Afghan border
By Massoud Ansari Posted Sat, Dec 1 2001
Journalists crowd around demonstrators burning a tire in the center of the city of Peshawar, Pakistan. — Peter Dejong/ AP
The hostile land, the rough terrain, the cut-throat competition and after all, the lack of understanding of the local traditions and the value system, is all that could be summed for the hundreds of journalists from across the world who have invaded many towns of Pakistan – one of the frontline states, to cover America's “war against terrorism.”
Journalists and camera crews from all over the world are continuing to throng to the capital city of Islamabad and there is also a sizeable presence in Peshawer and Quetta – the two cities which share borders with Afghanistan.
Name any international newspaper, news agency or TV channel, you would find their representation.CNN, BBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, ZDF (German TV), Phoenix TV (Chinese TV), TV Asahi (Japan), RAI TV Italy, APTN, Nippon TV, ARD German TV, Japan TV, ITN Asia, The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, FOX TV, The Los Angles Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Irish Times, The New York Times, Express, Sunday Times,Wall Street Journal, Daily Mail, Kyodo News, The Economist, The Globe, Limonde, The Liberation, The Mirror, The Mail, The Baltimore Sun, the Cox newspaper group of Atlanta, Associated Press, Agency France-Presse, Reuters are just a few to be named. Their obsession is to dig up or to generate news that may have something to do with Osama, the Taliban or the local clergy almost every day, even where none exists.
Trapped in the competition to produce the best, ending up in trouble is a daily occurrence for many of them. Pakistan authorities had to stop the entry of foreign journalists' near the Pak-Afghan border when some of them crossed over to the unmanned border of Afghanistan near Tourkham and were rounded up by the Taliban militia – who handed them over to the Pakistani border police.
“Its due to the amateurish attitude of some of the journalists, every body has to suffer,” says Joyace Hanna of ZDF.
The journalists, meanwhile, protested against the policy of the government for disallowing them to cover the news from inside Pakistan especially the influx of refugees from Afghanistan. The local authorities decided to issue special passes for these journalists, and they were sent in groups to cover the refugee crises near Pak-Afghan border under tight security. These security officials were asked to keep a vigil on the activities of these journalists and to make sure that none of them would try cross over into Afghanistan.
But despite the tough measures taken by the local authorities in Pakistan, it sent shock waves in the news community, when Taliban authorities announced they would try a London-based journalist of Sunday Express, Yvonne Ridely, under 'spying charges,' after she was arrested for crossing over to Afghanistan without any legal documents.
According to Taliban authorities she had entered the country from Pakistan disguised in a burka – the all-encompassing shroud that is the militia's mandatory dress code for the women. “America and Britain talk of having their special forces
in Afghanistan, and she could be one of those special forces,” believes Qudratullah Jamal, the Taliban Information minister. Accusing her of 'ill intentions', he says, “surely her crime is high. How can she arrives in such a situation without any documents despite the ban on foreign journalists in
Afghanistan.”
After diplomatic efforts, the Taliban authorities finally released Ridely just one day before the UN troops launched its first air-attack on Afghanistan. However, little is known about the condition of the local journalists who were accompanying Ridely.
Soon after the news of Ridley's release, another news bulletin hit the headlines when the Taliban secret agencies arrested a French journalist Michel Peyrad of the weekly Paris Match magazine, along with two Pakistani fixers at Goshti Olaswali near Jalalabad for entering Afghanistan illegally. Peyrard was disguised in a woman's full-body burka veil when the Taliban picked him up in Goshti, 22 miles east of Jalalabad city. “Some of the journalists are not only naïve, but they
are crazy,” believes a French journalist when she heard Afghanistan Ambassador in Pakistan Mulla Mohammed Zaeef saying during a press conference: “We have recovered a satellite phone from his possession, and this is enough proof that he
sneaked into Afghanistan with an intention to spy and to communicate about the presence of the senior leaders of Taliban government to the UN troops.” Taliban authorities say that the French journalist would be tried under 'spying charges.'
Under the laws of the Taliban regime, espionage is punishable by death. While the fate of the French journalist and his Pakistan guides is still hang in balance, the Paris Match magazine issued a statement demanding the release of Peyrard who it said had been 'carrying out his work as a journalist.'
“Three weeks ago Michel Peyrard left for Pakistan on behalf of Paris Match with the aim of doing all that he thought necessary to explain in Afghanistan,” the magazine said in a statement. Peyrard, 44, has been at Paris Match for 18 years, where he has also covered the conflicts in Chechnya and Kosovo. In 2000 he won a prize for his courage in Chechnya. After spending 25 days in a make-shift jail, Peyrard was released.
Fed up with the “aggressive attitude” of the journalists of foreign media, Pakistan authorities finally announced they would 'black-list' the media companies and would not issue them visas permanently, if their representatives try to enter
Afghanistan from Pakistan illegally. Yet another group of journalists were reported to be arrested by the tribesmen at Choora village in Terah valley – the tribal areas of Pakistan, when they were trying to cross over the border stealthily.
The local tribesmen considered them American spies. They arrested two French journalists who were identified as Ravallo Oliever and Marcan Telli Jerome of Bouuygues, a private channel, and their three Pakistani fixers, Mohammed Iqbal,
Syed Kamran and Rifatullah Orakazi. They were later on handed over to the political administration of Khyber Agency in the Frontier province of Pakistan where they are kept in a lock up during investigation. They have now been released.
However, life is not easy for many of the foreign journalists who chose to stay in Pakistan and to work within its limitations. “Death to America,” says an emotionally charged bearded youngster when he saw a British cameraman who
was filming a procession organized by the religious clergy in Pakistan's city of Rawalpindi, mistaking him as an 'American.' “Maybe death to my wife, who is American”, the cameraman replied sarcastically.
But a Chinese TV crew was badly beaten up when, despite the administration's ban on taking video cameras inside the embassy enclave in the Federal capital of Islamabad, the crew took the cameras inside and tried to flim the Chinese embassy. Within no time, the security guard, when he saw the camerman loading his gear (camera, tripord etc), started beating him.
The local administration in Pakistan has banned the movement of TV journalists in all the sensitive areas of the country after the news that two Arab suicide bombers, posing as journalists, assassinated Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud in Afghanistan. They had concealed a bomb in their camera and blew it up soon after Massoud appeared for an interview. Likewise, dozens of journalists of myriad media organizations are 'detained' inside the hotel compound, in a volatile city of Quetta in southern Pakistan, where at least half a dozen protestors have died in last one week in a clash with the law enforcing agencies. The angry journalists filed a petition against the attitude of the local administration in the high court for not letting them go out of the hotel to cover the procession and other events in the Quetta city.
Although the court granted them permission, the local administration defy courts orders, believing that 'since the passion of local people are high in the wake of the U.S. strikes against Afghanistan and it would risk the life of the foreign journalist if they are allowed to go out and to cover the different events organized by the 'religious fanatics.' The journalists, who are also provided bullet proof jackets by their respective organizations, meanwhile, are worried with the attitude of the local administration. “We are here to cover the events and to take the risks and not for a honeymoon,” says an angry journalist who was not allowed by the administration to leave the hotel.
But the huge presence of the foreign media in Pakistan has ensured that there is no dearth of the dollar these days. From local journalists to cabbies and travel guides, every one is ranking in the bucks. Despite the fact that exports of Pakistan have drastically decreased due to the America's war against terrorism, ironically, the value of the rupee has continue to be strengthened against the dollar. The value of rupee has been increased to 61 rupees a dollar against 67 rupees per dollar in last few weeks. And the observers believe that the if the journalists continue to stay for another few months the 'they may lift the rupee more, and one rupee would be equal to one dollar if George Bush's contention of waging a war for years with Afghanistan is true.”