COVERING AFGHANISTAN, PART II

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201420001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 19, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: March 1, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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ARTICLE PP
ON N PAGE PAGE COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW
...
March/April 1987
COVERING AFGHANISTAN,
PART II
Covering the seven-year-old
Afghanistan war, always a
hazardous job. has of late be-
come even more dangerous.
In October 1984, following the capture
of a French television journalist by Af-
ghan army troops, the Soviet ambassa-
dor to Pakistan, Vitaly Smirnov,
announced that henceforth Soviet troops
would kill any reporter caught entering
Afghanistan with the mujahideen. A
year later. Charles Thornton of The Ar-
i:ona Republic was killed when Soviet
helicopter gunships brought in soldiers
who ambushed his truck near Kandahar
in southern Afghanistan. Informed ob-
servers believe that the Soviets had been
tipped off about Thornton's planned
route by Afghan government agents who
had infiltrated the mujahideen.
The informant network has become a
pervasive danger, especially now that
large rewards have been offered by the
Afghan government for assistance in the
Christina Damever is a free-lance journalist
who regularly visits Pakistan and has made
several trips into Afghanistan. Her article
''Covering Afghanistan: A Reporter's Note-
book'' appeared in the September, October
1984 Review.
capture of Westerners - preferably
Americans. (One writer observed, sar-
donically, that while newspapers pay
only $100 for an article, the Soviets are
apparently willing to pay $10,000 to pre-
vent a story from being written.)
Dominique Vergos, a French photog-
rapher who has spent a total of more than
three years inside Afghanistan, says.
You even have to be careful about the
boy bringing your tea." He related an
example of the rapidity with which in-
formation can be relayed: -I had stayed
in one house near Herat tin western Af-
ghanistanl only for a morning, and three
hours after I left, regime officials came
around asking where the Western jour-
nalist was. We crossed the highway at
night and stopped in a village beyond.
By morning, six tanks and APCs [ar-
mored personnel carriers] had sur-
rounded the village. followed by trucks
carrying five hundred Afghan army sol-
diers. The mujahideen fought them all
day and finally we escaped."
Improved Soviet intelligence and the
sharp increase in nighttime ambushes of
resistance caravans have created concern
even among the old-timers. French pho-
tographer Pierre Issot-Sergent. who was
the first journalist to visit northwest Af-
ghanistan after the Soviet invasion, ad-
mits. "I am more worried about going
in now. In the old days, we could travel
wherever we wanted in the countryside,
often in broad daylight. But it's defi-
nitely gotten a lot tougher."
If journalists are having more doubts
about the advisability of going inside Af-
ghanistan. some mujahideen command-
ers are growing less eager to take them.
These commanders say that press cov-
erage has done less to further their cause
than they had hoped it would. As one
commander put it. "Film crews and
writers have been coming and going for
years but we haven't seen many results,
either in bringing our problems to the
attention of the world or in getting the
weapons supply we need."
More important, the perception is
growing among the mujahideen that ex-
tensive coverage of guerrilla strongholds
can be detrimental. A recent example
was the attack in April 1986 on Jawar,
an important supply base near the Pak-
istan border, which many observers be-
lieve was triggered in part by a flurry of
articles in the Western press. European
newspapers had published aerial dia-
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grams showing a detailed map of the
caves where equipment and ammunition
were stored and where tanks captured
from the Soviets were repaired. Peter
Jouvenal, a British combat photographer
who has gone into Afghanistan a record
twenty-seven times, observes that, while
the Soviets certainly had that infor-
mation already from informants, all the
publicity made it a question of prestige
for them to knock out Jawar. " Some
commanders, taking cues from this ex-
perience, have moved their headquarters
and do not allow journalists to visit them
in their new, secret hideouts.
Westerners enter Afghanistan with
groups that range from strict Saudi Ara-
bian-style Islamic fundamentalists to un-
derground Maoists. Some of these
groups have become increasingly reluc-
tant to take journalists unknown to them
to areas in which intense fighting is
going on. All the precautions needed to
assure the safety of foreigners put an
extra burden on the mujahideen.
In some regions, the mujahideen are
particularly reluctant to take along fe-
male journalists, especially on longer
trips. In Afghan society, of course,
women are usually veiled and kept sep-
arate from men. On one trip, the problem
was solved by my interpreter, who told
the fighters at the front that I was a young
man from Egypt who had volunteered to
help them in their jihad, or holy war.
(Although I was wearing Afghan tribes-
men's clothes and a turban, my foreign
features required an explanation.)
Usually, a spokesman for one muja-
hideen party explained, finding accom-
modation for women is difficult,
especially in areas like the Panjsher Val-
ley, where massive Soviet bombing has
destroyed the houses and driven out all
the civilians. One French medical or-
ganization was asked to stop working in
several Afghan provinces in which the
presence of female doctors and nurses
offended conservative residents.
The growing risks and difficulties for
reporters who go into Afghanistan and
for the resistance fighters who take them
could reduce the already sparse coverage
of the war provided by the American
media. Although the Afghanistan issue
has become more prominent in the press
over the last two years as the result of
the stepping up of U.S. aid to the re-
sistance. along with speculation that the
Soviets might withdraw their forces.
comprehensive overviews of the Afghan
situation still tend to appear only at the
anniversaries of the Soviet invasion. In
1985, according to a study carried out
by the Library of Congress's Congres-
sional Research Service at the request of
Senator Gordon Humphrey. the evening-
news time allotted by the three television
networks to the Afghanistan conflict to-
taled less than an hour.
Because no Western news or-
ganization maintains a bureau,
or even a permanent corre-
spondent. in Peshawar, most
of the news of the fighting inside Af-
ghanistan is reported by the wire services
in Islamabad. the Pakistani capital. and
is largely based on reports from embas-
sies in Afghanistan. Observers are some-
times skeptical of their accuracy,
because the diplomats are sequestered in
a small area of Kabul and are not allowed
to travel into the countryside. Peter Jou-
venal recalls that, while at a guerrilla
camp inside Afghanistan, he heard a
Western radio report that quoted diplo-
matic sources as saying that the famous
commander of the Panjsher Valley re-
sistance forces. Ahmad Shah Massoud.
had been killed. "I knew it wasn't true,"
Jouvenal says. "I was sitting right next
to him."
The other main source for the wire-
Mortal danger: This photo of Charles Thornton of The Arizona Republic (right), with
mujahideen, was taken four hours before the truck Frets ambushed and Thornton was killed.
service stories are resistance reports;
these, too, must be regarded skeptically
because of the guerrilla leaders' ten-
dency to exaggerate their accomplish-
ments. Occasionally, according to the
editor of a respected resistance news ser-
vice, accounts of battles are even recy-
cled from the season before. One party's
press department discovered that many
of the reports it distributed were being
invented in the office by members who
hadn't even crossed the border. The
competition for international media at-
tention sometimes seems almost as in-
tense as the battle being waged in the
field. One reporter, for example, in the
course of interviewing a high-ranking
Afghan army prisoner captured by one
group, learned that a rival faction had
tried to coerce the officer into saying he
had been captured by them instead.
Even Westerners who work full-time
in Peshawar with the Afghans on hu-
manitarian aid projects find it difficult to
obtain an accurate picture of events in
Afghanistan. The director of a European
relief organization, who describes the
situation as "very complex." adds, "It
has taken a year to find reliable people
here who can tell you what's really hap-
pening. "
Many correspondents can spend only
a few weeks in Peshawar, and they are
faced with a confusing array of Afghan-
related organizations among which to
A
CDOW
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find good sources. A visual indication is
the proliferation of signs crowding the
main thoroughfare leading to the Khyber
Pass: "Dental Clinic for Afghan Refu-
gees,'' "Afghan Female Surgical Hos-
pital.'' ''Islamic Unity of Afghan
Mujahideen," "International Commit-
tee of the Red Cross,'' and "Saudi Red
Crescent." among others.
Some mujahideen warn that Western-
ers must be careful about which Afghans
they listen to. There would seem to be
good reason for caution: according to
Major Mohammad Raquib, an Afghan
army defector, the Soviets sometimes
plant Afghan agents to give reporters
disinformation.
Many journalists find that some of the
most objective assessments are provided
by other journalists. Those who stay in
Peshawar for any amount of time get
together regularly at the three or four
main restaurants to exchange war stories
and trade information. (When they tire
of mutton curry, the staple fare of the
city's restaurants, they gather in a hotel
to sample the latest delicacies from the
bazaar: deep-fried swallows and Russian
caviar smuggled in from Afghanistan.)
New journalists: Across the border, in Peshawar, Afghans learn how to coer their own war.
Most reporters still go ''inside'' to get
their own firsthand impressions. But the
average trip allows only a brief glimpse
of a small slice of territory close to the
Pakistan border. For an overview of Af-
ghanistan as a whole, treks must be made
to far comers of the country. i Not sur-
prisingly, given the amount of time re-
quired to make these trips. most
reporting from the battle zones has been
done by dedicated free-lancers. i Long
delays are common while the mujahi-
deen organize both to go in and to come
back out. And, once inside the country_
one can be forced to hole up for days by
Soviet and Afghan troop movements or
simply by the remoteness of the region.
One photographer was stranded for two
months near the Iranian border when he
missed a rare passing truck. He finally
gave up waiting for another and set off
by camel across the Dasht-i-Margo, the
''Desert of Death."
After such long trips, news is consid-
ered old by Western media standards.
And, for all the time spent inside, one
may have seen very little actual fighting.
Placing more reliance on Afghan jour-
nalists, it has been suggested, would re-
duce the need for Westerners to go into
Afghanistan and, at the same time, pro-
vide more consistent, timely, on-the-
spot reporting. Several Western-spon-
sored projects, including one conceived
by the United States Information
Agency, are under way to train Afehan
cameramen who would be stationed in
key spots throughout the country. Their
film would be sent out regularly, thus
eliminating time-consuming treks back
and forth to Pakistan. There is even talk
of equipping some of the new Afghan
reporters with electronic-burst transmit-
ters so they can relay battle reports to
Pakistan instantaneously.
The Afghans have their on ideas
about how Western press coverage of the
war could be improved. Many knowl-
edgeable mujahideen believe that the
news media have overlooked practices
of political leaders in Peshawar that are
impeding military performance and low-
ering morale. ''We wish journalists
would do some investigative reporting
to expose the incompetence and corrup-
tion of these leaders so they wouldn't
continue to get foreign support," says
an American-educated Afghan in Pesh-
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awar. "Some are notorious for selling
many of the weapons they are sent. The
arms they do dispense go not to the many
sincere fighters in the field, but to a few
personal friends who do very little fight-
ing. When we try to question such
things, they make excuses that they're
too busy to talk to us. But if a Western
journalist comes, they have all the time
in the world, since they want to enhance
their fame and thus get more financial
support.
"One party in particular stages attacks
on Afghan government positions near
the Pakistan border for the benefit of TV
teams," this Afghan says. "But then So-
viet planes come and bomb the surround-
ing villages and mujahideen camps in
retaliation. Many lives are lost just so
the journalists can get good footage and
the party can get favorable publicity."
A source close to this party claimed
it had recently spent 25 million rupees
($150,000) to take in an American tel-
evision team. The price was said to in-
clude paying for a large entourage to stay
in Afghanistan for six weeks and for the
purchase of heavy weapons and am-
munition for some of the "arranged
operations. "
Despite these and other attempts to
attract coverage, some Westerners
knowledgeable about the war consider
American reporting to be rather super-
ficial. A European who works closely
with the Afghans says that most of the
articles he has seen in the U.S. press
repeat the same themes and facts without
offering original insights. There is too
much of the "I was in Afghanistan with
the mujahideen" genre and too little in-
depth analysis of such important subjects
as the wide-ranging Soviet campaign to
convert Afghanistan into a satellite.
The coverage, he adds, also paints too
rosy a picture of the mujahideen's mil-
itary situation, failing to examine some
of their very real problems. He and other
Western observers say that increasingly
effective Soviet tactics have forced the
mujahideen onto the defensive in many
parts of Afghanistan and have resulted
in the deaths of some of their best com-
manders. Intermittent internecine fight-
ing continues to cause many mujahideen
casualties and to sap energy from the
struggle against the Soviets.
A European ex-army officer who has
spent much time in Afghanistan per-
ceives another flaw in coverage of the
military situation. "I sometimes read ar-
ticles in the U.S. press announcing a new
weapon or tactic being introduced by the
Soviets when, in fact, it has been around
for a year or two," he says. Meanwhile.
reports of widespread use by the muja-
hideen of sophisticated anti-aircraft
weapons, like the Stinger missile, seem
questionable. since accounts are contra-
dictory. This past December, for in-
stance, The New York Times ran two AP
stories under the headline AFGHAN REB-
ELS HIT MORE PLANES. The first story,
bearing a Washington dateline, quoted
State Department sources as saying that
the Soviet Union had been losing "an
average of one plane or helicopter a day
for the last three months to Afghan guer-
rillas armed with better weapons." The
second, shorter item, bearing an Islam-
abad, Pakistan. dateline and citing
"Western diplomats,'' put the Novem-
ber total at two Soviet transport planes
and eight helicopters.
Most Western journalists who have
traveled with the mujahideen believe
that, in actuality, few Stingers have yet
found their way into Afghanistan. They
say the Soviet losses are generally due
to older weapons, like SAM-7 and Red-
eye missiles, or to pilot errors resulting
in crashes.
Another point: both Western observ-
ers and Afghan resistance leaders are
irked that many major American news-
papers continue to use the word "reb-
els" when referring to the mujahideen.
They point out that the resistance groups
are not rebelling against a legitimate
government but are fighting a Soviet-
installed puppet regime.
F finally, it should be noted that.
due to the inaccessibility of
Iran since 1979, the plight of
the two million Afghan refu-
gees who have fled to Iran has gone al-
most unreported. For the same reason,
there has been no firsthand coverage of
the activities of the Iranian-based Shia
mujahideen parties.
Despite the deficiencies of Western
coverage of Afghanistan, Western re-
porters at least strive to provide a real-
istic picture of a curtained-off war. This
is far more than can be said of the Af-
ghan government media. Every word in
the Afghan press is approved by Soviet
advisers, according to a recent defector
from the Kabul regime. Meanwhile, to
improve their skills in producing Soviet-
style propaganda, a number of Afghan
journalists have been sent for training in
East-bloc countries. To find more reli-
able news, Afghans both inside and out-
side the country still tune in to the Voice
of America and the BBC. U
Vital link: For reliable news Afghans tune in to the BBC and the Voice of America.
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