Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way (17 page)

“
My transcendent emotional feeling is grief for the loss of what might have been,
”
Hornbein wrote.
“
Like you, I feel as if I was stupidly conned, wanting to believe in the cause and its value and Greg
’
s motivations. Part of me still wants to believe that there was/is something sincere in what he was setting about to do to change the world a bit for the better.
 
Another part of me is just downright angry at his irresponsibility to the cause with which he was entrusted, the lives of so many whom he sucked in and, in effect, spit out, and not least Tara and their kids and other loving bystanders to the play
…
. I wish I understood the pathology that has compelled the unending need to embellish the truth so flagrantly. With one hand Greg has created something potentially beautiful and caring (regardless of his motives). With the other he has murdered his creation by his duplicity.
”

Endnotes

¹
 
According to
Three Cups of Tea
(pages 10 and 44), Mortenson was an accomplished mountaineer who, before attempting K2, had made
“
half a dozen successful Himalayan ascents,
”
including climbs of 24,688-foot Annapurna IV and 23,389-foot Baruntse, both of which are in Nepal. But there is no record in the
American Alpine Journal
(which meticulously documents all ascents of Annapurna IV, Baruntse, and other major Himalayan peaks) of Mortenson reaching the summit of, or even attempting, any Himalayan mountain prior to 1993. Scott Darsney, Greg
’
s climbing partner on K2, confirms that Mortenson had never been to the Himalaya or Karakoram before going to K2.

²
 
In
addition to the article by Mortenson in the American Himalayan Foundation newsletter, irrefutable evidence that he originally intended the school to be built in Khane exists in the form of a memo he submitted to Jean Hoerni and the AHF board of directors on March 19, 1995. Entitled
“
RELOCATION OF PROJECT SITE
,
”
the memo explained that Mortenson no longer thought Khane was the right place for the school.
“
THE PROBLEM WAS OBTAINING A LAND TITLE CERTIFICATE FOR THE SCHOOL IN KHANE
…
. AFTER MANY WEEKS, I AM HIGHLY RECOMMENDING MOVING THE PROJECT SITE TO KORPHE VILLAGE (SEE MAP).
”
Reasons Mortenson gave for relocating the project included,
“
KORPHE HAS HAD A FULL TIME VOLUNTEER TEACHER FOR FIVE YEARS, MARRIED AND WITH FAMILY ALL FROM KORPHE
…
. KORPHE IS HIGHLY VISIBLE. EVERY TREK, EXPEDITION, AND ARMY CARAVAN TO ENTER THE BALTORO/BIAFO WILL PASS BY OUR SCHOOL.
”
Near the end of the memo, he added,
“
TO BUILD A SCHOOL IN KORPHE, WE WILL NEED TO BUILD A STEEL CABLE SUSPENSION BRIDGE ACROSS THE BRALDU TO KORPHE
…
. THE COST OF THE BRIDGE WILL BE ABOUT $10,000.
WHICH I WILL RAISE ON MY OWN.
I HOPE TO BEGIN BUILDING BY MAY 1995
.
”

³
 
Mortenson
’
s
lies deeply offended Naimat Gul Mahsud. By falsely claiming to have been kidnapped by his hosts and threatened with death
—
an egregious contravention of
Pashtunwali
—
Mortenson defamed the Mahsud clan. But aspects of Naimat Gul
’
s own story turn out to be as fishy as Mortenson
’
s. What Naimat Gul failed to disclose to Mortenson (and what Mortenson would likely never have known had it not been disclosed here) is that Naimat Gul was a professional con artist. Although his late father, Nadir Khan, had been a famous war hero and the revered leader of one of the four Mahsud clans, Naimat Gul Mahsud
“
is just a criminal,
”
says Hussein Mohammed (a pseudonym employed for the safety of the source), who has known Naimat Gul since he was a boy.
“
Cheating here, cheating there. Live this place,
then
move to some other place to cheat some other people.
”
According to Mohammed, Naimat Gul has a long history of thievery, extortion, and counterfeiting. He was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping a girl, but escaped from jail a year or two before meeting Mortenson, and has been on the lam ever since.

Naimat Gul committed most of his crimes in sprawling cites such as Karachi, Dera Ismail Khan, and Peshawar. While he escorted Mortenson around the tribal areas, however, Naimat Gul used Mortenson as an unwitting shill to pass counterfeit Pakistani rupees in the bazaars of North and South Waziristan.
“
Local people trusted Greg,
”
says Mohammed, because
“
he is a
 
foreigner and he would not cheat them.
”

When this swindle proved successful, Naimat Gul attempted to profit in a grander fashion from Mortenson
’
s visit by hatching an ill-advised blackmail scam: Naimat Gul falsely claimed that he had kidnapped Mortenson, then demanded a large ransom from wealthy members of the Mahsud clan
—
banking on the fact that if he
’
d actually kidnapped Mortenson, the authorities would hold Naimat Gul
’
s entire family responsible.

When Naimat Gul tried to extort money from his relatives by purporting to have abducted Mortenson, his family was irate. If it were true, it would have brought disgrace to the entire clan. But instead of ceding to Naimat Gul
’
s demands for hush money, his relatives called his bluff. According to Hussein Mohammed,
“
Naimat Gul Mahsud
’
s family told him,
‘
If you kidnap this man, and something happens to us or our businesses, if our jobs get in trouble due to you, then we will hold you responsible.
’”
After reflecting on the extremely harsh payback his enraged relatives were apt to deliver, Naimat Gul backed down and abandoned his scam.

When Mortenson flew home to Montana in the summer of 1996, he had no idea Naimat Gul Mahsud claimed to have kidnapped him. Ironically, Naimat Gul had no idea Mortenson would soon make the same spurious claim of abduction
—
a charge that millions of Americans now accept as fact.

⁴
 
According
to
Three Cups of Tea
, during a layover at Calcutta International Airport while flying home from Asia in September 2000,
“
Mortenson learned that one of his heroes, Mother Teresa, had died
…
and decided to try and pay her his respects.
”
Arriving at the Missionaries of Charity Motherhouse after the front gate was locked for the evening, he was admitted by a nun and escorted down a dark hallway to view Mother Teresa
’
s corpse.
“
She lay on a simple cot, at the center of a bright room full of flickering devotional candles. Mortenson gently nudged other bouquets aside, making room for his gaudy offering, and took a seat against a wall. The nun, backing out the door, left him alone with Mother Teresa
…
.
‘
I sat in the corner staring at this shrouded figure,
’
Mortenson says.
‘
She looked so small, draped in her cloth. And I remember thinking how amazing it was that such a tiny person had such a huge effect on humanity.
’…
Mortenson knelt on the cool tiled floor next to Mother Teresa and placed his large palm over her small hand.
”
This a
poignant anecdote, but it
’
s difficult to reconcile with the fact that Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997, three years before Mortenson says he knelt beside her in Calcutta.

⁵
 
In
March 2004, the American Himalayan Foundation suspended Mortenson
’
s stipend because he
’
d repeatedly failed to report how he had used funds from the Hoerni/Pakistan Fund, as required by the Internal Revenue Service, despite repeated requests to do so.

⁶
  
http://www.edutopia.org/greg-mortenson-webinar-archive

⁷
 
http
://www.edutopia.org/greg-mortenson-webinar-archive

⁸
 
There
is no evidence to suggest that Kevin Fedarko was aware of the falsehoods published in
Stones into Schools
. Because of the extraordinary deadline pressure he was under, he had no opportunity to fact-check what he ghostwrote for Mortenson, nor did his job description include that responsibility. Fedarko had no choice but to accept Mortenson
’
s word that what he and Sarfraz Khan reported to him was accurate.
 

⁹
At the time, CAI was in fact not registered as a
“
charity NGO
”
in Afghanistan. It wasn
’
t registered as such until 2008 (see
Stones into Schools
, pages 296
–
298).