Reporters Without Borders Exposed

Robert Ménard, president for life of the pseudo-NGO Reporters sans frontières (Reporters Without Borders) might deceive a lot of people, but cannot deceive everyone.
Responding to the January 15 publication of a Reporters sans frontières (RSF) “report” exonerating the soldiers who confessed to the murder in Iraq of Spanish cameraman José Couso, his family issued a press release on January 16 in Madrid, rejecting the supposed “investigation” and asking RSF to immediately withdraw from the dispute.
The family has filed a suit in the Supreme Court accusing the three U.S. soldiers implicated in the firing of a missile at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad that killed Couso. In their letter to RSF, his family members explain that their decision was made “after analyzing the RSF report,” which refutes the guilt of the identified soldiers and transfers “responsibility to non-identified persons.”
For the family, the RSF conclusions “are appropriate for the defense of the accused, but not for the ongoing indictment.” Couso’s family also states that “the irregularities and lack of rigor in drawing up a report that fails to include the testimony of any of the journalists present at the hotel (only with three journalists “embedded “ within the U.S. forces) and which contains erroneous information and contradictions.” They likewise note the RSF’s lack of sensitivity in writing a report that thanks two of the soldiers accused of the war crime in their lawsuit.
The RSF report is signed by a journalist, Jean-Paul Mari, known to associate with Colonel Philip de Camp, a military officer who admitted his involvement in the attack on the Palestine Hotel and the death of the journalists. The report is based on the testimony of three journalists – all of them American – linked to the U.S. armed forces. One of them – Chris Tomlinson – was in the U.S. Army Intelligence Services for more than seven years. None of the Spanish journalists who were at the hotel were consulted in the drafting of the report, the Couso family press release emphasizes.
“The report contains numerous errors, contradictions and irregularities related to significant facts such as the location of the hotel rooms, the site of the missile’s impact, where the witnesses were positioned, etc. In addition, it seems to us an absolute lack of delicacy that the report includes such “humane” biographies of two of the murderers,” adds the letter, strangely ignored up until now by the international “free” press.
Reporters sans frontières has asked to be involved in the lawsuit brought by the family on May 27, 2003, against those responsible for the death of José Couso. But family members have roundly rejected this request in face of the publication of this “absolutely incoherent and contradictory” report. (Jean-Guy Allard)