The Technicals of Somalia and Darfur

Just as Toyota's reliable, affordable, and accessible Corolla has brought prosperity and stability to the people of Afghanistan, the equally reliable, affordable, and accessible Land Cruiser has brought misery and terror to the peoples of Somalia and Darfur.

News footage of the war torn regions inevitably shows young thugs and militiamen riding in Toyota Land Cruisers, often with the cab's roof hastily chopped off and with an obligatory machine gun mounted in the bed. These vehicles are called "technicals".

The term for the vehicle originated in Mogadishu, Somalia. Red Cross officials had to pay local strongmen bribes for protection. These strongmen usually had fleets of armed Land Cruisers. The Red Cross wrote off these bribes as "technical expenses."

Technicals proved to be effective in urban and desert warfare. The high clearance vehicles cleared sand dunes as easily as potholes. In the Toyota War, a 1987 conflict which pitted a conventional mechanized Libyan army with a ragtag group of Chadian guerillas riding in Toyotas, the Chadians destroyed one tenth of the Libyan army.

The technicals are even more fearsome when their guns are aimed at unarmed civilians. Whether a technical is driving by at 100 km/hr shooting indiscriminately or at a complete stop with its gun shooting at a precise target, the technical is the ultimate weapon of terror. The mere sight or sound of a technical brings back horrifying flashbacks throughout refugee camps in Africa's Horn.

Because these hardy Toyotas can withstand grueling conditions with little to no maintenance, they will keep running for years, if not decades. Too bad the Janjaweed and Somali warlords didn't pick something less reliable and more temperamental, like a Land Rover or a UAZ.

Alas, the unintentional consequence of building a solid, reliable vehicle.

CKY