Three journalists killed” “

Pierre Billaud of RTL, Johanne Sutton of Radio France Internationale, and Volker Handloik of Stern are the three journalists killed in an ambush by the Taleban in Afghanistan on Sunday, 11 November. We managed to speak on the telephone with Rémi Sulmont , journalist of RTL in Paris. Sulmont preceded Pierre Billaud in Afghanistan and knew him well. What do you particularly remember about your colleague Pierre Billaud, who lost his life in Afghanistan? “I have two memories in particular. The first: we were all struck by his ‘fierce determination’ to report on the war, and of his ‘hunger to depart’. Pierre was in New York to cover the attacks on the World Trade Center. No sooner had he returned to Paris than he wanted immediately to leave for Afghanistan. His determination was impressive; we even found it a bit disconcerting. The second memory is connected with the fact that I was in Afghanistan before him. So I told him what to expect; and while I read out to him on the telephone the list of all the things he should take with him to make the conditions of life and of work less difficult, he joked about the fact that this mission would be particularly taxing. I had already worked in similar shifts with him as a correspondent before; I remember our experience in Jerusalem, some time ago, but then he was staying in a hotel, with all its comforts. He told me things would undoubtedly be more difficult in Afghanistan than in Israel. But this did not have the least influence on him”. Perhaps Pierre took too many risks? “He had been in Afghanistan for three weeks. He gathered communiqués from all sides in the conflict. Often they were at odds with each other, contradicted only twenty-four hours later. It was very frustrating, because it was only possible to be the interpreters of an invisible war. Last Sunday, for the first time, Pierre had the opportunity to go and verify the situation in person; for once, it was not a question of reporting statements made by others, which could not be checked. One thing is certain: from everything he wrote to us, it is clear that Pierre never took imprudent risks. His dispatches were full of analysis and local colour; he posed all the necessary questions. And he boarded that truck. It’s his profession that killed him, not his passion. He had waited and waited for three weeks, and finally the chance came to gain access to a town hitherto in the hands of the Taleban. Boarding that vehicle was normal. Pierre worked in a team with two other French journalists. He did not take the decision to board that truck by himself; it was a joint decision, carefully weighed and shared by the other two. Like him, Johanne Sutton didn’t return”. Reporting war is perhaps more difficult today than in the past. What changes in the business can you perceive? “The conflict in Afghanistan has so far been quite different from any other. The press is present in force but there is no news: either because it does not filter through, or because it is too contradictory to enable a journalist to discern what is true and what is false. And so a reporter tries to report the war as best he can. He makes use of communiqués, which he will try to check out wherever possible, i.e. very seldom. In Afghanistan it was only from last Friday, 9 November, that reporters have actually been able to verify the reliability of the information they get. The conflict has fronts that are continuously shifting; they are no longer the fixed and immobile fronts of ‘traditional’ wars. The forces on the ground are continuously moving from one area to another, making it difficult to locate where they are. A good deal of money is also circulating; information indeed has become big business and there are markets in the true sense of the word where news can be bought and sold”. What scope remains for the ethical aspects of the profession of journalist? “The rule is that if it not possible to verify one’s information, one needs to cite all the sources, even if they are contradictory. A reporter, however, must also know when to say ‘I don’t know’, or ‘I can’t go’. As far as I’m aware, only Mazar el Sharif was easily reachable; from there reliable news on what was happening in the area was coming through. There is however another aspect of the Afghan war: when nothing happens for weeks, or rather when one is prevented from reporting anything precise and informative, the temptation arises to pay people to stage exchanges of gunfire. Even this happens, unfortunately”.