(MINNEAPOLIS) – There is an esprit de corps that develops among journalists who are on a story together, and this camaraderie becomes an intrinsic part of the job. The more dangerous the story, the tighter the bond becomes.
War correspondents are very well aware of the risks they face and they know that at any moment they could become the next victim of the conflict they are covering. When journalists are hurt, or worse, killed, the grim news reverberates across the industry like a shockwave. Their fate becomes a rallying call for colleagues who write comforting emails and messages, or passionate tributes. In addition to the selfless feelings of pain and loss, there is a distressing awareness of one’s own vulnerability.
Rarely a day passes when I don’t think about one of the many colleagues who have died on the job. Some of them I knew personally, while others I only knew through their work. In either case, they died innocent victims in pursuit of stories they felt needed to be told.
Just over 20 years ago, the Iranian born British journalist Farzad Bazoft was murdered at the direct orders of Saddam Hussein. In 1988, during the final stages of Iraq’s eight-year war with Iran, Farzad, like many other journalists including myself, were invited to Iraq to witness the ground war first hand. These trips entailed long and very strenuous travels to the front-lines, which sometimes lasted for a few days.
As gruesome as those trips were, they were always attended by an interesting mix of international journalists. I met Farzad on one of these press junkets, and we continued to bump into each other every time we came back to cover the battle front until the end of the war in August of 1988. At the time, I was working for a news agency out of Dubai, and Farzad was a freelance reporter for the Observer in London.
Farzad was witty and quirky. His jokes were a welcome relief in a usually charged atmosphere. He even managed to break the ice with the Iraqi government minders who watched us like hawks. He didn’t seem to be phased by all the attention he got, particularly when the authorities found out that he was originally Iranian. He made light of the situation and calmly explained that he left Iran before the revolution and that he had connections with the Islamic Republic.
On one occasion, we were led to a fenced enclosure packed with hundreds of Iranian prisoners. Since Farzad spoke Farsi, he was able to communicate with the captive soldiers. Besides asking the obvious questions, like where were they captured and how many were killed; he made jokes in Farsi in an attempt to bring a smile to their sullen faces.
After the war ended, I stopped going to Iraq and focused my attention on other stories in the region.
In September of the following year I heard on the news that a British journalist had been arrested in Iraq and accused of being an Israeli agent. When I heard that it was Farzad, I was shocked and feared for his life.
After the war ended, the Iraqis continued to invite the foreign press to cover stories they wanted the outside world to hear about. The Iraqis were particularly keen on discrediting reports that Saddam had ordered the murder of thousands of innocent civilians in the Kurdish village of Halabja. The Kurds are an ethic minority in Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran and have always strived for an independent homeland. When reports of the poison gas attack started to circulate in the spring of 1988, Saddam Hussein immediately blamed Iran for the atrocity. However, when eye witness accounts of the attack pointed the finger at Iraq, there was nothing much the Iraqis could do but try to weather the storm.
In an attempt to appease the situation, the Iraqis invited the foreign press to cover regional elections in Iraq’s Kurdish provinces. Farzad was one of the journalists who joined the trip. Little did he know, it would be his last.
While he was in the country, reports circulated of a huge explosion at a military compound just south of Baghdad. According to rumor, the explosion occurred at a chemical or nuclear weapons depot. A foreign TV crew, also there to cover the elections, tried to reach the scene but was turned away. Farzad clearly thought that this was his chance for a “scoop” and went down to investigate. Unfortunately, he was arrested at the airport while attempting to leave the country with soil samples he had taken near the site of the explosion.
After months of solitary confinement, interrogations, and torture he was finally forced to make an on-camera confession that he was an Israeli spy. During a closed trial, he was sentenced to death by hanging. Up to that point, the international community had exerted tireless efforts to win his release or at least to negotiate a retrial, under fair conditions. With an impending death sentence, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, along with other world leaders, stepped in with pleas for clemency. Much to the international community’s disgust, Saddam Hussein was unflinching.
On March 15 1990, nearly five months before Iraqi troops marched into Kuwait, Farzad was hanged inside Abu Ghraib prison. In 2003, just after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein I visited the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. The first thought that came to my mind when I stepped inside the grim room where thousands of innocent victims had been hanged, was the image of Farzad standing on the dock with a rope around his neck waiting for the inevitable to happen.
“I was just a journalist going after a scoop,” were the last words Farzad told the British Counsel to Baghdad, before he was lead away to the gallows. It’s ironic that Saddam Hussein, the judge, jury and executioner in Farzad’s case, suffered the same fate a decade later.
The risk journalist take to bring atrocities to the world’s attention are immeasurable. And as long as we question why particular things happen, there will always be journalist willing to find out the answers, even if it means paying the highest price.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect MPN’s (Mint Press News) editorial policy.