and the death of de Mello in the UN bombing. It almost seemed like Mazen Dana and de Mello were targeted for some reason. I wondered if Mazen Dana gave some film of Abu Gharib to de Mello.
This all happened a while before the Abu Gharib torture scandal broke. But it's probably all just coincidence.
Some of these links might not work anymore; they may be cached at google.
Reuters Cameraman Killed For Filming U.S. Graves: Brother
AL-KHALIL, West Bank,
August 19 2003snip-------
"The U.S. troops killed my brother in cold blood," Nazmi Dana told IslamOnline.net in exclusive statements.
"The U.S. occupation troops shot dead my brother on purpose, although he was wearing his press badge, which was also emblazoned on the car he was driving," he said.
He also recalled that his brother had obtained a prior permit from the U.S. occupation authorities in Iraq to film in the site.
On Sunday, August 17, U.S. troops shot dead the award-winning Reuters cameraman while
he was filming near the U.S.-run Abu Gharib prison in Baghdad.http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-08/19/article08.shtmlMazen Dana, a 43-year-old journalist, was killed by U.S. soldiers Sunday
while working outside Abu Ghraib prison on Baghdad's outskirts after they apparently mistook his camera for a rocket-propelled grenade. His colleague, Nael Shyoukhi, said that shortly before the shooting a U.S. soldier at the prison had granted them permission to film. At least a half-dozen other journalists — cameramen, photographers and reporters — were working nearby, along a barren expanse intersected by a busy highway.
http://www.redding.com/top_stories/world/20030819topworld016.shtmlMazen Dana Wins International Press Freedom Award
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the National Press Club’s Freedom of Press Committee hosted a press conference Nov. 14 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC to introduce three of the four winners of CPJ’s 2001 awards.
The recipients of the 11th Annual International Press Freedom Awards for courage and independence in reporting the news were: Mazen Dana, a cameraman for Reuters in the West Bank city of Hebron who has been beaten and shot on several occasions while covering clashes between Palestinians and Jewish settlers; Geoff Nyarota, editor of Zimbabwe’s only independent daily newspaper, who has been a relentless critic of President Robert Mugabe and who has been threatened and jailed, and his paper bombed twice; Horacio Verbitsky, who has exposed government corruption in Argentina, reporting on past atrocities and battling for the repeal of the country’s restrictive press laws; and Jiang Weiping, a journalist now in jail on charges of “revealing state secrets” after reporting on the taboo subject of official graft in China’s industrial northeast region.
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/janfeb2002/0201088.htmlTop UN envoy killed in Baghdad blast
Tuesday, 19 August, 2003A huge bomb has devastated the Iraq headquarters of the United Nations in Baghdad killing at least 17 people, including top UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.
snip----
The attack came shortly after the UN increased security measures around its Baghdad building.
The truck containing the bomb was parked just outside de Mello's office when the device went off at about 1640 local time (1240GMT).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3164887.stmMany at U.N. headquarters were against the Iraq war from the beginning and have become embittered with the United States for limiting the U.N.'s role in post-war Iraq.
The ill-defined U.N. mission in Iraq was authorized to improve the humanitarian situation and assist in reconstruction. The mission's chief, Sergio Vieira de Mello, was to coordinate with U.S. authorities and Iraqis. Vieira de Mello, who was hosting a meeting in his office when a suicide truck bomb exploded outside the compound, was killed.
Hailed as a possible future leader for the organization, his loss comes at a time when U.N. morale is low. Longstanding relations between key global players that were damaged by pre-war diplomatic wrangling have not fully recovered.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3047965,00.htmlRIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Sergio Vieira de Mello, 55, the handsome, seasoned U.N. diplomat who was killed in Tuesday's bombing in Iraq, had a resume that read like a road map of the world's trouble spots.
In his last interview, published in Monday's editions of the Brazilian daily newspaper O Estado de Sao Paulo, Vieira de Mello warned that the vast U.S. military presence in Iraq was inciting attacks like the one that took his life a day later.
"This must be one of the most humiliating periods in history for these people. Who would like to see their country occupied? I wouldn't want to see foreign tanks in Copacabana," Vieira de Mello said. He added that American-led coalition forces needed to win over Iraqis by restoring essential services rather than dominating the country.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/6570481.htm"We have been in Iraq for 12 years and we have never been attacked," Annan said. He said now the United Nations would reevaluate its security measures.
Unlike U.S. occupation forces, the United Nations had been welcomed by many Iraqis.
Bremer said the bombing may have specifically targeted Vieira de Mello, who headed the United Nations' operations in the country. The truck bomb was positioned "quite clearly pretty much in front of de Mello's office, at the back of the U.N. headquarters' building. So it's possible he was, in fact, targeted," Bremer told CNN.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=1&u=/ap/20030820/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq It would have been especially busy at the time of the blast because a press conference was taking place.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3164887.stmNEW YORK — U.N. and U.S. officials traded charges yesterday over who was responsible for providing security around the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, where senior U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and at least 19 others were killed in a truck-bomb blast.
U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard, who was clearly emotional while briefing reporters in New York, laid the blame for the security breakdown squarely on the United States and its allies in the coalition force occupying Iraq.
"We are entirely in their hands," Mr. Eckhard said. "The security of everyone in Iraq — Iraqis, the nongovernmental humanitarian workers, the U.N. relief workers — everyone is dependent on the coalition for their security in Iraq."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20030819-113754-2567r.htm