The power of sane voices that get silenced in a war has a unique quality. It keeps coming back to remind us of what to do and what to avoid. One of the sage voices I encountered in my journalism was that of Neelan Tiruchelvam in Colombo. He was a legal luminary who tried to address the vexatious ethnic issue through creative legislative means and a constitutional framework that ensured both territorial integrity and a fair distribution of power. I was in Sri Lanka in July 1988 to report on the first anniversary of the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord. It was one of the most difficult moments for journalists covering the conflict. There were two warfronts. One in the south between the Sri Lankan Army and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), and the other in the northeast between the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
I was to cover both the fronts, and each had its own wartime dynamics. The JVP was angry about the presence of the Indian Army, and the LTTE was fighting the Indian Army, and I, as an Indian Tamil, Neelan warned, could be vulnerable as identity politics is grey blind and cannot recognise the autonomous nature of journalism. He talked about Martha Gellhorn’s coverage from World War II and Vietnam, where she found disturbing and horrific victims on both sides of the battles lines, to her reportage in the 1980s about the wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua and the U.S. invasion of Panama. He asked me to learn the most crucial lesson from Martha’s journalism. “She was as committed as any other truth seeker in your profession. But she was also a very intelligent person who gave importance to security while covering conflicts. Today we know so much about Vietnam and Nicaragua because she was alive to tell us those stories. Take necessary precautions and do not convert your journalistic mission into a misadventure,” said Neelan, who was killed 11 years later on his way to his office.
Global protocolsBut, the safety and security of journalists covering war is not fully within their control. A journalist on a dangerous professional assignment in a conflict area is a civilian and is entitled to all rights granted to civilians per se. The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the two Protocols of 1977 guarantee these rights provided the journalist “does not undertake any action which could jeopardize his civilian status.” Under the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, “civilians are protected from harm. Additional Protocol I, for example, states that in order to ensure respect for, and protection of, the civilian population and civilian property, those fighting must at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian property and military objectives.”
But these guarantees are often honoured in the breach and the journalistic casualties in war have not stopped. The latest report from Palestine is a grim reminder of the vulnerability of journalists and the ineffectiveness of global protocols. According to the latest report by Reporters Without Borders (RBF), 12 Palestinian journalists and one media worker have been killed since the start of Operation Protective Edge on July 8, seven of them in connection with their work. This is the highest toll since Israel withdrew in 2005.
“Whether these journalists and media workers were killed in indiscriminate air raids or were deliberately targeted, their deaths should be independently investigated and those responsible should be identified. Journalists should not be targeted by belligerents, who must respect the Geneva Conventions and their additional protocols, as well as U.N. Security Council Resolution 1738, adopted in 2006,” said Reporters Without Borders assistant research director, Virginie Dangles.
Advice and realityThe details emerging from Palestine clearly indicate that following the advice of Neelan Tiruchelvam and Martha Gellhorn is not enough to cover present day violence. Let’s look at two instances. Hamada Khaled Makat, the head of the Saja News Agency, was killed in an Israeli air strike in northern Gaza City. He was killed outside his home at dawn after going out to cover the air strikes.
According to RBF, Mohamed Noureddin Al-Dairi, 26, a photographer with the Palestinian Network for Journalism and Media, died from the injuries he received while covering an air raid on Shuja’iya market on July 30. He was not pulled from the rubble until two days after the raid. The death toll in the raid on the Shuja’iya neighbourhood was 17 civilians, including three journalists.
The RBF also records the killing of freelance journalist Shadi Hamdi Ayad, 24, in his home by an Israeli air strike on Al-Zaytoun, a neighbourhood in southeastern Gaza City and that of Abdullah Nasr Fahjan, 21, a sports journalist with Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV, on August 1 during an Israeli bombardment of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
The International News Safety Institute (INSI) provides practical, relevant and timely safety and security advice to journalists working in dangerous and hostile places. But, if the armed forces — both of the state and of the non-state variety — are not going to respect the international protocols, despite all the efforts by organisations like RBF and INSI, the casualties of journalists will continue to go up. The international community cannot pretend to be helpless.
readerseditor@thehindu.co.in
