The World Today
March 1999

Our Window on the World
By: Keith Suter

 

Reporting a war is almost as dangerous as fighting one. The Committee to Protect Journalists has reported that some four hundred and seventy-four journalists have been killed in the last ten years. At least seventy-five of them died in the conflict in former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1996 a higher number than during the Vietnam war. This increase is mainly due to three developments: the new state of warfare, greater demands on journalists and greater competition in the media.

 

In the old era of conventional international wars, troops wore uniforms, carried their arms openly, fought in large formations, with war zones distinguished by “fronts”. Journalists then had a safer task than today.

In World War One, for example, France and Germany banned reporters from being near the fighting, and Britain made them military officers as a way of controlling where they went and what they wrote. This provided very restricted coverage of the war and a lack of information on the brutal nature of trench warfare. But, then, the journalists were seen as part of the war effort. In World War Two, the largest war of the century, about thirty-nine journalists were killed.

Far more journalists are now losing their lives. The death this January of an American television journalist working in Sierra Leone for Associated Fress reinforces the point. The new state of warfare — as in Sierra Leone means that conflict is malnly internal (not international) and guerrilla (not conventional). It is focused in civilian areas: in World War One five percent of the casualties were civilian; in contemporary conflicts, as many as ninety percent of those who die are civilians.

The modern trend is for groups to try to break away from existing states to create their own country, or for a group to try to overthrow their government and so replace it. The hope is to create a better standard of living, or to wield power. Guerrilla warfare is the preferred technique in both cases.

Guerrilla warfare has grown rapidly since World War Two. Almost every conflict underway today involves guerrillas as at least one party to the dispute.

Journalists get caught up in the general confusion which is characteristic of such combat. Many of the combatants look like civilians because they do not wear uniforms and so a journalist can stray into a combat zone without knowing it.

From afar journalists may look like fighting civilians as they carry their television equipment over their shoulder. Combatants might fear that they are there to spy on them and shipers — a characteristic of the conflict in former Yugoslavia — cannot necessarily tell a journalist’s nationality or status at a distance.

Finally, some military personnel may not want media coverage of their operations. Isolated journalists in rugged locations are vulnerable to censorship by the bullet.

 

Greater Demands

In this media dominated world, readers, viewers and listeners have greater expectations of journalists. First, reporters need to be where the fighting is and that can be anywhere. Media coverage of conflicts, especially thanks to improvements in communications technology, requires a journalist to convey actuality and immediacy. But in a guerrilla war, the fighting is not distinguished by “fronts”. The old rule for journalists in a conventional conflict of never get in front of friendly troops’ may be difficult to follow in a guerrilla warfare zone.

Second, some expect journalists to provide an accurate assessment of what is happening, rather than just repeating the official line of each side. This means getting into the thick of the conflict for a good understanding.

 

Greater Competition

Journalists are now caught up in the market system just like any other trade or profession. First, there is greater scope for freelance journalists. They are pald for their stories rather than just receiving a salary for their effort. Therefore, freelancers have a financial incentive to take extra risks for their reports.

Second, improvements in technology such as television satellites, satellite telephones and portable computers with e-mail connections — add to the prevailing sense of immediacy both in getting the story and then reporting it. Reporters are looking over their shoulder — not only for military danger but also for the danger of being beaten to the scoop by their fellows.

Wartime reporting used to be a more regulated activity. Journalists were still expected to be first with the news but they had to work through official channels. Some conventional campalgns — such as the 1982 Falklands and 1991 Gulf conflicts had strict official censorship.

But that type of conventional war is now rare. The new state of deregulated warfare facilitates individual journalistic enterprise.

 

Limits of Law

International humanitarian law was designed for the previous era. The traditions behind this branch of law are, in some cases, several centuries old. The first attempt at codification took place over a century ago. The rules are lald down in several treaties, the most important of which are the Geneva Conventions which provide the legal basis for the Red Cross’ humanitarian work — and The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 — which deal with the means and methods of warfare. The Geneva Conventions have been updated periodically; the most important recent process in 1977 — also incorporated some principles from the law of The Hague.

The Hague Conventions and the 1929 Geneva Convention refer to “newspaper correspondents”. These people are to be given military autborisation to work as a journalist and are to be treated as prisoners of war if captured. This reflects the era of conventional international warfare.

The recent updating of the Geneva Conventions began in the late 1960s, when there was an upsurge in internal guerrilla warfare. The eventual result — the two 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions — failed, in my view, to address many of the main features of the new era of war, most notably the rise of guerrilla warfare itself. However, the two protocols were probably the most that governments were grudgingly willing to accept.

Protocol I, which deals with international conflicts, states that journalists in armed conflicts shall be treated as civilians and protected as such — provided they take no action affecting their civilian status, such as carrying a weapon. Thus, protecting journalists is tied up with protecting civilians — and in the new era of war, civilians bear the brunt of the suffering.

An annex to Protocol I contains a model form of identity card for such journalists, which is to be issued by their own government or that of the territory in which the mass media employing them is located.

Protocol II, which deals with non-international conflicts, contains no specific references to journalists. This is to be expected because for most of its existence, international humanitarian law has only attempted to regulate international conflicts; it has only been since World War II that governments have tentatively come to accept some international involvement in their domestic affairs. Therefore Protocol II is a very slim document.

 

Extra Protection

Some additional ideas have been proposed to give specific protection to journalists in armed conflict. For example, it has been suggested that they wear a distinctive uaiform or item of clothing. Red Cross personnel display their logo clearly and so perhaps journalists should have their own. Nothing has come of this, partly because it is feared that such clothing might, ironically, make journalists even more vulnerable to attack from people who disapprove of their work.

A more practical thought is that journalists — like everyone else caught up in a conflict — would be better off if all the combatants knew their obligations under internafional humanitarian law.

The Red Cross calls the publicising of international humanitarian law “dissemination” and it is a basic requirement on all governments. However, governments need to do a great deal more of this. Since human rights organisations are so adept at communicating with the general public, perhaps there could be government funding for them to do this work.

Another suggestion is that governments show more concern for the fate of their citizens who are journalists. It is not enough merely to shrug the shoulders and say that the victims were on a dangerous mission and so courted death. Governments should be more insistent in ensuring that their nationals do not have their human rights violated while working overseas asjournalists.

An example of how governments have failed to show sufficient concern of this sort comes from the largest loss of life suffered in one incident by Australian media outlets. This is the still unexplained deaths of five Australian-based journalists — two Australians, one Englishman, one New Zealander and one Scot — at Balibo, East Timor soon after dawn on 16 October 1975.

They were there to get the first footage of Indonesia’s secret war against the then Portuguese colony. It is assumed that Indonesia did not want its operations publici sed — it did not officially invade East Timor until 7 December 1975 — and so they were prevented from reporting what they saw.

A sixth journalist, Australian Roger East, went to East Timor to, among other things, investigate their deaths and he is believed to have been killed by Indonesian soldiers on 8 December.

Human rights organisations, such as the Australian Section of the International Commission of Jurists, tried to keep the issue alive with the Suharto administration and the three complacent governments of which the six journalist were citizens. They are now pressuring the new Indonesian government, led by B.J. Habibie, to reveal what it knows, not least what happened to the remains of those who died. These organisations are doing what the three governments ought to have been doing for the past twenty-three years.

The lack of governmental action was partly because of the Cold War. Indonesia was a pro-western member of the Third World and so western countries decided to overlook its human rights violations in deference to higher political considerations. The Cold War is over and so an examination of human rights issues on their own merit is now long overdue. This includes ensuring that foreign governments respect the rights ofjournalists.

After all,journalists are our window on the world. We all rely on them for their coverage of events. Their reports inform public discussion of foreign affairs, influence official decisions, and they constitute the first draft of history. We all have an incentive to ensure that journalists are not killed in conflict.