Journalists' sacrifices remembered
Commentary
By Charles L. Overby
Chairman and CEO, The Freedom Forum
05.15.99
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It's hard to believe that 29 journalists were killed in 1998 while
simply doing their jobs.
They will be memorialized this month with the rededication of The
Freedom Forum Journalists Memorial.
After the ceremony, there will be 1,035 names on the memorial. This
beautiful glass structure in Arlington, Va., attracts thousands of
visitors who leave with a greater appreciation of the perils facing
journalists.
'Assassination of journalists is on the rise,' said Tim Kenny, who
oversees this ongoing project for The Freedom Forum.
Most of these deaths are related to journalists investigating corruption
or writing critically about politics.
'It's rare that those cases get solved,' Kenny said. 'They are not
taken seriously.'
Consider just a few examples:
- Oscar Garcia Calderon was shot three times in the head after covering
a bullfight in Bogota, Colombia. He was investigating possible links
between bullfighting and organized crime.
- Luis Mario Garcia Rodriguez was shot nine times while leaving the
offices of the attorney general in Mexico. He had been writing about
police corruption.
- Tara Singh Hayer was shot to death in Surrey, British Columbia, after
writing critical articles frequently about violent Sikh fundamentalists.
Hayer had been using a wheelchair since 1988, when he was shot by a Sikh
militant.
Not all journalists who died in 1998 were murdered. Four journalists in
Kenya died in a plane crash while on assignment. A journalist drowned in
Florida while covering a story about a fishing-net ban.
Either way, the murders and accidents underscore the danger of pursuing
news.
Wars, of course, always place journalists in jeopardy.
The armed conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s are second only to those
in Southeast Asia in the number of journalists killed. This is the toll
by wars:
- Southeast Asia: 68 (Vietnam, 31; Cambodia, 33; Laos, 4).
- Yugoslavia: 57 (Bosnia, 26; Croatia, 29; Slovenia, 2).
- World War II: 47
- Korea: 10
- World War I: 1
More journalists have been killed in the United States than in any other
country, based on the number of names on the memorial.
We know that more journalists probably have been killed in other
countries, but there is no documentation to prove it.
'Who knows how many journalists Stalin killed?' Kenny said.
Here are the five countries where the most journalists have been killed:
- United States, 84
- Philippines, 70
- Algeria, 64
- Guatemala, 54
- India, 50
Print journalists make up the majority of names on the memorial, but
on-the-job deaths of photographers and TV camera people are increasing
as they put themselves on the front lines of conflicts around the world.
Kenny, along with Alice Bishop, works year-round gathering the names of
journalists killed and documenting the circumstances surrounding their
deaths.
They work closely with the Committee to Protect Journalists, the
organization that has been doing similar research since 1981.
The Freedom Forum has attempted to document deaths that occurred since
the early 1800s. Since we dedicated the memorial in 1996, we have
discovered and documented 193 additional journalists who died in the
line of duty. Those journalists escaped our original research.
The 193 names will be added to the memorial during a ceremony in May of
2000.
We built the memorial with lots of blank glass. Unfortunately, the
glass is filling up with names.
Sadly, we know that about 30 journalists pursuing the truth today will
be killed by this time next year.
We should never forget these journalists who have sacrificed their
lives.
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