are caused solely by the passage of time.

Copyright 2014 by Laura Kasinof

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Arcade Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Jacket design by Brian Peterson
Cover photo credit Laura Kasinof

Print ISBN: 978-1-62872-445-5
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62872-463-9

Printed in the United States of America

For the shabab from the media tent

For Ibrahim and Chris, I wish we could laugh together about these stories, and more

AUTHORS NOTE

After moving back to the United States from my home in Sanaa, I wondered at times if I would have been better off had I left Yemen before the turmoil of 2011if I had not experienced the heartache or grown more cynical. I know now that this is not the case. To debate such options is a luxury, and to be able to pop around the globe and be welcomed into foreign lands is a privilege. I took this for granted when I first went to Yemen. That is to say, I feel privileged, blessed, and honored to have had the chance to live a portion of my life with Yemenis, through the good times and bad, and to have been brought into that endless delight with which Yemenis approach life. The Romans knew what they were doing when they nicknamed Yemen Happy Arabia. I am lucky to have experienced some of that happiness myself.

I want to briefly touch on what this book is, and what it isnt.

This is not a step-by-step account of what happened in Yemen in 2011 during the height of the so-called Arab Spring and after, so it should not be read as such. I leave parts out. I stress parts that probably arent crucial to the larger story of the uprising and presidential transition. Rather, I hope readers can learn about a place that isnt as black and white as Western rhetoric sometimes leads one to believe, and come to understand that there is a richness to Yemen that cannot be expressed in a two-minute clip on the news about al-Qaeda. I hope that those who are interested in Yemen and the Middle East more generally learn some of what happened behind the scenes during this decisive year in the countrys modern history. For those who dream of someday becoming a freelance foreign correspondent, I hope this provides one glimpse of what that world is like. Although it is, of course, far from the only glimpse.

Also, I need to stress that I am not an academic. Right now the academics in the crowd are saying, Clearly you arent, and will be saying that even more after they finish this book. The fact that I am not an academic means I do not use any one system for transliterating Arabic words into Latin script. I know that some of you will hold your heads in disgust at this, but I find official systems of transliteration difficult to decipher for those not familiar with the language, and I dont want that. So instead of abiding by anyone elses rules, I go by my own.

Lastly, this book has been a personal endeavor and by default will be different from my previous work as a reporter in which I strove everyday to remain neutral. Any opinions that reveal themselves in these pages are not reflective of the entity that was employing me as a freelancer during 2011, the New York Times, and do not appear in my reporting while I was in Yemen. That said, I hope readers find that this book supplements my reporting and vice versa.

Thank you so much for going on this journey along with me.

CHAPTER 1

I slid into a taxi for my daily commute, the road to Change Square. It was a Friday around noon, and Sanaas dusty streets were quiet, small appliance shops shuttered, restaurants closed, everyone praying.

I leaned my head against the taxis backseat window, watching the outside world pass by while shielding my eyes from the sun. Sleep had become more elusive with each day. I just hadnt been able to drag myself out of bed early enough this morning to gulp down an extra cup of Nescaf. Now I regretted it. I looked down at my brown leather satchel and dug through it, making sure I had remembered to bring my cell phone. I caught a glimpse of my brittle nails, chewed from worry, and scolded myself for the nervous habit. So far, 2011 had not turned out how I had expected.

My friends, young journalists like myself, had been deported from Yemen a few days prior. The same threat hung over my head. During the last few weeks, I had seen people fire guns for the first time in my life, and those guns had been aimed at other human beings. I had never planned to cover conflict. Never dreamt of being a war correspondent. I was afraid of what the future would bring, but also believed in what I was doing. I loved Yemen and had the opportunity to write about the country for one of the most important newspapers in the world. The sense of purpose trumped fear. Thats also how the protesters at Change Square felt, except some of them ended up dead; that sense of purpose had betrayed them.

It was March 18, 2011. Just over a month since former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak had conceded power after mass protests swept through his country, jolting the remaining dictators of the Arab world. Inspired, Yemenis were taking to the streets in the thousands, more every day, calling for the resignation of their president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. They set up a city of blue and green tents in a part of Sanaa that had once been a busy thoroughfare, dubbed their sit-in Change Square, and protested, slept, prayed, and danced there for days on end. Occasionally, the Square came under attack from the army when the protesters tried to expand the sit-in, taking over new street blocks on Ring Road. Tear gas, water cannons, and at times live gunfire were shot at them. A handful of the peaceful protesters had died as a result. Yet this had only strengthened the protesters resolve and attracted more to join them at the Square.

On this morning, I arrived at the sit-ins northern edge, concerned that at the main, central artery into the Square I would have run into government soldiers who would prevent me from entering as the government was trying to quell media coverage of the growing political dissent. I passed by a row of men, protesters, standing with their hands on their hips, elbow to elbow like a human chain, guarding the entrance and searching all those who entered for weapons. It had come as a surprise to us, the few foreign journalists in Sanaa, that Yemenis had insisted on peaceful resistance and that no guns be allowed inside the Square. Weapon use is endemic here (A man isnt a man if he leaves his house without a Kalashnikov, a northern tribesman once told me), and so is conflict, the traditional dispute-solving mechanism. Blood feuds, tribal war, these were put aside upon entering the Square.