“Every day, I believe more and more that the Pentagon was right when it said it attacked the Palestine Hotel, Al-Jazeera and Abu-Dhabi TV in self-defense...because it has to defend itself from journalists who tell the truth.”
No answers for slain reporters
Press groups, relatives seek independent investigations of journalist deaths in Iraq
By Diana Barahona, Northern California Media Guild
The story of Telecinco cameraman José Couso is familiar to most journalists. How, on the morning of April 8, 2003, he stood on a balcony of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, watching with other journalists and cameramen as a Third Infantry tank division exchanged fire with Iraqi forces. How, after a 35-minute lull in the battle, a tank commanded by Sgt. Shawn Gibson swung its cannon toward the hotel and, 10 minutes later, fired an incendiary shell.
And how that one shell seriously injured three journalists and killed two, including Couso and Taras Protsyuk, from Reuters.
Two years later, there still has been no official independent investigation of the incident, nor any credible explanation of why an American tank crew was given permission to target a clearly identifiable landmark housing several hundred journalists. The Pentagon’s claim that the tank was returning fire has been disputed by every reporter at the hotel who has spoken out on the event.
Indeed, Couso and Protsyuk were only two of 14 media workers slain in Iraq by U.S. forces without credible explanation, prompting the International Federation of Journalists to renew its demand that the U.S. properly investigate the various incidents. The demand was given additional impetus by the recent U.S. shooting of an Italian journalist who had been taken hostage by Iraqi insurgents.
Now Couso’s younger brother, Javier, also has joined the fray, touring the U.S. in recent weeks to build support for an independent probe of the Palestine Hotel shelling. On the second anniversary of his brother’s death he stood in front of the White House, joined in a memorial service by TNG-CWA members and other supporters.
“The recent attack on the Italian journalist shows yet again that the U.S. military has decided that journalists are fair game in Iraq,” he explained. “We believe that a full, independent investigation is long overdue into the attack which killed my brother. Then, those responsible should be brought to justice.”
Both the Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists sent letters April 8 to President George Bush, calling on the administration to “heed the requests from journalists around the world for an independent investigation into the record number of deaths among media staff covering the war in Iraq.” The Pentagon’s report on the shelling at the Palestine Hotel, wrote TNG-CWA President Linda Foley, “has been inadequate and unconvincing, raising more questions than it resolved.”
But getting those answers has been an uphill battle for the Couso family, which has had to contend not only with Pentagon stonewalling but with its own government’s indifference to requests that it pressure the U.S. for an independent inquiry.
To be sure, some progress has been made. Hundreds of supporters, including many journalists, protest outside the U.S. embassy in Madrid on the eighth of each month. Spain’s new president, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, granted compensation to Couso’s widow under a law to help victims of terrorism and asked Secretary of State Colin Powell for an explanation for the attack. Support is building in the European Parliament behind a demand for an independent investigation. And the family has filed a war crimes complaint under the Geneva Conventions against three U.S. officers.
But when asked about Couso’s slaying, President Bush reflected an official American nonchalance about the incident by responding, “I think war is a dangerous place.” The Pentagon report on the shelling had more menacing overtones, observing that “The media were repeatedly cautioned that the battlefield was a dangerous place and especially so for non-embedded reporters . . . News agencies were specifically advised that DOD could provide no guarantee of safety or any sort of specific warnings when it came to their reporters in Baghdad.”
The same message was delivered last month to Reuters, which has been pressing for an investigation into the abuse of three of its employees by U.S. forces, including repeated beatings, torture and sexual humiliation. Despite the seriousness of these complaints, the Pentagon has never interviewed the Reuters’ employees but has concluded that there is no reason to investigate further. Instead, it continues what appears to be a campaign of veiled threats.
“Of course, I reiterate my recommendation that you consider embedding your reporters with U.S. units,” Lawrence Di Rita, special assistant to U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, wrote March 7 in response to the news service’s request for a proper investigation. “It is an excellent opportunity to cover U.S. military activities in Iraq.”
As if to make its meaning clearer, the U.S. actually attacked three media targets the morning it shelled the hotel, also bombing Al-Jazeera television—killing reporter Tareq Ayyoub—and attacking Abu Dhabi TV and its 25 trapped workers with small arms fire and a tank shell. Now battle lines are being drawn between those who think journalists should take orders from the Pentagon, and those who believe they should be respected as stipulated under international law. Ending impunity for military personnel who fire on journalists has become Couso’s personal goal.
“My brother still lives in the memory of many people and he has become a symbol of attacks on journalists,” he explains. “It’s a titanic struggle, but it’s worth it. It can’t be cheap to murder journalists. There has to be effective protection, because freedom of information is a basic of a democratic society.”
Although Couso’s family has been assisted by individual journalists, it feels betrayed by the headline-grabbing Reporters sans Frontières (see March 11 GR), which took a high profile in the matter. While the Paris-based organization investigated some aspects of the shelling and announced its findings at a Madrid press conference, Couso’s family saw the report just hours before its release and was dismayed by the conclusion: that the tank crew and its immediate superiors were “not to blame” since they “had not been properly informed by their own superiors.”
The Cousos believe the RSF report does more to excuse the military than to clarify events, not least because RSF didn’t talk to any journalists at the hotel—only to those embedded with the tank crews. The family repeatedly has asked RSF, which receives U.S. government grants, to withdraw from their complaint.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists conducted a more thorough investigation, verifying that “Pentagon officials, as well as commanders on the ground in Baghdad, knew that the Palestine Hotel was full of international journalists.” Joel Campagna, CPJ senior program coordinator, is convinced that Sgt. Gibson was not aware of that fact when he fired the shell, but the report Campagna wrote raises several disquieting questions that challenge such a conviction—as in this passage:
“For example, how is it possible for a tank officer to observe a person or persons with binoculars, wait 10 minutes for authorization to fire, according to the tank sergeant, and, during that interval, not notice journalists with cameras and tripods located on other balconies, or the large, English-language sign reading ‘Hotel Palestine’?”
What is certain is that Gibson received permission to fire from the tank company commander, Capt. Philip Wolford, who has given contradictory versions of the incident.
Despite such inconsistencies, the CPJ is not asking for an independent investigation, but rather has called for another investigation by the Pentagon itself. Nor is it seeking prosecution of military personnel who kill journalists. Nor has the well-connected organization offered any assistance to the Couso family or helped with Javier’s tour, which was organized by a loose network of independent media and peace activists.
Nonetheless, Javier said he had been received sympathetically by U.S. journalists and others, as was evidenced when he spoke in Los Angeles before a clapping audience of 1,100. “Every day, I believe more and more that the Pentagon was right when it said it attacked the Palestine Hotel, Al-Jazeera and Abu-Dhabi TV in self-defense,” he said, “because it has to defend itself from journalists who tell the truth.”
newsguild.org
There is no statute of limitations on war crimes. |
