In the line of duty
The shooting to death of a Palestinian cameraman in Iraq angers press groups and raises concerns about the growing number of reporters killed by coalition forces writes Muna Hamzeh
For award-winning Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana, getting shot while filming bloody confrontations and military incursions in the West Bank came with the territory of covering a dangerous beat. Considered one of Reuter's most experienced conflict reporters, Dana, who lived and worked in his hometown of Hebron, was never intimidated by the presence of trigger-happy Israeli soldiers and settlers. Regardless of the perilous nature of events unfolding before his eyes, Dana's camera never stopped from rolling.
"To be a journalist and cameraman in a city of lost hope like Hebron requires great sacrifices," Dana said as he accepted the 2001 International Press Freedom Award from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). And sacrifice he did. In addition to spending considerable time away from his wife Suzana and their four young children, Dana was often the victim of Israeli brutality.
In May 2000, Israeli soldiers shot him in the leg while he was filming stone-throwing Palestinian youths. Two months later, Israeli settlers in Hebron beat Dana unconscious while he tried to film a confrontation. The very next day, an Israeli police officer smashed Dana's head against an ambulance door while he was filming the evacuation of a wounded Palestinian youth. In October 2002, Israeli troops shot him in the same leg, two days in a row. In the past decade, Dana was hit by rubber- coated metal bullets on numerous occasions. Other times, he was beaten, detained and his camera was either smashed or confiscated.
But in the end the bullet that killed the seasoned 43 year-old Palestinian cameraman was not an Israeli bullet and his untimely death did not occur on Palestinian soil. Instead, he was killed by an American bullet hundreds of miles away in Iraq. Dana and Palestinian soundman Nael Al-Shyoukhi were filming outside the US-run Abu Ghraib prison in western Baghdad on Sunday, where six Iraqi civilians had been killed earlier in a mortar bomb attack, when a US soldier on a tank fired at the two. Al-Shyoukhi immediately lay on the ground, but Dana was not so lucky. He was hit in the chest and was pronounced dead on arrival at the 28th Combat Support Hospital where he was evacuated by US troops.
The last footage of film on Dana's camera shows a US tank driving towards him. Several shots are then heard ringing out of the tank before Dana's camera falls to the ground.
Al-Shyoukhi told Reuters that he and Dana had asked a US soldier permission to film in the area and the soldier had agreed. "They saw us and they knew about our identities and our mission," Al- Shyoukhi said. "After we filmed we went into the car and prepared to go when a convoy led by a tank arrived and Mazen stepped out of the car to film. I followed him and Mazen walked three to four metres. We were noted and seen clearly."
While the US military for its part admitted that its troops had "engaged" an individual who was later identified as a reporter, a military spokesman said that the troops had thought Dana's camera was a rocket propelled grenade launcher.
Palestinian and international press groups reacted angrily to Dana's slaying and demanded an immediate investigation into the incident. A statement issued on Monday by the Palestinian Journalist Syndicate in Ramallah described Dana's killing as "intentional" and called for the formation of an international committee of journalists to sue those responsible for killing reporters.
In New York, CPJ issued a statement on Sunday calling for a "full investigation into the shooting, and a public accounting of the circumstances". Meanwhile, Reuters Chief Executive Tom Glocer said on Sunday that he expected "the fullest and most comprehensive investigation into this terrible tragedy".
Dana's death brings to 17 the number of reporters killed in Iraq since the Anglo-American war began on 20 March. He is the second Palestinian reporter and second Reuters cameraman to be killed in Baghdad. Al-Jazeera satellite TV reporter Tarek Ayyoub was killed on 8 April when US troops fired a rocket at the station's offices in Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. Taras Protsyuk, a Reuters cameraman from the Ukraine, was also killed in the attack.
But the recent results of a US Central Command (Centcom) investigation into the Palestine Hotel killings left press groups feeling both disillusioned and troubled. The results, which were published on 12 April, claimed that the hotel shelling was "fully in accordance with the Rules of Engagement", and concluded that the US tank unit that opened fire on the hotel did so "in a proportionate and justifiably measured response".
But according to CPJ, the Centcom investigation failed to answer crucial questions about the attack, mainly that US commanders knew that reporters were present in the hotel but failed to inform forces on the ground. "It is troubling that the results of the investigation do not address the central question of whether US commanders were aware they were firing on a hotel full of journalists," said CPJ Deputy Director Joel Simon on 13 April. "We hope that the full report deals with these issues and provides more specific information. We call on the Pentagon to make the full report public." Although CPJ has urged Centcom to make public the full report, Centcom said it was classified.
The results of the investigation clearly back away from earlier charges by US military officials that the tank unit was responding to hostile fire directed from the Palestine Hotel. According to CPJ, Centcom has continuously maintained that "the enemy" used parts of the hotel as a base of operations despite substantial testimony from several reporters to the contrary.
CPJ maintains that the results of the Centcom investigation fail to provide such specific information such as how the decision was made to target the hotel. CPJ's own investigation of the attack suggested that although the attack on the journalists was not deliberate, it could have been avoided considering that both Pentagon officials and US commanders on the grounds knew that the hotel was full of foreign reporters and "were intent on not hitting it".
Unless the soldiers who caused the death of the 17 reporters in Iraq are brought to justice, the families of those who were killed while reporting the truth about Iraq's occupation are unlikely to find any comfort. But for the thousands of Palestinians who await Dana's body to arrive in Hebron where he will be laid to rest, his tragic death will not be easily forgotten. For who would have thought that after weathering Israeli bullets for nearly 14 years on the beat, that it would be another occupation force in another country that would bring his life to an untimely end. And who, other than Dana himself, would have guessed that he would die with his camera in hand, doing what loved to do and what he believed in. Hebron will never be the same again now that Dana's camera has stopped rolling.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 21 - 27 August 2003 (Issue No. 652)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/652/re8.htm