Heart of the Matter

Lunch with guns for hire

In the morning, I meet up with Fanny and Yoda. Fanny informs me that Yoda is a bad man because he slept with the girl from the basilica last night. I roll my eyes. We try to see Yoda's friend Constant, the head of the gendarmes in town, but he isn't in. We hit a cyber caf? and I send a fax off to Timothy in Abidjan so that he can try to get me an interview with Gbagbo. Then we take the official basilica tour that weren't able to take last time. The guide speaks pretty good English considering he never attended school after 14 and learned the language just by listening to English and American tourists.

In the morning, Yoda spoke to his sources at the hotel who informed him that the Russian and South African mercenaries who fly the government's attack helicopters tend to come back from the airport for lunch at about noon. I want to try to meet them. We arrive at a quarter to and Yoda asks if they are back yet. He's told they aren't yet here but should be soon. We start heading toward the restaurant when we are stopped by an army officer. He wants to know why we were asking about the mercenaries. He wants to see our Ids. He summons two other soldiers with guns over. This is starting to look bad. Yoda tries to explain that I'm a journalist and just want to chat with the Russians. This may be one of the cases when honesty is not the best policy. The army officer gets angry. He says no interviews are allowed and tries to kick us out of the hotel. While he's doing this, the first group of mercenaries strides quickly past us heading for the restaurant. Fanny says we should leave. I say that's ridiculous. I'm a guest here and I have every bit as much right to eat lunch in the restaurant as the mercenaries do. And if I happen to say hello to them in English... Yoda agrees that this is a good idea. He says the last time he took a journalist to meet the Russians that's what she did - she sat down at their table for lunch and spoke to them in English and the guards were none the wiser. Yoda says the mercenaries themselves are friendly guys and will be happy to talk. Fanny and Yoda say I should go alone though. The guards are unlikely to hassle a white man whereas Yoda and Fanny just might get arrested. Fanny thinks I'm crazy for trying this. "You are a brave man," he says.

I head back down to lunch and sure enough no one stops me. But the problem is the place is pretty empty so I can't just walk up to the mercenaries and say "is this seat taken?" So I sit at a table near them and nod my head in their direction. This elicits a reciprocal head nod back, but that's about it. More and more Russians keep coming in. (The last time I was in Yamoussoukro I only noticed four of them. Now there are more than a dozen.) Some of them look fairly old. I wonder if they are Afghan war vets. I wait until one guy is in the buffet line and I get up to "get seconds." Standing next to him, I make some comment in English about the food being bad. No response. Back at the table, I try saying hello to another guy passing by - he says hello back but that's all I get. Man this is harder than I thought. I wonder if they've been told not to talk to me. I notice that the mercenaries seem to be divided into groups sitting at different tables. I try the buffet line again. This time on my way back I stop at one of the tables and just ask, "Excuse me, but are you speaking Russian?" "Bulgarian," the guy answers. I introduce myself and say I am an American journalist. The Bulgarian doesn't seem to mind. He's very friendly. He invites me to sit down. Pay dirt! The Bulgarian introduces me to all the men at the table. They are all Bulgarians. The other table, he says - he points behind him at a long table at which about 12 men are seated, wolfing down gigantic quantities of food - those are the Russians. (Of course, the Bulgarians and the Russians wouldn't sit together!) That table over there, he says, pointing at four men sitting together, those are the South Africans. They are all mercenaries, but they work for different companies, the Bulgarian explains. The Bulgarians fly the president's own helicopter and utility choppers. The Russians fly the MI-24 attack helicopters. The South Africans do various unspecified and no doubt murderous things. The Bulgarian says he has been here three months and his contract lasts another four - maybe more after that. He says he hasn't seen any combat in this war, but he says that the Russians have flown against the rebels.