Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October 2003, page 14

In Memoriam

By Donald Neff

Mazen Dana was a very brave man. As a cameraman for Reuters and a Palestinian living in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, Dana had been shot, beaten, his bones broken, and chased and jailed by armed Israeli troops so many times that the sheer numbers blur into a surreal image of the cruelties of military occupation. Yet Dana carried on.

There is no small irony that the final gunshot that took his life was not by an Israeli but an American, and not in Palestine but in Iraq.

It was U.S. aid and U.S. guns that allowed Israel to maintain its military occupation of Palestinian lands, and it was a young U.S. soldier occupying Iraq who killed Dana on Aug. 17 near Baghdad. He was 43 years old, and leaves a wife and four children.

In his acceptance speech of the Committee to Protect Journalists' 11th Annual International Press Freedom Awards for courage and independence in reporting the news during 2001, Dana made a promise that unfortunately became true:

"Words and images are a public trust," he said, "and for this reason I will continue with my work regardless of the hardships and even if it costs me my life."

Dana was in Iraq covering U.S. troops. He was standing with a group of other journalists at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, where six prisoners were killed and about 60 wounded in a recent mortar attack. The videotape in his camera was retrieved after his death and showed two American tanks heading toward him. Six shots could be heard, and Dana fell.

Witnesses said the soldiers in the tanks apparently thought Dana was preparing to attack when he pointed his bulky camera at them. His driver, Munzer Abbas, said, "One of the soldiers told us they thought Mazen was carrying a rocket-propelled grenade," a favorite weapon of the anti-occupation forces.

A number of Dana's colleagues complained that the American shooter should have recognized the difference between an RPG and a camera, and they called for a thorough investigation. Reuters chief executive Tom Glocer said a full inquiry into the incident was necessary because the Iraq conflict had been the bloodiest war against journalists, with 17 killed.

International media rights groups, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters sans Fronti?res (Reporters Without Borders, RSF) in Paris, also called for a full inquiry. Said Glocer: "All of us have seen what a shoulder-held television camera looks like, it is a different-looking beast certainly during the afternoon sunlight. One should be able to tell from 50 yards away."

Then he added: "But again in conditions of war, young soldiers fearing for their own lives don't have a lot of time to make fine distinctions."

Indeed, the contrast may not have been all that great in the frightened eyes of a young, inexperienced soldier. Both are shoulder-held, and RPGs had been involved in many of the deadly attacks on U.S. forces.According to Stephan Breitner of France 2 television, however, "We were all there, for at least half an hour. They knew we were journalists. After they shot Mazen, they aimed their guns at us. I don't think it was an accident. They are very tense."

The United States army promised a full investigation. Col. Guy Shields called Dana's death "a terrible tragedy" and "a tragic incident....It is under investigation and we will do everything in our power to make sure things like this do not happen again."

In the Gaza Strip, friends and colleagues held a symbolic funeral for Dana on Aug. 19. "Mazen is a hero, his killer is a zero," they chanted as they walked in a procession behind an empty coffin covered with pictures of Dana and a camera on a bier.

Tawfiq Abu Khoussa, deputy chairman in Gaza of the Palestinian Journalist Union, called on the United Nations to launch an independent investigation into Dana's death. "Dana did not die in vain," Abu Khoussa said. "He died for the sake of truth and he willremain in our hearts and memories. Dana, we will not forget you. We will all follow in your footsteps."

But they will not be able to walk in Dana's funeral procession in Hebron after his coffin arrives from Iraq. Israel has sealed off Gaza, preventing Palestinians from traveling to the West Bank. The ban was a sad symbol of the travails of Mazen Dana's difficult life. As he observed in his 2001 acceptance speech of his CPJ award:

"To be a journalist and cameraman in a city of lost hope like Hebron requires great sacrifices. Gunfire, humiliation, beatings, prison, rocks, and the destruction of journalists' equipment are just some of the hardships. And there is also the inability to move freely. The sad thing is that I can travel anywhere in the world but I am unable to travel to the Reuters bureau in Jerusalem, which is just 25 kilometers away from Hebron."

Nor, tragically, was Mazen Dana's life any safer in Iraq than in Palestine.

Donald Neff, a former Time magazine correspondent in Vietnam and bureau chief in Jerusalem, is the author of the Warriors trilogy, Fallen Pillars: U.S. Policy towards Palestine and Israel since 1945, and 50 Years of Israel, all available from the AET Book Club.