[Media-watch] Trigger happy marines

[John Meed]

Dear MediaWatch

Here are a couple of nasty things from the European press.

John Meed and Isabelle Fournier

The first is from Laurent Van der Stockt, a photographer with the Gamma
Agency with a contract to New York Times Magazine:

"The marines are very tense. A little blue van is going towards them. They
shoot 3 times to make it stop. But the van carries on, then turns back, and
finally comes back slowly. The marines shoot. There is confusion and finally
more shots are fired. One can hear Œstop the fire!¹ the silence which follow
is terrible. Two men and one woman have just been riddled with bullets. That
was the enemy, the threat.

A second car arrives, the same scenario unfolds. The passengers are killed.
A grand-father is walking slowly with his can on the pavement. They kill him
too, Like the day before, the marines shoot on a land rover which is driving
along the riverside, coming too near to them. The car, riddled with bullets,
rolls over into the ditch. Two women and a child come out of it, a real
miracle. They take refuge in an old shed. It will be bombed a few minutes
later by a tank. 

I saw about 15 civilians killed within two days. I have been often enough in
wars to know that it is always dirty, that civilians are the first victims.
But in such a manner, it is absurd. (Š)

I drive a young girl to hospital. She has been shot in the shoulder. At the
back her father protects his little boy who has been injured in the chest
and is fainting. The man says to the doctor, once behind the lines: "I don¹t
understand, I was walking holding my children by the hand. Why did they not
shoot in the air? Or even on me?"

Le Monde, 12/4/03, Laurent Van der Stockt: J¹ai vu des marines américains
tuer des civils"

The second is from the Speilgel:

The Spiegel (7.4.03, p. 161) reports that, in the week leading up to war, US
allies had tried in Strasbourg to convince Russia to change sides and
support the war in Iraq. In return they promised not to condemn the Russian
military action in Chechenia. Only hours before the European council was
going to vote about a Chechenia resolution, the Russian delegate Dmitri
Rogosin was promised by European Christian Democrats ­ in particular
delegates from Great-Britain,  a "Mediterranean" country and a "big east
European state" ­ a milder condemnation or even a withdrawal of a
condemnation of the Russian military action in Chechenia, if Russia stopped
condemning the Anglo-american attack on Iraq. Rogosin, however, refused the
deal as Œblackmail¹.

The council then not only voted the most critical Chechenia-resolution for a
long time, but also decided the creation of a "tribunal" to deal with war
crimes committed in that region. Rogosin¹s delegation left the room very
angry.