MEDIA: Reporters Deliberate Targets in War, Says Annan

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, May 4 2000 (IPS) - Speaking on World Press Freedom Day, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan Wednesday condemned the wanton killings of journalists worldwide.

Although truth was the first casualty of war, he said, all too often, the men and women whose job it was to tell the truth became the first victims in military conflicts.

“They were not accidental casualties, but deliberate targets,” he said. Those who made war often had an interest in suppressing truths by killing or intimidating journalists, Annan pointed out.

“The rights of journalists to carry out their work must be protected, as their freedom is our freedom,” he argued.

In its annual report released in March, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said that 34 reporters were killed in the line of duty last year marking a “disturbing increase” from the previous year when 24 journalists were murdered worldwide.

The largest number, 10, were killed in Sierra Leone, where most of the victims were hunted down by rebels who sought to silence journalists writing about atrocities against civilians. Six more journalists lost their lives in Yugoslavia and five were murdered in Colombia.

The rest of the journalists killed included one from Argentina, two from Indonesia, one from Lebanon, three each from Nigeria and Russia, two from Sri Lanka and one from Turkey.

On Wednesday, the CPJ also released a list of Ten Worst Enemies of the Press – political leaders from Iran, Yugoslavia, Kazakhstan, Angola, Peru, Malaysia, Tunisia, Sierra Leone, China and Cuba.

“These enemies of the press use methods that range from outright torture and murder to more subtle techniques aimed at keeping uncomfortable truths from being told,” Ann Cooper, CPJ’s executive director said.

Meanwhile, the UN observed World Press Freedom Day with a panel discussion on “Reporting the News in a Dangerous World: the Role of the Media in Conflict Settlement, Reconciliation and Peace- Building.”

Addressing the seminar Wednesday, Claude Ondobo of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), said this year’s theme was particularly important for his organisation.

“The work of journalists had become more dangerous,” he said, “They were easy targets for those who used violence to achieve their goals.” UNESCO, through different programmes, had been assisting journalists in dangerous situations.

He believed that journalists could play a role in facilitating reconciliation by, among other things, channelling communication between parties, educating, confidence-building, framing and defining conflict and solution-building.

Turning to the role of the media in news coverage, Shashi Tharoor, Director of Communications and Special Projects, said that the global reach of communication systems raised many uncomfortable questions.

Tharoor accused the world press of “unevenness” in its coverage of news stories. One only had to look at the difference in the coverage of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Mozambique and Sierra Leone, he said, citing examples from Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.

The news from Africa, he pointed out, received less coverage. What explained the lack of coverage in some cases?, he asked. Was it ignorance or apathy? Who made the global media in the brave new world? Were the voices from the developing countries necessarily the most authentic ones from that part of the world? Was the Internet the answer?

While it was seemingly a mass medium, he argued, but from a global perspective it only reached a limited audience. Thus, undue reliance on that medium could marginalise those who were out of its reach, he added.

On the positive side, access to the media offered the world unprecedented opportunities. “It held out that possibility of a new and truly global information ethos,” he noted.

Tharoor also complained that while bloodshed frequently made the headline news, there was very little shown on reconciliation or peacekeeping. He cited UN successes in Mozambique, Cambodia, El Salvador and Haiti, which he said “were seldom aired.”

Addressing the UN Committee on Information Tuesday, Peter Mollema of the Netherlands said that while technological innovations, satellite communications and the rapidly expanding Internet brought access to all parts of the world with the touch of a fingertip, not all parts of the world were benefiting to the same extent from those developments. Access to new technologies was far greater in the Western world than in the developing world.

That gap, he said, must be taken into consideration when developing a media strategy aimed at a worldwide audience, as the United Nations was obliged to do.