A Field Man in Pakistan

The Kidnapping of a Field Man in Pakistan
by Richard Bulliet


The news broke today, February 2, about the kidnapping of John Solecki, the top UN official in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. When I heard the news, I could not help but think back to earlier moments in John's career. He had been a student of mine in Columbia College, and I got to know him even better when he worked for a master’s degree in the School of International and Public Affairs. We became good friends, and in those days I remember him often wondering about the kind of career he might have.


Then he started working with refugees, first on a contract basis and then for the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. A few years later he told me he had found his calling. “I’m a field man,” he said. Working with refugees in the field is what he does best. He is imperturbable. He soothes the feelings of people in distress. They know without his having to say it that he is doing his best to help them. And he does help them.


Though his career path has pushed him toward being an administrator, he seems to always end up in the field again and again. John has brought aid and comfort to people in the Gaza Strip, the Saudi-Iraqi border, Kurdistan, Egypt, and finally Quetta in Pakistan. The next stop is supposed to be Kabul, Afghanistan. He is looking forward to that: John goes where the refugees are.


Why would anyone kidnap a man who has spent his entire career serving the needs of people in distress under the auspices of the United Nations? He is an American citizen, but he doesn’t work for or represent the United States government. John has been moving from one chaotic region to another, not as a soldier or a military contractor, but rather, as a “field man” for the world’s desperate refugees. The refugee camp is his beat, not the field of battle. He does not travel with a bodyguard or shun populated areas.


When he was in New York City recently he told me a bit about his job in Quetta. He said that the Baluch nationalists that sometimes agitate for autonomy from Pakistan are not suspicious of him and his work. The Afghan Taliban, too, did not strike him as threatening. He said they were everywhere in Quetta. They set off from there on raids into Afghanistan. But for them Quetta is a quiet rear area, not a place to stage an international incident.


On the other hand, he spoke warily of the Pakistani Taliban. These, he explained, are Pakistanis who share the religious dedication and militant determination of their Afghan counterparts. But their objective is undermining Pakistan’s government, not Afghanistan’s.


It is not yet known who took John or what they have done or intend to do with him. My guess is that he is already trying to talk to them in his direct and unflappable manner. And he is probably aware that people in many governments and agencies are working to secure his release. I’m sure he is calmer than I or anyone else I know would be under similar circumstances.


Some years ago, when he came back from a year’s assignment in Gaza, he showed me a picture of his car. I think it was a Land Rover. It had inch-in-diameter holes in the windows. He chuckled as he explained that they were made by Israeli rubber bullets. I asked him whether he had been frightened. He shrugged and said that that was what a field man has to expect.


Good luck, John. Keep the faith.




Richard Bulliet is Professor of History at Columbia University and author of Islam: The View from the Edge and The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization.


Copyright © 2009 Richard Bulliet – distributed by Agence Global