Author: Peter Maass

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. In 1983, after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I went to Brussels as a copy editor for The Wall Street Journal/Europe. I left the Journal in 1985 to write for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, covering NATO and the European Union. In 1987 I moved to Seoul, South Korea, where I wrote primarily for The Washington Post. After three years in Asia I moved to Budapest to cover Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I spent most of 1992 and 1993 covering the war in Bosnia for the Post.

The Horror

The Washington Post
August 27, 2000
(Review of “Me Against My Brother: At War in Somalia, Sudan and Rwanda” by Scott Peterson)

Africa is an expression of vastness. It is a matter not just of size but of drama and emotion; so much occurs in Africa, and at so many extremes. This is a blessing ... (Read more)

Another Day in the Drop Zone

Outside Magazine
July 2000

BAIDOA, SOMALIA

“Salat! Salat!”

The call to prayer came at 4:30 a.m.

“Pray! Pray! It’s better to pray than to sleep!”

I was staying in a house across the street from one of Baidoa’s mosques, so there was no chance of dozing. As the echoes ... (Read more)

Open Sesame: North Korea Opens Up

The New Republic
June 12, 2000

In early 1995, Tony Namkung received a phone call from a diplomat at the North Korean mission to the United Nations. Would it be possible, the diplomat asked, to arrange for the magician David Copperfield to perform in Pyongyang? Namkung, a resident scholar at the Atlantic ... (Read more)

Is Prayer the Best Medicine?

Talk Magazine
June 2000

The woman is enmeshed in the wondrous gadgetry of modern medicine. A rotating X-ray machine swings around her on a C-shaped arm. Video monitors show images of her heart as well as her vital signs. Doctors and nurses, clad in lead-lined vests, look like clinical RoboCops. The ... (Read more)

Court Martial: An Islamic Militia Gains Ground in Somalia

The New Republic
March 13, 2000

Over the past decade Somalia has earned a reputation as the world capital of senseless violence. It scores almost as high in the poverty department. The coastal city of Merca, then, is that strangest of phenomena–a Somali boomtown. Merca’s marketplace is loaded ... (Read more)

James Nachtwey’s Inferno

George Magazine
December 1999

When you drove into wartime Sarajevo along Sniper Alley, you passed a wall that bore the slogan “Welcome to Hell.” This dark greeting would be appropriate for each of the bloodied nations that photojournalist James Nachtwey visited in the last decade of the ... (Read more)

Serbia on the Couch

Talk Magazine
December 1999

“Say out loud that you feel repelled looking into the eyes of a murderer,” Zoran whispered. “I saw the expression in your eyes when I first told you what happened.”

Tijana Mandic hesitated. After 25 years as a psychologist, Mandic thought she had heard ... (Read more)

Get Ready, Here Comes the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle

The New York Times Magazine
September 26, 1999

Dale Reis and Jerry Lockard lead the way into a land of secrets. Reis punches in a code and a locked door clicks open with the metallic sound of a bullet clip sliding into place. They enter an arena of cubicles that would resemble any office in Dilbert’s ... (Read more)

To Enter Heaven, Click Here: Isaac Tigrett Wants To Do Good But Can He Do Well?

Talk Magazine
September 1999

When you walk into Isaac Tigrett’s house in Sherman Oaks, California, you feel you are entering a church whose pastor has a spiritual version of multiple-personality disorder. Tibetan prayer flags hang from the rafters of the living room, not far from a trio of Buddhas, ... (Read more)

I Am Elena. You Will Fly Now.

Outside Magazine
July 1999

Elena Klimovich is tying me down. She tightens the straps around my hips, fastens the cords that pin my shoulders in place, and then uses a small winch to eliminate the few millimeters of slack that escaped her attention. I try to stay calm, but this is difficult under the ... (Read more)