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CounterPunch
August
26, 2002
Reporters and
War Crimes
It's Not My Job to Play Cop
or Prosecutor
by Robert Fisk
The
Independent
A reporter's job does not include joining the
prosecution. We are witnesses and we name, if we can, the bad
guys
Three Western war crimes investigators
turned up to see me in Beirut last week. No, they didn't come
to talk about the Bosnian war. They wanted to know about torture
at Israel's notorious Khiam jail in southern Lebanon, about beatings
and imprisonment in cupboard-size cells and electrodes applied
to the toes and penises of inmates under interrogation. Most
of the torturers were Lebanese members of Israel's proxy "South
Lebanon Army" militia, and they performed their vile work
for the Israelis--on women as well as men--from the late Seventies
until Israel's withdrawal in 2000: almost a quarter of a century
of torture. Khiam prison is still there, open to the public,
a living testament to brutality and Israeli shame.
The problem is that Israel is now trying
to dump its Lebanese torturers on Western countries. Sweden,
Canada, Norway, France, Germany and other nations are being asked
to give citizenship to these repulsive men in the interests of
"peace"--and also because the Israeli government would
prefer they left Israel. The three investigators--two cops and
a justice ministry official--had come to Beirut to make sure
that their government wasn't about to give citizenship to Israel's
war criminals. And they knew what they were talking about. We
both knew that one former torturer was living in Sweden with
his two sons, and that another had opened two restaurants in
America.
And I was happy to chat to them. But
chatting is one thing. Testifying is quite another. I make this
point because the BBC told me last week that their Belgrade correspondent,
Jacky Rowland, was planning to testify against Slobodan Milosevic
at The Hague war crimes tribunal. I was invited this week to
participate in a BBC radio interview with yet another BBC man
who had given evidence at The Hague, Dan Damon.
And, in fact, I received a phone call
from one of The Hague investigators a few weeks ago, wanting
to know if I had accompanied a European Union delegation to a
Bosnian concentration camp in 1982. I had travelled with the
EU men to two camps--not the one that The Hague investigator
was interested in. But this was not the first call I've had from
The Hague and I pointed out this time--as I had before--that
I didn't believe journalists should be policemen. My articles
could be used by anyone at The Hague and I was more than ready
to sign a letter to the effect that they were accurate. But that
was all.
So when Dan Damon of the BBC argued on
air this week that the written or spoken report might not be
"believed" if a reporter wasn't ready to testify in
a court, I was a bit taken aback. In many cases, The Hague has
commenced proceedings against war criminals on the basis of newspaper
articles and television programmes. No one, so far as I know,
has ever questioned our reports on Serbian, Croatian--and, yes,
Muslim Bosnian--war crimes. In fact, I suspect Dan's argument
was a bit of a smokescreen to cover his own concern about the
boundaries of journalism.
I know, of course, how the arguments
go. I may be a journalist, says the reporter as he or she turns
up to the court, but I am also a human being. A time must come
when a journalist's rules are outweighed by moral conscience.
I don't like this argument. Firstly, because the implication
is that journalists who don't intend to testify are not human
beings; and secondly, because it suggests that reporters in general
don't normally work with a moral conscience. Jonathan Randal,
who worked for The Washington Post in Bosnia and has told The
Hague tribunal that he will not testify against a Serb defendant,
understands this all too well.
What worries me, though, is that journalism
includes an element of masquerade if we cover wars as reporters
and then participate in the prosecution of the bad guys at the
request of a court whose writ extends only to those war crimes
which it sees fit--or which the West sees fit--to investigate.
Jacky Rowland of the BBC, for example, did not--while reporting
the Balkan atrocities--turn up on Serbian assignments with the
words: "I'm from the BBC and--if your lot lose--I'm ready
to help in your prosecution". Indeed, if she had said that,
she wouldn't have had the chance to undertake many more reporting
assignments. Nor would any of us. But--if it's now going to be
the habit for BBC reporters to turn up as prosecution witnesses
at The Hague--heaven spare any of us in the future.
Now I have nothing against Jacky Rowland's
reports. And if she feels her testimony is vital to convicting
Mr Milosevic, that's up to her. But this story has another side.
For Ms Rowland is not planning to attend The Hague court because
she has chosen to give evidence against the former Serb leader.
She is travelling to The Hague because the Western powers have
decided that she should be permitted to testify against Mr Milosevic--though
not, of course, against alleged war criminals of equal awfulness
in other parts of the world.
Let me explain. Over 26 years, I've seen
many war crimes in the Middle East. I was in Hama when Syrian
Special Forces were killing up to 20,000 civilians during a Muslim
revolt in 1982. I was at the Sabra and Chatila camps the same
year when Israel's Phalangist thugs were butchering 1,700 Palestinian
civilians. I was with Iranian soldiers when Iraqi troops fired
gas shells into them. I was in Algeria after the throat-slitting
bloodbath of Bentalha, for which Algerian soldiers have since
been implicated.
And I believe that those responsible
for these atrocities should be put before a court. Rifaat Assad,
the late Syrian president's brother, was responsible for Hama.
He lives in Spain. But of course, no one is planning to put him
before a court. Ariel Sharon--held "personally responsible"
by his own country's inquiry into Sabra and Chatila--is now the
Prime Minister of Israel. The Iraqi army is safe from prosecution--indeed,
we are inviting it to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
So if any reporter wants to testify against
the above gentlemen, they can forget it. Ms Rowland will not
be invited to put Mr Assad or Mr Sharon behind bars. In fact,
Belgium has just done its best to stop the survivors of Sabra
and Chatila from ever testifying against Mr Sharon in Brussels.
And there you have it in a nutshell.
We journalists are not being asked to testify in the interests
of international justice. Ms Rowland is going to testify against
a criminal whom we now wish to try; and we should remember that
back in 1995, when we needed Mr Milosevic to sign the Dayton
agreement, Ms Rowland was not wanted by The Hague or anyone else.
As far as I'm concerned, I'm always ready
to meet war crimes investigators. I admire most of those I have
met. And if we ever have an international court to try all the
villains, I might change my mind. But until then, a reporter's
job does not include joining the prosecution. We are witnesses
and we write our testimony and we name, if we can, the bad guys.
Then it is for the world to act. Not us.
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