U.S. ambassador, Pullman native escapes attempted carjacking

Yaounde, Cameroon -- The United States ambassador to this Central African nation was slightly injured when a bandit hit him on the head with a pistol butt during an attempted carjacking, U.S. officials said Saturday.

Ambassador John Melvin Yates, a 60-year-old Pullman native, was driving home from an embassy function late Friday night when a group of men approached his car and tried to steal it, an embassy official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Yates escaped his attackers -- with his car -- and returned to his house with ''very superficial" injuries, the official said. No one else was in the ambassador's car and no shots were fired at the ambassador -- though one of the bandits apparently accidentally fired off one round. No one was believed to have been hit.

A U.S. State Department official, speaking in Washington on condition of anonymity, said one of the attackers hit Yates in the head with the butt of a pistol.

Yates ''is resting comfortably at home and will be in his office at work Monday morning," the embassy said in a brief statement.

There was no indication of a political motive behind the attack, the official in Washington said.

Marilee Martin, Yates' younger sister, said family in Pullman had been told Yates was fine. Martin and her mother Violet Yates live in Pullman.

Initial reports were that Yates had been shot. Martin said today that his injuries didn't sound serious, though he was being monitored for a possible concussion.

Martin said Yates had never been attacked or injured during his foreign assignments until now.

Police were searching for the gunmen, who fled the scene.

Yaounde, the hilly capital city of this poverty-ridden nation, has had a rapidly increasing crime rate in recent years, with carjackings and burglaries becoming commonplace.

Last month, the government launched a major anti-crime crackdown in Douala, Cameroon's port city, after the large expatriate French community there reacted with anger and alarm following the murder of a well-known French butcher. Last week, the crusade was widened to other parts of the country, with anti-crime squads stepping up patrols in high-risk areas.

Yates is a career foreign service officer and a longtime Africa specialist. His last posting was as ambassador to Benin, and he has also served as charge d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa, Zaire, now called Congo, and ambassador to Cape Verde, among other places.

His appointment as ambassador to Cameroon was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in October 1998.

Yates graduated from Pullman High School and attended one year at Washington State University. He transferred to Stanford University in California and hasn't resided in Pullman since college.