Terrorists and mobs are about the most difficult things to monitor and predict.
Terrorists and mobs are about the most difficult things to monitor and predict. For a multi-national with assets and people in Indonesia and Ivory Coast, to name two troubled countries in late 2002, not only is there uncertainty about how threats will manifest themselves; what path do you follow in response to a sometimes rapidly changing situation’ Do you follow your government’s advice’ What if the government advises you to get out – where does that leave your business if you have oil wells, mines or factories’ Marcus McCritchie is the Singapore-based regional security director South East Asia for International SOS. As the name suggests the company provides medical help – from a doctor on the end of a phone at an alarm centre, to an evacuation by chartered aircraft. But clients with staff overseas not only want to know about whether they can drink the water and eat the salad in the hotel restaurant – clients need to know what are the dangers from kidnap for ransom, terrorism, civil war …. Marcus says on the line from Singapore: ‘We did pick up government advisories before Bali which were talking in terms of avoiding places where many westerners go to and that spoke about bars and restaurants but of course no-one was talking specifically in terms of locations like Bali.’ He stresses that the International SOS reponse to Bali was a holistic one – supporting clients from a medical, and security, point of view. One of Marcus’ security team was on the ground at Kuta, the resort where the nightclub bomb exploded, within 12 hours, ‘and he was feeding back to our security centre in Singapore his assessment in terms of what had occurred. He was able to look at the bomb site, get a feel for what was behind it, and secondly look at what was still a threat, because we had to start providing advice to clients about whether they should still stay there or leave; whether they should still travel there. We were immediately able to provide that type of information and I was able to feed that into our website. ‘ The response to Bali was then primarily a medical one – including chartering a Hercules transport aircraft as a carrier of patients in beds. Marcus adds: ‘The security side becomes more important because the threat from terrorism is now viewed as medium to long-term – it isn’t resolving itself overnight in the Asia region.’ Clients want to know the threats – to their business, their industry segment, and the country they are operating in. Questions such as: what should they be telling their people about travel’ If the advice is essential travel only, what counts as essential’ Those questions are not answered by governments’ broad advice, especially if companies are running contracts to mine resources that they cannot very well walk away from. In that case, the client needs advice on how to moderate behaviour, so that they can continue to operate. ‘I have had many conversations with security directors from organisations who are struggling with taht – trying to understand what is the real threat, beyond these broad brush advisories, and providing common-sense, actionable frameworks for their ex-pats and travellers to operate.’ Hand on our hearts, Marcus adds, no-one was saying before the bombing ‘don’t go to Bali’ – and that brings home the reality of how difficult it is to pick the next target. ‘It isn’t just restricted to Asia, of course. The next target probably won’t be a bar, it could be a cruise liner – somewhere with a lot of westerners.’ It’s not only militant Islamic terrorism that clients have to consider in south and south-east Asia, Marcus says – there are localised issues, perhaps crime and kidnaps, or ethnic violence or separatist movements, besides the potential for fall-out from a war in the Middle East. This all makes it a complex picture for the world business traveller. Marcus says: ‘Since 9-11 there has been some shift in thinking in the business community. There is an increase in corporate literacy, if you like, around corporate risk. Everybody wants to know more, what programmes they should have in place.’ Corporations are appreciating that securing assets is not merely a drain on the bottom line.
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Tom Major is International SOS’ regional security director for Europe, Middle East, Africa and CIS, based in their London W6 office. He describes how calls from clients can be divided into four:<br><br>
1) general advice. A client bounces an idea off the call centre.<br>
2) referral. Say there has been a kidnap or ransom or product tampering, or a client requires a guard force or security measures around a site. Say a businessman for whatever reason is trapped in his hotel room in a country suffering from civil unrest, and needs a bodyguard or escort to get to the airport and away. International SOS does not do the work but refers the client to a provider of such services.<br>
3) contingency planning. This is more involved. If a country goes out of control, or is caught up in a neighbouring or regional conflict, questions from clients may be: can you provide a charter aircraft for x people, if we need it, and for what cost’ And what are the logistics'<br>
4) Actually carrying out plans: ‘Proportionally, happens least of all.’ An evacuation is affected by things such as war risk insurance, and the unknowns such as whether an airport will grant permission to land – maybe a couple of hours previously the military have shut it down. <br>
International SOS cannot perform miracles, but in the worst case wide-bodied aircraft can take large numbers of people from a country where commercial aircraft cannot land. In situations that can change by the day, Tom Major says: ‘We make it clear to clients at the planning stage, get the contact lists, your communications – all these facilities lined up. Don’t think about scenarios because you may have planned for ten different scenarios and probably number 11 happens. Because that is what we are – a permanent crisis management centre.’
Ivory Coast – the west African state that on the day of Professional Security’s visit was in its sixth week of civil strife – is on Tom’s patch. It’s an example of how security advice is complex and fluid – unlike a relatively more cut and dried medical diagnosis of illness or injury, where you decide to fly someone to Johannesburg, or Paris, for treatment, or not. If civil unrest gives way to civil war, foreign nationals may notbe targets – but then armed rebels or mobs are not the most predictable factors. Western governments will not necessarily give similar advice to nationals about a strife-torn country. Political reasons may intrude – the volume of a nation’s interests in that country may be used as a card in the political game. US companies may have more fears of litigation if their employees are caught up in trouble, so at the slightest sniff of trouble US multinationals may pull out, whereas European and Afircan ones may stay put. International SOS’ task is to hold to a consistent line – leaving it to the client to choose, how to weigh the business risks, whose line to take. Ivory Coast has seen some factories up-country fall into rebel-held territory, and thus shut down and with all assets lost. As in Zimbabwe, the Cote d’Ivorie has indigineous Frenchmen, whose gut feeling is to hang on in what is after all their home. Whether to pull out or not can therefore be emotive. Tom Major adds that it is very stressful for executives in head offices who are making these decisions, while people on the ground are facing the threats. Some counselling may be called for. To take fragments of just one day’s website and e-mail advice to clients about Ivory Coast: ‘considerable civil unrest in Abijan today, set to continue through the night … numerous protests … strongly advise clients to stand fast in a safe location and avoid unnecessary movement around Abijan tonight and tomorrow morning until the security situation is clearer. Non-essential personnel and dependants should still consider plans to leave on commercial flights … Stay away from all crowds … Obey curfew.’ The advice goes on to describe where International SOS would use as the nearest safe location – and what information about yourself is needed if you haven’t got a visa for that place. Ensure you have packed a departure kit and be prepared to gather at your company-nominated assembly point. And even if you are in a panic, do not forget to carry water and food … and make arrangements for your pets.
