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Sunday, Nov 22, 2009
Nine people who have experienced terrorist attacks around the world, from Bali to Yemen, share their thoughts on the third anniversary of Sept. 11.
Sep 10, 2004 | Saturday is the third anniversary of the epoch-shaping onslaught on New York and Washington, but a string of other al-Qaida attacks since 1998 has left little mark on our consciousness. What has terrorism done to the lives of ordinary people from Casablanca, Morocco, to Karachi, Pakistan? Our team of reporters asked nine people living in the shadow of the bombers.
George Mimba
I.T. manager at U.S. Embassy, Nairobi, Kenya, survivor of the Aug. 7, 1998, bombing there. Death toll: 213 people, all but a dozen of them Kenyans and other non-Americans. A synchronized attack in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killed 11 Tanzanians.
My boss reminded me that I needed to go to the embassy cashier to pick up my allowance -- I was supposed to travel to Accra, in Ghana, for a conference for American Embassy computer managers in Africa.
I walked to the cashier's office. It was a Friday, and on Friday the Americans go on safari, so they were queuing up for money. Kenyans were queuing up for money as well. The lady who was banking the money spotted me. Her name was Lucy. She said to jump the queue. I got the money and went back to my office. All those people I left in the queue died, including the cashier.
I was sending my last e-mail when I heard the first explosion. It came in like a tremor: "Der-der-der-der-der." People were rushing to the window, but I thought I would send the e-mail before I went to look. Then I left my office, heading for the open space, and I was just by a pillar next to the computer room when the killer explosion came, and that's when my life changed.
[George was knocked unconscious but not badly injured. When he came around, he managed to crawl out of the building to safety.]
As I was crawling I could feel bodies, and I remember one of these was a very good friend, a colleague; we used to go out every Friday. I reached out for him and held him like this [cradling his arms]. But I was holding just a head. This was a head that was making noise. The rest of the body was not there.
I felt like it was not real. When you were in that building you were made to believe that it was the safest place. The Kenyans working there felt this was an embassy [in which] nothing could happen to you while you were inside. I was shaken, and I was so angry at what I had been made to believe. I was angry at myself. I didn't want to be alive because I thought that the people who died would be more peaceful than people like us.
I thought that if I was alive, I must be fractured all over, and I did not want to remain in that pain. Also, I did not know what I had done wrong, what we had done wrong, that would make somebody do such a thing to us.
And I thought somebody would warn us. We went through bomb drills, fire drills, but when the real thing happened, everyone was taken by surprise, including the Marine guards who were on duty. We were so naive. We didn't know how to react. The colleagues who died, the majority of them were the ones who went to the window to see what was happening. I was also going towards the window.
The killer explosion came when everybody was at the window. What happened changed my life totally. When I leave home, I leave home knowing that I might not see tomorrow, as long as I work in the American Embassy.
We had something on Fridays called "TGIF" -- Thank God It's Friday. We all used to go out and have fun with other colleagues at the embassy. One of them was this guy whose head was separated from his body. This guy had had things planned and then he was no more.
I'm more afraid as a person. I'm not afraid to die. But maybe when some wind closes the door, and I hear a small bang, I get scared.
I tend to go out of Nairobi more. I go to see my parents in the countryside, where it's quiet and peaceful and there's nobody who can harm you.
I still work at the embassy, as regional information systems manager. My family have asked me to quit the job, but somehow I've realized there's no safe place. And the thing I like about the embassy is that we keep changing our systems every year -- there's no company in Nairobi that can afford to do that -- so we keep getting new things.
I feel more religious. When I survived, I asked myself why I survived, at each and every stage -- like leaving the cashier's office early. I started asking myself: "Why did I get out? What's special in me?" Since then, I have been taking Christianity very seriously.
I have two boys. One was born after the bomb, George Jr. Every step I make now is towards them, because I know that I can go at any time. I had to redo my will. I had to start saving heavily. Every property I have now is in their name, so if something happens they will be safe.
I wanted to find out exactly what would make somebody hate a person, like what had happened. Why would somebody just kill? Then I went to New York, where I testified during the trial of the people who bombed the embassy.
[In May 2001, two men were convicted of murder in connection with the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Two others were found guilty of taking part in the conspiracy.]
In New York, we stayed at a hotel in the World Trade Center. Immediately after we came home, this building also was destroyed.
I wish I could talk to one of them [the bombers]. When I was in court, I really wanted to. How they behaved in court made me more angry. There were four of them, sitting [facing], just like you and me.
They looked at us, and they made faces; they grinned. It was like, whatever they did, they didn't feel anything whatsoever. You wonder if they have any feelings at all. I used to love action films, Sylvester Stallone, but what happened made me feel that whatever is happening out there is real. [They] remind me of what I saw -- the real blood, and people cut into pieces. Now I only watch movies based on true stories and comedies.
-- Jeevan Vasagar
