Escape from Kilimanjaro

© 2009 Chick Lung. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 10/23/2009

ISBN: 978-1-4490-1215-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-5386-6 (ebk)

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Epilogue

CHAPTER 1

Darfur Region of Sudan, Summer of 2008

Kadogo Belial Taylor raised his machete as the eight-year-old girl pleaded with her shiny black eyes to be spared. She heard the whistling of the blade in its downward movement. She was surprised because there was no pain associated with seeing her arm from just below the elbow fall away from her body, the fingers still tightly grasping Kadogo’s free hand. With cold vacant eyes Kadogo dropped the small delicate arm in the dust. Before her small, innocent mind could grasp the horror and evil surrounding her, his blade again sliced through the air and the wrist of her other arm. The delicate black hand dropped to the dust, joining the other hand in the dirt. The first chilling scream of the small child mingled with and was lost in the sounds of other victims across the village.

As drops of spittle mixed with blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, Kadogo Belial Taylor looked for his next victim in the carnage surrounding him. He spotted a small male child, three maybe four years old, in the corner of an overturned cart. Tears of terror flowed down the boy’s stricken black face as his eyes took in the hell around him. He saw the man with the big, bloody blade turn and begin walking in his direction….

For years savage, small wars have raged across Darfur killing and maiming women, children and old men. Mostly maiming, for the armies racing back and forth across Darfur know it is better to maim than to kill because it instills fear in the entire region and puts a burden on the villages to care for the now helpless victims. Hundreds of thousands fall victim while the United Nations debates the problem half-heartedly, turning its attention in other directions.

Off the Coast of West Africa, May 1821

The USS Alligator, with Captain Robert F. Stockton at the helm, navigated the coastline of West Africa, looking for a suitable site to unload his human cargo of free black slaves from the United States. Two ships had preceded his in the quest to transport free slaves to a new land outside the United States. The first ship in May of 1820, the Elizabeth, carried eighty-eight free black settlers and three white men from the society of ACS, The American Colonization Society. Their stated purpose was to promote and execute a plan for colonizing in Africa, with the consent of the free people of color who resided in the United States.

But the motives were as different as the individuals giving money to the ACS. One of the major motives was the belief that the free blacks encountered widespread discrimination in the United States and were a burden on society. Another was the fact that they were a threat to white workers because they undercut wages in every job they were involved in. Some abolitionists believed that blacks could not achieve equality in the United States and would be better off in Africa. Many slaveholders were worried that the presence of free blacks would encourage slaves to rebel, and many saw it as a way to stop any racial mixing.

The eighty-eight free black men and the three ACS white men could not find a suitable location since no local tribal leaders would sell territory to them. In desperation, they landed on Scherbro Island just off the west coast of Africa. After three short weeks, twenty-two of the free blacks and all three of the white ACS members died of yellow fever.

In July of 1820 the second ship, the Nautilus, arrived with new passengers and fresh supplies for the starving men who remained on Scherbro Island. The men began immediately to construct a new settlement, but the island was not a suitable place for a large colony. Representatives again were sent to the many tribal leaders on the coast to find land they could buy. They again failed, and that is why Captain Stockton on the USS Alligator was skimming the coastline of West Africa, searching for a suitable site. With a small demonstration of the power of the ship guns, he persuaded some of the tribal leaders to sell a 36-mile long strip of coastline to the ACS for a cost of $300 worth of rum, weapons and other goods. The Scherbro Island group moved to this new location, and in the next forty-seven years the ACS sent more than 13,000 immigrants to this new country.

The first settlement was on Providence Island near where the present capital city Monrovia is now located. The colonists barely maintained a foothold as they were attacked by a number of different tribes, and disease killed more than half in the next two years. In 1824 the settlers built fortifications for protection, and in that year they named their new country Liberia after the President of the United States, James Monroe, who encouraged the men to find liberty in this new land.

A constitution was written mirroring that of the United States’ laws and rights. For the first time in Africa, a free nation was born; however, it was still under the control of the ACS until 1847 when Joseph Jenkins Roberts, the first black governor of the colony, proclaimed Liberia a free republic. The state seal showed a ship at anchor in the harbor bearing the inscription, The Love of Liberty Brought Us Here.

Through treaties with tribes of the surrounding areas, Liberia extended its boundaries to include a 600-mile coastline. The settlers recreated an American society, building churches and homes that resembled Southern plantations. They also continued to speak English.

For a hundred years Liberia struggled with the native tribes and countries of power surrounding them, but they continued to survive as a country of free people. When World War II exploded on the world, Liberia became a very strategically important country to the United States. After the defeat of Malaysia and Singapore by the Japanese, the only source of rubber was from Liberia. Liberia’s rubber plantations were the only source of natural latex rubber available to not only the United States but also to the Allies. Rubber was needed to build the tires for the planes, jeeps, aircraft guns and sensitive radar equipment needed on all fronts of the war.

As a result of the war, the sharp increase in demand and drastic reduction in supply caused the price of Liberian rubber to skyrocket. In 1942 the Liberian government declared that they would furnish the United States with every single pound of rubber produced in their nation. The Liberian government signed a defense pact with the United States, which caused a period of development never before seen in the country. Construction of roads, airports and other infrastructure projects were completed. To this day the longest runway in Africa is in Liberia; it was built to accommodate the landing of the giant B-47 Stratojet bombers.

On April 12, 1980, a Krahn tribesman from one of the country’s smallest ethnic groups, Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe, led a successful and bloody coup d’état that overthrew the government. For one hundred fifty-nine years, the people of Liberia had lived in a free nation until Samuel K. Doe took it all away in one swift movement. The new government was born in violence as Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe’s men disemboweled President Tolbert and twenty-six of his staff. Thirteen members of President Tolbert’s cabinet were publicly executed ten days later.

Doe appointed a man by the name of Charles Taylor to run the General Services Agency, but on May 24, 1984, he charged Taylor with embezzling $922,000 in government funds. Charles Taylor fled Liberia but was found and arrested in Somerville, Massachusetts. He was placed in the custody of the United States Customs Agency, where he was held waiting extradition to Liberia. On September 15, 1985, with bribes placed at the highest level, Taylor was allowed to escape and fled the United States. Months later he surfaced in Libya where he underwent guerilla training with Muammar Qaddafi.

The government of Samuel K. Doe became increasingly repressive against the people of Liberia as he shut down newspapers and banned political activity. His government mistreated a number of ethnic groups, and in particular the Gio and the Mano in the North. This caused widespread divisions and violence among the different tribes, who for centuries had coexisted in relative peace.

On December 24, 1989, Charles Taylor and a small band of Libyan-trained rebels entered Nimba County from neighboring Cote D’Ivoire and started what was the beginning of a Liberian Civil War. From a country of peace and free men for more than a century and a half, these two men turned Liberia into a killing field. Thousands of civilians were killed on both sides, and hundreds of thousands fled their homes trying to find safety.

Thousands of the Gio and Mano tribes joined Charles Taylor’s small army against the Armed Forces of Liberia called the AFL. Taylor called his army the NPFL, The National Patriotic Front of Liberia. In August of 1990, with Charles Taylor’s army occupying parts of the capital Monrovia, the United States sent a naval task force to evacuate all foreign nationals and diplomats from the country. Charles Taylor patiently waited until all the large United States warships departed the coastal waters of Liberia before giving orders to Prince Johnson and his INPFL soldiers to attack the remaining areas of the city held by Samuel K. Doe.

On September 9, 1990, Samuel K. Doe was captured by Prince Johnson’s INPFL, Independent National Patriotic Front, and a splinter group from Charles Taylor’s army that was still under Taylor’s command at that time. Doe’s torture and execution were videotaped by his captors and shown on Monrovia television.

Needing more fighters, Charles Taylor began kidnapping boys as young as six years old and training them as his frontline fighters. By putting the small children with automatic weapons in the front lines in an attack, most were killed at the beginning. However, many on the opposite side were also killed, and when he sent the second wave of experienced soldiers in, the victory was generally his.

Because some of his child warriors fled at the first sound of firing, Charles Taylor changed his tactics. Each captured boy now underwent three to six months of brutal training. These young boys became known as Kadogo (the little ones). In 1991 one such boy was captured. He was seven years old when Charles Taylor attacked and captured him and other boys from his village. At the end of the young boy’s training, Charles Taylor and his army again captured his village where his mother, three sisters, four brothers and father still lived. Bringing the family of the young boy to the center of the Town Square, he ordered each to be tied to a post. He then gave the young boy a machete and told him he could cut the ropes from his family and watch as each of his family would be tortured and killed before he would, in turn, face the same fate. Or he could kill each one of his family and become the leader of a group of boys under Taylor’s command.

The young boy took the machete and hacked each family member to death. From that day forward, he was known as Kadogo Belial Taylor, The Little Beast Taylor. Taylor used him to strike fear in the hearts of the people of Liberia because such violence in a small child was unspeakable to the gentle people of Liberia. In the next few years, a large swath of Africa would begin to whisper of the unspeakable. Needing money to finance his war, Taylor captured the diamond mining areas of Lofa and Bomi counties. This also helped to finance his revolution for all of Africa which he hoped he would be leading when other small armies joined his group.

The brutality of Charles Taylor’s army spilled over into Sierra Leone in 1991, to Rwanda in 1994, to the Congo and West Zambia in 2002, and finally to the Darfur region of Sudan in 2003. In each place a savage group of young boys and men were led by a boy named Kadogo Belial Taylor. By the time he was fifteen, Kadogo no longer took orders from Charles Taylor or anyone else. He had recruited around him a death squad of some five hundred boys ranging in age from nine to fifteen, and he was for hire to the highest bidder in the small but horribly bloody wars now scattered across the African continent. The United Nations continued to debate the problem, but turned its face and funds in other directions as the slaughter increased.

CHAPTER 2

Present Day

Bob Rich climbed the basement stairs in his Nichols Hills, Oklahoma City residence to the main floor before walking down the hall to the kitchen. Nichols Hills was the playground of the rich and had been from the beginning of Oklahoma City in 1907. With a grunt he dropped the heavy and tattered map on the table, walked back to the door to the basement and inserted his key, locking the door. The basement was off- limits to Kelly and any friends she happened to bring by. A few times she had come up behind him when he had forgotten to lock the door, and he had been deeply engrossed studying the printouts on the computer. He hadn’t heard her coming, so she startled him when she made a comment about something on his screen. He angrily chewed her out for being there each time, but she ignored him and acted like she hadn’t heard a word he said as she walked back up the stairs.

Returning to the table, Bob grabbed the map and started marking in red the different routes up Kilimanjaro, placing a number from one through eight on each trail. Although there are eight routes to the summit of Kilimanjaro, the Tanzanian government allows only six to be used by serious mountain climbers. Each route connects to the southern or northern circuit, which circles the Kibo dome. From there, only three main routes continue all the way to the summit requiring a five to eight day climb. Two of these routes on the west side of the mountain can only be used in a very short window of a few weeks in June. They are the Lemosho and Shra routes. Two other routes on the east side of the mountain start in the country of Kenya and are closed to all climbers; they are the Rongai and Loitokitok routes. The remaining four routes, the Marangu, Mweka, Umbwe and Machame routes are open year round. Bob placed an X by the two routes he felt he and his daughter Kelly should take. In his estimation, either the Marangu or the Machame routes should be used. The Marangu route is the quickest and can be completed in five days with the Machame route taking seven, but the Marangu route is also the hardest and most dangerous, especially when you’re climbing the Saddle close to the Kibo huts at close to fifteen thousand feet. This stretch of the climb must be started around midnight so that you pass the Saddle before the sun peeks over the ridge and makes it almost impossible to keep your footing. On this stretch, the trail is made up of very small, round, black rocks that freeze at night which allow you to slowly traverse the field. Once the sun comes up and heats the rocks, it would be like climbing over marbles on a fifteen degree slope, which is almost impossible to do. When there is a death on the mountain, this is the place it normally happens.

When Kelly got it into her head she was going to climb Kilimanjaro, he tried to talk his daughter out of it. But for the last year, she had continued to insist this was what she was going to do and nothing was going to stop her. Being thirty-one, his daughter was not going to be stopped by her father. Like many things in Kelly’s life, Bob thought the idea would go away. This time it didn’t, and he was forced to accept the fact she was going and he knew he would have to go with her. So for the last six months, they trained on a small mountain in southern Oklahoma. It was really more like a large hill rather than a mountain, but it was the only thing they had to climb. Three months ago he had taken Kelly to Colorado, and they had climbed for a week in the snow just to get the feel of a climb.

It had been a rocky life with his daughter. At a very early age she had started smoking pot, and this gradually led to stronger and stronger drugs. At seventeen she had dropped out of school and married and had two children before she turned nineteen. Most of the burden of getting her out of trouble and out of jail had fallen on her mother as Bob’s job had taken him all over the world most months of the year. Because of her drug problems, the courts took away her rights to her children. His wife Judy had carried the pain without his help as she watched it happen.

Bob was fifty-seven years old and had retired from the firm seven years ago when Judy became ill with a rare disease that took six months for the doctors to diagnose. Two years later she died, and he roamed the empty house alone for two more long years before Kelly asked if she could come to live with him while she tried to get her life straight. She lasted a few months before drugs again took over, and she landed in prison for twelve long months. The anger and pain he felt towards his daughter for the things she had done almost consumed him until he sat down in front of a mirror one day and looked at the terribly angry face looking back at him. He realized at that point she was an adult, and there was nothing he could do to change anything about her. The only thing he could do to stop the pain was to forgive and to love her with all his heart. The forgiveness never came in words to his daughter but in the action between them when she returned home from prison and again asked to live in his house. They were not good communicators when it came to talking face to face; mostly it ended in shouts and anger.

Kelly found a part- time job while she went back to school, and that was the routine for the last fifteen months as Bob waited for the next major crisis to enter her life. He had decided her decision to try to climb Kilimanjaro was a major step in the right direction once he saw she really was determined to try. They would do it together, or at least they would try since only one in four who try to conquer the mountain ever make it to the top. He knew from experience that it would not be easy for he had tried and almost lost his own life a long time ago.

Bob knew he was in good shape, even at his age, to climb. Although he was fifty-seven years old, he kept himself fit. He ran six miles every morning except Fridays, and he worked out every other day with weights. Bob was five feet eleven inches tall and weighed one hundred eighty-five pounds. His hair, cropped short, was mostly brown with light sprinkles of white around his temples. He had powerful forearms that could lift Kelly straight over his head, which he occasionally had done when she was young.

Bob heard the front door open and then slam as Kelly stomped down the hall into the kitchen and past the chair he