Protests Mark 1st Anniversary of Media Deaths in Baghdad

By: Mark Fitzgerald With protest letters and demonstrations, international journalists unions and free-press associations yesterday marked the first anniversary of the U.S. attack on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, which killed two of the many journalists staying there.

The Brussels, Belgium-based International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) had declared April 8 a world-wide day of mourning and protest "over the unexplained deaths of media staff during the conflict and the failure of the U.S. authorities to make public their own investigations which, where they have been carried out, have exonerated U.S. soldiers of any responsibility."

IFJ said letters of protests and petitions "signed by thousands of journalists and media staff" were delivered to U.S. embassies in London, Madrid, Brussels and other world capitals by IFJ-affiliated unions and journalists associations.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF in French) marked the day by delivering to U.S. congressmen and senators a protest letter signed by the wives and children of six journalists killed by U.S. friendly fire in Iraq, or missing after friendly fire incidents.

The letter called for the military to make thorough and public investigations of the incident. "A few half-hearted apologies and supposed [inquiries] that always conclude the Army acted in accordance with the rules of warfare and in 'legitimate self-defense' are not enough," the letter read in part. "On the contrary, they fill us with bitterness and deepen our grief. Can we not expect a leading democracy claiming to defend freedom around the world to honestly admit its mistakes and take full responsibility for them?"

"We demand the truth, pure and simple," said IFJ General Secretary Aidan White. "There is no exemption for journalists and media staff when it comes to casualties in war-time, but we must have answers to the unanswered questions about why our colleagues died. ... The attack on the Palestine Hotel was a shameful incident made worse by U.S. misinformation circulated after the event. It has come to symbolize the notion of impunity that characterizes official treatment of journalists in Iraq."

Many journalists were staying in the Palestine Hotel when it came under U.S. fire on April 8, 2003, a day before Baghdad fell. Two journalists, Taras Protsiuk working for Reuters and Jos? Couso, a cameraman for the Spanish network Telecinco, were killed in the attack.

Separate investigations into the attack have been conducted by the IFJ and the RSF as well as the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York City and Reporters Without Borders in Paris. A military investigation has not been made public. Since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, seven journalists have died in four separate incidents of "friendly fire" by American troops, IFJ said.