MSG158G/01E ECUADOR-PERU: War Also Fought Within Media

By Gonzalo Ortiz Reprint | | Print |

Gonzalo Ortiz Crespo

QUITO, Feb 17 1995 (IPS) - Ecuador and Peru are continuing their border war through declarations and counter-declarations in television broadcasts, although an unofficial cease-fire went into effect Tuesday and was ratified Friday.

Spanish-language journalist Jorge Gestoso of the U.S.-based TV network CNN has been caught in the middle of the war of words, criticised in Lima for his reports from Ecuador.

“It was bound to happen,” said Gestoso. “When my reports favoured their situation, the Peruvian media praised me, but they attacked me when they found my work unfavourable.”

Reknowned Peruvian journalist Cesar Hildebrandt described the press situation in the Madrid daily “ABC” in a Feb. 9 article titled “Fujimori loses the propaganda battle with Quito.”

Hildebrandt wrote, “war is terrible, especially when you lose. Ecuador has won this battle, even considering what happened in Tiwinza.”

“Ecuador has never resisted so strongly, and has never had so much of the international press on its side. (Peru) has never been so isolated and we had never recognised … the outstanding disagreement” with Ecuador, he continued.

A Feb. 12 report on the Peruvian “Panorama” current affairs television programme harshly criticised foreign reporters for favouring Ecuador.

The report was especially critical of the International Centre for Higher Education in Journalism for Latin America (Ciespal) – where Ecuadoran media concerns set up an international press centre – dubbing it the “Ecuadoran Ministry of Lies.”

The centre was established by Ecuadoran television presenter Freddy Ehlers, who said “many foreign colleagues started ringing me asking for video editing facilities and access to satellites, and I realised that we would be swamped if we didn’t act rapidly.”

However, Peruvian reporter Beto Ortiz cited the speed with which the centre was established as proof that Ecuador was the agressor in the conflict, arguing that “it could not have been set up in 48 hours.”

The centre was equipped with IBM and Mackintosh computers, audio and video studios, modems, telephone lines, and fax machines. It distributed national and international publications and had 10 television monitors permanently connected to the leading local and foreign channels.

“There’s nothing mysterious about it,” said Ehlers. “The centre was established with the enthusiastic collaboration of the television channels and computer companies.”

Ciespal allowed foreign reporters to use its own audio and video studios, “which have been here for many years.”

Beto Ortiz used the Ciespal facilities in Ecuador during the fighting, and complained that the reporters using the resources, “swallowed the bait, believing that Ecuador was the injured party.”

Ortiz claimed that this was the reason behind “Time,” “Newsweek,” “Business Week” and other U.S. publications all reporting that Ecuador had lost 200,000 kilometers of territory – a claim that Peru refutes.

He added that some of Gestoso’s action reports were broadcast from an Ecuadoran mock-up of the border conflict, not on the real front line, though Gestoso denied the charges.

“I was in a place where a war was being fought. It could have been set up for CNN to film, but my professional experience tells me that it wasn’t,” he said, adding that “any country that would do that would stand to lose a lot more.”

Gestoso added that the CNN reports filmed at the Tiwintza base could have been used to cause an international scandal if Peru had proved the company had falsified the news – the fact that it did not means the news items are credible, he said.