WORLD TRIBUNAL ON IRAQ
ON THE “RESIGNATION” OF CNN’S EASON JORDAN
RIVERBEND: WHY IRAQIS DIDN’T VOTE

A few days in Berlusconia, the country formerly known as Italy, was enough to remind me that at least as far as the media is concerned, as bad as things are, they can always get worse.

With the Parliament about to debate new rules that will limit critical reporting, and TV station cleansed of most debate and in-depth programming, you can see what happens when a right-wing media mogul takes over the networks and the government at the same time. Prime time is filled with mindless variety shows hosted by chattering beauties of all genders and little of substance. The pandering and dumbing down is pervasive.

FREE GIULIANA

At the same time, the Italian people are aware the importance of a free media with tens of thousands including the pope demanding the release of Giuliana Sgrena, a left-wing journalist kidnapped by parties unknown in Iraq.

Luciana Bohne writes in Online Journal that the demands are being echoes in Iraq:
.

February 12, 2005-On the front pages of major Iraqi papers across the land in recent days, one headline: “Free Her!” The abduction Friday, 4 February, of the journalist from Il Manifesto, Giuliana Sgrena, has Iraqi civil society living in anguish about her fate-they have added the burden of her disappearance to the litany of their daily, appalling, ever-mounting woes. In their utterly civilized and almost powerless humanity, they plead for her! I don’t think it will be easy for even the brutality of the occupation to crush such a selfless strain of stubborn humanity!

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Media/021205Bohne/02-12-05_Bohne.pdf

ASSESSING MEDIA WRONGS

I came to Italy to testify at and show my film WMD to a Tribunal assessing the role of the media in covering the war. It was controversial with many — even in the peace movement — uneasy about any appearance of undermining a free press. That wasn’t the case, as Dahr Jamail reported. (He is a brave independent reporter whose work from Iraq I frequently quote and admire. I was even more impressed after meeting him.) This is not a report that will get much pick up in our media. Read it an you will see why:

“World Tribunal on Iraq: Media Held Guilty of Deception

“ROME - A peoples tribunal has held much of Western media guilty of inciting violence and deceiving people in its reporting of Iraq.

“The World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI), an international peoples initiative seeking the truth about the war and occupation in Iraq made its pronouncement Sunday after a three- day meeting. The tribunal heard testimony from independent journalists, media professors, activists, and member of the European Parliament Michele Santoro.

The Rome session of the WTI followed others in Brussels, London, Mumbai, New York, Hiroshima-Tokyo, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Lisbon. The Rome meeting focused on the media role.

The informal panel of WTI judges accused the United States and the British governments of impeding journalists in performing their task, and intentionally producing lies and misinformation.

The panel accused western corporate media of filtering and suppressing information, and of marginalizing and endangering independent journalists. More journalists were killed in a 14-month period in Iraq than in the entire Vietnam war.

The tribunal said mainstream media reportage on Iraq also violated article six of the Nuremberg Tribunal (set up to try Nazi crimes) which states: “Leaders, organisers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes (crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity) are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such a plan.”

The panel that heard testimonies included Francois Houtart, director of the Tricontinental Centre in Belgium that has backed several peoples movements in Latin America, and Dr. Samir Amin, director of the Third World Forum in Dakar, Senegal. Dr. Haleh Afshar, who teaches politics and women’s studies at the University of York in Britain, and Italian author and newspaper editor Ernesto Pallotta witnessed the proceedings.

“This is not simply an exercise to denounce the mainstream media for their bias and incompetence,” said Dr. Tony Alessandrini, a human rights activist who has published several articles on the U.S. colonisation of Iraq. “These denunciations have been going on for months. Here in Rome, we must go further..”

Alessandrini, who helped organised the WTI added, “What we are being asked to consider is not simply media bias, but rather the active complicity of media in crimes that have been committed and are being committed on a daily basis against the people in Iraq.”

Several experts gave strong testimony. Dr. Peter Philips, director of ‘Project Censured’ at Sonoma State University in California where he teaches media censorship provided taped testimony. He said that at no time since the 1930s has the United States been so close to “institutionalized totalitarianism”, and added, “U.S. society has become the least informed, best entertained society in the world.”

The WTI Rome session also heard testimony from Dr. David Miller from Scotland, author of ‘Tell Me Lies: Propaganda and Media Distortion in the Attack on Iraq’. “This is about condemning journalistic complicity of war crimes,” said Dr. Miller, who is also co-editor of Spinwatch, a group that monitors public relations and propaganda.

Miller said the Pentagon “does not recognise the concept of independent journalists, because they are providers of unfriendly information”, and that mainstream media in the United States and in Britain was “complicit in furthering the selling of the invasion, and ongoing occupation. All studies conducted on mainstream media show dominance by government policies, and wartime coverage of TV news in the UK was generally sympathetic to the government’s case..”

Fernando Suarez, who lost his son Jesus during the invasion of Iraq when he is said to have stepped on an illegal U.S. cluster bomb, also testified at the tribunal.

Suarez testified that he was first told by the Pentagon that his son died from a gunshot to the head, then that he died in an accident, and then that he had died in ‘friendly fire’.
On inspecting his son’s body Suarez said he discovered that his son had died from stepping on a cluster bomb.

“I never had the truth from them,” Suarez added. “I found the truth, and the truth was very simple. On March 26 the Army dropped 20,000 cluster bombs in Iraq, but only about 20 percent exploded. The other 80 percent are in the cities and the schools and acting like mines.”

Suarez said: “Bush sent my son because he said Iraq had illegal weapons, and my son died from an illegal American weapon, and nobody has spoken about this. The media will not talk about the illegal American weapons.”

Several witnesses testified about media disinformation over the siege of Fallujah. They were presented copies of the award winning documentary ‘Weapons of Mass Deception’ by journalist and film-maker Danny Schechter, who is also executive editor of Mediachannel.org, an online media issues network. Alessandrini said evidence of active complicity of the mainstream media in wrongs committed against the people of Iraq, and the wrongs of deception and incitement, was now overwhelming.

“We work from the understanding that history will recall the crimes committed against the people of Iraq by the U.S.,” he said. “It is our responsibility to record these crimes in order to ensure these crimes are never again repeated.”
Copyright © 2005 IPS-Inter Press Service

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0214-07.htm

ON EASON JORDAN

The Tribunal also issued a statement saying it “finds the sudden ‘resignation’ of CNN News executive Eason Jordan very troubling and suspicious in light of his recent comments suggesting as many as 12 journalists were killed in Iraq by the U.S. military. His remarks were made in an off-the-record discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos. A
full transcript has not been published.

“It is clear that Mr. Jordan was intimidated and pressured into stepping down after intense criticism by some pro-war US politician sand media outlets led by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and New York Post questioning his patriotism. His resignation calls into question freedom of speech within the media and the right to dissent.

“Are Mr. Jordan’s claims accurate? Many journalists and press freedom groups believe that such targeting and killings have taken place in the Iraq war as we have heard in testimony before the tribunal by journalists documenting massive abuses by the U.S. military against civilians in Fallujah and other Iraq cities. We have been told of the harassment of journalists and the barring of members of the media from covering aspects of the U.S. military campaign.

“We have also heard testimony from Danny Schechter, a former CNN producer and filmmaker who shows the killings of journalists under such circumstances in his film WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception.) that is being shown at the Tribunal.

“The World Tribunal on Iraq joins the calls by international media groups and the families of dead journalists for a full independent investigation by an international team of journalists who should be given the right to question members of the military. We demand that media outlets stop impugning the integrity of journalists who raise these questions and that CNN examine the charges raised by its former head of news.”

MUCHO MORE MONEY SOUGHT FOR IRAQ

The New York Times reports today: “Bush Seeks $81.9 Billion More, Mostly for Forces in Iraq”

“Members of Congress have criticized the administration for using the supplemental budget request to finance the war.” In some media outlets this scandal was dwarfed by the UN Oil For Peace probe and focus on individual enrichment. It seemed important but small change compared to the billions still missing in various war contracting scandals and the billions still being poured into Iraq.

Check out the new Le Monde Diplomatique:

Iraq: the real sanctions scandal
by Joy Gordon

The recent interim report by the independent commission investigating the United Nations oil-for-food program accuses UN officials of favoritism, violation of competitive bidding rules, and a dangerous lack of auditing. But the truth may be far more complicated.”

http://MondeDiplo.com/2005/02/05irak
http://MondeDiplo.com/2005/02/06oilforfood