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Embassy Guard Bears Witness to Years of Liberia�s Grisly Wars
October 30, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MONROVIA, Liberia, Oct. 29 - When desperate refugees storm
the United States Embassy or rebels armed with rockets
attack it, Horacio Hernandez guards the gates.
He is a private contractor who has been in charge of
protecting the embassy compound since 1995. He has seen 9
of his locally hired guards killed and 43 wounded as waves
of Liberia's wars have lapped at the walls, but never
breached them.
As rebels fought their way into the heart of Monrovia this
summer, thousands of civilians ran past bullets and shells
to besiege the embassy's gate. Piling corpses of family and
friends outside the walls, they angrily screamed demands
for American help.
"They didn't want to attack us," said Mr. Hernandez, a
49-year-old retired Marine lieutenant colonel who is known
as Hersh. "They were frustrated that others were being
evacuated and not them. They wanted us to intervene, to
stop the slaughter. But we were not in a position to do
that."
Mortar shells also hit in the sprawling, oceanside compound
during the fighting, which finally drove President Charles
G. Taylor, a former warlord, into exile in August.
Mr. Hernandez was responsible for keeping the mobs at bay
while deciding who to let in and who to leave outside at
the mercy of the fighters. He said his Liberian guards
"were filling the sandbags, working to have dead bodies
removed, organizing food."
"That stuff is not in the contract, but it's defusing a
volatile situation."
Mr. Hernandez runs African operations for Inter-Con
Security Systems Inc., a California company with 18,000
employees worldwide. It has its Africa headquarters in
Monrovia, and its employees also guard American embassies
in Ghana, Guinea, Togo, Benin and Tunisia.
In 1996, when Liberia's bloodshed - which has continued for
15 years - also battered Monrovia, employees of a different
American company that delivered supplies to the embassy had
to scrounge guns from dead Liberian fighters and help hold
the compound until Navy Seals arrived, Mr. Hernandez said.
On the morning of Sept. 17, 1998, Mr. Hernandez walked
outside to find 300 fighters surrounding the embassy,
pointing their AK-47's and rocket launchers at the
Americans. One of Mr. Taylor's rivals, Roosevelt Johnson,
had just scrambled inside for sanctuary with some of his
men.
President Taylor's troops stormed the front barriers at the
embassy gate, and started executing rival fighters on the
spot.
Mr. Hernandez, knocked to the ground by a rifle butt that
shattered five teeth, held the gate with three other
guards. They were the front line for the small force inside
the embassy: six marines, plus American diplomats who put
on flak vests and picked up assault rifles.
The defense held. Mr. Hernandez estimates that 300 Liberian
civilians and fighters - but no Americans - died during the
standoff, before Mr. Johnson could be flown out from the
compound's helipad to exile.
Mr. Hernandez, a native Cuban who served 20 years as a
marine, was asked why he works in one of the world's most
dangerous places, why he isn't back home with his wife and
four children in Virginia.
"I've had four kids in college, with one of them in law
school," he said with a laugh. "But it's not just a money
thing; it's my profession. It's what I know.
"Because of their valor, this country is getting another
chance," Mr. Hernandez said, pointing to the embassy's
guards. "It allowed others to stay here, and food, water
and medicine to be delivered."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/30/international/africa/30LIBE.html?ex=1068912039&ei=1&en=344ebc2ebe90e914
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