Polisario, 1982

Based in Morocco, Algeria and the Western Sahara in the spring of 1982, Barber reported on the Polisario War while travelling to the liberated zone with guerillas. This series contains stories he submitted on the Kibbutz crisis and the Israel withdrawal from the Sinai to the London Observer, Omni Magazine, and the Pacific News Service, among others. From October of 1982 to January of 1983 Barber was based in Bangkok as a freelance foreign reporter for various news outlets before heading to Miami to be a local reporter for the Miami Herald from September to December of that year. Included are pieces he wrote while reporting on the people living in Bangkok slums and on the Cambodian humanitarian crisis. In 1983 Barber also began working as a special correspondent covering Florida and the Caribbean for the USA Today until 1986. Included are features on the Nicaraguan refugees in Miami and the U.S. policy on the Haitian boat people. Barber continually submitted stories to American as well as international publications such as the Dallas Morning Star, the Toledo Blade, MacLean’s and Actualite during these years. In the fall of 1986 Barber was awarded a Gannett Fellowship in Asian Studies for Journalists at the University of Hawaii at Manoa for the 1986-1987 academic year.