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How to Avoid Being Killed in a Warzone
1.4k Plays1 year ago
On this episode, we discuss combat reporting, warzones, and how to survive them with Rosie Garthwaite. Rosie is an executive producer at BBC World Service's Investigations Unit, and is currently based in London making documentaries and interactives about the Middle East and North Africa. She founded Mediadante, producing the Emmy-nominated, “The Workers Cup”, that premiered on the opening night of Sundance 2017. In 2023 she exec produced “Under Poisoned Skies” that helped secure a pledge to reduce gas flaring emissions from the Iraqi government and won the RTS for best international documentary of the year. The International Emmy-award winning film “Escaping ISIS” she developed was referenced by the UK Prime Minister in a key speech and shown to the U.S. Congress. Prior to this, in 2003 Rosie joined the first English-language newspaper in post-invasion Baghdad, The Baghdad Bulletin, living amongst Iraqis far away from the Green zone. While in Basra freelancing for Reuters, The Times and the BBC she exposed the first British torture case, the death of Baha Moussa while he was in the custody of the British army. In 2006, Rosie joined Al Jazeera preparing for the launch of its English language channel and helping to set up the Baghdad bureau - even evacuating it one day after several colleagues were kidnapped. She is a former British army officer and author of the award-winning book How to Avoid Being Killed in a War Zone, published by Bloomsbury in 2011.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'How to Get on a Watchlist'
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to How to Get on a Watchlist, the new podcast series from Encyclopedia Geopolitica. In each episode, we'll sit down with leading experts to discuss dangerous activities. From assassinations and airliner shootdowns through to kidnappings and coups, we'll examine each of these threats through the lenses of both the dangerous actors seeking to conduct these operations and the agencies around the world seeking to stop them. In the interest of operational security, certain tactical details will be omitted from these discussions.
00:00:33
Speaker
However, the cases and threats which we discuss here are very real.
Meet the Editors: Louis H. Prisant & Alexandra Šukiewicz
00:01:02
Speaker
9-1-1, what's your emergency? I'm Louis H. Prisant, the founder and co-editor of Encyclopedia Geopolitica. I'm a researcher in the field of intelligence and espionage with a PhD in intelligence studies from Loughborough University. I'm an adjunct professor in intelligence at Science Pro Paris and in my day job I provide geopolitical analysis and security focused intelligence to private sector corporations.
00:01:26
Speaker
I'm Alexandra Šukiewicz, a co-editor of Encyclopedia Geopolitica. I'm a multilingual security and intelligence professional with a master's in international security from Sciences-Pauperie. I have served in both consulting and in-house roles focusing on threat monitoring, geopolitical intelligence, and security support to various public and private audiences.
Rosie Garthwaite's War Zone Experiences
00:01:46
Speaker
So today we're discussing how to avoid being killed in a war zone. Joining us for this is Rosie Garthwaite.
00:01:52
Speaker
Rosie is an executive producer at the BBC's World Service Investigations Unit and is currently based in London, making documentaries and interactives about the Middle East and North Africa. She founded Media Dante, producing the Emmy-nominated The Workers' Cup that premiered on the opening night of Sundance 2017. In 2013, she exec produced Under Poison Skies that helped secure a pledge to reduce gas-flaring emissions from the Iraqi government and won the RTS for the best international documentary of the year.
00:02:19
Speaker
The international Emmy award-winning film, Escaping ISIS, she developed, was referenced by the UK Prime Minister in a key speech and shown to the US Congress. Prior to this, in 2003, Rosie joined the first English-language newspaper in post-invasion Baghdad, the Baghdad Bulletin, living amongst Iraqis far away from the Green Zone. While in Basra, freelancing for Reuters, The Times and the BBC, she exposed the first British torture case, the death of Baha Musa while he was in custody of the British Army.
00:02:46
Speaker
And in 2006, Rosie joined Al Jazeera, preparing for the launch of its English language channel and helping to set up the Baghdad bureau, even evacuating it at one point after several colleagues were kidnapped. She's a former British army officer and author of the award winning book, How to Avoid Being Killed in a Warzone. And that was published by Bloomsbury in 2011, and we'll make sure we put a link to that in the show notes. So Rosie, thank you very much for coming on the show. Thank you for having me. What you do is fascinating.
00:03:12
Speaker
So the question we really like to open this show with is, and especially in your case with such an interesting background, how did you get into your line of work?
00:03:21
Speaker
So I think I knew at university already that I wanted to be a journalist. But before I got to university, I did a gap year as quite a few people do. Now I'd been working as a waitress from the age of about 14 and a lot of my friends for their gap year were planning to go and become waitresses. And I just thought that's a bit boring. I've been doing that for a while now. So I decided to join the army and I became an officer.
00:03:48
Speaker
on this weird sort of fast track course from SSLC. They've just started again, I've heard back in the British army. And so basically after a three and a half week, it's called a Tarts and Vickers course at Sandhurst. You're sort of plunged in and you're supposed to have people saluting you and respecting you and you have no idea what you're doing. So I spent the year doing that. You're not allowed to the front line.
00:04:16
Speaker
It was in 1999 before so many of the wars that have become my career are kicked off. And it was very much sort of a peacekeeping oriented conversation that we were having at that time. But I did get an extraordinary experience because I was one of a very few amount of women in a mainly male environment. And I remember one weekend I was told I was the only woman in charge of 483 men and I was 18. You know, it was bonkers. So that was interesting.
00:04:45
Speaker
I used to do one of the things I did was the media sort of person for my regiment. And then I think that gave me a taste for journalism. But then later, when the Iraq war kicked off in 2003, I was just finishing my finals at UNIQUE. I had been speaking to all my friends who were still in the army, many of them in really frontline positions and SAS and all sorts of things.
00:05:15
Speaker
And they were telling me, as I was getting ready to go on a march in London, hey, you're going on a march, but we're already here in Baghdad. There's so many tens of thousands of us here and there. And you have no idea what's going on. And this has all been decided already. And so I just really wanted to find out what was going on. Where are these lies coming from? How could people be lied to so quickly? And what really was behind this war in Iraq
00:05:43
Speaker
So I set off at the age of 22 to Iraq to work at the Baghdad Bulletin, which was a highly disorganized but very ambitious paper run by, I think, the eldest person there was 26. I remember thinking they were really mature. And we muddled through. We muddled through for a while.
00:06:02
Speaker
So I suppose the first question is, when we're talking about safety in war zones, how do people find themselves
Why Do Civilians Enter War Zones?
00:06:09
Speaker
in war zones? So I imagine journalism is a big part of it, but what are some of the ways that you've encountered people have ended up in these situations?
00:06:17
Speaker
Well, sure. I mean, obviously, there's the civilians, poor things. And I mean, when I wrote my book, I interviewed about 150 people and they were extremely wide ranging group of people. The majority of them were journalists just because that was my that's my shtick. And I knew lots of journalists. There were some military people in there. There were some security people in there.
00:06:38
Speaker
But equally, there were people who were diplomats, negotiators, architects. There was a pirate, a Somali pirate. There was an Afghan army captain. I tried to keep it as diverse as possible, as local as possible. But really, sadly, in many parts of the world, and it's been made all so much clearer with the Ukraine War, you can't predict whether you're in a safe position or not.
00:07:05
Speaker
overnight, something that seemed a little bit tense can go horribly wrong. And you as a civilian or someone working in an environment there, or even as a person in the army who's about to be deployed somewhere have no control over the fact that you're going to end up in this place. Equally, though, I wrote the book, partly with people who might be just traveling to places in my, you know,
00:07:29
Speaker
It's not just about war zones. I should say it covers things like earthquakes and you might remember the 2004 earthquake in Thailand and obviously so many people caught in war-like scenarios and survival situations. We've got the hideous earthquake in Morocco right now where I'm sure many tourists have been trapped.
00:07:51
Speaker
And those sort of environments can come out of nowhere and create conflict or survival situations that you just need, you need some help with.
Accessing War Zones: Risks & Logistics
00:08:01
Speaker
And what are the different challenges that one could face to actually get to a war zone? So I'm thinking of closed air spaces, for example, how much do you actually need to plan ahead to make sure you get there? Or rather, how close to departure do you need to reassess and make sure that your plan is still working out?
00:08:17
Speaker
Well, you only have to watch the evacuation of Kabul two-ish years ago to understand the complexities of getting in and out of dangerous places. I think, you know, I work at the BBC now and we draw up high risk assessments and those high risk assessments will be reassessed every, every minute hour up to the point of leaving. And then while we're there out in these places,
00:08:42
Speaker
And I should say it's never me these days. It's much more often than amazing and brave teams that I work with and locals who are employed to support them. But those risk assessments are updated on a daily basis. So, I mean, just practically speaking.
00:08:57
Speaker
you have to think about what are you going to find on the ground there? So logistically, how much do you need to bring? And that will really determine what sort of transport you're going to take. Because if you need to take a lot of stuff to survive, particularly in earthquakes, actually, where you find that water and food and everything has become incredibly scarce overnight, and you don't want to impose even more scarcity by your own presence on the ground, then that would necessitate
00:09:24
Speaker
either something by air or by boat or by car that would allow you to take a bit more in but yeah these things have to be dealt with on a case by case basis for sure.
Overlooked Threat: Car Accidents in War Zones
00:09:34
Speaker
So what are the biggest threats that non-combatants, people such as journalists, those who are caught in a war zone, what are the biggest threats that they face?
00:09:45
Speaker
Well, I mean, realistically, the biggest threat are car accidents. So if you read my book, there's a top 10 of kind of what the most dangerous things are. And the number one by quite a long way is not wearing a seatbelt in an environment where you think, oh, everything's dangerous. I don't need to be wearing a seatbelt. Or in fact, some people think, oh, I'll need a quick escape. So I shouldn't wear a seatbelt. And unfortunately, the biggest problem is, you know, bad roads, bad driving.
00:10:14
Speaker
unpredictable situations that lead to good old bog standard car crashes and accidents and breakdowns. And the best protection you have is a safe car and a good seatbelt, unfortunately, as boring as that sounds.
00:10:31
Speaker
Let's think about that top 10 list then. It sounds almost like people being a danger to themselves, not thinking about their own safety. The way you phrased it, I think it really captures it. People think everything here is dangerous. I don't really need to take mundane safety steps such as a seatbelt. What are the other things that might trip people up like that that you wouldn't necessarily think of?
Mental Health & PTSD in War Zones
00:10:55
Speaker
Well, you're right that the risk assessment of a person as they arrive into a war zone and also throughout their career changes.
00:11:03
Speaker
So at the beginning, you may think that the risk is quite high before you go in because you're not aware of what, you know, you think you've been told it's a very risky place. But if you've done your planning well, and if you're lucky, and if you've got the right advice, quite soon, it can feel like I feel quite comfortable here. And the risk is you haven't had enough experience to see where things can go wrong.
00:11:26
Speaker
And so you're immediately less on edge, less looking out for possible problems, less double thinking, less questioning situations. And so basically over time, your perception of risk will lower and lower and lower to the point where you're not really able to make a risk assessment for yourself. And that's why having external people to check in with,
00:11:52
Speaker
who are perhaps flagging questions that you've forgotten you should be asking is a really helpful thing. The number one thing that people wanted to talk about
00:12:03
Speaker
when I asked them sort of 20 standard questions was about how to manage mental health and post-traumatic stress disorder from the start to the finish of the process of being in these places and beyond. And so again, having connections with outsiders who are asking you questions about actually how you're feeling rather than just what you're doing is another whole area that's sometimes overlooked. And again,
00:12:29
Speaker
If that mental health isn't coped with and questioned and challenged occasionally, your risk awareness will decrease over time. Sometimes that's because you're getting a dopamine hit from the experience of experiencing risk and that's a very real thing.
00:12:46
Speaker
The other thing that can keep you in check in terms of your risk is making sure that you have the right local advice. So the people that you leave behind, if you're a visiting journalist or a security person or architect or engineer or whoever you might be, then you're leaving somebody behind who's been supporting you. And there are super obvious cases where those risks are high, like in Iraq and Afghanistan, where people have been targeted purely for working with foreigners.
00:13:14
Speaker
Equally, you may not even be a foreigner. You might be an Iraqi coming back to Iraq to look after a bridge that you've been asked to build. But at the same time, you're not experienced or living there, and you don't have the same level of risk as they do.
00:13:30
Speaker
because you can always leave. You've probably got better insurance. You've definitely got better healthcare. So it's about checking in with those people and listening to the best advice you can possibly have, which is the people who are going to be left behind when you go. Is there a female specific perspective to this? So you've touched a little bit upon different people being exposed to different types of dangers in these types of areas. Are there particular things that women deployed to a war zone need to be thinking about?
Women in War Zones: Risks & Opportunities
00:13:58
Speaker
A hundred percent, unfortunately. People get really randy in war zones. It's like a thing. Apparently the same is true of heat waves, although I never really have understood that.
00:14:09
Speaker
So the problem is that obviously, in some war zones, sexual assault and rape is used as a literal tool of war. And then in other places, you may just be in a real macho environment, whether it be in an armed force, or in a journalist like a sort of hotel where none of you can leave or
00:14:29
Speaker
in situations where things are getting quite tense. And unfortunately, that does raise the stakes in terms of the risk of sexual assault and rape. There are other risks as well. There are some countries you may go to, whereas a woman, you can't seek medical attention that easily. There might be a limited number of female doctors, and you may be told that you can only visit a female doctor.
00:14:53
Speaker
Beyond that, though, there are benefits to being a woman. So if you look around the Middle East and North Africa and the Gulf, you will find that some of the strongest journalists out there are women. And the reason for that is that, and also Afghanistan, Pakistan, I should say, and India probably would also come into this. Basically, places which are super machismo, the assumption is often that the woman is not really a risk or a threat and doesn't really know what she's doing.
00:15:19
Speaker
And whether you play on that or not, and I have to admit, at times I have played on that, you can sometimes get into places and spaces that men wouldn't be able to get into because they would be perceived as a threat. And then in a very literal sense, you know, I can visit women and chat with women in a way that male
00:15:38
Speaker
colleagues of mine can't. So that's a huge advantage, but of course there are always vulnerabilities. And women are 99% of the time in a massive minority. And when you are in a camp with, you know, sometimes 3000 military people and just you, if you don't have the right protection and advice around you, you are a very vulnerable person. That's good to hear that there are some upsides to that part of the story as well though.
00:16:07
Speaker
I think the women have a reputation for being quite good negotiators in war zones. And I certainly found that I actually interviewed a number of negotiators for the kidnapping chapter in my book. And they were almost all women. And yeah, there was just a certain way that they had that was definitely taking advantage of those feminine ways of working. Great.
00:16:36
Speaker
And you've mentioned some different groups that are deployed to war zone. So you've spoken about journalists and NGO workers. How long would these different groups usually stay on the ground? And is there a point where things become so dangerous that they're actually forced to leave? How does that work? What is, what is the process for that assessment?
Evacuation Strategies: Lessons from Sudan
00:16:53
Speaker
The Sudanese conflict that's going on and has been since April in 2023 is a good example of this, where initially there was just mayhem for three days. No one knew what was going on. There was no internet.
00:17:05
Speaker
and as many people as possible were trying to get out. And then there was a process of, well, everyone's trying to get out, but how are we gonna get in to tell the story? And that's been a really slow decision-making process. And I know that NGOs we've spoken to only just now sort of really just being able to get on the ground and making those assessments when information is scarce is really, really difficult because if you're the head of,
00:17:33
Speaker
some amazing medical NGO or somebody who's going to be looking after abandoned children.
00:17:40
Speaker
your assessment about risk versus reward is going to be very difficult if you don't have that information. On the other hand, there are sometimes wars, and Ukraine might be one of them. Iraq was one of them at some point, where there's just a flood of dense amounts of information. But at the same time, you can never predict. So in 2003, the UN was attacked out of nowhere in Iraq that led to the sudden pulling out of the UN affiliated groups.
00:18:07
Speaker
And, you know, no matter how much information they thought they had, there was nothing to predict the terror risk that there was there on the ground. You mentioned Ukraine and one thing I've noticed with this kind of new information environment we're seeing and how much is flooding out of Ukraine is a lot of talk of things like minefields and unexploded ordnance. This seems to be being kind of once again highlighted as a feature of war zones.
The Persistent Danger of Landmines
00:18:32
Speaker
What sort of risks do these sorts of features pose to non-combatants?
00:18:38
Speaker
Do you know what? I've not spent a lot of time in places where mines and unexploded ordnance were a major risk. It was simply because I've avoided those areas. But I do have friends who are experts in mine removal and unexploded ordnance removal, and they get sent to these places. And also, I was in the artillery part of the army. It was only for a year. But the very small amount of time I was there.
00:19:02
Speaker
I learned about the dangers of cluster bombs and so for instance at the end of an exercise that we might do, one of the things we had to do was to go and clean up and make sure we weren't leaving too much UXO and there were areas that we knew we couldn't touch because there had been too many people on it and you couldn't trust that it had happened. That cleanup process that can happen afterwards with great caution. But I was really dismayed to see the use of cluster bombs and I hadn't really
00:19:30
Speaker
realized that they were still being used by people like the US and Russia and now Ukraine as well, because they do leave such a long lasting legacy. I think the benefit versus reward of those sorts of weapons is really
00:19:46
Speaker
scant and still 40 years later or beyond. Actually, one of my friends who's a real expert on this is constantly finding World War II bombs on building sites in the UK. That's his job. So there's no end to the risk that is posed by these sort of materials.
00:20:05
Speaker
You discussed the role of negotiators. As an outsider to a lot of the conflicts and environments you found yourself in, did you ever find yourself being seen as a mediator, a neutral third party? Were you ever called on to play that role? Gosh, not at a high level, that's for sure. But no, I've certainly negotiated my fair amount of exits from police stations or very bad situations. And I found myself a bit of an intermediary
00:20:33
Speaker
in Qatar where we had the Afghan diplomatic group and then we had the Taliban and we were really living about two kilometers from each other.
00:20:43
Speaker
as a locally based journalist, independent journalist, I was able to float between the two because I had this amazing team around me who knew how to speak that language. And somehow I became the one that the Taliban spoke to locally. And another one or two of my colleagues became the ones that the Afghan diplomacy team was talking to.
00:21:04
Speaker
in the end, that sort of thing broke down. It was sort of too early in those negotiations, but we weren't trying to bring them together. We were simply trying to get a conversation going that would enable us access so that we could understand better what the situation was as the media. I had so many people asking me, can we get access? And so yeah, we had the occasional access, but yeah, you do end up in strange situations like that.
Podcast Promotion & Call to Action
00:21:30
Speaker
We've been discussing the threats faced in war zones with Rosie Garthwaite. After the break, we'll discuss
00:21:51
Speaker
If you like this show, don't forget to check out our other content at Encyclopedia Geopolitica, which you can find at howtogettontowatchlist.com, where you can find our analysis on various geopolitical issues, as well as reading lists covering topics like those discussed in the podcast. Please also consider subscribing to the podcast on your streaming platform of choice, giving us a rating, and joining our Patreon.
00:22:27
Speaker
Rosie, you've touched upon this briefly already. What about planning ahead in terms of supplies? What do you pack? For how long do you pack? And what are the things you should always have available to shelter in place if things go wrong while you're on the ground?
00:22:40
Speaker
Well, I would say don't pack too much would be my biggest advice. I remember the first time when I was feeling a bit like, oh, I'm in a safe environment now that I'm working for Al Jazeera and I'm going to the Baghdad bureau. I packed for three solid weeks and, you know, the same as I would pack for going on holiday. And then my bag got lost on the flight and I didn't see it for another like eight months. Then it was literally all my clothes that I had in the world. So I had firstly never rely on
00:23:10
Speaker
on the on the bag turning up and therefore it's all really about what's in your grab bag because that's the one thing that you will always have with you and you know there's a million varieties and what sort of things you should have in your grab bag it starts with first aid kit obviously
00:23:26
Speaker
battery charges coming through every type of plug adapter, your tech, making sure that your tech isn't something that's going to expose you. If you're in a situation where you might be stopped at a border and you know, it's something that's kind of what we either call a green or clean computer and phone.
00:23:44
Speaker
Also having a non-tech way of writing down your contacts and key information because inevitably you do run out of batteries in places which don't always have hot and cold running electricity. You want water talking of hot and cold. You want some way of washing or providing basic sanitation to yourself within a short period of time. Always a little bit of
00:24:09
Speaker
something that can bring your sugar levels up, whether it's sort of granola bar or whatever it is that works for you, different people have different things. And also, frankly, a little treat for yourself, whether that be a little board game that you can take with you or a mini video game that you really enjoy or
00:24:28
Speaker
something that will keep the boredom at bay. Obviously a lot of people have kindles these days rather than just a book. So that's kind of a really great resource. Some people rely entirely on special oils that they can put onto any stinky pillow and then they'll feel like they're at home like a lavender oil. And a lot of people talk about a small photo album that they can look at that doesn't rely on their phone being working.
00:24:53
Speaker
in the hideous situation that you're kind of really stuck and trapped in a situation away from people. When you're planning these kinds of trips, are there resources that you can tap up to decide what safety measures, what things you need to pack for a particular destination? And in particular, I'd be interested if there's a difference between what sort of resources a professional journalist or let's say a humanitarian worker would have access to versus the average person.
00:25:22
Speaker
Well, I think if you're going with an NGO in general, there's going to be, or a minute or military, there are going to be entire departments or regiments that are devoted to your logistics. And, you know, you're going to have to worry less about, you know, long-term food, water and that kind of thing. And, and, and much less on yourself and your immediate colleagues really, because it really should all be there. Nevertheless, that grab bag is super important.
00:25:48
Speaker
I actually just remembered a couple of things that just, you know, if you're a woman, there are some particular things, you know, you need different types of sanitary products. You know, I'm not blessed with gigantic boobs, but a lot of women who are did write back to me and say, bring a spare bra because once one of them is gone or broken, you're really stuck because you can't run in a war zone. So those kinds of things.
00:26:11
Speaker
So no, yeah, is there a difference? Yeah, there's a very big difference whether you're going to like, if you're a journalist going into a bureau or an established situation, or you're, you know, somebody going into an office or an NGO that's already been set up, it's totally different to what's going on in Morocco right now, where there's there's an earthquake, there's no infrastructure, they've never been that big fans of NGOs, or that they do have a UN presence, quite a large UN presence in
00:26:37
Speaker
Morocco, so you're going to find that a lot of people are starting from scratch in those environments, especially post-earthquake. So yeah, you'll be needing to tap into your organization and work out what's there or not. But essentially, you should always maintain your independent grab bag as a place of safety for yourself in an emergency. And when you're going in, is there any particular training that would be considered essential for war zones or technical skills? I'm thinking
00:27:05
Speaker
know, basic medical training or, you know, knowing how to treat some certain types of wounds. Is there, is there something like a best practice there, something that everybody should know how to do? Well, I think the one thing that's accessible to everyone, and I would say this should be anyone traveling to anywhere that doesn't have great medical environment.
00:27:23
Speaker
is just go on a one day first aid course. You're going to be in a position to save somebody else's life, if not your own. That has happened to me several times and not necessarily always in war zones. It just will set you up for life. As a journalist, I can recommend some organizations, Rory Peck organization.
00:27:43
Speaker
And then there are a host of others, and they either have on their site some good advice, or they recommend or can offer discounted versions of what's called eFAT courses. So it's Hostile Environment courses, which are run by security people a lot of its first aid, to be honest, and some of its cyber. Some of it is preparing you mentally for kidnapping situations, telling you how to deal with mines,
00:28:12
Speaker
all of it in a four-day period and you know you may remember about half a day's worth of it but it's something that can act as a shield. I think those courses when I started out were not that great I have to say they felt pretty basic and didn't really engage properly I thought with what local environment was and local advice but I found over time that they've really improved and the kind of information they're giving is actually practically useful and I find that
00:28:42
Speaker
young journalists who are coming back from those courses are actually able to contribute to group conversations and say, oh, I learnt this at HEFAT. And it's very useful to have that kind of thing come back into the
00:28:54
Speaker
environment. I should say that cyber protection or infosec or protection against cyber surveillance of any sort is a huge factor for us now as journalists going into dangerous places, not at all just war zones. If you're going to Dubai, you need to be careful. China is another obvious place where if you are protecting people who you have connections with locally, you've got to go out of your way to find ways to do that. It's interesting
00:29:23
Speaker
I remember doing an investigation called weapons of mass surveillance and we spoke a lot to sort of spy types and people that worked at the high end of the top cyber surveillance in the world. And they all kind of said, you know, what do I do? Well, I just don't take my phone with me. I have a I have a sort of brick Nokia type phone from the 90s. And I'm aware that anyone could hear my conversation, but I will not say anything useful.
00:29:48
Speaker
And if I need to say anything useful, it will be done standing next to a fountain or next to a busy road, nowhere near my mobile phone. So, you know, it's funny how really the only way to protect the ultimate way to protect yourself in terms of cyber protection is just switching off entirely and standing away from all your tech.
00:30:09
Speaker
Beyond logistics and training before deployment, what else should you know? I'm thinking, you know, I come from an intelligence studies background, so I'm really interested in kind of how do you keep current about where the front lines are, other threats and things like that. You know, you spoke before about local contacts. I imagine they play a huge role here. But are there other resources that you draw on to keep up to date on the threats?
00:30:32
Speaker
I think the best you can do, honestly, is to understand the historical background of the country. Because in terms of the daily moving frontlines and daily environment, you've got the news, you've got the wires, and you've got your local contacts. And those people are going to know so much better than you are. I mean, unless your job is to literally know what's going on next, in which case, you might not even be in the country. You might be in a entirely different place in order to find that out.
00:31:01
Speaker
But I've really found that having as a deeper understanding as you can by reading endless books on the way or listening to podcasts on the way into a place, you're going to be able to take information that comes at you fast and place it within context. Because if someone's telling you there's a new frontline here, if you're aware that that actually is reaching up to
00:31:26
Speaker
an area that's a new area that has a special tribal context, then that's much more valuable for you in the long term and short term than trying to stay on top of everything because you are not the expert. You never are if you're visiting. And so you spoke about how important it is to have that locally established network especially when information is scarce as well, kind of knowing when to decide to go in, whether to go in. What if you don't have that network?
00:31:53
Speaker
How do you go about establishing the local contacts once you're there? Well, so often we don't, you know, like Morocco somewhere where despite the fact that I've been working in the Middle East and North Africa and the Gulf for a long time, I have only a very few contacts that I could call on there and I wouldn't even call them close. So the answer is, is you build your little black book over the years and you hope for the best and you hope that you know the right people.
00:32:19
Speaker
There are also, for journalists, certain resources that we can go to. So there's a Facebook group, which is a closed group called the Vulture Club. I think it's something like 9,000 people now. But when it started, it was quite small. And it was a place for journalists to ask sometimes silly questions, but also really important questions related to logistics of going into these places. And now it's become a brilliant resource to find fixes and talent so that you don't have to
00:32:49
Speaker
you know, hit and miss with the people that you might have known 10 years ago who are no longer relevant and really bring yourself up to date. There is a lot of trial and error and also in environments where there's heavy security or against cyber surveillance or it's a police state, you have to be conscious of who you can trust. So how much information you can give to locals before you get there and before you've really established trust. And that's always a major challenge, but you learn instinctively over time how to do that.
00:33:20
Speaker
And following up with what you were just describing, so we've spoken about the different things to, you know, keep yourself safe. What are the different things that you should absolutely avoid doing? So both kind of generally when you're in that environment, but also to make sure that you avoid escalating certain risks that you're facing and a particular threat of particularly hostile situations. I don't know if you have any examples maybe of situations that somebody may face and then the behaviors that would go with that that you should really be avoiding, you know, to put yourself in a bit of a bigger pickle than you're already in.
00:33:50
Speaker
I think a lot of this is about how you kind of prepare yourself for going into situations and so you can take advice on that from people who are exiting and you can take advice on that from the locals. There's always a big debate about what to wear and how to come across in these environments.
00:34:08
Speaker
Do you come across as somebody who's clearly a foreigner, an outsider, and therefore that offers you a level of protection in and of itself in some places? Or do you try and blend in? And sometimes that's determined by how you look. So I'm blonde hair, blue eyes. I have never been able to get away in my region that I specialize in with looking local at all. I just come across like I'm extra from a from a nativity play when I wear a headscarf.
00:34:33
Speaker
So I really struggle with that one myself. But you can prepare yourselves with treats that may help to dissolve a situation. So I remember one person advised to buy a bunch of fake Rolexes and have them in your bag, be wearing them when you're going through checkpoints, and then be making a big show of giving away your fake Rolex to somebody on a checkpoint with the hope that this will diffuse the situation.
00:35:03
Speaker
cigarettes and sometimes alcohol work as well in places where they haven't seen a lot of that for a while. Anything you can do, coloured pencils, football cards, football stickers, these things that go a long way. Football, anything actually tends to do really well, especially Manchester United. But that's not really giving you a specific example. I can give you an example of where I got something very wrong, if that's helpful, and then you can see how not to do it.
00:35:32
Speaker
I knew that there was a riot on a crossroads on the way out to the British Army barracks, but I had been trying to get this interview with a particular person at the British Army barracks for a long time. And I had been through so many riots by that time when I was living in Basra, this is 2003, 2004, that I thought I knew how to handle this. So I spoke to the father of
00:35:57
Speaker
Well, the person who was a driver who also had eight dependents, including his six children. And I said, listen, this is my plan. What do you think? We're going to go up there, go around the riot, and then we'll get back on the road on the other side and get to the camp.
00:36:15
Speaker
because it was the only way to get to the camp. And there was, as we've already discussed, UX on mines that you don't want to go too far off the road. So we wanted to stick to the road. That was the plan. Anyway, we got to the riot and my guy, my absolute solid amazing guy who had protected me under so many circumstances said, listen, this is really not looking the same as a normal riot. I think we should back off now. And I said, well, with my vast experience of exactly no experience whatsoever,
00:36:44
Speaker
maybe three weeks experience. I really judge this to be a safe situation. I think we should go flying past all of the burning tires and people wielding guns and just go for it because they're going to be fine with us because they'll trust you and they'll look at me and they'll think I'm fine and it's fine. He did foolishly listen to me and we started pottering towards the crossroad and a guy flagged us over. He looked friendly, so he flagged us over and he stopped us.
00:37:14
Speaker
And then he told us to wind down the window. He looked like he was on our side and he put two grenades inside the window in front of my nose and was shouting all sorts of crazy stuff.
00:37:27
Speaker
And he was saying, you're English, you're English, which I am English. And I said, no, no, I'm Swedish. And he's Swedish. We're all Swedish here, apart from our Iraqi friend. And we were, you know, doing our very best. But ultimately, I was not going to get out of that situation. He was making moves to blow up those grenades. And luckily, my friend
00:37:50
Speaker
It also in the car, another English guy who I stupidly dragged along and tried to kill as well. He opened the door that the guy was leaning on and then kicked it back and pushed the guy back. And luckily the grenades weren't in, you know, didn't come tumbling into the car. They didn't tumble out the car. And we did a quick U-turn and run away, but it was an private example of how not to do things, basically.
00:38:13
Speaker
So in the first half of the show, you touched on some of the challenges around evacuations. If you do find yourself caught in a conflict zone and you're completely unprepared, this is something that I think in the last year and a half has become a very current issue once again, unfortunately. How do you get out? How do you find a route to safety? So it really depends on what sort of an organization you've come in with or if you're completely alone.
00:38:40
Speaker
You could find yourself working for a giant organization by having to walk out, or you could find yourself having come in completely alone, but being flown out on a first-class Chinook along with a prince from the local royal family. So firstly, you should have been making plans for what your exit will be before you come in. This is definitely something I wasn't thinking about when I was 22 and I got myself an old pickle about how to get out of various environments when I was younger.
00:39:10
Speaker
But with the wisdom of years, there are many different options. And it would be advisable that you have those options lined up before you go in an ideal way. So you've spoken to the people that could help you in that situation. I'd also advise that you find, and this is really difficult sometimes, to find a trustworthy local lawyer who, if you find yourself in a situation involving a legal problem, you're in a jail somewhere,
00:39:41
Speaker
that lawyer is an expert in how to get you out of that jail so that you can begin the exit. And those people can be found through amazing organizations that exist, international legal organizations. But the one that just top of my mind right now is the International Barristers Organization or Barista.
00:40:03
Speaker
I should really have had a long preparation for this, but they do exist. And there are also grants as well, by the way, to support all sorts of independent workers and journalists if they get themselves an illegal pickle. But yeah, so in terms of actual exit, it can't be predicted until you know why you're needing to exit really.
00:40:31
Speaker
once had a situation when I was about 26 and I ended up sort of in charge of the Baghdad Bureau for a short period of time. And it unfortunately, I woke up one day from an afternoon nap and was told that nine people had been, well had disappeared and what we had assumed is they'd been kidnapped. And it took us several days to find out that they'd been arrested. But in the meantime, we had to evacuate rapidly from our hotel because we had no idea whether we were going to be next.
00:41:01
Speaker
and into the green zone. And despite all of the best laid plans, the people whose phone numbers you were sure you could call, nobody was picking up, et cetera, et cetera. So in the end, we sort of rolled up and knocked on the door of the green zone and said, can you let us in? Because that was the best we could do. And luckily it worked, but that's not gonna work for everyone. And so, yeah, having a list of people who know who you are before you go in, so that if,
00:41:29
Speaker
your mum ends up calling them saying, this person's in trouble, can you help? Then they'll know who the hell you're talking about, where you might have been, what sort of things you might have been doing that could have got you in trouble and know how to find you and get you out of there. Is there a way to determine whether it's better to kind of keep moving or to try and shelter in place in a situation like that? I imagine it's very subjective, but is there a general rule for this? I think it's really, really hard to anticipate that sort of thing.
00:41:58
Speaker
In general, transport travel is risky. We've already discussed that the biggest risk is a car accident. But equally, you can get on some pretty dodgy flights in these places too. And, you know, especially helicopters shouldn't be rushed into, in my opinion. So yeah, again, that would be very much looking to the locals around you who've got their family often very close by them, if not with them, you're maybe living with their family by this point, if you're in a
00:42:26
Speaker
really sticky situation, what are they going to do? If they're going to stick tight, then stick with them. But if you're putting them at risk, then you have to go. So then you have to find your way out. And so you've mentioned these people that stay at home, your mum, for example, your family. Are there things in particular that you need to or can prepare them for? I'm thinking about getting up around some situations, for example. Is there something that they need to know before some family member or somebody close to them goes in?
00:42:55
Speaker
I think, you know, I didn't know any of this before I went to my most dangerous places, but these days I often recommend to younger people deploying. I say, give them my number. They can call me anytime because I know exactly what we're doing, even if you don't want them to know everything right now before you go. But I also really encourage and sometimes set aside time and delay projects until people have had time to talk to their families so that they understand what the risk is that they're
00:43:25
Speaker
they're going into, because it adds such a huge burden of guilt and, and delay on your thinking. If you're thinking, what will my girlfriend think if I do this? What will my, you know, I forgot to tell my mum that this was the situation I'm going into. I had avoided telling my mum, and now I'm going even further into that situation. How can I get myself out of this? And it will start to pervert your decision making in a way that perhaps isn't best for your
00:43:55
Speaker
definitely isn't best for your mental health is definitely not best for your safety. And then you've got to think about those guys, the poor people at the other end. Now, you know, yes, they maybe you want to limit the amount they know for their own protection. But I think ultimately, it's better if everyone knows because if something does go wrong, for it to come out the blue is just horrendous. It's happened to me before in the boss, I've had to tell people, you know, something that's happened to their daughter or son.
00:44:23
Speaker
And they haven't known it the first thing about what they were doing, which wasn't necessarily something I thought was that dangerous or that much of a problem. But for them, it was a problem culturally or in other ways. So they hadn't shared. And then, of course, as when you come back from war zone, the settling in, the finding of a new way of living away from that kind of high octane situation.
00:44:49
Speaker
is really difficult sometimes. And I've known many people's marriages and relationships to suffer and collapse in many cases. People's relationship with their children is a struggle. On the other hand, it is the solution as well. Like having a solid family background to come slot into is a really great thing. The ones where I worry the most are the ones who are going home to a single flat by themselves.
00:45:19
Speaker
and have no one to talk to. So in those environments, in those situations, you go out your way to make sure that there's extra debrief time, extra time, you know, a week, two weeks later to talk through something that they may have been through. And then months later, and you know, we often at the BBC, we have the privilege of being able to access like therapy services. And I remember when I was writing my book, there was an amazing guy called
00:45:44
Speaker
Dr. Mark Brain specialized in post-traumatic stress disorder, and his advice is everywhere in my book, but it's also the Dart Trauma Center. I really recommend their resources to read before you go anywhere and in the middle and after in order to prepare yourself for the sort of things you might meet. Because it's not just you can be in a perfectly safe environment, but you can then meet somebody who's gone through a hugely traumatic situation.
00:46:11
Speaker
and you find yourself dragged into something emotionally that you weren't prepared for or perhaps something that you've experienced in the past is triggered that in you and you didn't realize that that was a thing until that moment. So the more you can do to understand how it's going to affect you and the more you can involve the people around you in that, the better.
00:46:35
Speaker
And kind of continuing on this, you know, you mentioned PTSD, the importance of mental health when you're in these like incredibly difficult, difficult environment and difficult contacts. Is there something that those at home can actually do to help those in the field? So while they're actually still deployed, are there specific, you know, questions you should be asking other specific pieces of advice that you should offer or should you rather just listen, kind of what would be the best practice on that? How can you help? I mean, I think.
00:47:04
Speaker
offering a regular check-in time where it can just be a listening process. And this is something I do as a boss anyway. Even if it's for two minutes, I know that that really is a huge relief to individuals who are under pressure to know that they've managed to offload something.
00:47:22
Speaker
that's been stressing them out to somebody that they trust and they can be totally honest with. Because obviously, what you can say to your colleagues is sometimes different to what you can say to your loved ones about what you're really feeling. You know, within an organization, we always aim to try and get beyond that and to get to the love of the worrying feelings, but you can't guarantee it. And yeah, I would encourage
00:47:49
Speaker
Just regularity of conversation, really, because it's when the conversation stops that it becomes hard to then tell them all the stuff that happened in the last three days. You'll tend to shortcut it and you won't tell them the worst parts of it, which then leads to you hiding something which then could be perceived as a lie. And it goes and it goes and it goes. And sorry, just following up on that, are there specific things that, you know, triggers that you should be watching out for when you're having these conversations?
00:48:17
Speaker
knowing that you're pushing too hard rather than just holding space for them? Is there anything in particular where you kind of can understand that you need to back off? I think anything that's out of person, you know, where the personality seems to where the personality that you know so well, seems to have changed slightly. And they are climbed up in a way that they're not normally, they don't have a sense of humor, they seem to be able to string together sentences that make much sense.
00:48:44
Speaker
They can't recall details of what's happened to them because our minds tend to delete the bad stuff very quickly. All of those things I think would be the things I'm thinking of right off the top of my head, but there are experts in this. And I think, again, if you go to the Dark Trauma Center, they, I'm sure, must have resources for family or connections in that way that would be helpful.
00:49:07
Speaker
So I'm going to try and rephrase the question from earlier here. If you could leave people with one piece of advice, what is the single most important thing you can do to keep yourself safe in a war zone in a dangerous place? Well, in a nutshell, find the person that you can trust locally, who you believe is working with you for the right reasons, is with you for the right reasons, and then just listen to them.
00:49:35
Speaker
and make sure that no matter how safe you start to feel, you're not following your own instincts as much as you're following theirs, or rather that your instincts are guided by theirs. I think that would be the one thing. On the other hand, the one exception to that might be road safety, because it's my experience that in many of these places, the locals drive like crazy people. So don't follow your instincts when it comes to that.
00:50:00
Speaker
Don't follow their instincts when it comes to that. Follow yours and do be the annoying person that goes, slow down, please, slow down. So when you think about all of the threats that are out there, what is it that keeps you up at night? What is it that really worries you? Well, now in my very privileged position of generally sending people into dangerous places,
00:50:23
Speaker
The thing that really worries me is the mental health of young people in places that is perhaps maybe the first, second, third trip and whether they're able to be honest with me and trust me enough. And is there anything they're not telling me? Because that's always where the problems lie. And it happens so often where somebody feels just a bit embarrassed or
00:50:49
Speaker
Like they've made a little tiny mistake but it's got a bit bigger for some reason now and they made a wrong turning, wrong decision about who to work with or where to go and now they can't turn back and pride is in the way. And so how do I keep them feeling like they can continue to tell me stuff even though it might make them feel like they've got something wrong, there is no such thing as getting something wrong. It's just about trying to keep everyone safe.
00:51:15
Speaker
Rosie, this has been a fantastic and honestly quite humbling conversation, so thank you very much for joining us. Thank you for the very interesting questions. It's plunged me back 20 years. It's now been, scarily, 20 years since I began my career in Iraq, so it's a long journey that I've been on.
00:51:36
Speaker
been a fascinating career. We've been listening to how to get on a watch list. I guess for this episode was Rosie Garthwaite, a link to her book, How to Avoid Being Killed in a Warzone, as well as the other resources we discussed in this episode can be found in the show notes. Our producer for the episode was Edwin Tran, our researcher was Alex Smith, and to our audience, thank you very much for listening.
00:51:56
Speaker
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