- PARIS (IPS) -- International
journalists' organisations are accusing the U.S. government of committing
war crimes in Iraq by intentionally firing at war correspondents.
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- The Paris-based journalists' organisation 'Reporters
without Borders' (RSF, after its French name), called on the International
Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to investigate whether by attacking
journalists in Iraq the U.S.-British coalition forces were not violating
international humanitarian law.
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- "A media outlet cannot be a military target under
international law and its equipment and installations are civilian property
protected as such under the Geneva Conventions," said Reporters without
Border secretary-general Robert Ménard.
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- "Only an objective and impartial enquiry can determine
whether or not the Conventions have been violated," Ménard
claimed.
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- It is the first time since its existence that the International
Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission is being petitioned. Set up in 1991
under the First Additional Protocol of the Geneva Conventions, the Commission's
task is investigating any alleged serious violation of international humanitarian
law.
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- Similarly, the Brussels-based International Federation
of Journalists (IFJ) called for an independent inquiry on the U.S. attacks
against the Palestine Hotel and the bureaus of Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi
television channels.
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- The New-York based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
also called the U.S. attacks against journalists in Iraq 'a violation of
the Geneva Convention.'
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- In a letter to U.S. defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
CPJ director Joel Simon wrote on Tuesday: "The Committee is gravely
concerned by a series of U.S. military strikes against known media locations
in Baghdad today that have left three journalists dead and several wounded."
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- "We believe these attacks violate the Geneva Conventions,"
Simon pointed out.
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- On Tuesday, U.S. troops attacked the Baghdad bureau of
the Qatar-based Al Jazeera, killing one war correspondent, and wounding
another. In another attack, a U.S. tank fired a shell at the Palestine
Hotel in Baghdad, killing two other reporters and wounding three.
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- The hotel is well known as the unofficial Baghdadi centre
of international press. A large number of foreign correspondents covering
the war stay there.
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- Ménard, RSF's secretary-general, said that all
independent evidence on the U.S. attacks against the hotel shows that the
firing was deliberate.
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- "Film shot by the French television station France
3, and descriptions by journalists, prove that the neighbourhood around
the hotel was very quiet at the hour of the attack, and that the U.S. tank
crew took their time, waiting for a couple of minutes and adjusting its
gun before opening fire," Ménard said.
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- "This evidence does not match the U.S. version of
an attack in self-defence and we can only conclude that the U.S Army deliberately
and without warning targeted journalists," Ménard added.
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- Caroline Sines, a French television correspondent covering
the war in Baghdad, confirmed Ménard's accusations against the U.S.
troops.
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- "I was at the Palestine Hotel at the moment of the
attack, around one pm, Baghdad time, and my crew filmed everything,"
Sines said. "Our films shows that the U.S. tank took its time at targeting
the 14th floor of the hotel, where many journalists are hosted, at a moment
of complete calm," Sines said.
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- Menard urged the U.S. forces to prove that the incident
was not a deliberate attack to dissuade or prevent journalists from continuing
to report on what is happening in Baghdad.
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- "We are appalled at what happened because it was
known that journalists were working both at the Palestine Hotel as well
at the Al-Jazeera bureau," Ménard pointed out.
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- One Al-Jazeera camera operator was also killed on Tuesday
by an apparently intentional U.S. bombing of the pan-Arab TV station's
offices elsewhere in Baghdad. The nearby premises of Abu Dhabi TV were
also damaged by the bombing.
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- The Qatar-based television network recalled that prior
to the conflict, it had provided the U.S. military authorities with the
specific coordinates of its Baghdad offices. This information was confirmed
by the Committee to Protect Journalists in the letter to Donald Rumsfeld.
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- "CPJ has seen a copy of Al-Jazeera's February letter
to Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke outlining these coordinates,"
Joel Simon wrote to Rumsfeld.
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- Simon called Rumsfeld "to launch an immediate and
thorough investigation into these incidents and to make the findings public."
The CPJ also recalled to the U.S. military authorities that more than 100
independent journalists continue to operate in Baghdad from both the Palestine
and the nearby Sheraton hotels.
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- "The U.S. military has a clear obligation to avoid
harming the correspondents while carrying out (war) operations," Simon
said in his letter to Rumsfeld.
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- Aidan White, General Secretary of the International Federation
of Journalists, said, "There is no doubt at all that these attacks
could be targeting journalists. If so, they are grave and serious violations
of international law."
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- "The bombing of hotels where journalists are staying
and targeting of Arab media is particularly shocking events in a war which
is being fought in the name of democracy," White said. "Those
who are responsible must be brought to justice."
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- "The United Nations system and the international
media community must be fully-engaged in finding out what happened in these
cases and action must be taken to ensure it never happens again,"
White said. "We can expect denials of intent from the military, but
what we really want is the truth."
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- The IFJ says that the global media community, including
journalists, media organisations and press freedom campaigners, should
join hands under the banner of the newly-formed International News Safety
Institute to hold a complete and in depth inquiry.
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- The INSI is a coalition of more than 100 organisations
campaigning for a global news safety programme.
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- The IFJ also condemned "what appears to be Iraqi
tactics of using civilians and journalists as a 'human shield' against
attack." "The Baghdad authorities are just as culpable as the
U.S. with their reckless disregard for civilian lives," White said.
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- Both the IFJ and RSF recalled that Al Jazeera has become
a frequent target of U.S. and British attacks in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
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- Earlier in the war in Iraq, four members of the pan-Arab
television crew in the southern city of Basra came under gunfire from British
tanks on March 29 as they were filming distribution of food by Iraqi government
officials.
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- One of the station's cameramen went missing and was later
found to have been held for 12 hours by U.S. troops. Al-Jazeera reporters
were the only journalists in Basra at the time.
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- The Al-Jazeera offices in Kabul, Afghanistan, were also
bombed by U.S. forces during the war against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan
in November 2001.
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- To have jurisdiction in a war, the International Humanitarian
Fact-Finding Commission has to be petitioned by one of the parties in the
conflict or by one of the countries that have recognised its jurisdiction.
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- To conduct an investigation, all the belligerents must
accept its authority. Among the countries involved in the Iraq war, only
Australia and the United Kingdom have formally recognised it, allowing
an investigation to go ahead as far as they are concerned.
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- Neither the United States nor Iraq have yet accepted
the principle of such an enquiry.
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- Since the beginning of the Iraqi war on March 20, ten
journalists have been killed by the conflicting parties, and two other
died in war related accidents. At least eight other correspondents have
been wounded. Two other reporters' whereabouts remain unknown.
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- -----
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- "Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does
not mean to stand by the President."
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- --Theodore Roosevelt
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