BOOK REVIEW Harsh light on history Breaking the Rulesby Alexander Casella
Reviewed by David Simmons
A cliche is a truism that is so apt so often that it becomes overused and worn
out. But that very aptitude means that, on occasion, the cliche serves the
purpose so perfectly that it must be resurrected.
"You can't judge a book by its cover" does double duty for Alexander Casella's Breaking
the Rules. First, it is literally true: The cover, consisting of a dull
photograph of a dark-colored 1980s Buick with a supposed United Nations flag on
the fender, under an intro and, in type barely larger than that naming the
publisher (as if it wished to call attention to itself), the title. But the
reader who
boldly ventures within is rewarded with a fascinating tale, a trove of
information not easily found elsewhere, told with panache and featuring a cast
of characters ranging from villain to saint, vividly and sometimes brutally
portrayed.
Second, one of the themes of the book is that to assume that a humanitarian
organization is either humanitarian or organized is to misjudge it, deceived by
its cover story.
Casella, a longtime contributor to Asia Times Online, spent two decades with
the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In that capacity
he observed at close range - and played a role in - one of the pivotal events
of modern Asian history, the end of the Vietnam War, the subsequent unification
of Vietnam under the victorious communists, and the boat-people saga.
The story actually starts before Casella gained an official position with
UNHCR, as a journalist covering the war for Italian and other papers. During
the Tet offensive of 1968, he finds himself in a part of Saigon crawling with
mostly youthful but heavily armed Vietcong, trapped in a shop with an Italian
colonel and French war correspondent Brigitte Friang (who died this year at
87).
We waited in silence, with Colonello Boschi occasionally blowing
his nose. "Do you think they will kill us?" he plaintively asked Brigitte.
"I don't know," she snapped back, "but if you don't like the idea, change
profession."
As we sat silently on our chairs, the household cat took it upon himself to
jump on my lap, cuddle into a ball and start to purr. I could see a lonely flea
perched on the tip of his nose, and the predicament it represented suddenly
overshadowed all my other preoccupations. Would the flea stay on the cat or
would it change hosts?
Casella survives that and other
adventures, the most challenging of which do not involve bombs or firearms but
the machinations of politicians and bureaucrats, some of whom genuinely work to
make their corner of the world a better place, but all of whom - including the
author himself - are primarily interested in saving their own backsides.
This book is a stark critique of UNHCR and what the author calls the
"humanitarian industry" in general, but it is in no way the sort of
scatter-gun, tunnel-vision treatment that would appeal to right-wing
"government is bad" ideologues, nor does it serve as an excuse for those who
oppose funding refugee-assistance campaigns because the money "would only be
wasted".
Of course there is vast waste in UNHCR, as in any large private or public
enterprise, with legions of overpaid minions mismanaging their sectors while
feathering their own nests. But war and poverty are the real evils, and
refugees are real people, children, women and men, victims of circumstances
beyond their control. To ignore them is to be uncivilized, and despite its many
flaws, the "humanitarian industry" serves this need - and creates heroes in the
process.
One such is Sergio Vieira de Mello, the Brazilian career UN worker who was
killed in the Canal Hotel bombing in Baghdad in 2003. Casella worked closely
with Vieira de Mello over the years, and together they manipulated and
circumvented the UNHCR bureaucracy on innovative solutions to problems that
would have exasperated lesser men. The author pulls no punches as he describes
the incompetent decision-making that ultimately resulted in his friend's bloody
demise, and the lack of accountability of those he blames for it - most notably
former UN secretary general Kofi Annan himself.
Breaking the Rules casts a brilliant, often harsh light on the inner
workings not only of UNHCR but of several governments, including China,
colonial Hong Kong, the US and, most notably, the Hanoi regime in the early
months after the war, and its puppet state in conquered South Vietnam that
briefly existed before full reunification. Vietnamese governance, or lack of
it, was the purview of a mishmash of communist ideologues, French-educated
former academicians and quasi-aristocrats, old soldiers, and that species that
survives everything, the bureaucracy.
The mainstream history of the boat-people crisis that followed the Vietnam War
was written by the defeated Americans and their allies, and so, as usual, is
simplistic. But Casella was there throughout the saga, and played a key role in
bringing it to a close. He reveals that while the Vietnamese communists were by
no means blameless, the crisis was needlessly prolonged by incompetence,
geopolitics and Cold War propaganda, kept afloat by "right-wing lunatics and
Vietnam War nostalgics". This chapter alone makes the book worth its price.
As the first UNHCR representative in Hanoi, Casella had to find ways to deal
with a system that never worked well in the first place and now was heavily
damaged by decades of war and isolation. Telephones worked sporadically or not
at all, the economy in ruins, and transportation in and out of the country
nearly impossible, a huge problem when the very purpose of this UN agency was
to move people around, and to deal with the refugee crisis that was
destabilizing all of Southeast Asia.
The transportation problem at first was solved by using Laos as a way-station.
Still a kingdom at the time, though utterly undeveloped and further devastated
by the Americans' illegal bombing campaign, it at least had a sort-of airline,
Royal Air Lao, which even possessed a jet, a French Caravelle. This was several
times leased by Casella to carry out various missions. But then the communists
took over Laos, as well.
For unknown reasons one of the first moves by
the communists when they took over Vientiane was to impound the French
commissary. Confronted with this gastronomic tragedy and wary of things to
come, the French took urgent action. The following morning the Caravelle took
off for its daily flight to Bangkok but this time with its full crew and three
of the prettiest Lao flight attendants. No sooner had the aircraft landed that
a swarm of painters descended on the jet. The Royal Air Lao logo was painted
over ... It was the last the Lao saw of the Caravelle.
Throughout
Breaking the Rules, such anecdotes spice up what by itself is a
fascinating story in a time of intrigue and political upheavals whose
consequences continue today. To dredge up yet another cliche, one rarely
applied to a work of non-fiction, the book is a "page-turner".
Still, it is not a particularly easy read. Its sad cover is only a warning of
its infrastructural problems, for the publisher evidently showed its competent
editors the door at the same time as the book-cover designers. Typographical
errors abound, as do spelling errors, some quite creative, such as "knowtow"
and "poct-marked".
A name spelled correctly on first reference is then spelled differently,
sometimes in the same paragraph. When homonyms such as "principal" and
"principle" are encountered, the wrong one is chosen with impressive
regularity. Most annoying is the dearth of commas. It's as if the compositor's
comma key is broken and he must physically insert each comma, molded from hot
lead, and so he understandably avoids this except when absolutely necessary,
and sometimes even then.
It is a credit to Alexander Casella, then, for whom English is not a first or
second or possibly even third language, that the brilliance of his writing
shines through. Even if that were not the case, though, the insights provided
by this book make it a must-read.
Breaking the Rules by Alexander Casella (Geneva: Editions du Tricorne,
2011). ISBN 978-1463665432, $12.24 at Amazon.com. 361 pages.
David Simmons is a Canadian journalist based in Bangkok.
(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
Casella, a longtime contributor to Asia Times Online, spent two decades with
the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In that capacity
he observed at close range - and played a role in - one of the pivotal events
of modern Asian history, the end of the Vietnam War, the subsequent unification
of Vietnam under the victorious communists, and the boat-people saga.
