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Toronto Star, Canada
May 30 2008
Three Afghanistan reporters I won't soon forget
Star columnist reflects on 2001 trip she declined to take - a patrol
that claimed three lives
May 30, 2008 04:30 AM
Rosie DiManno
Columnist
TALOQAN, Afghanistan-Some things you try to forget. I came back here
to try and remember.
In late 2001, the front-line in the ground war between the Taliban and
the Northern Alliance ran right through this provincial capital.
Reporters, billeted in tents and mud-brick hovels clustered around the
Alliance's "Foreign Ministry'' compound - which was actually the home
of assassinated leader Shah Massoud - would routinely make the
three-hour trek by jeep and donkey from Khwaja Bahuaddin, in
neighbouring Badakhshan Province, to get a close-up view of the action
in Takhar.
It wasn't called "embedding'' then. The Alliance were simply delighted
to have foreign media finally - in the aftermath of 9/11 - pay
attention to their long and gruelling defensive campaign against the
detested Taliban, having for years been able to hold out only in a
small northeastern wedge of Afghanistan.
Now, they were on the offensive, primed to hurl themselves at the
enemy.
With U.S. Special Forces calling in co-ordinates, B-52s had been
pounding Taliban formations. Bombing usually started at dawn, the
whooshing pressure wave of explosions sucking in and blowing out the
plastic sheeting stretched across the window frames of my hut.
At the front, dug into World War I-style trenches, the two sides were
separated only by about a thousand metres and we all prayed the
Americans would make no bombs-away miscalculations. The Taliban
artillery launchers were clumsy - their mortar shells flying way over
our heads and landing harmlessly quite a distance beyond.
There were only about 40 reporters in the region. At night, back at
the compound, we would take turns sitting around a trestle table in
the courtyard, lit by one weak bulb hanging overhead, computers and
satellite phones plugged into a cranky generator. Because of
deadlines, European journalists were always allowed to file first.
This is a story, as best as I can now recall it, about three of those
journalists: Johanne Sutton, 34, from Radio France Internationale;
Volker Handloik, 40, of Stern news magzine in Berlin; and Pierre
Billaud, 31, with Radio Television Luxemburg.
Johanne was very tall and very shy. Because there were so few females
in the group, we usually sat together, ate together, griped together.
Volker was a card and stuck in the Gary Glitter 70s. He had blond,
straggly hair that fell almost to his waist and wore his jeans tucked
into knee-high silver-collared boots with three-inch platform
soles. For weeks, before and after the U.S.-led coalition began its
attack against Afghanistan, Oct. 7, Volker had complained bitterly
that this was really no war at all. Where was the fighting? Where was
the bang-bang?
Pierre I knew just to nod hello.
Late one evening, an Alliance commander, Gen. Muhammad Bashir, came
over and invited anyone who was interested to accompany a unit on its
way to the outskirts of Taloqan, where enemy tunnels had been
taken. Some Taliban fighters had apparently surrendered.
I had interviewed half a dozen Taliban prisoners that very afternoon,
was busy writing, and passed on the offer. "No thanks.''
Johanne, Volker, Pierre and three other journalists - including
Armenian-born Levon Sevunts, a reporter with the Montreal Gazette -
were game.
The reporters clambered on top of a battered, Russian-made armoured
personnel carrier and the convoy set out.
I watched them leave the compound.
Near Dasht-e-Qala, north of Taloqan, they were ambushed. There were no
surrendering prisoners. Instead, the Taliban opened fire with
machine-guns and rocket propelled grenades.
Pierre either jumped or fell off the vehicle. He was shot in the
head. Others tried to flee and were cut down either then or shot in
cold blood later. Sevunts, as he wrote afterwards, had served in the
Soviet army and knew well enough to stick with the tank, hanging on to
the cannon as the lumbering beast swivelled and juddered in the
opposite direction.
A search party was formed and Joanne's lifeless body was found in one
of the trenches.
The next morning, journalists demanded that the Alliance return and
bring back the other two bodies. They adamantly refused. Furious, a
Boston Globe reporter commandeered a truck, rounded up a few
volunteers, and we retrieved the dead.
They were the first journalists killed covering the war in
Afghanistan. Between then and now, 11 more have died.
I came here seeking the spot where the ambush occurred. I cannot find
it. Everything looks the same. Or maybe everything looks different.
Afghans build stone cairns and drive rag-flapping lances into sites
where their own are either buried or perished.
But nobody much remembers three slain reporters.
http://www.thestar.com/News/Columnist/ article/433913
May 30 2008
Three Afghanistan reporters I won't soon forget
Star columnist reflects on 2001 trip she declined to take - a patrol
that claimed three lives
May 30, 2008 04:30 AM
Rosie DiManno
Columnist
TALOQAN, Afghanistan-Some things you try to forget. I came back here
to try and remember.
In late 2001, the front-line in the ground war between the Taliban and
the Northern Alliance ran right through this provincial capital.
Reporters, billeted in tents and mud-brick hovels clustered around the
Alliance's "Foreign Ministry'' compound - which was actually the home
of assassinated leader Shah Massoud - would routinely make the
three-hour trek by jeep and donkey from Khwaja Bahuaddin, in
neighbouring Badakhshan Province, to get a close-up view of the action
in Takhar.
It wasn't called "embedding'' then. The Alliance were simply delighted
to have foreign media finally - in the aftermath of 9/11 - pay
attention to their long and gruelling defensive campaign against the
detested Taliban, having for years been able to hold out only in a
small northeastern wedge of Afghanistan.
Now, they were on the offensive, primed to hurl themselves at the
enemy.
With U.S. Special Forces calling in co-ordinates, B-52s had been
pounding Taliban formations. Bombing usually started at dawn, the
whooshing pressure wave of explosions sucking in and blowing out the
plastic sheeting stretched across the window frames of my hut.
At the front, dug into World War I-style trenches, the two sides were
separated only by about a thousand metres and we all prayed the
Americans would make no bombs-away miscalculations. The Taliban
artillery launchers were clumsy - their mortar shells flying way over
our heads and landing harmlessly quite a distance beyond.
There were only about 40 reporters in the region. At night, back at
the compound, we would take turns sitting around a trestle table in
the courtyard, lit by one weak bulb hanging overhead, computers and
satellite phones plugged into a cranky generator. Because of
deadlines, European journalists were always allowed to file first.
This is a story, as best as I can now recall it, about three of those
journalists: Johanne Sutton, 34, from Radio France Internationale;
Volker Handloik, 40, of Stern news magzine in Berlin; and Pierre
Billaud, 31, with Radio Television Luxemburg.
Johanne was very tall and very shy. Because there were so few females
in the group, we usually sat together, ate together, griped together.
Volker was a card and stuck in the Gary Glitter 70s. He had blond,
straggly hair that fell almost to his waist and wore his jeans tucked
into knee-high silver-collared boots with three-inch platform
soles. For weeks, before and after the U.S.-led coalition began its
attack against Afghanistan, Oct. 7, Volker had complained bitterly
that this was really no war at all. Where was the fighting? Where was
the bang-bang?
Pierre I knew just to nod hello.
Late one evening, an Alliance commander, Gen. Muhammad Bashir, came
over and invited anyone who was interested to accompany a unit on its
way to the outskirts of Taloqan, where enemy tunnels had been
taken. Some Taliban fighters had apparently surrendered.
I had interviewed half a dozen Taliban prisoners that very afternoon,
was busy writing, and passed on the offer. "No thanks.''
Johanne, Volker, Pierre and three other journalists - including
Armenian-born Levon Sevunts, a reporter with the Montreal Gazette -
were game.
The reporters clambered on top of a battered, Russian-made armoured
personnel carrier and the convoy set out.
I watched them leave the compound.
Near Dasht-e-Qala, north of Taloqan, they were ambushed. There were no
surrendering prisoners. Instead, the Taliban opened fire with
machine-guns and rocket propelled grenades.
Pierre either jumped or fell off the vehicle. He was shot in the
head. Others tried to flee and were cut down either then or shot in
cold blood later. Sevunts, as he wrote afterwards, had served in the
Soviet army and knew well enough to stick with the tank, hanging on to
the cannon as the lumbering beast swivelled and juddered in the
opposite direction.
A search party was formed and Joanne's lifeless body was found in one
of the trenches.
The next morning, journalists demanded that the Alliance return and
bring back the other two bodies. They adamantly refused. Furious, a
Boston Globe reporter commandeered a truck, rounded up a few
volunteers, and we retrieved the dead.
They were the first journalists killed covering the war in
Afghanistan. Between then and now, 11 more have died.
I came here seeking the spot where the ambush occurred. I cannot find
it. Everything looks the same. Or maybe everything looks different.
Afghans build stone cairns and drive rag-flapping lances into sites
where their own are either buried or perished.
But nobody much remembers three slain reporters.
http://www.thestar.com/News/Columnist/ article/433913