On Harry Burton and journalism

On Harry Burton and journalism

Keith Loveard, News Editor, www.laksamana.net, Publisher,
www.asiamad.com, Jakarta

Journalists in the Asian bureaux of the international news
agency Reuters held a minute's silence Wednesday, Nov. 21 to
honor their colleagues killed by Taliban stragglers in
Afghanistan.

The death of one of those two workers, Harry Burton, was
particularly felt by his co-workers at his base of operations in
Jakarta and by others who knew and respected him in the Jakarta
media community.

The death of Burton and his three colleagues at the hands of
Taliban stragglers is, regrettable as it may be, the inevitable
risk posed by those who elect to work for the world's action-
hungry media empires.

While wars will always bring such risks, it is not
unreasonable for the media community across the world to demand
that such deaths be minimized, and that violence against the
media be outlawed and treated with the utter contempt it
deserves.

We did not know Harry, but are told he grew bored with his
life as a buyer at a major Melbourne store and came to Jakarta to
break into the cameraman game. He joined a brigade of reporters
who are always on the front line, most often at risk.

Many of the best cameraman to have worked in Asia have been
Australians, most notably Damien Parer in Papua in World War II,
and Neil Davis through Vietnam and a host of other major
conflicts. Davis told his biographer that it was far safer always
to be on the front line, never even five meters behind it, and as
rarely as possible in front of it. He died in a minor coup in
Bangkok. Now there is Harry Burton.

Indonesia itself is no stranger to the murder of journalists.
In recent years, East Timor claimed two lives, an Indonesian
working for a Japanese media outlet, Agus Mulyawan, and Sander
Thoenes, a young Financial Times journalist also based in
Jakarta.

In Yogyakarta, the 1996 beating to death of Udin (Fuad
Muhammad Syafruddin) by elements allegedly connected to the
Regent of Bantul, Sri Roso Sudarmo, has seen the conviction of
only one low-ranked police officer found to have been involved in
the crime, jailed for destroying evidence. The investigation has
gone no further.

Violence against other journalists, local and foreign
nationals working for both offshore and national media,
continues.

In Aceh, reporters complain that pressure from the Free Aceh
Movement (GAM) and from the authorities means that they are
forced to "hedge their bets" in reporting, with the result that
their readers never have any real idea of what is going on.

Failure to follow the strictures of this tightrope act
recently by Banda Aceh daily Serambi Indonesia resulted in the
forced closure of the paper for a week. The publication has also
over the past few years seen four of its vehicles destroyed,
while the Banda Aceh bureau of Medan-based Waspada has lost two.

In another case, a Banda Aceh journalist is said by his
friends to have been traumatized, taken refuge in drugs and has
not written anything since he was fired on at close range last
year by two masked men on motorbikes. The bullets, incidentally,
were police issue.

Reporting of conflict is inevitably laden with personal risk.
While journalists take such risks into account and accept them as
part of life, while at the same time taking all reasonable steps
to minimize them, it is not acceptable that crimes against the
media should be left uncovered.

While it will be difficult indeed to bring anyone to trial for
the murder of Burton and his colleagues, it should not be so hard
for the Indonesian authorities to fully investigate the deaths of
Udin and those in which the lives and livelihood of other
journalists have been threatened.

Yet no action, apart from the lip service jailing of the one
police officer in the Udin case, has ever been taken.

Indonesia's official and alternative journalist associations
have failed to maintain pressure on the authorities to mount
reasonable and thorough investigations. The Indonesian media
industry itself has also been less than active in demanding
proper protection for its workers. New Minister for Informatics
Syamsul Mu'arif has so far played no visible role -- neither
negative nor constructive -- in the information side of his
portfolio, preferring to busy himself with the less minefield-
prone area of technology development.

The media in Indonesia and other developing nations is in a
process of transition to the "watch dog" role it so nobly serves
in so many other countries. Many sections of the media both here
and across the world prefer not follow the dictates of the
highest levels of the profession and prefer to wallow in
sensationalism.

On the positive side, both in Indonesia and elsewhere in the
region there is a level of commitment among many individuals in
the industry and among groups of journalists to develop a level
of skills and professionalism which seeks to continue a tradition
of journalistic excellence exemplified by those like Mochtar
Lubis that was, in Indonesia, forced into careful channels for
the 32 years of the Soeharto era. Individuals like Aristides
Katoppo and Goenawan Mohamad kept the flame alive, and both were
banned by Soeharto.

The new Press Law sets a progressive and liberal framework for
the industry that goes so far as to provide penalties for those
who seek to put obstacles in the way of reporters. Fine as this
is, it is not enough.

If the murders of Burton and his colleagues, the latest in a
sad trail of killings both in Asia and elsewhere, are to have
some residing message, it is that governments and society has a
responsibility to protect the lives and well-being of media
workers. Mere lip service to the rights of journalists to provide
the world with the information it demands is not enough.