Britt was recently in Haiti for work. They had several days of productive meetings. But this was interrupted by social unrest and violent protests resulting from the announced results of the first round of presidential elections. These are widely seen, by external observers as well as by the local voters and populace, to have been rigged and misrepresentative.
Here is the trail of emails and messages that resulted:
From the security officer to Britt and his team:
Fyi - Crowds everywhere are becoming hostile.
UN Police and troops are being attacked.
Barricades and fires are being erected at all major roadways including the US embassy.
I do not anticipate any movement today.
Please plan to sit tight.
Will keep you posted.
Ponch
From Britt to his bosses:
The IFC and Bank missions have been recalled. We just got through a planning session with the local security officer Poncho for our relocation along with the 9 other WBG employees and consultants that are here (so 12 in all). Poncho has provided us with a satellite phone in addition to the cell phones that we have and the SMS list that he uses to keep us up to date. The office apparently has enough amored cars to get us to the airport in a single convoy.
Right now, it has been judged that there is not an imminent threat to us while here at the hotel. We will work closely with Poncho and Alexandre tomorrow and make our plans on the basis of the airport opening, flight availability and the on-going situation. We may fly to Santo Domingo if those flights are available before American Airlines restores its flights. AA flights are cancelled for today and tomorrow.
I will keep you informed as things evolve.
After this, there was as series of increasingly frustrated emails as riots continues and airlines cancelled more flights. The team was safe in a hotel, with food, electricity, and water. They could hear shots, helicopters, and tear gas cannons, but were not in the line of fire. The main concern was to find safe, secure transport.
Finally, there was an unexpected breakthrough:
Message from Britt:
Loretta the mobile banking consultant got the info on the flight, leaving at 5pm even though the airport was supposed to be closed, and the few major carriers that serve Port au Prince had cancelled all flights for the day. She wasn't sure about the name of the airline, and it was already 2:30, so we weren't sure at all that this was for real, that we would make it in time, or that it wouldn't be some tin can of a plane that would be more risky than the riots.
We were safe at the hotel, although the crowds and tear gas explosions were just a few blocks away. But it was all over for getting any kind of meetings organized in PaP. Crowds filled the streets, blocked some with burning barricades, and were looting businesses. They left concrete debris behind in the roadways, making it impossible for cars to circulate. And anyway, all of our counterparts were focused on the elections. Once our employer told us to go home, leaving was all anybody could think about. We made bookings for the next day, until the carriers suspended all those flights as well. We got a few Skype calls made, and had some useful project discussions, but the distractions were pretty serious.
Once Loretta came up with the mysterious flight, we packed, checked out, and waited and fretted in the light rain while our office assembled transportation. A local cell phone CEO provided Loretta with an armored SUV, driver, and bodyguard. The bodyguard was out of mercenary central casting, a stocky guy with a brush cut, Australian accent, and death head tattoos with mottos like "Glory or Death". Our security officer Poncho assembled two armored SUVs and two guys on a motorcycle to clear the route to the airport. Poncho, a French Canadian who looks a lot like Jack LaLane did in his prime, has worked some years in Haiti, and speaks Creole.
At first, the cell phone CEO's driver and bodyguard didn't want to cooperate, they were only going to take Loretta. But it turned out that they had a slow leak from a nail in one tire and not much gas, so they might have needed Poncho's help to get to the airport and back. An arrangement was reached on who went in what car, and who carried the luggage.
As we drove steep and rutted dirt back roads to avoid the protesting crowds, Poncho stopped periodically to greet people he knew. To do this, he pulled up to them and I opened the passenger door to talk because the window didn't open. At one point we picked up another helper, a muscular and affable guy who Poncho had trained a few years ago as an elections guard (a force that would have been useful in this ballotting). When we got to the bridge across the ravine, the guy we had picked up got out and helped the motorcycle team and the cell phone CEO's driver to negotiate with the angry crowd on the other side. After 20 minutes of discussion, they pulled away the logs that blocked the road, now convinced that we all worked for the cell phone company, and we proceeded through some shouts and serious stares. I didn't think pics of those guys were a good idea.
Now it was 4:30, and the agent from the small Dominican airline was calling Loretta every 5 minutes to see if we were coming. Yes, we were, all 11 of us, all of our seats secured under her first name. She told them they could charge us whatever they wanted to. As we approached another barricade, this one with a fire, our police escort caught up with us from the other direction, and helped move the rocks and logs so we could drive on.
From the second barricade it was a snap. We just hopped onto the paved Freres road to the airport, now blackened with soot from burned tires and scrap lumber from the previous night's activities. No crowds here, they were all back in Petion Ville. Poncho was leading the caravan. We had dropped the police when we got onto the Freres road. But the other drivers were slower and so Poncho had to stop a couple of times to let them catch up. Later we heard that the other cars had to stop at one intersection and ask some kid which way the black SUV had turned.
So Poncho is driving and I'm trying to call Loretta and make sure the plane was being held for us. Her cell kept ringing busy because, as it turns out, she was reassuring Aerolineas MAS that really, truly, we were on our way, please hold the flight. Nobody wanted to miss the plane and either repeat the drive or stay near the airport at U.N. Log Base.
We got to the airport, the entire place empty except for the Aerolineas MAS agents who ran out into the street and waved us over as we approached. This was the last flight of the day, we were the last passengers, and they were glad to have us, because we filled 11 of the 15 seats on the prop jet plane. We passed our luggage through an unmanned scanner, paid in cash, got our passports stamped, and proceeded to the waiting area, where the three other passengers were waiting.
One of the waiting passengers was Loretta's colleague, a young Ecuadoran whose mother had been worried about her, and so had called cousins in the D.R., who told her about this small carrier that had a flight leaving PaP for Santo Domingo. So at the end of the day, we had Stephanie's mother to thank for finding us a way out of the country, and Poncho for making it possible to take the chance.
photo of milder barricade on the way to the airport
Epilogue from Britt, written once he had returned to Lima via Santo Domingo and Miami:
The thing about Haiti is that there are so many reasons why it shouldn't be the way it is. I get on the phone today to cancel the Air France ticket I had booked in case the airport were to open yesterday. Before I can get past a few words of asking for a refund on the cancelled flight, the agent laughs and says "Oh yes, I know what's been going on there, I'm Haitian." Then we talk a bit about things, and this guy is articulate and really well educated and where does he live? Fort Lauderdale. Because when things get bad, the people with alternatives leave, so there are fewer resources to make things work. The viscous cycle continues
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