Publish to Newswire
Add an EventFrom the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature
Bearing Witness: War Correspondent Janine di Giovanni On Reporting From the Battleground
"In the 1990s, a series of violent wars kept coming, like wave after brutal wave," says di Giovanni. "I was part of an elite, tight band of international reporters – a tribe, really – who roamed the earth, working from front lines or cities under siege. In those days, we rarely wore flak jackets. But we believed in the stories we were reporting, in the importance of bearing witnesses to evil regimes, to ethnic cleansing, to genocide and systematic rape. After Israel came Bosnia. After Bosnia, Rwanda. Liberia. Congo. Chechnya. Sierra Leone. East Timor. Ivory Coast. Zimbabwe. Somalia. Afghanistan. Iraq." [includes rush transcript]
With an increasing number of controversies swirling around journalists" coverage of war and occupation, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ominously warned that "People need to be very careful about what they say, just as people need to be careful about what they do."
Today we take a look at the dangers the media faces both at home and abroad. Later in the program we will hear an address by hip historian and journalist Davey D about the Clear Channeling of America and the hip hop generation. But first, we go to an interview with Janine Giovanni -- one of the most experienced war correspondents in the world. She has worked for scores of newspapers, TV stations and magazines. She is a Senior Foreign correspondent for The Times of London. She also reports for the BBC and Vanity Fair. She has written a number of books about her experiences in war zones. She is featured in a new film by Barbara Kopple called "Bearing Witness," which follows five female war correspondents. Her latest book is called Madness Visible : A Memoir of War.
I'm going to begin by reading her words.
"In the 1990s, a series of violent wars kept coming, like wave after brutal wave. I was part of an elite, tight band of international reporters – a tribe, really – who roamed the earth, working from front lines or cities under siege. In those days, we rarely wore flak jackets.
"But we believed in the stories we were reporting, in the importance of bearing witnesses to evil regimes, to ethnic cleansing, to genocide and systematic rape. After Israel came Bosnia. After Bosnia, Rwanda. Liberia. Congo. Chechnya. Sierra Leone. East Timor. Ivory Coast. Zimbabwe. Somalia. Afghanistan. Iraq. I know I've mercifully forgotten some.
"I had a major epiphany in Conackry, Guinea in May, 2000. I had been robbed the night before but I was still trying to bribe my way onto the last flight to Freetown. The rebel RUF were closing in on the capitol, and any one who could was scrambling for the last flights out.
And I was trying to throw myself onto one of the empty helicopters flying in to Freetown to evacuate people. What kind of person was I, running into the fire when everyone else was diving for cover?"
I began by asking Janine to talk about what she wrote.
* Janine di Giovanni, war correspondent and author of "Madness Visible: A Memoir of War"
LISTEN ONLINE
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/23/1339223
Today we take a look at the dangers the media faces both at home and abroad. Later in the program we will hear an address by hip historian and journalist Davey D about the Clear Channeling of America and the hip hop generation. But first, we go to an interview with Janine Giovanni -- one of the most experienced war correspondents in the world. She has worked for scores of newspapers, TV stations and magazines. She is a Senior Foreign correspondent for The Times of London. She also reports for the BBC and Vanity Fair. She has written a number of books about her experiences in war zones. She is featured in a new film by Barbara Kopple called "Bearing Witness," which follows five female war correspondents. Her latest book is called Madness Visible : A Memoir of War.
I'm going to begin by reading her words.
"In the 1990s, a series of violent wars kept coming, like wave after brutal wave. I was part of an elite, tight band of international reporters – a tribe, really – who roamed the earth, working from front lines or cities under siege. In those days, we rarely wore flak jackets.
"But we believed in the stories we were reporting, in the importance of bearing witnesses to evil regimes, to ethnic cleansing, to genocide and systematic rape. After Israel came Bosnia. After Bosnia, Rwanda. Liberia. Congo. Chechnya. Sierra Leone. East Timor. Ivory Coast. Zimbabwe. Somalia. Afghanistan. Iraq. I know I've mercifully forgotten some.
"I had a major epiphany in Conackry, Guinea in May, 2000. I had been robbed the night before but I was still trying to bribe my way onto the last flight to Freetown. The rebel RUF were closing in on the capitol, and any one who could was scrambling for the last flights out.
And I was trying to throw myself onto one of the empty helicopters flying in to Freetown to evacuate people. What kind of person was I, running into the fire when everyone else was diving for cover?"
I began by asking Janine to talk about what she wrote.
* Janine di Giovanni, war correspondent and author of "Madness Visible: A Memoir of War"
LISTEN ONLINE
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/23/1339223
Add Your Comments
Comments
(Hide Comments)
AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about Chechnya.
JANINE DI GIOVANNI: Chechnya was probably the scariest thing I've ever gone through.
AMY GOODMAN: Were you one of the only reporters to be there in the fall of Grozny?
JANINE DI GIOVANNI: Yes. There was myself, a German photographer, and a French woman who was working there, as well. We weren't allowed into Chechnya, so we were there illegally. It was impossible for the Russian government to give you visas to get in, unless you went in with the Russian troops. So, I smuggled myself into Chechnya, walked in, basically, with my satellite phone on my back. And the thing about being a print journalist, which is different from TV crew, is that you are alone. You know, I work alone. In this occasion, I was with a photographer. We got to the outskirts of Grozny, and the city fell. We hadn't planned it that way. I suppose it's a remarkable journalistic coup, but as a human being, it was absolutely terrifying, because, you know, you should never be in a city when it falls.
We were with the retreating Chechen army, who had crossed a minefield, to get out of Grozny. They had bribed Russian soldiers to get out, but the Russians had lied to them and tricked them and sent them over a minefield. So, as soon as they began crossing it, they realized that they were -- they had been, you know, hideously fooled. And they began, you know, I think it was something like one in four of them blew up. So, there were these incredibly sad stories of some guys saying, I'll go forward. You know, brother, I will go forward, and some went forward, sacrificed themselves. So when they got to this little suburb called Al Khankala, they were wearing winter white uniforms. I'll never forget it, and they were covered in blood, and they were dragging the dead behind them. And because it was so unbearably cold, it was this kind of apocalyptic scene, and the line of the soldiers stretched for miles. And it was freezing cold, and we were stuck in this suburb, and there was one doctor. And he was amputating a lot of limbs, because these guys had gone over a minefield.
And he was set up in this school, and I remember going in, and I was walking, and my feet were sticking to something, and I looked down, and it was just blood everywhere. And I could hear these men screaming as he was operating because they didn't have a lot of anesthetic. And I went into some rooms to talk to some of the men, and they were blinded and missing arms and missing legs. And it was just – it was like a scene out of hell. And then I started trying to call my office but, of course, as usual, the one moment I really needed my satellite phone, my batteries started dying. And there was no electricity. So I was desperately trying to find a generator to charge my batteries because it was my only link to the outside world. And I suddenly realized I'm, you know, a lone foreigner here with the photographer and this other woman. There was no M.S.F. (Medicins Sans Frontieres), no U.N., no Red Cross. So, if something happened to us, that was it.
And the worst thing came at night, because the aerial bombardment. The Russians were bombing us with gunships, helicopter gunships, and then circled the town with tanks. And I was huddled in this kind of like potato cellar with this old woman, as most of the women had gone to an underground shelter. I didn't want to go because I have always heard when the Russians come in, they throw grenades into the shelters.
So it was the worst night of my life, basically. I was sure I was going to die. But, I kind of thought, if I die, I'm going to go believing in what I did, you know, and I really felt, by that point I'd filed my story and I felt that I had witnessed something very, very crucial, that I was in the middle of history, and it was very important to explain the evil things that were happening. You know, there was some hideous human rights violations, and I wanted people to know what happened.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/23/1339223
JANINE DI GIOVANNI: Chechnya was probably the scariest thing I've ever gone through.
AMY GOODMAN: Were you one of the only reporters to be there in the fall of Grozny?
JANINE DI GIOVANNI: Yes. There was myself, a German photographer, and a French woman who was working there, as well. We weren't allowed into Chechnya, so we were there illegally. It was impossible for the Russian government to give you visas to get in, unless you went in with the Russian troops. So, I smuggled myself into Chechnya, walked in, basically, with my satellite phone on my back. And the thing about being a print journalist, which is different from TV crew, is that you are alone. You know, I work alone. In this occasion, I was with a photographer. We got to the outskirts of Grozny, and the city fell. We hadn't planned it that way. I suppose it's a remarkable journalistic coup, but as a human being, it was absolutely terrifying, because, you know, you should never be in a city when it falls.
We were with the retreating Chechen army, who had crossed a minefield, to get out of Grozny. They had bribed Russian soldiers to get out, but the Russians had lied to them and tricked them and sent them over a minefield. So, as soon as they began crossing it, they realized that they were -- they had been, you know, hideously fooled. And they began, you know, I think it was something like one in four of them blew up. So, there were these incredibly sad stories of some guys saying, I'll go forward. You know, brother, I will go forward, and some went forward, sacrificed themselves. So when they got to this little suburb called Al Khankala, they were wearing winter white uniforms. I'll never forget it, and they were covered in blood, and they were dragging the dead behind them. And because it was so unbearably cold, it was this kind of apocalyptic scene, and the line of the soldiers stretched for miles. And it was freezing cold, and we were stuck in this suburb, and there was one doctor. And he was amputating a lot of limbs, because these guys had gone over a minefield.
And he was set up in this school, and I remember going in, and I was walking, and my feet were sticking to something, and I looked down, and it was just blood everywhere. And I could hear these men screaming as he was operating because they didn't have a lot of anesthetic. And I went into some rooms to talk to some of the men, and they were blinded and missing arms and missing legs. And it was just – it was like a scene out of hell. And then I started trying to call my office but, of course, as usual, the one moment I really needed my satellite phone, my batteries started dying. And there was no electricity. So I was desperately trying to find a generator to charge my batteries because it was my only link to the outside world. And I suddenly realized I'm, you know, a lone foreigner here with the photographer and this other woman. There was no M.S.F. (Medicins Sans Frontieres), no U.N., no Red Cross. So, if something happened to us, that was it.
And the worst thing came at night, because the aerial bombardment. The Russians were bombing us with gunships, helicopter gunships, and then circled the town with tanks. And I was huddled in this kind of like potato cellar with this old woman, as most of the women had gone to an underground shelter. I didn't want to go because I have always heard when the Russians come in, they throw grenades into the shelters.
So it was the worst night of my life, basically. I was sure I was going to die. But, I kind of thought, if I die, I'm going to go believing in what I did, you know, and I really felt, by that point I'd filed my story and I felt that I had witnessed something very, very crucial, that I was in the middle of history, and it was very important to explain the evil things that were happening. You know, there was some hideous human rights violations, and I wanted people to know what happened.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/23/1339223
AMY GOODMAN: Janine, you can talk about Jenin?
JANINE DI GIOVANNI: Yes. Yes. I can. That was a controversial story. I and two of my colleagues, Sam Kiley of the Evening Standard and Phil Reeves, who is now with National Public Radio, finally walked into Jenin. We were prevented from going in by the Israeli army, who also prevented the Red Cross from going in. We finally got in. I walked across an olive grove under an Israeli tank because I just thought, “I’ve got to get inside this place.” We don't know what is going on, and I'm not going to get the story from sitting in my car on the outskirts of Jenin.
AMY GOODMAN: This was the original siege of Jenin?
JANINE DI GIOVANNI: Yes. This was in April -- the years are blurring for me now, was it 2002? Yes, it was 2002, I think. I walked across an olive grove. I’ll never forget it, and my colleague said, “Ok, we'll all go together inside, but you go first.” So I walked with a very brave photographer, called Judah Passow, and I remember turning around, thinking there would be a crowd of journalists behind me, but I was alone. So they were waiting to see if I got shot at, and then they were going to come next. But I got inside and I was -- I have to say, I was really horrified by what I saw. They had leveled the town, the old town to rubble, to a football pitch. It looked like it was completely destroyed. When I got in, people came running up to us, saying, “Please, please, please, come I have to show you where my house was.” And then they took me to piles of rocks. There was a man in a wheelchair who said he had been repeatedly trying to get out, but every time he came out they kept taking shots at him. And I went around, I collected these testimonies. We stayed -- I found a family to stay with and we stayed inside the camp.
AMY GOODMAN: You were pregnant at the time?
JANINE DI GIOVANNI: No, not yet. I was pregnant the next time I went back.
AMY GOODMAN: Oh.
JANINE DI GIOVANNI: In 2003. I wasn't pregnant then. And we stayed with the family and their house had been used as a sniper nest. And I got the diary of this young girl who had recorded her experience during the siege, and we sat up all night translating it -- I'm always sitting up all night with people -- translating her diary. And it ran in the Times. I got a lot of flak for that story, because I said, “Never in years of reporting have I seen such terrible destruction” or something like that. But I still stand by that because I will not forget Phil, Sam and I, coming out to that pitch that -- where they leveled and all of us just gob-smacked, absolutely gob-smacked. And I apparently said -- Phil remembers me saying, “we are going to get on the phones to our offices right now, and we have got to report this story. We can’t let them get away with this.”
Now, then, after the event, you know, stories came out, and people criticized us, the British press, saying that we had called it a massacre. I never called it a massacre, by the way, but to me, I think, what was the final count in the end? 50 or 60 people were killed, but that's still 60 civilians. And to me, you know, a human life is a human life. I still think it was -- it was a shocking story for me and a painful one because it was -- you know, when I report these things, I tell the story of families and mothers and I don't write about the tanks and the RPGs and the weapons that are used. I try to tell the story of people, and the stories that I collected, the testimonies, were heartbreaking.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/23/1339223
JANINE DI GIOVANNI: Yes. Yes. I can. That was a controversial story. I and two of my colleagues, Sam Kiley of the Evening Standard and Phil Reeves, who is now with National Public Radio, finally walked into Jenin. We were prevented from going in by the Israeli army, who also prevented the Red Cross from going in. We finally got in. I walked across an olive grove under an Israeli tank because I just thought, “I’ve got to get inside this place.” We don't know what is going on, and I'm not going to get the story from sitting in my car on the outskirts of Jenin.
AMY GOODMAN: This was the original siege of Jenin?
JANINE DI GIOVANNI: Yes. This was in April -- the years are blurring for me now, was it 2002? Yes, it was 2002, I think. I walked across an olive grove. I’ll never forget it, and my colleague said, “Ok, we'll all go together inside, but you go first.” So I walked with a very brave photographer, called Judah Passow, and I remember turning around, thinking there would be a crowd of journalists behind me, but I was alone. So they were waiting to see if I got shot at, and then they were going to come next. But I got inside and I was -- I have to say, I was really horrified by what I saw. They had leveled the town, the old town to rubble, to a football pitch. It looked like it was completely destroyed. When I got in, people came running up to us, saying, “Please, please, please, come I have to show you where my house was.” And then they took me to piles of rocks. There was a man in a wheelchair who said he had been repeatedly trying to get out, but every time he came out they kept taking shots at him. And I went around, I collected these testimonies. We stayed -- I found a family to stay with and we stayed inside the camp.
AMY GOODMAN: You were pregnant at the time?
JANINE DI GIOVANNI: No, not yet. I was pregnant the next time I went back.
AMY GOODMAN: Oh.
JANINE DI GIOVANNI: In 2003. I wasn't pregnant then. And we stayed with the family and their house had been used as a sniper nest. And I got the diary of this young girl who had recorded her experience during the siege, and we sat up all night translating it -- I'm always sitting up all night with people -- translating her diary. And it ran in the Times. I got a lot of flak for that story, because I said, “Never in years of reporting have I seen such terrible destruction” or something like that. But I still stand by that because I will not forget Phil, Sam and I, coming out to that pitch that -- where they leveled and all of us just gob-smacked, absolutely gob-smacked. And I apparently said -- Phil remembers me saying, “we are going to get on the phones to our offices right now, and we have got to report this story. We can’t let them get away with this.”
Now, then, after the event, you know, stories came out, and people criticized us, the British press, saying that we had called it a massacre. I never called it a massacre, by the way, but to me, I think, what was the final count in the end? 50 or 60 people were killed, but that's still 60 civilians. And to me, you know, a human life is a human life. I still think it was -- it was a shocking story for me and a painful one because it was -- you know, when I report these things, I tell the story of families and mothers and I don't write about the tanks and the RPGs and the weapons that are used. I try to tell the story of people, and the stories that I collected, the testimonies, were heartbreaking.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/23/1339223
Reform of the Criminal Justice System (CJS) aims to put the needs of victims and witnesses at its heart.
This will ensure that victims and witnesses see justice done more often and more quickly, whilst being treated with the respect and dignity that they deserve.
The CJS will therefore be working closely with others to improve the experiences of victims and witnesses when they come into contact with the system.
The Home Office has produced the leaflet Witness in court leaflet (PDF file size 281 Kb) which tells you what to expect if you are required to be a witness.
This will ensure that victims and witnesses see justice done more often and more quickly, whilst being treated with the respect and dignity that they deserve.
The CJS will therefore be working closely with others to improve the experiences of victims and witnesses when they come into contact with the system.
The Home Office has produced the leaflet Witness in court leaflet (PDF file size 281 Kb) which tells you what to expect if you are required to be a witness.
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!
Donate
$40.00 donated
in the past month
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.
Topics
More
Search Indybay's Archives
Advanced Search
►
▼
IMC Network