Excerpt from The Adventurist by Robert Young Pelton

Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia – The helicopter ascended: white, clean and gleaming. I was filthy; burnt, brown, mud-dirty and disheveled, from exploring bat shit filled caves in the interior of Borneo, shooting rapids and sliding through dark forest floors. This was the quickest way to get where I wanted to go. A place where no one had been. Once on board and aloft, the complexities of the jungle intermingled into a rich, green blanket. The heavy heat became an icy coolness as the Bell 206 gained altitude.

From above the miles and miles of jungle carpet, the ground was unbroken, except by a few large rivers that had cut the dirt right down to the sandstone. Here, there was diversity, but also a monotony of endless green: a carpet of color every few miles from a flowering tree, subtle shades of green, blending from dark brownish green to light green and even yellowish green. If the helicopter went down in this canopy, we would never be found.

Off in the distance we saw the crisp shape of a continent rising above an ocean of mist. The sharp outline of the steep cliffs cut an exact shoreline in this cloud as if it were an island.

The only ground access in is a full day hike from the nearest timber camp on the Tawau Keningau timber road. The downside to this method is a very steep and dangerous cliff ascent late in the day or early the next morning.

My plan is to drop the gear at a crudely cleared helipad first, then have the pilot drop us off wherever he can find a hole. First I wanted to see just what I was up against.

I motioned the pilot to take us higher to get a better idea of the shape of this vast island within an island. The Maliau basin looks like an elephant track in hard dirt that has been washed by rain. The basin also could be described as a crown shape that rises in the north to a tiara-like configuration and slopes down on each side to where rivers have cut a series of jagged canyons through which they spill like wax from a candle. The Maliau is an important drainage basin that creates the Sungai Maliau, which tumbles down to create the Maliau Falls, then drains into the Kuamut, which links up with the Kinabatangan.

The area is so vast that we flew long and hard before we found the chain of rapids and waterfalls spilling out of the basin seen by so few people. The drainage of the entire 25 kilometer-wide basin made a most impressive showing. As the pilot dived and maneuvered between the steep cliffs, the ground turned from a smooth carpet to individual giants. What had looked like strewn pebbles were house-sized boulders. What had looked like rapids, were 20-30 foot waterfalls that cascaded into basin after basin. An extraordinary sight.

The pilot tapped his gauge, alerting us to his low fuel. We broke out of our aerial reverie and began to search for the helipad. Crude helipads had been hacked out of the dense jungle to let the research and survey teams in. But no one had penetrated the remote interior. Until now.

The helicopter touched down lightly in a clearing, not really putting any weight on the undergrowth. I leaped out and immediately sank up to our chests in moss. Shocked by the lack of solid footing,  the firm peat forest floor was an illusion. Their were three to four feet of moss and leaf litter before the trees rooted in the thin hard bedrock.

Labored like horses in deep snow we moved the gear away from the rotor wash. As the chopper lifted back into the bright sunlight, we had a chance to record our first impressions of the Maliau Basin.

It was cool near the rim. The altitude and humidity created an agreeable atmosphere. There was moss everywhere. The curious lack of soil and depth of the moss was typical of a peat forest. The trees were not the typical lowland dipterocarps. Here, there were conifers. Big conifers.

It was a discomforting feeling to descend from the clear, piercing blue sky into the dark grasps of the jungle. The trees towered above us. The contours of the basin, which had seemed gentle and caressing, were now wickedly steep and forbidding. Instead of seeing clearly in 360 degrees, we were now confined to staring at patches of sky through 60-100 foot trees.

Our weight restrictions and the distance we needed to fly to get to the Maliau dictated that we make two trips. Our solution was to send Jon back with the pilot to help find the helipad.

We flew into helipad four and set up camp at the base of the hill, lugging our gear and crashing through the dense brush like drunk elephants.

We were just five minutes down the trail and suddenly Tony asked us to stop. It appeared he had already made a discovery. He pointed to a thimble-sized plant that closely resembled a cross between an alien spaceship and a Victorian light standard. He collected the second finding ever of a small saprophytic plant; Thysmia aescananthus. The tiny plant is nestled under the roots of a tree and would have been easily crushed. Tony mentioned in a casual manner that the first time this plant was found was in exactly this same spot on an earlier expedition. The uniqueness and fragility of this area began to sink in.

Tony explained that we were in unique coniferous forest dominated by huge Agathus (related to the New Zealand cowrie pines), dacridiums and podocarpus trees, mixed with oaks and casserinas as it mixes with the lower hill dipterocarp forest.

This was truly pristine forest. There was no evidence of fire. There have been no natural calamities. There are no people to disturb the forest and there is no wind. Nothing to disturb the test tube-like conditions for creating new species. The only major trauma is the life cycle of the giant trees as they grow, die, and then crash into the forest, unheard and unseen, creating a gaping hole in the canopy for their offspring to fill.

In 1947, a pilot flying from the west coast of British North Borneo to Tawau experienced a rude shock when he narrowly avoided colliding with a wall of steep cliffs emerging from the misty jungle. This minor incident is the first recorded mention of the Maliau Basin. The “Lost World” was recorded in the Borneo Bulletin—and then quietly slipped back into obscurity.

The nearest Dusun villagers lived only four days away, but their belief that a fierce dragon inhabited Lake Limunsut at the base of the cliffs didn’t encourage exploration. Muruts along Sungai Sapulut were known to have reached the lower basin, calling it the “Mountain of Stairs” in reference to the many waterfalls and limestone ledges.

The first Western attempt to enter the “Lost World” was in 1976 during a forest service expedition to Lake Limunsut. They tried in vain to scale the escarpment but were forced to turn back just forty feet from the upper edge

Four years later, the Sabah Museum mounted an expedition to penetrate this remote area. The expedition ran out of supplies, was felled by malaria, and had to give up before they could conquer the escarpment.

In 1982, they managed a brief reconnaissance by helicopter, landing on a gravel bar near the falls.This preliminary mission was designed to lay the groundwork for a more intensive expedition a year later. They were greeted by animals that had never seen man before: a docile 22 foot, 400 pound python, mildly curious bearded pigs and a kijang, deer. In all, this brief foray into the wilderness posed more questions than it answered.

Finally, in April-May of 1988, a 43 man expedition spent three weeks in the Maliau unlocking its secrets. What they found was impressive. The 390 square kilometer basin covers an area of 25 kilometers across and is protected by an encircling escarpment that climbs up to 1500 meters. The highest point is Gunung Lotung, estimated to be 1900 meters high, but it has yet to be properly surveyed.

This expedition identified 47 species of mammals, including rhino, proboscis monkey and clouded leopard; 175 species of birds, including the Bulwer’s Pheasant (once thought extinct in Sabah); and 450 species of plants, many of them rare species.Their scientific finds and increased understanding of this absolutely untouched region led them to declare it a conservation area. But, along with the numerous rare plants and unusual ecosystems, the expedition also discovered significant coal seams.

There had also been a more adventurous and less scientific foray into the Maliau. Jon Rees walked in from Sapulut with three other Americans, a New Zealander and a Brit. They had heard there was a place no one had ever been, so they hiked through solid jungle from Sapulut for three days, plunged down into the Maliau River, walked along the ridge trail for five days, spent time in the central area and then devised a curious way to exit the basin. They had carried in canisters of two chemicals, used in boat building to create a buoyant foam. They also carried in two presewn plastic socks sewn in the shape of a Hobie cat.

The group tried to create hulls by hanging the socks in a tree, mixing the chemicals and pouring the chemical mixture into the socks. However, instead of a light, crisp vessel, they got two soggy bananas. The foam did not expand to its full volume, due either to altitude, heat, humidity or to all three. Nonetheless, they made a platform with roughly hewn crossbars and an old tennis net, tied sticks to the sawed-off blades of paddles, and proceeded to float down the Kuamut for 10 days to get out.

Their total time in the country was 27 days longer than any other outsider before them. During their foray they came across all the major mammals of Borneo except the rhino, and discovered “Jalan Babi,” a curious highway used by pigs to enter the Maliau. The profusion of coniferous and oak trees attracts the pigs in impressive numbers every year. The interior and the edge was still a tantalizing goal for scientific discovery.

Because of the area’s inaccessibility, various expeditions had passed the Maliau Basin by, or skirted its perimeter. The Maliau also had a curious history of being discovered and then undiscovered. My team would consist of Coskun who would cover our trip for European and Turkish magazines, Jon Rees a British born expeditor who lived in Sabah and Tony Lamb, a botanist whose fascination and experience with the Maliau Basin made him the perfect choice for our expedition. Tony was in charge of the Tenom Research Center, now retired, and his special interest is in the identification, propagation, and domestication of tropical fruits. He also has a vast knowledge of local insects, birds and mammals. His knowledge of the orchids and plants is encyclopedic. Only accurate identification of the multitude of trees prompts him to defer to a tree expert.

Tony was born in Ceylon, (now Sri Lanka) and grew up on a tea plantation during the British colonial period. Being educated in England and spending many years in Malaysia, another former British colony, may explain his genteel and pleasant nature.

The idea was to penetrate the upper basin and then head into parts unknown. We began our trek to the rim and then down along the edge to our rendezvous at a pre agreed base camp. For navigation we had a compass and a crude map.

The size of the Maliau is overwhelming. Like most wilderness areas, there is a mixture of monotony and surprise: smooth skinned gum trees, disrobed and red in the normally green jungle; streams that run with tea-colored water; pitcher plants that festoon trees like Christmas decorations. As we increased in altitude the trees became stunted, the moss became thicker and the forest wetter.

We could tell when we were close to the rim because we hit a green wall of moss. There is a distinct rim forest that lives in the constant wash of the mist and fog that pours over the rim. The trees are twisted and gnarled with their roots raised as if to keep their feet dry. The moss is constantly wet. Walking through the almost impenetrable maze of roots and branches drenches you as they squish their burden of water. It is chilly. It is also silent. There does not appear to be any life along the rim.

Another surprise was that the spectacular view we thought would greet us, did not exist. The dense growth at the rim blocked any chance to get a clear view of the surrounding jungle. We were floating in a “sea of mist” that stretched as far as the eye could see. “Sea” is an appropriate description because the mist bobs and ebbs like an ocean. It hits the cliffs, curls up and then floats above the trees, spraying a fine cool mist over the trees and moss.

I pushed out to get a view over the ledge and had a gut wrenching revelation. When the mist cleared for a few seconds, I saw below me over a thousand feet of sheer cliff. More correctly, “behind” me was over a thousand feet of sheer cliff. I had learned another intriguing fact about the rim forest. The roots of the trees grew far out over the cliffs. Covered with moss and detritus and being continually moist, the roots support more plants and trees, encouraging the process to repeat itself. I should have learned my lesson when we leaped off the helicopter into a mossy trap. Wiser, I gently returned to the safety of the cliff five feet behind me.

Tony and I, realizing that the day was getting late and that we had a long hike ahead of us, made haste along the rim. From the air, the rim looks like a smooth, clean edge sloping softly to a basin. Toiling ant like on the ground, it is a wonderland of ravines, cliffs, gullies and inaccessible smaller cliffs. In some places, water too impatient to flow into the central basin, has sliced through the edge of the precipice, creating a magical series of waterfalls and ledges ending in one last leap of escarpment. The water never hits the ground, dissipating into mist and drops of moisture.

We made our way through alleys of 20 feet high, five feet wide and 60 feet long slabs of sandstone. We clambered up the root-bound cliffs and slid down the other side. We passed the remains of a camp. This was the first evidence of man after the helipad—further evidence of the search for coal. In the coming days we would come upon holes dug to measure the depth of soft black coal. They had picked a most impressive spot: water had carved a notch in the cliff face providing a picture window view of the top of the mist sea.

Soon the path flattened out. Instead of the steep climbing and tumbling, we were dodging, ducking and twisting around the chaotic moss forest. I couldn’t help but think of British Columbia or the Olympic National Park in Washington. It was cool, green and refreshing when we were moving at a clip. We took a short breather. As soon as we stopped, the chill attacked.

We pressed on. Tony vaguely remembered there is a quicker route further down the rim. I chose to travel along the rim in my quest for a photograph that would capture the congested wet moss forest and the ocean of fog that gave us tantalizing peeks, but never the full picture.

The game path was now marked with survey sticks and occasionally flagging tape. We had been walking for a full day without food or water. Luckily, we were traveling light and the cool wet rim had made water abundantly unnecessary.

Tony’s muttering, normally an ongoing description of plant life and other information, turned to concern. He didn’t remember that ridge. We should be higher up. It was getting rather late.

Our crude maps showed we were still quite a long way from the helipad and eventual base camp where our gear was stored. Looking back, I could see the profile of the cliff that matched the map. The problem was, I was looking up at the ridge and it was behind me.

We continued. We were losing altitude at an alarming rate. It was getting darker. Now Tony and I were sure something was wrong. The map showed a smaller plateau below the cliff edge. We had been mindlessly following a game trail that we assumed would follow the ridge. Instead, we had found a way out of the basin and down the cliff.

We discussed our situation. We could turn back, but we didn’t know exactly where we went off the ridge and down onto this lower plateau. Since the path winds and curves tree by tree there would be no sure way of knowing where the path diverged, if it diverged at all. Plus, it was getting dark. Being lost in unexplored jungle at night with sheer cliffs was not a welcome feeling.

We decided to go forward because it would take us closer to our rendezvous. We would then cut in towards the cliff face as we got to the end of this minor plateau. There might be a way up, similar to the way we were fooled into coming down.

We continued losing height until we were in the depths of a black swamp. Trees blocked the light as our feet were sucked into the dark ooze. We were tired. It was late and the swamp was a depressing place to spend the night. Noxious gases were released as we struggled to pull our feet free. A blue oily film floated on the surface of the mosquito infested slime.

We decided that the swamp was the last place we wanted to spend our first evening in the Maliau. We could see the cliffs looming above us. We made a bold decision. We would push up the cliffs since the path we were taking went deeper and deeper into the lowland jungle.

Tony was tired. He had been helicoptered in from his comfortable desk job and he was now sitting in a dark swamp, about to cliff climb with a stranger, at night, in one of the most remote jungles in the world.

I was concerned about him. He had twenty years on me, but he was the one who suggested that we haul ourselves up the cliff. All he asked was that we have a good rest before we attempted the ascent. I gave him what little water I had, knowing it would be the last of our water for some time.

The sun had set, but there was still a dull light that illuminated our climb. The first section up was through tight brush and razor-sharp rattan. It was demanding, but doable.

We hit the first ledge. Using cracks in the rock, we pulled ourselves up. We hit our second ledge. Once again there were enough crevices to gain a purchase. Then we hit the wall—sheer cliff that ended in a green cornice of tangled, moss-covered roots. Momentarily set back, we explored the base of the cliff for a way up. We were drenched by the constant fall of water from the moss forest high above us. We had followed a narrow game trail along the base. We could spend the night here in the overhang below the face, but the sight of our quest, after working so hard, drove us on.

We had no ropes, no climbing gear, so it would be tough going. Office building size chunks of cliff had fallen off and blocked our way on the side. Occasionally there was a collapsed section but they ended up in sheer overhangs. Finally, we found what we were looking for: a section of the cliff that had fallen away leaving a crack that enabled us to get tantalizingly close to the green overhang—more importantly, a large tree root that gave us something that would allow us to hike up the clean, cliff face.

I climbed up to see if it was possible. I pointed out to Tony that once we were over, we could not come back down. We could find another cliff face just as high, if not higher, beyond this climb. Tony told me to go first. We could barely see in the dusk. We were soaked with sweat, hungry and thirsty after our climb. We didn’t know if we had the energy to make this climb.

I began to climb. I fell back, a handful of moss and dirt clutched in each hand. I burrowed my hands to find something solid. I began to climb slowly and nervously. A slight tug or pressure could bring down tons of rock and trees on top of me.

As I gained in height, the chance of going back down seemed dimmer and dimmer, making each upward move that much more desperate. My muscles were shaking with exertion as I reached the cornice. What looked like a green ledge was now a four foot overhang covered in slippery moss and elastic roots. For awhile I was baffled. I could not get a grip on anything to move myself back and then over. I could not go down, sideways or up. My muscles were turning weak and my mouth was dry. I locked my legs around the dangling roots and jammed my hand into the deep moss. Still nothing to hold onto. If there was nothing to hold onto, maybe I could use that to my advantage. Desperately, I began to burrow through the roots and moss with my bare hands. I almost laughed with the sight I must have presented as I broke through the dirt and moss to finally find a tangle of solid roots above. My strength was drained as I wedged my arm in like a stick and threw my leg up to avoid falling back to the rocks below.

Catching my breath, I found myself in the cloud forest of the rim. I crawled the remaining fifty feet under roots and over moss to discover that we were back on the rim.

Covered in dirt and my clothes dripping, I weakly made my way to the ridge. I yelled to Tony we had made it. I searched for a creeper or vine to help Tony up.

I tore off a creeper and dangled it down for Tony to tie his pack to. Tony said, “Don’t worry. I’ll come up with my pack.” He began to climb using the vine for support. When he reached the green wall that I had to burrow through, he used the vine to crawl over. As he tried to lift his leg up for the final push, he paused, looked at me and then fell back down. It all happened in slow motion. I almost laughed as Tony calmly looked at me as he slowly shrank in size and fell to the rocks below. When he hit, back first, I don’t think he even blinked. No screams, yells, or grunts. He just lay there calmly, eyes wide open. I assumed he was dead. I felt detached. A combination of the dim light and fatigue.

From down below I could hear Tony say quietly said, “I think I hurt myself.” Surprised he was alive, I asked if he needed assistance.

“No, just let me lie here awhile.”

He had fallen a sickening distance. Later we discovered what had saved his life. He had fallen in the crevice of two large moss covered rocks. In the crevice, the moss was almost three feet thick. Twelve inches either way, he would have had only two inches of moss to cushion the impact.

He rested for quite a while. This time, I hauled his pack up and then used the vine to take him all the way up. It was dark now. We shivered with cold as the temperature dropped and the sweat from our exertion chilled us. It looked like rain.

I found a hollow tree large enough to hold two people in moderate comfort. Lining it with fern fronds, it made a passable bivouac for the night. Tony’s pack held a cornucopia of treasures: a tin of sardines, one can of orange juice, newspaper, plastic bags—and eureka!—a pack of matches.

After planting Tony in his fern bower, I set about building a fire to dry our clothes and to provide some heat. It was not easy to create fire with wood that has been continuously wet.

After a few false starts and with the last of the dry newspaper, the fire reluctantly smoked to life. It is almost perverse to say we spent quite an enjoyable evening with a roaring fire on the edge of the cliff inside a fern-lined hollow tree. It is hard to describe the pleasures of relative existence. I say “relative” because we might have had to spend the night in the swamp. We might have had no matches, no food, and Tony could be dead.

The rain came down in polite periods, allowing us to dry out in front of the fire. Each onset was heralded by gentle showers before the deluge.

Tony became consumed by thirst, so I set off to find water, using the large plastic bags Tony brought to collect plant samples. At night the confused tangle of trees turned into a nightmare of dead ends, pits, and the ever present cliff face.

I tried walking down to where the water eventually gathers in small streams before joining the rivers that flow everywhere in the Maliau Basin. In the blackness I realized that by going down and then coming back up, it would be impossible to know if I should go left or right to return to our camp, despite the light from the roaring fire, which disappeared within 20 feet. I yelled to see if sound travels. The thick moss absorbed all sound. I wisely decided to follow the edge.

I walked for about a mile in the dark along the rim in search of water and almost fell into an open pit. Open is not a good description because it was full of brown water. I kneeled down and drink my fill from the gritty stagnant water. I kindly did not tell Tony where I found the water.

The morning dawned cold and wet. The fire was still smoldering. The sun skittered across the top of the mist, creating a strange sunrise. I climbed out on an overhanging limb to take a picture. The trees grew out and over still blocking a clear view of the golden ocean below. I still couldn’t capture the sense of being on the edge of a lost world. I was barred in by the jungle.

FURTHER READING

Read RYPs jungle tips here.

The post Into The Lost World of Borneo appeared first on Dangerous Magazine.

Dirty wars attract a wide variety of odd types: Volunteers, journos, freedom fighters, NGOs, businessmen and even tourists. The traditional concept of war as one group of soldiers battling another until the other side surrenders or is vanquished is long outdated, as are many of the traditional roles associated with such a conflict. Among traditional wars have been the so-called neutrals—journalists, aid workers, NGOs and supposedly civilians protected in battle by The Hague or after capture by the Geneva Conventions. Today’s wars make few distinctions between combatants and non-combatants, warfighter and peacemaker, observer or participant. Researchers will find few clearly delineated targets. The traditional barriers and lines that define players on the battlefield have also blurred.

In the case of journalism, the lines are thoroughly muddled. The roles and positions of citizen journalists, official embeds, propagandists, counter propagandists, hackers, hoaxers, unilaterals and credentialed media are no longer discrete. The NGO and humanitarian world finds itself powerless and targeted, with even the UN scrambling for cover, its workers being kidnapped by the dozen.  There is currently no better place than Syria to delve into these rapidly shifting roles of communication.

A New Day

The Arab Spring looked like it might bypass Syria and strongman Bashar al-Assad. Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, emerged from the minority Alawite, a Shi’ite sect, and used force and a massive police presence to govern a Sunni nation. Ophthalmologist Bashar, who never prepared to rule Syria, was selected to lead the country after his brother was killed in his Ferrari driving to the Damascus airport.   Bashar was considered a somewhat secular and progressive ruler until the Arab Spring arrived on March 15, 2011 with massive public demonstrations.

Surprisingly, Bashar took his father’s playbook from the ’80s when Sunnis rose up in Hama, and later crushed resistance with force. But the same strategy that worked 20 years ago didn’t work in an era of cell phones, Twitter and Internet. Syrians began to fight back, creating impromptu militias but gaining support from conservative Sunni backers like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The violence dealt out against the Syrian people and the outcries to bring in the media began to attract traditional journalists from well-known publications.

THE END OF EMBED JOURNALISM

A year ago in March, veteran war reporter Marie Colvin broadcast live from a makeshift media center in Homs that had been pummeled earlier when CNN reported from the same building. Colvin was killed by direct shelling. There was no confusion about who she was, where she was or what she was doing. Her death, along with the ruthlessness of Assad’s regime, sent shockwaves through the media.

In 2012, according to the International Federation of Journalists, 35 journalists were killed in Syria. It is the most dangerous country in the world to report from. By comparison, 24 journalists were killed in Afghanistan since 1992. In 2013 alone at least five journalists have been killed, including Al Jazeera reporter Mohamed Al-Massalmeh, who was shot as he ran across a road, and French magazine publisher Yves Debay who was killed while Free Syrian Army soldiers fought to reclaim a hospital. It is clear that journalists are targets.  Some, like James Foley, Austin Tice, Richard Engel, Temoris Grecko and Balint Szlanko have been kidnapped, almost all in the vicinity of border crossings, the most dangerous of which seems to be the Bab al-Hawa crossing west of Aleppo. In each of these kidnappings, there were neither requests for ransoms nor word of the detainees’ conditions.

After Libya, the conflict in Syria is the second major “unembedded” war. A war in which both experienced and neophyte journalists need only money and gumption to get to the fighting. There is no guarantee of safety or money, and it is a war that shows little mercy. There has been little reward for the risk the media has taken, few international diplomacy gains for the rebels, and even less victory for the government.

Despite the grim statistics, hundreds of journalists, volunteers, fighters, stringers, tourists, aid workers, and even the UN has descended on Syria with little effect on the violence that has killed more than 70,000 and displaced 2.3 million so far.

Dangerous tried to sort out what’s making Syria so deadly and yet so attractive to the press corps.

THE JOURNALIST

“The way I’ve described Syria to others is dark and hopeless, and there is a sense of futility,” says Jane, a broadcast journalist who went to Syria on assignment and who we’ve given an alias to protect her identity. “Very dreary… based on the dead people I saw lying in the streets, the blasé attitudes towards the bodies, the numbers of injuries, the destroyed buildings, the poverty, lacking infrastructure…”

Much like the recent conflict in Libya that resulted in the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi, there are no Western forces present in Syria with which journalists can embed or shield themselves. Assad’s regime has allowed a handful of reporters with government troops, but permissions to join the regime’s ranks are becoming fewer as out-going reports are less agreeable to the government.

Those who have accompanied the Syrian government—largely to show the brutality of the rebels—have been attacked as propagandists. Robert Fisk was shown armless children and brutalized prisoners and then derided for his efforts. The Syrian government continues to enact propagandist censorship on the media under its influence. One Syrian government reporter even interviewed children next to their recently killed mother.  For the media that the government cannot influence, it has resorted to kidnapping, arresting and killing reporters. Reporters Without Borders called Syria “a Bermuda triangle for journalists.”

The Free Syrian Army welcomes the media, but for the most part journalists describe FSA as a disorganized bunch of poorly trained, poorly disciplined and poorly armed young men. The stories tend to ignore the random violence, sectarian division and fundamentalist ideology in the rebel factions, even that they’ve kidnapped journalists.  A lot of the coverage locksteps to the meme of Libyans throwing off the yoke of dictatorship with tacit Western support. Except this is Syria, and many of the groups are foreign jihadis, fundamentalists bent on Sunni domination and fighting for causes unrelated to national liberation.

Syria resembles that of Libya only to the untrained onlooker.

“Libyans had tons of help and aid and protective parties interested in having a hand in the future, thereby lending a hand in ousting Gadhafi,” says Jane, whose next stop is Mali. “Libya was easy to navigate and cover… It didn’t have the same sordid twist that Syria’s got.”

Without Western combatants, gaining access to war is once again easier for a journalist—whether that journalist is aspiring on a shoestring or a seasoned professional on an expense account.  But venturing to the front is also more dangerous without Western soldiers. There is no MEDEVAC, there may not be anyone trained to apply a tourniquet.  Worse, as is the case in Syria, there are those who use the well-known methods of entry, like the Bab al-Hawa crossing, as a buffet table from which to kidnap journalists. And the Syrian government is fine with that. The regime has detained, assaulted and expelled journalists and disabled the mobile-phone network.

In August, President Bashar al-Assad signed a media law veiled in claims of protecting the freedom of expression, but which is open-ended enough to allow for the arrest of journalists and the censorship of published material. But probably the biggest danger is that the Syrian government has shown a proclivity to simply killing Western journalists.

“The feeling inside [Syria] was like the proverbial fish in a barrel,” says Jane. “Fear of getting hit by air, mortar or sniper… Nowhere is safe. I hated covering Syria.”

THE WAR TOURIST

The ultimate put-down to a neophyte visitor to the battlefield is  “war tourist.” That is, someone who appears to be in the midst of misery and violence simply for personal aggrandizement and curiosity.  Ignoring, or perhaps capitalizing on, this term is Toshifumi Fujimoto, a self-proclaimed war tourist from Japan. The story he told curious media in Syria was that he grew bored with his truck-driving job in Japan, bought a ticket to Turkey, and crossed into Syria. From there he posted frontline dispatches to Facebook. He claimed to have no fear of the conflict, credits luck for keeping him alive but warns others that they face certain death if they travel to Syria. To some journalists he tells a story of sadness and wanting to die, to others he points to his dispatches as being a witness. He has a growing cadre of admirers on Facebook who see his personal journey and roughhewn coverage as accessible and honest.

Fujimoto wore Japanese military fatigues and carried two cameras and a video camera around his neck. He tagged along with other journos but with no helmet and no body armor. He said the prospect of death never bothered him because he is part samurai, part kamikaze.  His publicity seemed to feed the media’s need to make their quest more legitimate. In January he was featured in the AFP, the Guardian, The New York Times and many other outlets. Fujimoto’s explanation for being in harm’s way as being: “It fascinates me, and I enjoy it,” which isn’t too far off why professional journalists journey to Syria. Except the journalists make money from their reports of the Syrians’ strife and suffering and mask it under the noble goal of “bearing witness” or “telling the story”, though many admit privately that war is something that gives them more than just a job, it can be an obsession.

In a nod to his AFP interviewer but with no statistics to support it, Fujimoto said, “It’s more dangerous in Syria to be a journalist than a tourist.”

Whether Fujimoto was firing a rifle or a camera, Syrian soldiers weren’t likely to make the distinction. Although he was not filing for a media outlet, his Facebook page quickly swelled to over 3,200 followers, and his posted photos were regarded with respect, essentially turning him into an information outlet. He has now returned to Japan where his presentations on his frontline experience have created another following. He’s reporting—through facts and images—the nature of the conflict and what he saw there.

And in much the same way that Fujimoto now has something to offer, a cadre of budding journalists are making the trip to Syria for the same reason. Some are looking to fast track their career via war reporting. Others are moved by the humanitarian crisis they feel needs coverage. Despite the plethora of disturbing photos and videos, and the high price paid by journalists to capture those images, the West appears to be unmoved, begging the question: Is Syria the place to make your bones?

Apparently, many think so. Journalist “Jane” asked that we change her name. She says the new generation has turned out in Syria, and is easy to spot. Jane is an icon amongst journalists known for both her reporting and bravery in the three decades she has spent covering conflict. She is shocked by the general lack of preparation.

“Their lack of gear in general, protective gear from flak [vest] to helmet, basics like torch or head lamp,” she says. “They’re lacking hostile-environment training, no first aid training, no medical type gear or kit, [and have] a knee-jerk desire to hit the frontlines without backgrounding the situation or the people involved in getting there.”
We talked to one of the newbies who hopes that Syria will project him into the mainstream.

THE NEOPHYTE REPORTER

Tom Daams, 28, a photographer from the Netherlands, heard of the Syrian conflict last August and decided to cover what seemed to be under-reported by journalists. He’d covered riots in Athens and Berlin, but most of his portfolio consisted of portraits of people or their pets.

“The people of Aleppo were pleading to the world to help them,” he emailed from Aleppo. “They just could not understand why the world wasn’t helping them. And I also couldn’t understand why the world was doing nothing. Why does the world turn its back against humanity?”

So he packed a backpack and “filled it with morphine-like painkillers” leftover from a bout with a hernia. He grabbed his camera, 350 Euros and booked a ticket to Turkey. He spent three days in Turkey mustering the courage to cross into Syria—after all, he’d never been to a war zone.

On the third day he took a bus to Kilis, Turkey, which is on the Syrian border, and hired a taxi to take him to the fighting. He had no idea what to expect. His only frame of reference was articles he’d read about other journalists crossing. In the taxi, a quick wave of his passport was all it took to enter Syria.

He was in. He had no money, no contacts, no idea where to go or what to do. But he did have a backpack full of painkillers. At Zarzur Hospital in Aleppo he told the doctors he had medicine to donate. Not surprisingly, they welcomed him. The security guard found him a bed to sleep in. The hospital even had Internet access.

While staying at the hospital, he made friends with a rebel sniper.

“Everyday he woke me up, and I jumped on the back of his motorcycle to head to the front lines. I spent 10 days with this sniper, making friends all over Aleppo.”

After ten days, Daams decided he was ready to leave. He’d feared for his life, been shot at by snipers, even had a flat tire in Assad territory while in a car with eight rebels. But now that he wanted to leave, he didn’t know how. He asked the hospital security guard how he might return to Turkey, and the guard set him up with two fighters from Libya. He decided to illegally cross into Turkey with the Libyans. He admits that this was not a wise decision.

Daams was detained at Oğuzeli International Airport in Gaziantep, Turkey for being in the country illegally. He had no entry stamp on his passport. He was banned from Turkey for three years.

That was in September last year. When Daams returned to the Netherlands, he sold his work from Syria for just over $9,000 USD, which was enough to finance another trip. Unable to enter Turkey, he tried to cross into Syria from Lebanon. It didn’t work. He then tried from Jordan, and that didn’t work either. After trying for two months to get back into Syria, he finally called a Dutch friend with high-level government connections, asking for his ban to be lifted. It worked.

“I now am the second person in Turkish history whose ban has been lifted in such a case,” he claims. When he returned to Aleppo, he says the friends he had made on his first trip had been killed.

Luckily Daams knew of a fellow Dutchman, 21-year-old Wijbe Abma, who was also in Aleppo. Daams asked Abma for a place to sleep.

“Wijbe saved my ass.”

THE ENTREPRENEURIAL AID WORKER

Wijbe Abma is barely old enough to get a job but already has a one-man relief program called Don’t Forget Syria. After finishing a university exchange program in South Korea, Abma was traveling home to the Netherlands when he met a Syrian refugee in Turkey in October. Abma decided to help. He turned to Kickstarter for funding to buy blankets to be handed out to Syrian refugees. His efforts on the Internet have generated tens of thousands of dollars and delivered more than 1,000 blankets. In addition to working the long hours of an NGO, he’s also become a makeshift fixer for journalists, Daams included. When I spoke with Abma he was in Kilis, Turkey—which has become a bottleneck for people entering Syria from the north—about to take a group of Spanish journalists to Syrian refugee camps in Turkey.

“It’s a very easy place for journalists to come and go,” Abma said over Skype. “At any given time there are half a dozen to maybe two dozen journalists here. Many are staying at this hotel. It is one of the cheapest, and there is Internet.”

As is often the case, journalists have congregated where they are safe, where they can file their stories or upload photos, and where they can get a drink after a long day at the front. For about $200 USD, they hire a taxi to take them to Aleppo or refugee camps or other hot spots in Syria. In months past, many journalists reported from Syria during daylight hours and then returned to the safety of Turkey at night. But that is changing.

As the front has moved through Aleppo, media offices sprung up. Journalists could now stay in the city with less fear of government soldiers kicking down the door or shelling the building. Though Daams spent ten days in Aleppo last September, he may not have fully comprehended his vulnerability. The same could be said for the war tourist Fujimoto. Ignorance may be bliss, but it is not safety.

“Most journalists stick to the Free Army region, the liberated region,” Abma said. “It is safer there, in a way. But at the same time it is a region without government, without law. So anything might happen.”

Anything in this case often means getting kidnapped. NBC’s Richard Engel spent five days in captivity. Mexican journalist Temoris Grecko was held with two other journalists for five days. Former US Marine Austin Tice has been missing for more than 200 days. US freelancer James Foley has been missing since November 22.

While Abma is by nature a person prone to help others—refugees, Daams, the Spanish journalists—he recognizes that the war has attracted scores of inexperienced journalists who are in many ways unprepared for the job. Money, contacts, plans and backup plans are necessary. Though it is a war zone and “never fully safe,” as he says, a lack of planning and preparation make it far more dangerous.

Broadcast journalist “Jane” went to Syria on assignment. Being no rookie, and part of an organization, the preparations for her coverage were extensive. And so were the expenses.

“As for expenses, thousands of dollars,” she says. “Tens of thousands for drivers, tippers, hotels, travel, fixers, translators, gear…”

Some insist that regardless of Western and UN inaction or even public disinterest, the story needs to be told. Many journalists like Marie Colvin, have insisted that dramatic images or gripping firsthand stories motivate readers and embarrass governments to move from inaction into action. This oft-stated high-minded motivation drives many new and veteran reporters to share violence, risk their lives and sometimes die with complete strangers in conflicts that have nothing to do with them.

But that cliché of a journalist risking their life to impact society, make a difference, tell the story or document history may have also vanished with the new shape of war.

Nir Rosen is an Arabic-speaking American journalist of Kurdish descent who began a reporting career in Iraq in 2003. His work, often critical of Western policy and often reported from inside insurgent groups for long periods at a time, is highly respected, even by his critics. His work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, and the Washington Post. Even to Rosen, the notion that a journalist can make a difference in a conflict is unfounded.

“Journalists who think they can help are naive or think too highly of themselves,” he says.  He challenges the idea that journalists help or make a difference by risking their lives.

“They are usually harmless parasites who do not harm their hosts. But just like in any conflict, Syria is an opportunity for new journalists to get started. No different from Iraq or Afghanistan where I got started and where I did absolutely nothing to help or make any difference at all in my capacity as a journalist.”

The curious thing is that young activists, like Abma, don’t really need the media to tell their story. Instead, they can use social media to directly seek funds, which then translate into benefit, all the while communicating information. Much to the discomfort of the established media. Abma wrote an article for Foreign Policy magazine, which is read by policymakers worldwide, beltway pundits and of course the media. Suddenly the idea that a person requires bona fide, sage experience and peer approval before publication in august journals has dissolved as social media chooses immediacy and relevancy over sagacity and longevity. The traditional barriers that kept neophytes out of the mainstream discussion have vaporized.

COMBAT ACTIVIST NGO

The latest and most contentious example of this changing stereotype may be 33-year old Matt VanDyke. When Dangerous reached him by phone he was upset. Mostly at journalists who classify him as freedom fighter posing as a journalist and NGOs who see his boundary-blurring role as a lethal threat.

“I am not there to observe. I am there to fight,” he says.  But he was talking about Libya, and not about his new venture in Syria, where he insists in the reverse that he was not fighting but making a “propaganda film.” Unfortunately when he invited donors to “join the Arab Spring,” he and his Libyan musician/fighter friend ended up getting kicked off Kickstarter. But not before 60 donors pledged $15,134 of the modest $19,500 budget to fund his idea. Kickstarter does not support high-risk activities or charities, and none of the donors were charged for their contributions.  His credibility as a fighter had short-circuited his new career as a propagandist.

There are some journalists and NGOs also upset at VanDyke. Mostly for the cavalier and vague way they insist he shifts between a journalist, like writing analyses for the Huffington Post and calling himself an embed on his website, and a freedom fighter.  Being on YouTube yelling takbirs while shooting an anti-aircraft gun mounted on the back of a Toyota Hilux in Libya is what he wants to be known for. His published pieces do not make him a journalist, even though a number of media and human rights organizations campaigned for his release from a Libyan jail thinking he was a journalist. According to one journalist, he told his mother that he was in Libya as journalist. According to VanDyke, he never told his mother this, and was thrown in prison as a captured fighter. The confusion over him being a journalist is probably what saved his life. (SEE OUR STORY ON VAN DYKE)

He has been called “reckless and irresponsible” by the execu Committee To Protect Journalists, described as “mentally unstable” by a human rights group executive, and generally pummeled by the working press for putting them at risk.  This does not stop the media from interviewing VanDyke who seem to gain pleasure, as in the case of Fujimoto, in exploiting his media-friendly controversy. It’s a symbiotic do-loop of entertainment, news, information and propaganda.

The general consensus of the working media is that anyone who picks up a gun is a combatant. And anyone who claims to be a journalist should not carry a weapon. A non-combatant in the field or if captured, should be protected, regardless of their stance of country of origin, even though the vast majority of coverage comes from and is favorable to the rebels. VanDyke says he’s never crossed the line and feels he might be the only journalist-fighter-filmmaker-propagandist who knows where those lines are. In the age of polymaths and multitasking, VanDyke doesn’t care what they call him, he just wants his critics to be accurate.

VanDyke, Fujimoto, and Abma now have more in common than uncommon. Each considers his contribution tangible support for the cause, and each has published media on the conflict. With the protection and clear definitions of journalists gone, dirty wars allow for a mixing of roles that defy clean-cut categorization. An aid worker or freedom fighter will never replace the eyes and mind of an experienced reporter, like Marie Colvin, but in the rapidly changing Age of Information, and in a place like Syria, no position is safe.

The post Syria: Wish You Were Here? appeared first on Dangerous Magazine.

Eric Harroun is from Phoenix, Arizona. He served in the U.S. military from 2000 until a car accident that left him with a plate in his head. He was discharged with full disability in 2003.

Around Christmas of 2010 he visited Egypt and Lebanon. Two years later in September 2012 he returned to Egypt were he got caught up in the celebrations in Tahrir Square. In June of 2012 he was determined to do something with his life. He flew to Istanbul in November of 2012, and in January he was involved with the Free Syrian Army.

On January 26^th he uploaded a video to YouTube that caught the attention of Rita Katz, co-founder of the SITE Intelligence Group. Katz is an Iraqi Jewish woman who sells videos posted by jihadi groups. Sometime in January, Eric friended what looked like a young Iraqi woman who was posting pictures of her in a bikini and full bosomed friends. Eric only had around 361 Facebook friends and as he gained notoriety he began to enjoy his new celebrity status. He posted videos on his page and on YouTube throughout February. In mid-February, the Syrian regime posted a video of him using a stranger in Miami with a different name from Mugshots.com as proof that Harroun was a criminal.  About that time he was pinged by SITES Intelligence, a provider of “Jihadist Threat Warnings” to the U.S. government and other clients.

It is quite normal to post videos of attacks and battles from Syria, and on February 13 Eric said he cheated death again. In the phone video, he’s sweating and looks visibly distressed as he crouches down with an AK in an empty house under fire. In other videos he is relaxing with fellow fighters threatening the regime of Assad.

On February 15 he hits the main-stream news as he posts videos on YouTube. Eric is with his friend “the Chechen” as he drives to inspect a recently shot down Syrian government helicopter.  The problem: the vehicle and his friend, a Syrian descendent of Caucasian fighters, are part of al Nusra, a franchise of al Qaeda created in Iraq ten years ago.

On March 11 he contacted Fox News reporters in Israel and things began to fall apart. He voluntarily went to the US Embassy where he found himself caught in the classic good cop, bad cop game.

When he walked in to the office, the male FBI agent had the Fox News story printed on his desk. The bad cop was a woman from the CIA. Without being warned that what he was about to do was incriminate himself, he volunteered the information that he had shot ten people, traveled and fought with al Nusra and was deeply concerned he might be viewed as a terrorist.

The journalists who interviewed from Fox were Jewish, based in Israel, and got into heated discussion with the part-time jihadi. Eric thinks he was set up and called out as a terrorist by Fox News.

After a series of coy back and forth with Eric, we finally connected on March 14 after he had spent two days being whipsawed at the U.S. Embassy, the last session lasting ten hours.

“I’ll have to hire a fucking Jewish lawyer to sue their asses when I get back,” he said from Istanbul via Skype. “According to Fox News I am going to the Palestinian Territory, and then they said I was going there for violent reason. I should sue those assholes… I was going for peaceful reasons. But now I’m not. It’s too dangerous.”

Eric’s version on how he ended up going to fight with the FSA and ended up with al Qaeda is simple to him.

When he hung around in Turkey for month the buzz amongst young men was “let’s go fight in Syria.” It is a badly kept secret that the U.S., through Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, is recruiting, training and arming rebels to bring down Bashar al Assad. From where he sat in Istanbul and with the Arab Spring still the driving meme, it seemed like a grand adventure.  He crossed the border and was soon taken in by a Free Syrian Army unit. Harroun’s story is that in the confusion of combat he lost track of his FSA unit.

“I was separated from my unit in the fighting,” he said. “I found these guys, I didn’t even know they were al Nusrah until later. I said I need a ride back to my commander. It took 25 days to get them to give me a ride.

“When they’d go out and fight, I’d go along with them. What was I supposed to do? Grab my gun and go. We’re all fighting for the same thing. We’re trying to kill the same people. It’s not like I chose to fight with al Nusra.”

Eric is surprised at the negative portrayal of him as fundamentalist.  “I’m not al Qaeda,” he says. “I like my beer and my smoke, and I like my women. I’m not about the praying five times a day and all that shit.”

During the interview he pointed out that he was eating pork and just “chilling, having a beer and listening to music.” Despite his cool demeanor his meetings at the embassy obviously rattled him.

“I may not be a fighter anymore. After speaking with the FBI guy. If it’s illegal I’m not fighting anymore… If he says I cant go back, I’m not going back.”

But he thinks it’s “bullshit” that an American can’t come and fight.

“It’s illegal for an American to come and fight and that’s bullshit,” he said. He particularly did not like the “CIA lady from upstairs” who played bad cop. To mess with her, he asked her for Stinger missiles. “She didn’t exactly say no. She gave me the name of a guy in Turkey who is supplying weapons to the rebels.”

Erik describes the FBI guy as “nice” but still telling him it is against the law for him to fight in Syria.  Eric said, “I don’t know why they would want to prosecute me… I mean we’re killing the same people. They should give me medal for this shit.”

When asked why he had posted “The only good Zionist is a dead Zionist” on his private Facebook (he has just over 300 friends of which we are one of them), he said, “I do have on have in my face book that the only good Zionist is a dead Zionist and I don’t think those reporters like that. That could be causing some problems.”

“I hate Zionists,” he said. The irony that one of the Fox reporters names was “Ben Zion” didn’t seem to sink in. “If they prosecute do you think I could go to federal prison?”

Eric asked us if he was on the no-fly list, if he could sneak back in via Mexico. As we signed off from Skype he said. “The hash is good here, dude. I’ll just chill here…. fuck Assad.”

On March 20^th his FBI “friends” obtained a search warrant for his Facebook account where he had posted a photo of himself posing with an RPG. The location is listed as Turkey, but its good enough for criminal charges. The FBI said he had also posed with “machine guns” not quite clarifying if they mean the heavy weapons on the truck or the AK 47 he held. The FBI references his contentious argument with Fox News and issues that as proof of guilt. And as expected his voluntary discussions with the U.S. embassy to see if he was in trouble, landed him exactly in that trouble he was worried about.

When he got back he was charged in a ten page Criminal Complaint by the FBI for conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the United States.

The post Eric Harroun: Jihadi or Junketeer? appeared first on Dangerous Magazine.