JULY 2003
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Wednesday, 30th July,2003
PAUL MCGEOUGH INTERVIEW
With Uday and Qusay gone, the focus is now firmly upon Saddam himself. The Americans believe they are getting close, and in recent days have launched hundreds of raids thoughout Iraq - some of them with disastrous results. Fairfax reporter Paul McGeough is in Baghdad and Mark Davis spoke to him earlier about the hunt for Saddam and the deteriorating situation there for the Americans.
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Wednesday, 30th July,2003
UDAYS PENALTY KICK
While Uday Hussein and his brother Qusay have now been definitely pronounced dead, thanks to an American missile, they will never be forgotten by the people of Iraq - certainly not by the Iraqi soccer team. Uday was their chief patron - a key position in this soccer-mad country - and, as Olivia Rousset reports, no soccer fan was madder than Uday Hussein.
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Wednesday, 30th July,2003
NICK WARNER INTERVIEW
Nick Warner, an Australian diplomat with experience in Papua New Guinea, is head of the Solomon Islands intervention force. With over 1,000 soldiers at his disposal, he has more than just diplomatic skills to play with in the coming weeks. Mark Davis spoke to him earlier from the capital, Honiara.
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Wednesday, 30th July,2003
HAROLD KEKE - REBEL OR RASKOL
Australia’s operation in the Solomon Islands is now under way and, so far, so good. The capital, Honiara, is largely secured and today agreements were reached with one side in the civil war - the Malaitans.
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The hard part is still to come - disarming fighters from Guadalcanal and one of their main leaders, Harold Keke. Keke’s ongoing assertion of his people’s traditional land rights in Guadalcanal is still the principal source of his support there and one of the principal causes of the war. He never weakened that stance with the Solomons Government and it’s unlikely he’ll do so for Australian soldiers.
David O’Shea secured the first interview with Harold Keke, some of which we showed last week. He admits to killing and kidnapping to pursue his goals but another perspective emerges tonight - accusations of violence and corruption by the government we are now assisting, and its police force. -
Wednesday, 30th July,2003
HAROLD KEKE – REBEL OR RASKOL?
On DATELINE this Wednesday July 30 at 8.30pm, David O’Shea presents the second part of his report on the situation in the Solomon Islands which includes his world exclusive interview with the Solomon Islands militant Harold Keke. The interview took place at Keke’s stronghold on the Weathercoast of Guadacanal last week.
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In this report, villagers who have fled the Weathercoast claim that it was the Solomon Islands police, not Harold Keke’s men, who attacked people and burned houses. Solomons Police commissioner William Morrell agrees that, while he regards Harold Keke as a serious problem, his own men have run amok, including taking part in the burning of villages. As part of the Townsville Peace agreement in 2000 militia members were absorbed into the police force and these “special constables” are completely outside the commissioner’s control.
Morrell also comments, “Keke is a main destabilization factor but in a sense he is a small factor. The main problem here is the endemic corruption.”
Keke admits to killing 10 men last year who he says were assassins sent by the Solomons Prime Minister Allan Kemakeza. Keke is now holding hostages from the Melanesian Brotherhood. The men were taken hostage after one of them admitted he had been sent by the Prime Minister. Brother Alfred, who is from the order and was released by Keke last week, says he knows that one of his colleagues was using the Brotherhood as a cover for espionage. That man, Nathaniel Sado, previously a trusted friend of Keke’s,was killed by Keke’s operations commander earlier this year.
Keke claims that the militants he led in their fight to expel squatters from the island of Malaita were financially backed by his uncle, Ezekuil Alebua, Premier of Guadacanal at the time and a former Prime Minister of the Solomons. The Malaitans retaliated and the escalating violence saw the Solomons descend into chaos in 1998.
DATELINE interviews Guadacanal islanders who, while they may not support Keke directly, share his aspirations to control their land and resources.
Keke’s message to John Howard is: “I want to tell you Howard we are fighting for our rights…So please Howard look at the law before you accept the request by Kemakeza to apprehend me and my boys, who are standing for their rights to the land on which we stand and fight.” -
Wednesday, 23rd July,2003
CAMBODIA
For almost two decades, Cambodia has been ruled with an iron fist by Prime Minister Hun Sen. This weekend, Cambodians vote to decide whether Hun Sen’s rule should continue. But as Jim Gerrand reports standing up to the Cambodian strongman as an opposition politician can be a deadly game.
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Wednesday, 23rd July,2003
PAUL MORAN STORY
Recent opinion polls indicate that two-thirds of Australians believe they were misled by the Howard Government in the lead-up to the Iraq war - not that that’s hurt John Howard’s popularity in any way. The same can’t be said for George Bush or Tony Blair in particular.
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Blair is facing a storm of accusations that he beat up the threat of weapons of mass destruction to sway a sceptical public. But could the same charge be made against the media? Were intelligence agencies planting faulty intelligence through journalists to pave the path to war? And, more disturbingly, were some of those journalists willing participants in the stage managing of that information?
Tonight’s report analyses one key story that re-ignited accusations against Iraq that it had recently restarted the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons. John Hosking reports on how that story was placed into the world’s media, the influence it had, and the role of Australian cameraman and journalist -
Wednesday, 23rd July,2003
HAROLD KEKE - INTERVIEW
Australian troops and police will arrive in the Solomons Islands tomorrow to quell the anarchy there. And there is little doubt that the capture or killing of rebel leader, Harold Keke, will be one of their principal aims in the coming weeks. Keke and his men are accused of killing 50 people in the last year, including the execution of a government MP.
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It’s also reported that dozens of people have been kidnapped by him and any troublesome villages have been burnt to the ground. Perhaps understandably no journalists have got through to Mr Keke, until tonight. David O’Shea has just returned from the Solomons with the first interview and profile of the man Australian police and soldiers expect to be meeting soon. -
Wednesday, 23rd July,2003
LIES, MEDIA AND THE PATH TO WAR
"The media wanted a sexy headline, they wanted a sexy story and here’s a man telling a sexy story and suddenly he’s featured on Australian newscasts, American newscasts.”
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Scott Ritter, former weapons inspector.
On DATELINE this Wednesday July 23rd at 8.30pm, John Hosking looks at how in the lead-up to the Iraq war the Australian and international media were manipulated to broadcast claims by a key Iraqi defector about Saddam Hussein’s Weapons of Mass Destruction.
The defector, Adnan Saeed al–Haideri, claimed he had helped build or had seen scores of sites that he believed were used to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Al-Haideri’s claims, along with those of two other defectors, received prominence in President Bush’s State of the Union Address in January this year. However despite extensive searches, to date, none of the facilities have been found.
In December 2001 Adnan Saeed al-Haideri turned up in Bangkok after being spirited out of Iraq by the Iraqi opposition group in exile, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), led by Ahmed Chalabi.
The late Australian cameraman and journalist Paul Moran gained an exclusive television interview, which was later broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Moran was killed by a car bomb in northern Iraq earlier this year.
Hosking traces Moran’s connections with the INC and US public relations firm the Rendon Group. One of the projects that Moran worked on for the Rendon Group was financed by the Central Intelligence Agency. The Rendon Group still retains connections with other US government agencies.
Former CIA agent Robert Baer describes how Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress sponsored defectors who were “on message” about the presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Baer: “He was running this railroad of people out of Iraq who would talk about WMD. Now obviously if an officer came out who said all the stuff is destroyed, he didn’t have a ticket out of the country in order to tell the story.”
Former weapons inspector Scott Ritter is also critical of the INC, accusing the group and its leader Chalabi of lying and manipulating the media and public opinion.
Moran’s exclusive Bangkok interview occurred as the defector al-Haideri was seeking to come to Australia. The INC media advisor, Zaab Sethna, tells DATELINE that one purpose of providing the interview to the ABC was to boost al-Haideri’s profile in Australia and assist his request for a visa.
That’s DATELINE, this Wednesday July 23rd at 8.30pm. -
Wednesday, 16th July,2003
FRANCIS ONA - LAST REBEL STANDING
As an Australian military mission is about to begin in the Solomons, another one has just ended on the neighbouring island of Bougainville. After a 5-year presence, Australian peacekeepers pulled out of Bougainville two weeks ago, proclaiming that the Bougainvillians’ war of independence from PNG was over and that the peace and autonomy agreements were holding. That makes it something of a good news story, except that the island’s main rebel, Francis Ona, hasn’t agreed to anything, never spoke to the peacekeepers and certainly hasn’t disarmed.
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Ona still sits on top of Bougainville’s most valuable asset - the former Australian owned Panguna copper mine and has no intention of handing it over to anyone. Freelance journalist Ben Bohane obtained the first interview with Francis Ona in six years and took the opportunity to film it. Irene Ulman with this report. -
Wednesday, 16th July,2003
GUEHENNO INTERVIEW
On Monday, the head of the UN’s peacekeeping division, Jean-Marie Guehenno accompanied Kofi Annan in his meeting with George Bush their first meeting in six strained months. Since they last met, the US has accused the UN of becoming irrelevant, a sentiment that Australia has echoed, and has suggested that a new peacekeeping force be formed under US control. Mark Davis spoke with Mr Guehenno from New York.
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Wednesday, 16th July,2003
BLUE HELMETS UNDER SIEGE
Unfortunately for the UN, just as its role in world affairs is under intense scrutiny, a tragedy has unfolded under its watch in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a civil war has been raging for the past four years leaving some 3.5 million people dead. A UN peacekeeping mission was despatched to Bunia in the east of the country in May to oversee a peace agreement and troop withdrawal. What unfolded before their eyes was a massacre. Bronwyn Adcock with this report. And a warning - this story contains some disturbing scenes.
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Wednesday, 16th July,2003
CAN THE U.N. STOP THE BLOODSHED IN THE CONGO
On DATELINE this Wednesday, July 16 at 8.30pm Bronwyn Adcock reports from the Congolese town of Bunia. UN peacekeepers in the town face extraordinary challenges facing as they struggle to protect civilians caught up in the brutal ethnic war. The conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has claimed some 3.5 million lives over the past five years.
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Last month the U.N. Security Council flew into Bunia from New York to see at first hand what had gone wrong. Under the watch of the peacekeepers, around 500 people lost their lives in violent clashes between the warring militia groups of the Hema and Lendu tribes.
Dateline’s Bronwyn Adcock went to Bunia to report on what appeared to be genocide in the making. She found a UN peacekeeping force in place, but not in control. The blue helmets lacked both the numbers and the mandate to restore security. Thousands of terrified people had fled their homes to seek refuge in the UN compound – the only safe place in town.
Journalist Samson Mulugata, the one media representative in Bunia during the first days of the massacres, told Dateline: “If you were just a few feet away from the U.N. compound you were on your own. The militia could drag you and shoot you or hack you with a machete. The UN was not going to come to your rescue”.
Soon there were around 17,000 people living in makeshift camps around the UN – but the peacekeepers were stretched so thin, they could scarcely defend even this area. They were also hampered by a woefully inadequate mandate allowing the use of force only in self-defence.
Captain Daniel Vollot, the UN commander, admits that during the May killings his forces had no control over the city.
Dateline’s Bronwyn Adcock spent two weeks living in the compound, along with thousands of Congolese. Her report examines how the U.N. came to be so under prepared to protect the people of Bunia – and how this besieged band of peacekeepers performed under fire.
That’s DATELINE, this Wednesday July 16 at 8.30pm. -
Wednesday, 9th July,2003
GUERRILLA IN OUR MIDST
When Che Guevara marched into Havana with a victorious Fidel Castro 44 years ago, the young revolutionary would never have imagined that his image would eventually be appropriated by capitalists - used to sell beer and ice cream to the masses. Guevara’s daughter has just visited Australia and as Habib Massad reports she’s on a crusade to rein in the mass marketing of her father’s image.
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Wednesday, 9th July,2003
MILITARY TRIALS DEBATE
Last Friday, it was announced that six of the prisoners held at the American military base in Guantanamo Bay, including Australian David Hicks, are likely to be charged and sent to trial after 18 months of interrogation and isolation. The six will not be facing a regular court but a military commission, soldiers appointed by President Bush to serve as judge, jury and quite possibly, executioners as well. There will be no right of appeal to any American court and many lawyers fear that the rules of evidence will be rather rubbery, without reference to either international or US law. For many critics the most disturbing aspect of these trials is that the accused may be facing some rather vague charges. Quite possibly, not for any specific crime or action but for what the Americans are calling being an unlawful combatant. Tonight’s guests will be discussing what the chances are of justice being served. David Rivkin worked as a lawyer in the Justice Department under George Bush Snr and Ronald Reagan. He’s now advising the current Administration on legal aspects of the war on terrorism. He joins us from Washington. Frank Camatta is a member of David Hicks’s Australian legal team and he joins us from Adelaide.
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Wednesday, 9th July,2003
THE TREASURE HUNTERS
When looters plundered Iraq’s famous Baghdad museum, the shock waves were felt around the world. Some of civilisation’s oldest artifacts have been lost forever, but as Olivia Rousset reports, some of the plunder is now being returned. With a bit of detective work, parts of the jigsaw are being put back together.
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Wednesday, 9th July,2003
ACEH FOLLOW UP
David O’Shea presents a follow up to last week’s story on the war in Aceh, where he followed a group of journalists embedded with the Indonesian military. One of the journalists featured in that report, Ersa Siregar, has now been kidnapped by the separatist GAM rebels. In a remarkable telephone interview O’Shea has made contact with the kidnappers, speaking directly with them and their hostages.
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click here to read what Crikey.com.au has to say about last week’s Aceh story -
Wednesday, 2nd July,2003
SOLOMONS INTERVIEW
Hugh White is the Director of ASPI, which published last year’s defence and security paper calling for intervention in the Solomons, PNG and Vanuatu. John Gershman is a Director of the US-based think tank Foreign Policy in Focus. Gershman has been writing extensively about the Asia Pacific region and what he sees as new US and Australian interests there.
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Wednesday, 2nd July,2003
SOLOMONS BACKGROUNDER
And to another potential war zone in our neighbourhood - the Solomons. It now seems likely that Australian troops will soon be heading there. The first wave of what is being heralded as "Australia’s new Pacific Policy" - active and possibly aggressive engagement. Tonight’s guests, including one of the principal advocates of the new policy, will be discussing the broader implications of Australia’s new role in the region, but first some background.
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Wednesday, 2nd July,2003
ACEH - IN BED WITH THE TNI
For the past two months, the Indonesian military has been engaged in a massive assault against separatist rebels in Aceh, mostly away from the prying eyes of the media. Dateline’s David O’Shea is one of only a handful of foreign journalists who’ve managed to get inside the province. He’s been following Indonesian journalists, who’ve been officially embedded with the military, and their struggle to put out accurate reports on the bloodshed in Aceh. And a warning - there are some disturbing scenes in this report.
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