|
They protected me; who protects them?
29.4.2007 |
|
|
|
A
question is nagging at TOD ROBBERSON: What are
journalists' responsibilities to the locals who help
them cover news in war zones?
April 29, 2007
A Kurd, a Sunni, two Shiites and a Christian. As a
reporter, I couldn't have asked for a more
representative cross section of Iraqi society. They
worked with me as translators covering the war from
2003 to 2006. Each put himself at considerable
personal risk to help me do my job.
Now, each is afraid for his life for having
collaborated with Americans. The question keeps
nagging at me: What are correspondents'
responsibilities toward the locals who help them
cover news in war zones?The question is particularly
pressing because the U.S. government will grant
permanent residency to around 7,000 Iraqi refugees
later this year. The priority will go to Iraqis who
worked with the U.S. government or military and, in
doing so, put themselves and their families in
harm's way. If Iraqis went to great personal risk to
help keep the American public
informed about the war, shouldn't they also qualify
for the list?
My Iraqi aides guided me into some incredibly
dangerous places and arranged interviews with people
who would gladly have killed or kidnapped me had I
ventured there with less-skilled individuals. It's
hard not to feel some sense of responsibility for
them now that Iraq has become such a chaotic mess.
Not all journalists feel the same way. Some reason
that we paid our translators, drivers and bodyguards
good money by local standards. In Iraq, the going
rate for a translator was around $100 to $150 a day,
while the average Iraq laborer earned around $5.50.
My translators are no doubt wondering, in
retrospect, whether the risks were ever worth the
money. I am altering their names because at least
three are still in Iraq, trying hard not to attract
attention.
One, Hassan, is in hiding. He lived in Basra until
late last year, when constant death threats made it
unthinkable to continue living there. He now lives
elsewhere in Iraq's Shiite heartland, sneaking out
e-mails when he can.
Hassan and his best friend, Ali, worked as a
translator-driver team in Basra. Even by mid-2005,
when Baghdad had become too dangerous for
journalists to do their jobs, Basra was still
relatively calm. But the influence of a Shiite
militia leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, was beginning to
pervade all aspects of life in the city.
I was introduced to my translators by Fakher Haidar,
a Basra journalist who worked for The New York
Times. He admonished Hassan and Ali to be very
security conscious. Our precautions were elaborate
and frequently involved having me slouch down in the
back seat and run from curbsides to building
entrances in order to thwart would-be kidnappers.
I often thought they were going overboard. But a few
weeks after I left, they e-mailed to tell me that an
American writer in Basra, Steven Vincent, had been
kidnapped and killed. His translator also was shot
but survived. Shortly afterward, Mr. Haidar also was
shot and killed.
Like me, Mr. Vincent and Mr. Haidar had prepared
stories on the dampening effects that Mr. al-Sadr's
Mahdi Army militia was having on freedom in Basra.
There was no question that Ali and Hassan were
marked men, and the arrival of death threats made it
obvious that they had to leave.
They did.
In northern Iraq, my Kurdish translator, Yerevan,
helped me cover the country's first national
elections in 2005. Like many Kurds, he constantly
praised Kurdistan as the last bastion of freedom in
Iraq.
He changed his mind after a group of Kurds saw me
taking photos at a traffic circle one afternoon and
tried to drag me away to a police station. A few
days later, after Yerevan dropped me off at my
hotel, he noticed that someone was following him in
a car. He drove fast and tried several sudden turns
to get away.
When he got to his home, Yerevan jumped out and ran
inside quickly, hoping he had evaded the chasers.
Minutes later, he heard the noise of a car speeding
away. Outside, his car windshield had been smashed
with a cinderblock. There was no message explaining
why. But Yerevan said it was a clear warning against
working with American journalists.
My first translator in Baghdad was Hameed, a Sunni
Muslim whom I met in April 2003, one block from
where Saddam Hussein's statue fell at Firdos Square.
We worked together for weeks on end, day and night.
We slogged through charred rubble. We interviewed
looters. We drank tea in Shiite slum dwellings where
raw sewage ran past the front door. In the Shiite
holy city of Karbala one day in 2003, a group of
angry militants tried to abduct me, claiming that I
was asking unauthorized political questions during
street interviews.
Hameed, a hefty man, pushed his way between me and a
man with a gun and yelled: "Iraq is free now. This
journalist has a right to ask questions, and people
have a right to answer without being intimidated by
you!" He quickly hustled me away.
Another time in Baghdad, Hameed's brother and I were
conducting an interview on the street. A car drove
by slowly as its occupants observed us. Then the car
rounded a corner into an alley. A few minutes later,
a burst of gunfire erupted from an AK-47 assault
rifle and multiple shots zipped past us.
Eventually, it became clear to Hameed (not to
mention his brother) that working with American
journalists was not worth the risk, no matter how
much we paid. He became reluctant to e-mail me from
Internet cafes because, he said, people might be
reading over his shoulder. When I called him from
abroad, he insisted that we speak only in Arabic
because if he were overheard speaking in English, he
would be accused of being a collaborator. The last
time I talked to Hameed, he asked me not to e-mail
or call him again.
I feel awful, because he helped me get some of my
best stories in Iraq. My sense of indebtedness to
him – to all of them – is sometimes overwhelming.
They embraced the message of freedom that we
American journalists implied with our presence in
Iraq.
We are a better-informed country because of their
sacrifices. The least we can do is ease the way for
people like them to receive asylum and let them know
that their faith and dedication was not misplaced.
dallasnews comt
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
® 