Former war correspondents mourn slain colleagues in Cambodia

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WAT PO, Cambodia, April 22 Kyodo -
A group of more than two dozen former war correspondents held a solemn ceremony
Thursday to mourn the loss of their colleagues who were killed or went missing
while covering the war in Cambodia more than three decades ago.
The ''Old Hacks,'' as they call themselves, gathered first at a remote spot 63
kilometers southwest of Phnom Penh where eight fellow journalists and a
Cambodian driver were killed by the Khmer Rouge in May 1970 and where the
bodies of four of them were dug up and recovered in 1992.
The slain media workers are among 37 who were killed or went missing in
Cambodia between 1970 and 1975, including 10 Japanese, eight French, seven
Americans and five Cambodians. Others were from Switzerland, West Germany,
Austria, Netherlands, India, Laos and Australia.
Carl Robinson, 67, a former Associated Press correspondent who co-organized the
first-ever reunion of war correspondents in Cambodia, said their visit to the
remote site, located down a dirt track more than 2 km off the main road, was
''like a day of pilgrimage.''
''It was a very moving ceremony with a few tears shed,'' he said. ''To use an
overused word, it was like a 'closure' for a lot of people to actually be able
to visit and to pay their respects here today.''
The ceremony began with the chanting of Buddhists monks and local villagers
amid the burning of incense, which was followed by the reading of the names of
all 37 journalists.
They then held a moment of silence and planted a Bodhi, the tree under which
Buddha found enlightenment, on the side of the road, which the monks of the
local temple promised to take care of.
''The memorial as such is the Bodhi tree,'' said Robinson, who was based in
Saigon from 1968 through 1975.
The Old Hacks, mostly former journalists in their late 60s or early 70s who had
worked for major news organizations, arrived in Cambodia on Tuesday for a
reunion which also involves a public open forum, a photo exhibition, a visit to
the notorious ''Killing Fields'' and the installation of a memorial in front of
the Le Royal Hotel in Phnom Penh where many correspondents stayed and worked
while covering the war in Phnom Penh.
Among participants in Thursday's ceremony was Yoko Ishiyama, widow of Koki
Ishiyama, a Kyodo News correspondent who died in Cambodia in 1974 after being
captured by the Khmer Rouge.
Ishiyama said, ''I am very glad to see many veteran journalists, especially,
two female reporters, Elizabeth Becker and Sylvanna Foa of whom my husband
wrote to me mentioning their names in his letters during his news coverage in
Cambodia.
''I know this time what my husband had done as a journalist. I respect him.
Journalists have very respectful work because they have a lot of risks to find
the truth during the war time, especially, in Cambodia,'' Ishiyama added.
Atsuo Kaneko, a former Saigon bureau chief for Kyodo News during the Vietnam
War, said, ''This event is very impressive. Journalists are eager to explore
real situations. I respect those journalists who died in covering war to find
the reality of the Cambodian war.''
Khieu Kanharith, Cambodia's minister of information, added, ''This memorial is
a sign of solidarity among journalists around the world.''
Kurt Volkert, 73, a former CBS cameraman who was instrumental in mapping where
executed journalists were buried and who returned in 1992 to help a U.S.
military team recover the remains of some of them from the bank of a river,
said he regrets that the body of another Japanese, CBS cameramen Tomoharu
Ishii, was never found despite the ''heroic effort'' put into the search by
diggers, who had to dam up the river to dig.
''We were not close friends, but I respected him and it's infinitely sad that
he's still here somewhere, swept away by the waters,'' he said. ''He just
didn't get to go home.''
Volkert said he visited Ishii's wife in Tokyo later that same year to deliver
her a little silver box containing soil from the digging site where the bodies
of two other Japanese, one Frenchman and one American were found.
Robinson said the ratio of journalists killed in Cambodia was much higher than
in Vietnam during the Vietnam War because in the latter case, ''journalists
could count on the U.S. military to take them to wherever the fighting was''
whereas in Cambodia journalists had to basically take a taxi ride to the war
zone.
To make matters worse, he said, the Khmer Rouge policy then was to ''smash'' or
execute all perceived enemies, including journalists.
The Old Hacks have held three reunions in Vietnam for those who covered the
Vietnam War and they are slated to hold their fourth next week.
''But this is the first time we've ever had one in Cambodia so it's been a
wonderful experience, a really nice and wonderful feeling,'' Robinson said.
At the same time, he said, feelings are mixed. With some Old Hacks not having
been back to Cambodia since the early 1970s, ''it's been quite an emotional
return for a lot of people.''
''You enjoy it but you can't help remember the sadness as well.''
==Kyodo
2010-04-22 23:39:00