REPORTERS all over the planet die to tell stories. From the Philippines where journalists were massacred in Maguindanao on the southern island of Mindanao in 2009, to Mexico where journalists families are targeted with threats of torture.
The Pacific is a far cry from these situations yet only one Pacific country made it to the top 10 in press freedom for 2014 - New Zealand at ninth.
This is not a one off occasion. In 2013, the situation occurred where New Zealand was also the only Pacific country in the top 10.
Australia was 28th in the 2014 index.
The highest placed Pacific Islands country was Samoa, ranked 40th, closely followed by Papua New Guinea at 44.
JAKARTA: How far can a journalist go in pursuing a story in times of conflict without becoming the story?
Rahim Ullah Yusufzai, a veteran of war, terrorism, insurrection and civil unrest reporting in Pakistan, thinks that no story is really worth dying for, no matter how important it is.
“Journalists are always hungry for news. We do take risks as journalists, but we keep telling our colleagues and I with myself, you know, nothing is more important than your life,” said Yusufzai, of TV channel Geo and News International of Peshawar, Pakistan.
“You can’t really put your life at risk for a story because the story will always be covered even if you don’t go.”
Yusufzai spoke before 52 senior journalists from 16 member-countries of the East Asia Summit in a meeting in Jakarta on March 8-11 to examine reporting on complex issues at the intersection of politics, religion and culture.
The forum was organised by New Zealand and the European Union, with support from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Indonesian government and Press Council.
Yusufzai, who interviewed al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden twice in 1998 and Taliban head Mullah Omar 13 times, stressed that a journalist should never cross the limit, and should always trust survival instincts.
“You expose yourself, you can actually be a burden on your organisation. They have to pay the ransom or your family, or in some cases, your country has to face the burden because your government is forced to release Taliban commanders,” he said.
“The media organisations - they are happy if you go to the front lines and you report the story but they don’t want to spend money on you. We always say that the camera is insured, but the cameraman is not insured,” Yusufzai said.
“The camera is very expensive and they insure it,” he said.
The kidnapping of journalists—local or foreign—for ransom has become a big business in conflict areas, Yusufzai said. Eventually, it all comes to ransom, he noted, as the US, the French and British governments do not normally agree to the release of prisoners.
Two French journalists remain in captivity since they were abducted in Afghanistan on Dec. 30 last year. In exchange for their freedom, the kidnappers have demanded the release of Taliban prisoners and the payment of ransom.
Yusufzai said the two journalists first came to Afghanistan embedded with the French troops. The second time, they decided to go on their own by seeking local contacts to get to a Taliban commander. They ended up being kidnapped by the commander.
“This is a difficult situation,” Yusufzai mused. “You go with the troops, you are accused of being on the side of your troops you are embedded. But if you want to be independent, then you are actually exposing yourselves to many risks.”
In 2007, he said, an Italian journalist was kidnapped in Pakistan and was released only after a deal under which five Taliban commanders were released.
“You have to be careful in dealing with young people you know. We’ve met a few suicide bombers and they were teenagers and they can be very emotional. You can’t really negotiate with a young man. They are so rigid and so inflexible,” he said.
Maguindanao massacre During the forum, participants cited the November 23, 2009, massacre of 57 people, including 32 journalists, in Maguindanao as an example of the risks journalists faced.
Participants signed an open letter to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo expressing their sympathies to the families of the victims and urging the government to stop the senseless killings of journalists.
ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said that journalists had a big responsibility as communicators to bring out the truth to the world.
Orlando Mercado, Philippine permanent representative to the ASEAN, said that the newsroom had been marginalised by so-called new media—websites, blogs, YouTube, Facebook and the citizen journalists.
Pictured: Top: A candlelight protest against the Maguindanao massacre in the southern Philippines (Photo: Arnold Padilla). Middle: the author, Cynthia Balana, and Rahim Ullah Yusufzai at the Jakarta media conference. Bottom: The Maguindanao massacre.
EIGHT members of the clan accused of being responsible for the obscene slaughter of 57 people - including up to 30 journalists - in the southern Philippines province of Maguindanao late last month have been rounded up and charged.
The accused include the so-called "Godfather" of the clan. Hundreds of police and security agents have been detained and reports say the entire police force of the province will be replaced.
Women victims were reported to have been mutilated.
Bai Genalin Mangudadatu, wife of Buluan Vice-Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu, suffered 17 gunshot wounds and several "incised wounds," according to a medical report of the National Bureau of Investigation. But the NBI reportedly found no sign of rape among the 15 female victims it had examined.
Genalin had been on her way to file her husband's certificate of candidacy for Maguindanao governor when gunmen blocked her convoy and killed her and at least 56 others on November 23.
Maguindanao Governor Andal Ampatuan Sr is one of eight members of his clan indicted by prosecutors probing the massacre.
He has been described as the "Godfather" of the political clan favoured by President Gloria Arroyo.
The prosecutors have charged him with multiple murder, destruction of property and robbery.
Ampatuan Sr's son, Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr, is already in jail on charges of masterminding the election-related killings and on 25 counts of murder.
Another of Ampatuan Sr's sons, Governor Zaldy Ampatuan of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, has also been asked by Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno to answer within five days allegations that he had failed "to protect the civil, human and political rights" of the victims.
An Al Jazeera report described the powerful Ampatuan clan as "political untouchables".
A congressman accused the government on Friday of being the biggest arms supplier of Filipino warlords after the discovery of a large arms cache near the mansion of Governor Zaldy Ampatuan Jr on Thursday.
"The arms cache found near the Ampatuans' mansion confirms that the government, particularly the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines), is the biggest arms supplier of the country's warlords," Bayan Muna Representative Teodoro Casiño said in a text message.
“This bloodbath is beyond human understanding,” says a journalist from the nearby city of Koronadal. He told Reporters Sans Frontières: “I have lost 12 of my colleagues in this massacre.”
Nonoy Espina of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), who is in Mindanao, told Reporters Sans Frontièresbefore the latest arrests of the clan leaders: "The government is not doing enough to arrest those responsible."
Eight of the journalists have now been buried and media people will stage a protest rally at Mendiola, Manila, on Wednesday, December 9.
Meanwhile, an international emergency mission led by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has arrived in the Philippines to support local journalists and the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) in the wake of the massacre.
The delegation comprises representatives from leading journalists' rights and press freedom organisations including the IFJ, the Southeast Asia Press Alliance (SEAPA), the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance MEAA - Australia), the Thai Journalists' Association (TJA), International News Safety Institute (INSI), International Media Support (IMS), the Institute for Studies on the Free Flow of Information (ISAI) and Union Network International (UNI).
