(RSF/IFEX) – The following is an RSF press release: Paris, 16 August 1999 For immediate release Press release Since 1 January 1999, twenty journalists have been killed around the world: this is a higher figure than the 1998 total Through the first eight months of 1999, twenty journalists have been killed while practicing their profession: […]
(RSF/IFEX) – The following is an RSF press release:
Paris, 16 August 1999
For immediate release
Press release
Since 1 January 1999, twenty journalists have been killed around the world:
this is a higher figure than the 1998 total
Through the first eight months of 1999, twenty journalists have been killed
while practicing their profession: Colombia (1), Lebanon (1), Nigeria (2),
Sierra Leone (10), Yugoslavia (6). This represents a higher number of
journalists killed than in all of 1998. Reporters sans frontières is alarmed
by this upsurge in murderous violence against media professionals,
considering we had witnessed a constant reduction in the number of
journalists killed over the last four years.
The 13 August murder of Colombian journalist and humorist Jaime Garzon,
seemingly by paramilitary forces, brings to twenty the number of journalists
killed since 1 January. In 1998, Colombia had already led as the country
with the largest number of assassinated journalists: four were killed
because their investigations bothered drug traffickers, armed groups or
local authorities.
The murder of journalists is very often a good indicator of the suffering
endured by populations. As such, Sierra Leone, which has turned out to be
the most dangerous country for journalists, is also the theatre of
unimaginable atrocities against civilians. In January alone, eight
journalists were murdered by RUF rebels. In February, Juma Jalloh was killed
by soldiers of ECOMOG, the West-African peace-keeping force. Finally, Conrad
Roy, the information director of the now defunct Expo Times, a daily which
no longer publishes, and who had been sentenced by the government of
President Tejan Kabbah, died while in detention, after suffering from
tuberculosis in his cell. In Nigeria, another African country where
journalists’ lives are not spared in violent confrontations, two were killed
while covering clashes between ethnic groups.
In Europe, the conflict between Serbia and NATO member states hit
journalists hard. Three Chinese journalists died during the bombing of their
embassy by Atlantic Alliance planes. In April, two unknown individuals
murdered Slavko Curuvija in front of his residence. He was the
editor-in-chief of the daily Dnevni Telegraf and a key personality of
independent journalism in Serbia. In June, two German journalists of the
weekly Stern were killed by a lone gunman in Kosovo. Finally, in the
Middle-East, an Israeli journalist was killed in Israeli-occupied territory
in South Lebanon. A bomb planted by Hezbollah militiamen exploded while the
military jeep carrying Ilan Roe and an Israeli army general was passing by.
Reporters sans frontières is all the more concerned by this upsurge in
assassinations because a majority of these crimes may remain unpunished. In
Sierra Leone, the Lomé peace treaty calls for a general amnesty for
belligerent parties. In Nigeria, the facts surrounding the murders of two
journalists have never fully come to light. In Serbia, it would appear that
the people behind the murder of Slavko Curuvija are close to circles of
power, which augurs ill for the search for his killers. The lack of
readiness of many governments to deal severely with attackers of journalists
can only encourage them to start anew. The slow pace of investigations, when
they take place, unfortunately serves to confirm the feeling that there is
complicity between the killers and official institutions.
Though we have just celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Geneva
Accords, this assessment attests to the incapacity of certain states to
protect their civilian populations, and notably journalists, during wartime.
Nevertheless, Article 3 states that persons who do not participate directly
in hostilities should be treated humanely in all circumstances.
As such, Reporters sans frontières is asking all states which are party to
the Geneva Accords to respect their commitments, by protecting journalists’
basic right to life. Furthermore, the organisation reiterates its request to
concerned authorities to give their justice systems or commissions of
inquiry the means to find and punish the authors of these murders.
