Overseas Crises: It Pays to Prepare

You’ve seen the movies. You know how it starts. The commandante sweeps out of the mountains with a guerrilla army, or a charismatic army colonel surrounds the presidential palace with Sherman tanks. The electricity and water are cut off. Teen-agers armed with AK-47s stop cars in the streets. The telephones are hopeless. There’s gunfire in the night.

What do you do? You’re an American citizen who works for the embassy, an oil company, a bank. You’re a private citizen who came to write a book, partake of the waters, enjoy the one-sided exchange rate. Except now the country is falling apart.

Well, the one thing you don’t do is make a mad dash for the local aerodrome. “Take the situation in Panama,” says Mike Ackerman of the Miami-based international security consulting firm of Ackerman & Palumbo. “If there were to be a mutiny within the Panamanian defense forces, with one unit fighting another, the main focal point of the fighting would be the (international) airport. If you send people toward the airport, you’re going to send people toward trouble.”

Head for Military Base

In Panama, of course, the American dependents and other U.S. civilians have another option--if the situation there really falls apart, they can always head for U.S. military bases, now even more secure as a result of the 2,000 additional troops President Bush recently sent.

And if worse comes to worse, the 14,000 U.S. military dependents at least can get out of Panama on space-available military transport flights announced by the Administration on Tuesday.

But in most countries, there is no safe haven. The primary route out of the country is the international airport--assuming you can reach it.

During flash rioting in Venezuela, Ackerman advised his clients--Fortune 500 companies with foreign subsidiaries--to sit tight. “Nobody move. Caracas is in a valley. The road to the airport passes under some of the hillside slums.” There was a problem with sniper fire. “People were infinitely safer at home than trying to get through that,” Ackerman says.

The hope, of course, is that it never comes to that.

“The art,” Ackerman says, “is to reduce the number of people you have to evacuate before the storm hits.” The danger only starts when “you stay at the dance too long,” as happened to American Embassy personnel a decade ago in Iran. “I’m pleased to say our clients were out of there long before Ross Perot had to go in and rescue people.”

As for Panama, Ackerman says he warned his clients there “months and months ago, when the situation began to deteriorate, to pull nonessential people out. Anybody who is following Panama closely knew that the election . . . was going to be stolen.” And if it occurred, it was equally clear “the opposition was going to react in a very assertive way.”

Safety is often a greater problem for American Embassy personnel than it is for private citizens, says Frank Snepp, a former CIA strategy analyst in Vietnam who “came out on the last CIA chopper” from Saigon.

Has to Pretend

The problem is that, when the foreign government is friendly to the United States, the American ambassador has to pretend that all is well up to the last second.

If the ambassador sends home nonessential personnel too soon, that could signal a loss of American confidence in the host regime, thus precipitating the host’s downfall. Further, Snepp says, “it’s humiliating to be declared nonessential.” And despite the danger, many people are reluctant to leave.

Meantime, the deteriorating situation will drive former colleagues to desperate measures. During the fall of Saigon, Snepp says, “we got word that the South Vietnamese air force might not allow us to evacuate.” When the Shah of Iran fell, it wasn’t only the religious fundamentalists or political extremists who wanted to take American hostages.

“Our friends, the SAVAK’s people,” Snepp says, “were talking about holding us hostage, too.”

Still you don’t have to wait until there are food shortages, anti-American mobs running free and tanks in the streets before packing a suitcase. You know the country’s in trouble, Snepp says, when the local authorities start using wire transfers to send their savings to foreign banks, or, all of a sudden, “major personalities within the host government start heading off to Switzerland. When Somoza was about to go, so many people in his entourage flew the coop there was no one left to maintain order.”

Computer Updates

To provide timely warning to their corporate clients, international security consulting firms such as Ackerman & Palumbo of Miami and the Bethesda-based Control Risk, North America, maintain computer bulletin boards, providing daily and even hourly updates in high-risk nations.

But the best security is to be prepared.

“Keep your vehicles gassed,” says Peter Cheney, director of operations for Control Risk. “Leave your Rolex at home.” Don’t conduct yourself in such a way as to become the target of a hostile crowd, he suggests, blend in as much as you can and distance yourself from your company. “You don’t want to have AT&T; stamped on your briefcase.”

Most of all, don’t go out in the streets to watch the riots, says Cheney. “People rubberneck in the most incredible way.”

If you are going to sit tight, and that is often the best policy for quick, relatively bloodless coups--”as opposed to ultra-left takeovers,” Cheney says--you will need a stock of canned food and water and powdered milk for infants. Wear comfortable clothes consistent with local customs. “Don’t wear a suit and tie,” Ackerman says. “You may have to live in those clothes for a while.”

Buy an Open Ticket

If you think you might have to leave, buy an open ticket (a ticket without a specified date or destination) in advance. “The ticket is good for a year,” Ackerman says. “Just show up at the airport and get on the first plane. Don’t worry where it is going. If you are getting out, get out. If you’re leaving Panama, go to San Jose, go to Bogota. Don’t be forced to wait another 12 hours because you insist on going to New York or L.A.”

Ackerman tells his clients to keep a minimum of $250 in cash on hand. There may be times, says Ackerman, when you need to persuade a reluctant taxi driver to take you to the airport. “You can’t be running around looking for an open bank in a crisis.”

It’s also difficult to run around getting things during times of civil unrest. Some countries require exit visas, which must be obtained ahead of time. Some countries won’t let you leave unless you pay local taxes. You may not have a choice of destinations, so have entrance visas for a variety of safe harbors.

In the final analysis, there are no universal warning signals telling you when it’s time to leave a country, Snepp says. “But when the men in power become so desperate that they thumb their noses at American sensibilities and concerns”--as happened last week when a Panamanian opposition candidate was beaten in front of news cameras--”I would say that was it.”