".......even if it costs me my life."
- Mazen Dana,
murdered by U.S. soldiers
August, 17, 2003

Quote:
August 18, 2003
by SARAH LYALL, NEW YORK TIMES
LONDON

The American government learned the lesson in Viet Nam that the
citizenry cannot be allowed to see the carnage, which it creates.
Seeing such butchery on TV once spoiled many a dinnertime meal
at that time, and that would not be allowed in the Iraq war.

Americans have still not been able to see the suffering they have
allowed their leaders to cause to the innocent human beings whose
lives have been snuffed out or ruined, both in Afghanistan and in Iraq.
-End Quote
**************

The news of Mazen Dana’s murder (Reuters photographer and filmmaker)
last August was not the first time it had been brought to my attention that
our Soldiers were purposely killing journalists and photographers in Iraq
and other countries, to keep them from showing us ‘folks at home’ what
was really happening in the wars.

I began wondering how many others were, and are, still being murdered
to keep the truth from getting to the citizens of countries which would
otherwise only know the kind of truth governments and military wanted
fed to the civilians back home.

Mazen Dana was a much-admired man. He chose to do his job knowing
his days were numbered. He knew this because he’d been beaten, shot and
threatened many times before that day in August 2003 when U.S. soldiers
killed him for filming things they didn’t want the world to see. He was a role
model and mentor for so many other journalists and photographers who,
without his example, would have lost heart and given up the dangerous
career; or they may have been killed themselves had he not taught them
many ways of dealing with the military and being extra cautious about their
safety.

And the danger to their lives was not exclusively from the “enemy”. It was
also from the allied military, as was the case in Mazen’s murder by U.S.
soldiers. If you haven’t heard of him, take the time to find out about this
hero. Yes, A hero; the likes of which, are in short supply. We can only hope
that others will manage to carry on the noble mission, for which, he and so
many of his fellow photo-journalists, were murdered.

I saw a list of journalists who were killed, published in the Guardian UK
newspaper on Wednesday April 16, 2003. Mazen wasn’t murdered until four
months later. So, it would seem quite possible that since then many more
have died or, as the article stated, “are dead or missing”. The only name on
the list that I recognized was our U.S. reporter David Bloom, whom I had
watched on TV as he reported from a top a U.S. army tank.

He died suddenly soon after arriving in Iraq. The official story of the cause
of death was innocuous. However, he had been vaccinated just before going
to Iraq with the same vaccine that has caused hundreds of deaths of soldiers
both in training in the U.S. and soon after arriving in Iraq.

It occurred to me that while I personally don’t know a journalist covering any
war at the moment, the sheer numbers of them indicates plenty of people do
know them. They have family, friends, co-workers or employers all either
grieving for the dead or worrying for the missing. There is a lot more I could
say on this subject, but what I want to say most is that even though there are
several well-meaning organizations who have tried to get the military and
governments to make “full inquires”, the military officials only shuffle some
papers and tell the organizations, “ Case Closed”.

Even the news organizations, such as Reuters, couldn’t get anywhere near
the truth of who killed their journalists. Oh, but Reuters knows. And, we know.
We just can’t do anything about it, or, not yet. There is, however, no statute of
limitations on murder, so the truth may someday see daylight, or maybe not.

We still don’t know for certain who killed Abraham Lincoln,
John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy and
a very long list of other famous and not so famous people.

This doesn’t not mean we always have to accept defeat by saying “Oh, well,
it’s over. There’s nothing we can do about it now that will bring them back.”
That’s how some people get on with their lives, and I don’t judge those poor
souls. It’s their choice to let it go and move on, looking only ahead, never back.
It’s too painful. It’s an almost impossible mission to try to find justice when
someone is murdered.

Still, you have heard about “cold cases” that curious and tenacious people do
look back on, and do tackle the mission impossible, and sometimes succeed in
correcting the history books. There are also some people, families, and friends
of victims, who never give up seeking justice. They too sometimes succeed,
though it has often taken many years.

I understand how we must choose our battles. I understand that clearly.
I also don’t take that to mean always choose easy battles. We now have so
many assaults on our civility, peace and prosperity coming at us from so many
directions. We all must at least choose to battle that which threatens our very
lives and persevere as long as we are able. If each of us would tackle just one
part of one problem until we succeed, that would add up to millions of us
working on all of the problems.

I’m not suggesting who should drop everything and pursue the murderers of
journalists and photographers covering wars. But, if you don’t have a full plate,
perhaps you might read about some of these brave and dedication men and
women. Then you might feel you have a little time to at least keep informed
about this on-going heinous crime.

Our soldiers are trained and paid to fight. However, I am still heart broken when
they are maimed or killed. But journalists and photographers are trained to report.
Their job is to film, hear, see and tell the truth of events. They are not warriors.
I can recall a time when they used to be protected by our military instead of
murdered by them.

Who bears the heaviest shame?
The murderers or those who let them get away with it?
We must hold our government and military officials responsible now.
We know the U.S. soldiers have been killing people they knew were innocent
and no threat to them. They have been told by their superiors to shoot anyone
not in a U.S. uniform if they suspect they are in danger. If you’ve kept up with
the news, you know this is happening constantly.

Reference:

War toll: journalists killed, missing and held in Iraq
Wednesday April 16, 2003 The Guardian

DEAD
Veronica Cabrera, freelance camerawoman for Argentina's America TV
Mario Podesta, freelance reporter for Argentina's America TV
Jose Couso, Tele Cinco cameraman
Taras Protsyuk, Reuters cameraman
Tareq Ayyoub, Al-Jazeera cameraman
Julio Anguita Parrado, reporter for Spanish newspaper El Mundo
Christian Liebig, journalist for German Focus magazine
Terry Lloyd, ITN correspondent
Paul Moran, freelance Australian cameraman
Kaveh Golestan, freelance BBC cameraman
Michael Kelly American journalist and Washington Post columnist
Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed, BBC translator
Gaby Rado, Channel 4 News foreign affairs correspondent
David Bloom, NBC TV correspondent

MISSING
Fred Nerac, French ITN cameraman
who went missing in the ambush that killed Terry Lloyd on March 22.
Hussein Osman, Lebanese translator
who went missing in the ambush that killed Terry Lloyd.

DETAINED AND BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN RELEASED
Seven Italian journalists working for Corriere della Sera,
Il Giornale,
Il Messagero,
L'Unita,
Il Mattino,
Il Sole 24-Oreand,
Il Resto,
Del Carlino.
Marcin Firlej,Polish journalist with news channel TVN 24,
escaped after being captured south of Baghdad
Jacek Kaczmarek, journalist with Polish public radio, escaped after
being captured south of Baghdad
MediaGuardian.co.uk © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

August 18, 2003
Death of Journalist Killed by G.I.'s Prompts Calls for Inquiry

By SARAH LYALL
NEW YORK TIMES
LONDON, Aug. 18, 2003 —

International journalists' groups and Reuters demanded today that the
American military hold a full public inquiry into the death of a Reuters
cameraman fatally shot by American soldiers in Iraq on Sunday as he
filmed outside a prison.

The cameraman, Mazen Dana, 43,
was the second Reuters journalist to be killed in Iraq since the invasion
began on March 20.
His colleague Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian usually based in Warsaw,
died on April 8 when an American tank fired a shell at the Palestine
Hotel in Baghdad, from which Mr. Protsyuk was filming the United
States advance into the city center.

"Coming so soon after the death of Taras Protsyuk, also killed by a
U.S. tank, this latest death is hard to bear," the chief executive of
Reuters, Tom Glocer, said in a statement. "That's why I am personally
calling upon the highest levels of the U.S. government for a full and
comprehensive investigation into this terrible tragedy."

Some 17 journalists have died in the course of covering the fighting in
Iraq, according to Reporters Without Borders, an advocacy group
based in Paris. In a statement, the group's secretary general, Robert
Menard, criticized the American military for what he said were
numerous "blunders" in the war in Iraq, adding that "until now,
these have not been subjected to inquiries worthy of the name."

In a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the group called
for an investigation into Mr. Dana's death that would be "honest, rapid
and designed to shed full light on this tragedy, not whitewash the U.S.
Army."

In New York, the Committee to Protect Journalists praised Mr. Dana
as "a determined witness who took constant risks in order to tell the
world the news from the West Bank — and, more recently, from Iraq."

The group, which gave Mr. Dana its International Press Freedom
Award in 2001 for his work in Hebron, where he grew up and spent
much of his career, also called for " a full investigation into the
shooting and a public accounting of the circumstances."

The United States military promised an investigation, calling Mr.
Dana'sdeath "a terrible tragedy" and "a tragic incident," that took
place when "coalition soldiers engaged with an individual" who later
turned out to be a journalist.

"It is under investigation,"Col. Guy Shields of the Army told reporters,
"and we will do everything in our power to make sure things like this
do not happen again."

Witnesses in Iraq told The Associated Press that Mr. Dana was among
agroup of journalists reporting at the Abu Ghraib prison in western
Baghdad, which is being used by the United States and was recently
attacked by mortar shells, leaving 6 prisoners dead and about 60
wounded. Mr. Dana was filming outside the prison, colleagues said,
when he came under fire from American forces.

The videotape in his camera, retrieved after his death,
showed twoAmerican tanks heading toward him, The A.P. reported.
Six shots could be heard;
the camera seemed to tilt and drop to the ground after the first shot.

"We were all there, for at least half an hour,"
Stephan Breitner of France 2 television told The A.P.
"They knew we were journalists.
After they shot Mazen, they aimed their guns at us.
I don't think it was an accident.
They are very tense.
They are crazy."

Other witnesses told the news agency that while it should have been
clear that Mr. Dana was a journalist, the soldiers in the tanks apparently
thought he was preparing to attack them. Mr. Dana's driver, Munzer
Abbas, told The A.P. that "one of the soldiers told us they thought Mazen
was carrying a rocket-propelled grenade" — an armor-piercing weapon
that has taken a number of American lives in Iraq.

Mr. Dana's death comes just five days after the Pentagon issued its official
report into the shelling of the Palestine Hotel, which served as the unofficial
headquarters for the world's press during the invasion of Iraq last spring.
The attack killed two journalists and wounded three others. The report
said that United States forces, under heavy fire from an Iraqi battalion, had
been told that an enemy observer was stationed on the hotel balcony and
helping to guide mortar, missile and grenade fire against American troops.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said that the report, summarized in a
government news release but not published in full, was flawed.
"It is troubling that the results of the investigation as summarized in this
news release do not address the central question of whether U.S.
commanders were aware they were firing on a hotel full of journalists," the
group's deputy director, Joel Simon, said in a statement. "We hope that the
full report deals with these issues and provides more specific information.
We call on the Pentagon to make the full report public."

During his career, Mr. Dana, who was married and had four children,
had been threatened, beaten and shot at on several occasions. "Mazen was
one of Reuters's finest cameramen, and we are devastated by his loss," the
global head of news at Reuters, Stephen Jukes, said in a statement. "He was
committed to covering the story wherever it was."

In accepting the 2001 International Press Freedom Award from the
Committee to Protect Journalists, Mr. Dana spoke about the dangers
he often faced.

“Words and images are a public trust. For this reason I will continue
with my work regardless of the hardships, even if it costs me my life.”

****************