MGG Pillai Commentary View

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Too dangerous to report Iraq but not Pakistan or Guatemala

THE TELEVISION NETWORKS AND newspapers are all about the South Asian earthquake, a disaster engineered by nature. There is little talk now of the man-made disaster in Iraq. When it is all over, the man-made disasters will have killed more people than nature's. As it would be in Iraq and Afghanistan than in Pakistan. Those who are glued to television, as many Malaysians are these days, are shocked at the paucity of services in an emergency. But they say not a word about Iraq, where more people are dead or worse off than in South Asia, and the bombs have reduced to rubble what used to be pastiche of an European city in a way no natural disaster has. Imagine what would happen to Kuala Lumpur should it be reduced to rubble, either by nature or by man. The South Asian earthquake, the tragedy at New Orleons, the Guatemala earthquake show that if man continues to test nature, then the forces of nature would demand a catastrophic price. Man-made wars, as in Iraq, is to reduce potentially growing nations into rubble. The reasons may be justified, but the end result is the same. It is a question of power. Do we expect BBC or CNN to cover the ordinary people in Iraq who are made homeless, or cannot get a modicum of medical treatment? No, we don't. We expect either or both networks to show the power of the countries they represent. So it is Fallujah reduced to rubble, and no mention is made of the people made homeless in that town. We do not hear of the people forced to leave the town while CNN or BBC reports of another attack on the attacked town. But human beings are the same the world over. The refugee from Fallujah is no different from New Orleons or Balkot. The attention given to the South Asian earthquake and news elsewhere, particularly 'democratic' developments elsewhere, is due to difficulties the Americans face in Iraq over the referendum this weekend (October 15).

But the NGOs who rushed to aid in the South Asian earthquake were missing from Iraq, where it is needed most. It is too dangerous, they say, with justification, and the most serious danger comes from the United States troops, who don't like to be watched, or reported, by others, including reporters, and view NGOs and reporters as if they were the enemy. So they stay away from Iraq, and rush to places like Pakistan and India, which will accept foreign aid with alacrity. Few of that aid, particularly money, will go to the people in most need of it for the civil servants and others will take for themselves what are meant for the people. The money does not reach the people who need it, and the goods are taken by the people who should see they are distributed. It is the same all over the world. There is a tsunami fund in Malaysia, but authorities denied that Malaysians were affected by it. It is used to give aid to Aceh, where both the tsunami and earthquake hit, and the Malaysians struck by the tsunami are left to their own devices. Since the newspapers report only what the authorities want it to report, the outside world does not get to hear all this. So we are given round-the-clock coverage on television, and in newspapers, about needs of the refugees in remote areas, where reporters fear to go without adequate security, but are happy to report what civil servants tell them. And television shows are full of 'talking heads' talking endlessly about the caring people and why more aid is necessary.

But it is peacemeal. As the West would want it. North Korea told the World Food Programme and the NGOs to clear out the country after the US forced North Korea to give up its nuclear programme. North Korea agreed, but asked the US to complete the nuclear programme it had started. The US stalls. And North Korea rejected all food aid. The starving children in North Korea might be true, but it was foisted on the world for a political reason as seen by the US. Today, we do not hear or read anything of the starving children of North Korea. Pyongyang had stopped the US in its tracks. It was justified if it did not use them. The American troops defending South Korea has nuclear weapons in its arsenal. The American troops use depleted uranium bullets in Iraq. The troops in Iraq handling DU bullets are put in quarantine in the US once their term of service in Iraq is over. In Vietnam, Cambodia and Loas, there still live people made incapacitated by DU bombing, just as there are people living in Nagasaki and Hiroshima who escaped the atom bombs dropped by the Americans in 1945, We hear little of Burma in the news. Of the country, not NGOs and others demanding the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. The Burmese junta has outwitted the world. The news we hear about Burma is of changes in the junta, and we are told this creates another split in it. And then there is silence.

News travels fast. Usually distributed by Western networks, newspapers and news agencies. Every time the Third World is able to cope with reporting the news, additional rules are brought in so that only the Western networks, newspapers and agencies can report exclusively. So the Third World agencies, and newspaper reporters do what they do best. When their leaders travel, or when they summarise Western newspaper reports. The newspapers in the Third World often ignore their own news agency reports for the Western news agency reports. The big problem is money. The wherewithal of working like the Western reporters is to have a communication network that is beyond the budget of the Third World agencies and newspapers. So they depend upon the West. And become drugged the extent that even news on their backyard is not covered. For Malaysia, its backyard is southern Thailand where there is friction between the Thai authorities and the villagers. I have not seen a report in Malaysian newspapers of what is happening there. They cannot because the Malaysian authorities are playing a dangerous game there. No one is allowed to, or would not, report that in the newspapers, almost all of which are owned or controlled by one or other parties in the National Front, and they owe their loyalty to the head of the National Front, who is also Prime Minister.

The reports are for the leaders. In the West, and the Third World. We have quickly learnt to forget that the Western news organisations are all for President Bush, Prime Minister Blair and, lest we forget, Prime Minister John Howard, to go into Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein once and for all. That UK and Australia are US poodles does not matter; the poodle barks louder than the master. So the chancelleries in the US, UK and Australia found reasons to invade Iraq, and it is the news organisations now that is pointing out that the reasons were false or non-existent, for the news organisations are now being questioned why they supported their political masters then. But Iraq is a nuclear-bombed country, and could be just another Lebanon in its politics. But is the Western news organisations interested? It has the South Asian earthquake, the Liberian elections or the former South African president charged for corruption to bother. That is the problem with the Western news organisations. They are as embedded with authority as their Third World counterparts. They have an agenda, like the Third World news organisations. And they are both owned by the corporate organisations or those friendly with those in power. Who is calling in the kettle black? The Pakistan Prime Minister, Mr Shaukat Aziz. complains in BBC to complain of the coverage of the Pakistani suffering in much the same fashion as President Bush complains of the coverage in Iraq. This is made possible by globalisation, it is true, but globalisation also tells us that governments and people are the same all over the world. The people in authority like to hide that while milking for all it is worth by another aspect of people all over the world, the aspect of giving what they can afford, and of governments and people all over the world who are the same.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com