Maisha Haaretz

By Hilo Glazer

The killing fields Nir Kalron provided arms and training to African fighters – until he began to question his work on the troubled continent and turned his attention to saving the threatened elephant population. Haaretz reporter Hilo Glazer joined him on a daring mission aimed at stopping poachers in the Central African Republic

Chapter 1: Quick snacks

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or the average poacher, entering Dzanga-Bai − an elliptical clearing in a wooded area that covers about 125 dunams (‫‏‬30 acres‫‏‬ ) in the heart of the Dzanga-Sangha Forest Reserve at the southwest tip of the Central African Republic − is like entering a candy store.

Herds of antelope, African forest buffaloes, giant forest hogs, red river hogs and many more species can be found at any given moment. But the greatest attraction is the elephants. They have made the clearing their regular place of gathering, a kind of round-the-clock venue for an informal cocktail party, as it were, and have given the area its name (‫ ‏‬Dzanga Bai means “village of elephants” in the local dialect‫)‏‬.

In order to concentrate a large number of elephants in one area so as to perpetrate a mass slaughter of them − since, after all, a poacher has no time to waste until they make an appearance one by one − one can, for example, shoot them from the air. Elephants that encounter a hunter on the ground tend to scatter quickly and disappear into the brush within seconds. But when a helicopter hovers

above the herd they usually take fright and try to protect their young. Another “effective” method is to aim deliberately for the calves. Even though their tusks have not yet emerged − and ivory is what lures the poacher − shooting and maiming them will immediately cause the rest of the herd to gather around them.

Still, it’s unlikely that late last April, any of the members of the gang of Sudanese poachers who were making their way to the clearing − 18 men armed with 18 Kalashnikov assault rifles − had worked out an orderly plan of action or had devoted time to tactical preparations. They knew that the mineral-rich soil and the joy of sociability would in any case bring the elephants to the exposed area, which they frequent daily.

We can also assume that the wooden tree perch for tourists provided the men with a convenient position from which to spray the herd with gunfire at their leisure. According to one of the tall tales about the atrocity, which was afterward told in Bayanga, the closest town to the reserve, the hunters marked the collapse of each elephant by pounding their chest with a clenched fist, as though to indicate whose barrel fired the shot that caused

Elephants at Dzanga-Bai. A total of 26 elephants were killed there, yielding a booty of 52 tusks.

Getty Images / National Geographic Creative

the animal’s death, to make it clear who should get the credit. But these were really only fragments of rumors that were intended to pique the curiosity of the locals after the fact.

In point of fact, 26 elephants were killed that day, providing a booty of 52 sawn-off tusks. After the kill, the hunters appear to have headed northward, to the border with Sudan. The tusks were already being transported deep

into the republic, in the direction of the border with Cameroon, and were finally shipped to a port in the Far East, where the white ivory was sold on the black market for between $1,500 and $3,000 a kilo, depending on its quality and condition.

In other times it might have been possible to prevent the carnage − not to mention stop the shipment before it reached the ivory barons. But just

a month earlier, a coup was staged in the Central African Republic, led by the Seleka group (‫‏‬the word means “alliance” in Sangho, the local language‫)‏‬.

This coalition of five rebel militias carved up the country, dismantled its governmental institutions and plunged it into anarchy. As a result, no one pursued the poachers after their deed was discovered. No one tried to discover their identity or bring them to justice,

though in the days preceding the bloodbath the members of the gang had been in contact with many people in Bayanga and were hosted by the ruling colonel there. The only remnants of their crime in addition to the remains of the animals that were found in the forest clearing were wrinkled snack wrappers, and various kinds of candies and cookies, which they munched as they blasted away with their Kalashnikovs.

Chapter 2: Euphoria Nir Kalron, the Israeli-born associate owner of Maisha ‫(‏‬meaning “life,” in Swahili‫)‏‬, a security consulting firm that specializes in environmental projects, first arrived in Dzanga-Bai about two weeks after the slaughter. Not one elephant had yet dared return to the site.

As he made his way among the carcasses and bones that were scattered around,

an empty package of cookies of Dubai manufacture caught his eye. The brand looked familiar. Armed with that lead, however vague, he asked the reserve’s rangers, who had accompanied him, to help him find any bullet casings that remained at the site.

Walking about between the elephant herds is not recommended, and is in fact dangerous. However, because the elephants were now shunning the

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Chad Capital: Bangui Independence: 1960 (‫‏‬former French colony‫)‏‬ Borders: Chad ‫(‏‬north‫)‏‬, Sudan ‫(‏‬northeast‫)‏‬, South Sudan ‫(‏‬south‫)‏‬, Cameroon ‫(‏‬west‫)‏‬ Area: 622,941 sq. km., 45th in the world in size ‫(‏‬3 times the size of Britain, 30 times the size of Israel‫)‏‬ Population: 4.6 million (‫‏‬50% Christians, 35% native tribal groups, 15% Muslims‫)‏‬ Average lifespan: 48.35 years ‫(‏‬2nd-lowest in the world, ahead of Sierra Leone‫)‏‬ Exports: $191 million ‫(‏‬2011‫ )‏‬− 60 percent of them come from the diamond industry Imports: $305.6 million (‫‏‬2011‫)‏‬ scene of the trauma, the search area could be extended until a bullet casing was found. Kalron had been right in his hunch: The one he found bore an Iranian stamp of manufacture. Other bullets from the same series, which had reached Sudan in 2008, had been found at another, even more lethal killing field: the Bouba Njida National park in Cameroon. It was there that Kalron first came across the same cookie wrapping.

The systematic slaughter of the elephants in Bouba Nijida began in January 2012. In a three-month period, 650 elephants are estimated to have been shot to death there as the Cameroon authorities looked on. The first and only organization that entered the park during the killing spree, the International Fund for Animal Welfare ‫(‏‬IFWA‫)‏‬, believes that between 50 and 100 poachers took part in the prolonged massacre. Their clothes, and the fact that they spoke Arabic, suggested that they were from Chad and Sudan. IFAW officials told the media that most of the elephants were probably still alive when their tusks were wrenched from them. The basis for that reasoning was that only one bullet was found in some of the carcasses, which is not usually enough to kill an elephant. In addition, some of the elephants were found in a kneeling posture, which is probably how they were standing while the poachers hacked off their trunks with machetes and daggers.

Furthermore, the tips of the ears of the dead animals were removed with a round cut − a custom which probably originates in Sudanese culture and is not practiced by Cameroon poachers. The sliced-off piece of skin is kept as a “trophy,” attesting to the number of kills the poacher has made.

Kalron and his team subsequently arrived at the Bouba Njida scene of the disaster to formulate a plan to guard the reserve. However, it quickly became clear that there was nothing left to rescue ‫“(‏‬We didn’t even see elephant droppings”‫)‏‬, on top of which the Cameroon government was not very cooperative. But if a connection can be established between the Bouba Njida gang and the Dzanga-Bai group, making it possible to identify the poachers, perhaps that trip will not have been in vain. With such information, it will be possible to approach the U.S. State Department, ask Interpol to issue warrants for the men, and request that they be tried in Sudan, their apparent country of origin. Those channels of

Sudan

Central African Republic Bangui Cameroon

Congo

CongoBrazzaville

action are now being examined, though Kalron is the first to admit that the bulk of the effort must be aimed elsewhere ‫“(‏‬We need to go higher in the chain of command, to understand who they are selling to, because it’s the dealers who are the really big fish”‫)‏‬. Above all, he and his team need to concentrate on preventing the next disaster.

Kalron has been wandering about Africa for more than 13 years. A deep familiarity with the torn continent, such as he has developed, is essential for solving mysteries of this type, though he didn’t always necessarily concern himself with the fate of its wildlife population.

Specifically, during what he calls the “African period” of his life, which began as a demobilized soldier and is still continuing at the age of 35, he has undergone a profound change in perception about the involvement of Israeli businessmen in Africa.

He was born in Yavneh to a gung-ho military family − his father was an Israel Air Force pilot and his older brother served in a prestigious unit − so his service in the elite Shaldag air force commando unit, followed by a year in the career army, came to him naturally ‫“(‏‬But, on the other hand, I was too wild and too critical of the system to do an officers course”‫)‏‬. In 2000, after more than a year of storing up travel experiences abroad − the Caribbean, Cuba, Mexico, even a family-roots visit to Hungary − he was approached by a friend of the family, a retired colonel who is a weapons dealer in African countries (‫ ‏‬Kalron prefers that his name not be mentioned‫)‏‬, who asked whether he would like to take part in one of his projects. Kalron jumped at the chance.

After being trained as an instructor in the use of Israeli-made advanced observation devices, Kalron was thrust into the civil war in Burundi (‫“‏‬I was a kid of 23 who landed in one of the hottest conflicts in the world”‫)‏‬. He wrote about his experiences there, anonymously of course, in a special Haaretz supplement about Israelis abroad. The article was slightly apologetic in tone, but also exuded self-confidence: “I arrived in Africa in the context of a legal deal between the local government and an Israeli company,” he wrote. “I have no problems of conscience.”

Still, traces of guilt feelings were impossible to miss between the lines. “I will never forget the sight that unfolded before me,” Kalron wrote of a visit to

The team at a meeting in Tel Aviv ‫(‏‬from left‫)‏‬: Arik Rosenfeld, Omer Barak, Nir Kalron and Tomer Silverstein. “We are coming as security people with a clear agenda,” says Kalron.

Tomer Appelbaum

a military base. “Children of 13-14 held rifles, the wounded were crowded into a moldy room and received minimal treatment; amputee soldiers lay there with a totally apathetic look in their eyes, as though they had grown utterly weary of their life.”

As it happened, the supplement also carried an interview by Gideon Levy with Ofir Drori, who founded an organi-

Humanitarian situation after the coup:

1.6 Million inhabitants

need immediate basic aid in the form of food, water, shelter and medicine

206,000

Internally displaced persons in Central African Repubic

60,000 Refugees

have fled to neighboring countries, most to the Democratic Republic of Congo

650,000 Children do not attend school

12,000

Children suffer from malnutrition

1,408 Cases of sexual offens

were reported from May to July 2013 the period covered by the Security Council report (‫ ‏‬dated Aug. 5‫ )‏‬from which these data come

zation in Cameroon to save apes in danger of extinction and who would later play an important role in Kalron’s life ‫“(‏‬Already then, as I leafed through the Haaretz supplement and saw that text, I took note of Drori”‫)‏‬.

Toward the end of his scheduled stay in Burundi, Kalron realized that if he wanted to stay in the business he would have to learn French. He flew to Bordeaux, spent half a year there, and returned to Africa to train armed forces under the auspices of the family-friend colonel, moving between Ivory Coast, Uganda, Tanzania and Gabon.

In 2004, he was appointed head of a project to modernize the air force of Burkina Faso, and put in charge of a team of some 10 instructors, most from the former Soviet Union. One free evening, between drinks and in a congenial atmosphere, a senior Russian general boasted to him about arms deals between the Kremlin and Iran. This was the point at which the doubts began to gnaw at Kalron. “Suddenly I asked myself: Where do you draw the line? You shake hands and guzzle vodka with these people, while at the same time they are feeding our biggest enemies with weapons. Questions of morality also started to bother me then − you can’t deal in arms in Africa without thinking about what those arms are doing to the [African] continent.”

“There is no conflict on the continent that I have not researched from every possible angle,” he continues. “It’s an uncomfortable feeling to know that you are part of it. There is no way to remain indifferent when you read about all the people in Sierra Leone whose limbs were cut off − it’s probably the country with the highest concentration of amputees in the world − or about pregnant women whose fetuses were ripped out while they were still alive, and then were kicked around.

Not to mention the massacre in Rwanda.

You read and look for a way out.”

The rangers can handle sporadic criminals, but what happens when Kony, the leader of the much-feared Lord’s Resistance Army guerrilla group, has decided to seize control of the reserve’s natural resources?

The Second Lebanon War broke out in the summer of 2006 and, recalls Kalron, “Within five hours I was on an Air France plane, heading home and straight to the unit. The dilemmas about what I was doing in Africa continued to crop up during the war. You see the Russian equipment opposite you, the goals it serves, and that makes you think.” He returned to Burkina Faso after the war, but his relations with the colonel had soured. In the meantime he met Melanie, a Canadian woman who was working there as part of a banking project. Her pacifist philosophy suited his wavering state of mind.

The two decided to pack it up in Burkina Faso and rent an apartment in the Old North of Tel Aviv. But their different mindsets could not be ignored. Melanie felt hemmed in by Israel. She declared that she had no intention of raising children in the country, still less of sending them to the army when the time came.

The couple broke up after two years.

Following a series of what can be called extreme experiences, Kalron switched direction toward a more grounded path: law studies. But the yearning for Africa

and for exotica gave him no rest. Every so often, but persistently, he asked Dr. Bill Clark, an Israeli-American zoologist − an old friend of his father’s from the Israel Nature and Parks Authority who worked in Africa − whether there was any work there. The nagging paid off: Clark put him on to a new project, based on modest donations (‫“‏‬I had to help pay for the airplane ticket”‫)‏‬, to train rangers for night-vision combat in Kenya’s Tsavo National Park.

Kalron: “I was taken to the animal orphanage in Nairobi, where I petted cubs whose parents had been killed by poachers, and from there went to the park.

Suddenly I saw weapons in a completely different context. Those who were being trained in their use were people with ideals, and for an amazing cause. There I was, with Kilimanjaro in the background, 200 monkeys around me, giraffes behind me. I was euphoric. It was as though a world had been revealed to me.”

He read voraciously about Somali tribes ‫“(‏‬They are, like, the bad guys − very tough, violent people”‫)‏‬, the ivory trade, and wild animals in danger of extinction: “I compiled all kinds of reports and position papers. I was convinced that I was going to solve the world’s poaching problem. But Bill calmed me down: ‘Hey, kid, take it easy! We’ve been dealing with this for 30 years already,’ he told me.”

Chapter 3: Tel Aviv August 2013, early afternoon on Saturday. Melody, whom Kalron recently married, places a dish of nuts and seeds on the kitchen table for us to nibble on, and leaves. Omer Barak, the intelligence operative of Maisha Consulting, Kalron’s security company, inserts an orange capsule into the espresso machine, and then immediately another one. Dexter, a German Shepherd that was imported from Senegal and named for the serial killer of the television series of that

name, actually looks quite sedate. The view out the window is of Tel Baruch beach, but our attention today is directed far to the south: Maisha has received information that another group of poachers from northern Sudan is on the way to Bayanga. The last hunt apparently whetted the gang’s appetite, and ivory − the white gold − is always a going commodity in the Far East.

The previous wave of elephanticide took place in the 1980s, propelled by the Japanese economic boom. It’s estimated that the mass killings at that time reduced the elephant population of Africa from about 1.3 million to just 600,000, and that at its peak 70,000 elephants a year were slaughtered.

The current wave, which is claiming the lives of about 30,000 elephants a year, is the result of the red-hot economy in China. Absurdly, even as the markets in China, Vietnam and elsewhere in Asia become more sophisticated and progressive, traditional beliefs continue to be espoused. For example, the powder produced from ivory or from rhino horns is considered to possess ritual, religious and cultural powers.

According to data published in March in Plos One, an online science magazine, within the past decade (‫‏‬2002-2012‫ )‏‬the elephant population of Africa has been slashed by 62 percent. If the poaching isn’t stopped, their extinction is only a matter of time.

The ivory trade has been dubbed the “new blood diamonds of Africa” by the media. The quest for ivory is also known to be one of the causes of the brutal conflicts involving guerrilla groups across the continent. Nevertheless, the international community has rarely taken action. NGOs and other groups that are trying to contain the poaching offensive, emphasizing the ecological damage it is creating, have had little success.

It’s this vacuum that Kalron wants to enter. His approach could hardly be more different from that of the “tree-hugging” organizations, as some call them with contempt. “It is clear to everyone that we are not do-gooders from some not-forprofit association who will ask people politely to take care of the environment. We are coming in as security people with a clear agenda and we bring money, equipment and gifts. We speak their language, kiss their beards, preserve some sort of ambiguity. Those people were raised on legends of the CIA, and that works in our favor.”

In order to formulate a strategy for Dzanga-Sangha, it’s necessary to understand the situation there − a complicated task given the geographical, and mental, distance between Bayanga and north Tel Aviv. Kalron is one step ahead of the game in this respect: During two previous visits to the region he forged ties with a few local people and recruited them as intelligence agents of a sort. After a few phone calls in French (‫ ‏‬Kalron‫ )‏‬and Arabic (‫ ‏‬Barak‫)‏‬, the picture that emerges is that the Sudanese gang recruited two local guides to take them to the village of Liboko, a necessary point of passage on the way to the reserve. The Seleka rebels who control the village blocked the Sudanese, who were armed with Kalashnikovs and wore civilian garb, and arrested the two guides ‫(‏‬who later escaped‫)‏‬. The Sudanese apparently backtracked, but it is not clear whether they have given up their plan or are regrouping. In any event, the impres-

sion is that the level of preparedness can be reduced.

That’s also good news for another reason. For their next trip, Kalron and his team have set themselves an ambitious program that will demand their full concentration: to install a network of cameras in the forest clearing frequented by the elephants, so that it can be remotely monitored. Kalron hopes that the cameras will deter lawbreakers, and also that a precedent will be set for the use of technological aids in the battle to eliminate environmental criminals.

Where do you draw the line, I ask. If the idea is to respond by using unconventional means − what stops you from planting listening devices in the offices of the directors and senior officials of the reserves, for example? “The line is the law,” Kalron says, “and we will also not do anything that will infringe the sovereignty of a country, however unstable it might be. But it is definitely possible that we will use technology that is classified as legal, such as installing espionage programs in mobile instruments.

Techniques that it might be impossible to use in a nature reserve in London can be of great help in a country such as the Central African Republic.”

Chapter 4: In pursuit of Joseph Kony The first time a pistol was pointed at his head was in Burkina Faso, when he found himself caught in a violent clash between police and soldiers. The original plan was to stay in the hotel until the situation outside calmed down. But Kalron, who was asked to go to the airport to pick up an acquaintance, was stopped along the way by a soldier who accused him of being a policeman.

“He was probably drunk or on drugs,” Kalron recalls. “Out of the corner of my eye I see a 9-mm. pistol with the most sensitive trigger: It was liable to be squeezed at any second, even by accident. Fortunately, my local driver persuaded him that I was from the Israeli army.”

Kalron has since given up training fighters, but you can still find yourself on the firing line trying to save wild animals. After the discouraging experience in Kenya, Kalron made a few more visits to Africa to take part in environmental projects, and at the same time agreed to manage security for the Africa Cup of Nations, the continent’s soccer championship tournament, held in Gabon a year and a half ago. That turned out to be a demanding job, so he and Melody moved to Brazzaville, the capital, at the end of 2010. The shuttling between African destinations subsequently stopped at Melody’s mother’s home, outside Munich, but that European adventure was broken off after three months, with a phone call from a representative of the African Parks Network, who told Kalron that he was needed urgently in Garamba National Park. The park, which stretches across 15,000 square kilometers in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo (‫ ‏‬formerly Zaire‫)‏‬, is home to elephants, hippos, giraffes, crocodiles and antelopes. Human greed brought about the extinction of the white rhinos in the reserve − and, indeed, in the world − once again because of the widespread be-

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Nir Kalron ‫(‏‬center‫ )‏‬with Col. Bahit ‫(‏‬left‫ )‏‬and two of his deputies. “Obviously we were apprehensive,” Kalron says. At right, village women.

at the base belonging to a United Nations force, about 50 minutes by air from the reserve, and implored the Guatemalan representative and the Congolese regional commander to summon assistance.

Two hours later, 50 Guatemalan troops arrived at the reserve ‫“(‏‬They each looked like Rambo, with a bandana and a bandolier across the chest”‫)‏‬. They were joined the next day by so-called Congolese commandos, who turned out to be an unimpressive lot ‫“(‏‬a group of pothead hippies who looked tired and strung out − it turned out that the real commandos were occupied with a mission somewhere else”‫‏‬ ). After spotting the footprints of 15 to 20 men, the force, which numbered 70, including the instructors from Israel, followed them. After constructing a rope bridge to cross a river, where only a month earlier a crocodile had opened its jaws wide and devoured a ranger, the force pushed on, though occasionally delayed by the rowdy “Congolese reconnaissance unit.”

After three days in the heart of the savannah, and after traversing a swamp, the international force reached a point 200 meters from the poachers. They were about to open fire when one of the poachers, who had left the camp to chop wood, spotted them and fired three shots.

The incompetent commandos from Congo fired back, but somehow no one was hit. While that group followed an order to climb a hill in order to gain a tactical advantage, the poachers were able to slip away into the dense underbrush.

In desperation the Guatemalans fired a volley of mortars in the direction of the fleeing poachers, but to no avail.

The breakthrough came after the shooting stopped. The intelligence information that was collected by Kalron and his staff from the poachers’ hastily abandoned camp was transmitted to the Sudanese side of the border. Suspects were arrested within a few weeks.

Members of the former South Sudan

Army, they admitted their guilt and described the encounter in great detail. In the end, they turned not to be Kony’s soldiers.

“The truth is that we were quite pleased that it ended the way it did and not with a pile of dead poachers on the ground,” Kalron says. I ask whether gunfights were part of his plan when he accepted the assignment. “Look, we led the force in the direction of the target, but just as we were about to engage them, we backed off a little. There were a thousand other risks − crocodiles, snakes, stray bullets, duds − but to stand in the front line of fire was definitely not the goal.”

Kony was not caught in Garamba, and in recent months it has begun to be increasingly likely that he is hiding in the vast expanses of the jungles in the Central African Republic. After almost 25 years in which the United States did not get directly involved, the Obama administration sent several dozen Special Forces troops into the area in October 2011, fortified by 3,000 Ugandan troops, to hunt down Kony and his militia. A “60 Minutes” television crew accompanied a squad from the force, which killed one of Kony’s top bodyguards. But just as it seemed that the capture of the most wanted war criminal since Osama Bin Laden was only days away, the searches were called off because of the coup in CAR and general instability in the region.

According to the organization Invisible Children, which closely monitors the activity of the LRA, Kony’s militia has been involved in at least four violent incidents in CAR since the coup.

In one, which took place near gold and diamond mines last April, six local inhabitants were murdered and decapitated, and their heads strung from a tree. In another case, one of Kony’s units ran into a squad from a popular-resistance organization in Sudan, on the border with CAR.

The organization claims that a six-yearold son of Kony and a woman of 20, apparently one of his wives, were rescued from the ensuing battle.

In June, an attempt to renew the American-Ugandan hunt for Kony failed because of what was described as lack of cooperation on the part of the new Seleka government. At the same time, it is important to point out that according to Invisible Children, the Seleka army has fired back in most of the clashes with the LRA, and some of its troops paid with their lives. In the meantime, speculation is rife that the Seleka rebels are imitating Kony’s methods, at least with regard to the recruitment of child soldiers: Eye witnesses have reported seeing youngsters taking part in killing operations. In light of this, the UN Security Council on August 14 issued a statement expressing “grave concern” about “the upsurge in activity of the Lord’s Resistance Army in the Central African Republic due in part to the prevailing security situation.”

I ask Kalron whether it’s possible that, without admitting it, he is tracking Kony and dreams of capturing the outlaw himself. He denies this. “I have both feet planted firmly on the ground,” he says. “We sat with the Americans and exchanged information we had about Kony.

But that is only a byproduct of the fact that I am immersed in the African story.

It’s important for me to be up front and exert influence, but that doesn’t come from a childish place that says, ‘I’ll be the one to get him.’”

into anarchy and uncertainty, which has also brought to the surface underlying tensions between the Muslim minority ‫(‏‬to which most of the Seleka leadership belongs‫‏‬ ) and the Christian population.

According to most estimates, about 400 people were killed in the unrest that accompanied the coup. Human Rights Watch has reported that since February, when the uprising gathered momentum, more than 1,000 homes have been torched and 34 villages destroyed. Other organizations report cases of unbridled

brutality by Seleka troops trying to quell pockets of resistance.

A UN envoy painted a gloomy picture after a four-day visit to the country last month: The central government is weak, the justice system has collapsed, the police are paralyzed, the social services have disintegrated, government ministries are in ruins, the schools are closed and only about 20 medical institutions remain active. The rapid spread of malaria and other diseases − a development not necessarily related directly to the

A butchered elephant. In the Far East, ivory is in constant demand.

Percentage of elephants killed by hunters in Africa

Chapter 5: Beans and rice Even without the possible presence of Kony or his army, there are plenty of reasons for concern about the current mission in the CAR. Since March 24, when the Seleka rebels seized the capital, Bangui, ousted the president, Francois Bozize, and installed their leader, Michel Djotodia − the country has been plunged

72% 40%

2002

35%

2003

45% 30%

2004

2005

37%

2006

45%

2007

78%

55% 40%

2008

2009

2010

2011

Nuria Ortega

lief in Eastern Asia in the virtues of the animal’s horn. The park’s high grass, dense forests, swamps and hilly terrain pose challenges to poachers, but the natural obstacles are not enough. In addition, there are rangers, mostly local ones, hired by the European association that manages the reserve.

The rangers can handle sporadic criminals, but what happens when information is received that Joseph Kony, the leader of the much-feared Lord’s Resistance Army guerrilla group, has decided to seize control of the reserve’s natural resources? The LRA has been terrorizing wide swaths of Africa for more than two decades. Kony has been indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including vast numbers of murders and instances of cannibalism, rape, amputation of limbs and abduction of children for use as sex slaves.

According to a report issued by a group of rebels who defected from the LRA, Kony gave an explicit order in 2005 to kill elephants for their ivory, so as to support and arm his forces. “With prices at record-high levels, trading illegal ivory offers the LRA another way to sustain itself in addition to its habitual pillaging,” said the British paper The Daily Mail last June 3.

Kony’s militiamen have carried out their orders systematically, turning Garamba National Park into their favorite slaughterhouse. In January 2009, 200 of them attacked the reserve’s main office, killed 15 members of the staff, abducted two children, burned vehicles and buildings, and caused damage of $2 million as they slashed their way to reaping the park’s ivory treasures.

To ensure that such an episode does not recur, or is met with resistance if it does, Kalron and his partner in Maisha, Tomer Silverstein − formerly the head of security for the president of Panama, and with four years of service in the Prime Minister’s Office in Israel to his credit − were asked to provide basic military training to the 90 rangers. Dr. Arik Rosenfeld, an ecological consultant and an expert in the field of remote sensing, analyzed the topography of the site and found “elephant trails,” along which ambushes could be laid for the poachers. As the team in Israel was preparing for the mission, the rangers at Garamba spotted vultures hovering above a hill in the center of the park and assumed they were drawn by an elephant carcass. Arriving at the site, they encountered about 50 armed men. Miraculously, they managed to escape unharmed.

Kalron and Silver were given two and a half months to teach the rangers the basics, to ensure that in their next encounter they would be able to fight back. One night, shots were heard. The next day’s patrols found some of the victims: a butchered elephant whose tusk and trunk had been hacked off, and two slaughtered giraffes. A satellite-based system − a kind of chip inserted in the giraffes’ necks − made it possible to determine the route followed by the gang in the park on the way to the border with South Sudan.

Kalron and his group wanted to confront the poachers, but the limited means in the rangers’ possession, along with the still-vivid trauma of the earlier encounter, demanded reinforcements. The Kalron team arranged an urgent meeting

conflict − is taking a fearful toll, and a serious food shortage is expected within a few months in the wake of the devastating blow to the country’s agriculture.

The UN representative also expressed concern that the disaster in the CAR was getting so little attention, both in the media and from the international community. In July, Doctors Without Borders issued a report about the dire situation in the country, which warned that “despite the increasing needs, the humanitarian presence in the country has been drastically reduced.”

In the circumstances, the idea of dropping into the CAR to save elephants seemed worth reconsidering. “It’s a place we hadn’t previously worked in, in a country that was always problematic,” Kalron notes, “and now it’s in the midst of an ongoing war. Obviously we were apprehensive.” It was Omer Barak who pushed for the mission to go ahead. A childhood friend of Kalron’s, Barak is a journalist who formerly headed the news division at the daily Maariv, and he was an officer in the IDF’s 8200 intelligence unit.

“I told him [Kalron] that this was a model that requires intervention,” Barak, who joined Maisha recently, said in the decisive conversation between them which took place one recent evening in Kalron’s Fiat 500. “The massacre in Dzanga-Sangha was reported in the media and was discussed extensively, but no one had answers. My feeling was that the situation was intolerable and that if we thought we had something to contribute in this sphere, this was the opportunity to demonstrate it.”

Once the decision to go ahead was made, the immediate task at hand was to make contact with the rebel government, which now controlled the reserve. Kalron had previous connections with elements in Seleka, but something more concrete was needed. The way forward was found − surprise, surprise − via Google: A search led Barak

to Andrea Turkalo, a biologist working with the Wildlife Conservation Society and a founding member of the Elephant Listening Project associated with Cornell University. For the past 23 years, she has lived in a Spartan hut in the heart of Dzanga-Sangha, her base of operations for studying the behavior of the elephants in the forest clearing. Barak emailed her, but discovered that she had been evacuated from the site in the wake of the coup. However, she referred him to a man named Tawfik, a local resident of Mauritanian origin who runs a grocery store in Bayanga. A real macher type, he has a hand in everything and has the colonel’s ear. Kalron made the calls.

“The first call mostly involved namedropping on my part. I was confident and maintained an aura of ambiguity,” he says. “Apparently he got interested when I told him I was coming there. He probably thought, ‘Everyone is getting out of here and this idiot is coming? Let’s see whom we’re dealing with.’”

Kalron and Silverstein entered CAR and traveled straight to Tawfik’s grocery store. He set up a meeting for them with the colonel.

Kalron: “[The colonel] got out of the car with his bodyguards, all of them with bandoliers. The dynamics were very tense. Let me say, in a problematic generalization, that Africans are nice, cheerful people, but that when their cruel side shows itself you spot it in a second. The colonel barely spoke. One of his lieutenants was irritable and sweating, probably from malaria, and the situation was definitely unpleasant. We gave them a shipment of food as a gift − around 200 kilos of rice, green beans, etc. − which we had bought for something like $1,000.

We explained confidently the purpose of our visit and said we wanted to create relations of trust and cooperation with them.”

In the meantime, the Israelis recruited two heavyweight international organizations for the mission. The Wildlife Conservation Society, which is associated with five zoos in New York City, provided initial funding. Assistance came from the World Wildlife Fund, which has representatives in Bangaya, though in fewer numbers since the coup. The WWF was pleased to cooperate and allowed Maisha to operate on its behalf.

“The fact that we were a kind of coordinating element allowed us to use the American connection.” Kalron explains.

“We were able to tell the colonel that we were emissaries from Washington.

Slowly the ice was broken and he said we were invited to stay and to bring with us whomever we wanted.”

Where did you “smell the money” here, I ask Kalron. After all, you didn’t come as the representative of an NGO. “I didn’t smell money,” he replies. “I smelled the potential sources in the field, the possibility of planting a flag in another place.

And don’t forget that we also care very much about the subject. We felt that the situation with the elephants was a call to arms. Look, I am not some big businessman, but it would have been idiotic not to think about how I would go about things.

Obviously I was aware of the fact that if we managed to get in , we would be the first and only ones to do so.”

W Next week: encounters with members of guerrilla forces and local residents, and the revelation of clues relating to the killers of the elephants. The full story will also be available on haaretz.com.

According to UNEP data

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