JOURNALISTS KIDNAPPED JAILED, KILLED IN 23 NATIONS - 1983/11/05

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: Argentina Declassification Project - The "Dirty War" (1976-83)
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 05531418
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: April 3, 2019
• Document Release Date: April 12, 2019
• Publication Date: November 5, 1983

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ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE ,sy
Approved for Release: 2018/09/17 C05531418
EDITOR & PUBLISHER
5 November 1983
Journalists kidnapped,'
jailed; killed in 23 nation�
_
�Journalists have been kidnapped, jailed, 'Wounded or
killed in Argentina, Grenada, Chile, Haiti, Guatemala and
El Salvador, the Inter American Press Association was
told during its annual meeting in Lima, Peru, last week.
U.S. and Latin American newspaper publishers and
editors said journalists were arrested, harassed, muzzled
or subjected to other violations of press liberties in 23
Western Hemisphere nations in the past year.
"Attacks against freedom of the press are coming with
more frequency and with greater rage," Andres Garcia
Lavin, Inter American Press Association president, told
the opening of the group's 39th annual general assembly.
Garcia Lavin said the IAPA sent protests to 23 nations
over the last year, over abuses of freedom of the press.
They cited governments of Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina,
Uruguay and El Salvador.
The IAPA had earlier warned of erosion of freedom of
the press in the United States, citing a "continued cam-
paign" by the Reagan administration to censor govern-
ment information.
The IAPA said Reagan was abusing his power by chang-
ing FBI and CIA guidelines to allow those agencies to
infiltrate the news media.
Some 375 members of the IAPA met in Peru to study the
gains- and losses in press freedom throughout the Amer-
icas.
"This is a dangerous profession and
our protection must be an international
� issue," said IAPA representative Edward
� Seaton of Seaton Newspapers in
Manhattan, Kansas.
The 1APA accused the Nicaraguan government of
imposing drastic censorship and invoking death threats
against the newspaper La Prensa from publishing a signifi-
cant amount of news � sometimes as much as 90% of its
material.
Arbitrary "national security" laws muzzle the press in
many countries, the press group said.
In Uruguay, six magazines were shut down by the mili-
tary government this year � one because it published a
photograph of Spanish King Juan Carlos with a Uruguayan
opposition leader.
The IAPA also criticized the emergence of journalism
profession societies in many Latin American nations.
Membership often is mandatory or a reporter is not
allowed to work in the country.
All but two of the 20 U.S. and Latin journalists killed in
the last year died in South America, including eight Per-
uvian reporters slaughtered in a remote Andean village last
January.
"This is a dangerous profession and our protection must
be. in international issue," said IAPA representative
Edward Seaton of Seaton Newspapers in Manhattan,
Kansas.
Panelists James Nelson Goodsell of the Christian Sci-
ence Monitor and Associated Press Mexico editor Peter
Eisner said the dangers are inherent in the job.
"There may be no way we can guarantee our 'own
3.5(c)
By Tracy Wilkinson
Latin editors criticizT#.1.1.5..6.2rparts
for "idealizing" leftist guerilla movements
_ - �
safety," Eisner said.
James Brooke, South American correspondent for the
Miami Herald. recommended "caution.
"In the print business you don't have to watch them pull
the trigger," he said. "It's an unnecessary risk and rarely
adds anything to the story."
The panelists warned some efforts to guarantee safety
might backfire and be abused by governments to justify
licensing, surveillance and other restrictions.
The 1APA annual meeting was held under extraordinary
security measures to prevent leftist guerilla attacks.
About 100 riot police armed with machine guns and
flanked by armored cars and a small tank were stationed in
front of the downtown hotel where the convention is tak-
ing place.
Plainclothes detectives stalked the floor where the main
meeting was being held. Other security officers were sta- ,
tioned on the other 18 floors.
On the night of the first IAPA delegates' arrival, gueril-
las staged a dynamite and machine-gun attack on the Per-
uvian government's political party headquarters around
the corner from the hotel.
During one panel debate, Latin American newspaper
editors scolded their U.S. counterparts, saying they ideal-
ized leftist guerilla movements and provided shallow
coverage of thl region.
A group (if Latin American editors questioned Sterling
E. Soderlind, vice president for planning of the Wall Street
Journal; William J. Small, president of United Press
International; Warren Hoge, foreign editor of the New
York Times; and William Long, chief of correspondents
for the Miami Herald.
The questioners accused the U.S. press of romanticiz-
ing the 1979 leftist Sandinista takeover of Nicaragua and
said the same prejudices tend to carry over in coverage of
guerrilla movements in El Salvador and elsewhere.
Soderlind acknowledged that U.S. reporters and their
readers often favor the underdog and see rebels as "Robin
Hoods," but said careful editing should correct any hint of
favoritism.
The panelists said it is incumbent on governments to
counter pro-rebel favoritism with accurate information �
not propaganda.
"It takes awhile for the press to become sophisticated
(in recognizing political movements), while the guerillas
have become very sophisticated in manipulating the news
media," Small said.
"Governments should present their case in an open
way. Too often the reporter goes to hear the other side and
finds silence, not information."
Long added: "A government can't fight propaganda
with more propaganda and disinformation."
The Hispanic representatives criticized the failure of the
U.S. press to "ask why" in Latin America, the attaching
of easy labels to ideologies, a tendency to superficially size
up the region's events and "fireman Journalism" � only
showing interest in coups, earthquakes and other disas-
ters..Hoge said that while much of the criticism may have
been justified 10 years ago, the U.S. media is improving its
coverage of Latin America.
pproved for Release: 2018/09/17 C05531418