The Correspondent, May-June 2010

WALL ROBIN MOYER AND HIS ‘OUT OF TIME’ EXHIBITION

BI-MONTHLY • MAY–JUNE 2010

VETS’ NAM OLD HACKS HEAD BACK AND RECALL THE FALL

PRESS FREEDOM HUMAN RIGHTS PRESS AWARDS AS STRONG AS EVER

IN REVIEW PRISON DIARIES FROM THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong 香港外國記者會

THE BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE PUBLISHED BY THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS’ CLUB, HONG KONG

cover

MAY-JUNE 2010

8

VANES AND VIETNAM

The Club remembers much-loved Club stalwart, Hugh Van Es, who died a year ago this May. At the same time, Hugh’s old friends and collegues headed back to Vietnam to mark the 35th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon

news

6

wall

18

ROBIN MOYER: OUT OF TIME

press freedom

26

THE 14TH HUMAN RIGHTS PRESS AWARDS

in review

32

RED GUARDS, GREY DIARIES

club tie

34

BRASH BARCLAY BARES ALL

stiletto

36

Max Kolbe on the grim and deathly nature of journalism, in Thailand and the Philippines

then and now

37

Bob Davis looks at Cheung Chau, in 1971 and in 2010

zoo night

38

Another fine cartoon by Harry Harrison plus more media-related scandal and sarcasm from The Bitch

MEMBERS AND CLUB COLUMNS, PLUS PLENTY OF FCC NEWS

Robin Moyer, whose photography is so well-known to readers of Time magazine and whose wit and warm humour are very familiar to Main Bar regulars, held a retrospective at the Club in May This year’s Human Rights Press Awards were a successful but emotional affair, writes Jake Van der Kamp Former Reuters Beijing correspondent Anthony Grey has published his prison diaries, written when he was held hostage during the Cultural Revolution. They make for compelling reading, writes Jonathan Sharp Outgoing Club Board member and former SCMP newshound, Barclay Crawford, has left Hong Kong to go and ply his trade on Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. Before he left, true to form, he had just a few words to say.

Cover: Harry Harrison

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong 2 Lower Albert Road, Central, Hong Kong Tel: (852) 2521 1511 Fax: (852) 2868 4092 Email: fcc@fcchk.org Website: www.fcchk.org

President: Tom Mitchell 1st Vice President: Anna Healy Fenton 2nd Vice President: Francis Moriarty Correspondent Governors: Frederik Balfour, Keith Bradsher, Thomas William Easton, Tara Joseph, Christopher Slaughter, Peter Stein, Stephen Vines, Neil Western Tied election vote: Colum Murphy & Peter Stein – the run off election result will announced on June 23rd Journalist Governors: Barclay Crawford, Jake Van Der Kamp Associate Governors: Andrew Paul Chworowsky, Thomas Crampton, Kevin Egan, Steve Ushiyama Goodwill Ambassadors: Clare Hollingworth, Anthony Lawrence General Manager: Gilbert Cheng The Correspondent © The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong FCC MAGAZINE The Correspondent is published six times a year. Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of the Club.

Publications Committee Convener: Neil Western Editor: Richard Cook Produced by WordAsia Limited, Tel: 2805 1422, Email: fcc@wordasia.com www.wordasia.com

33

Feature

Club News

From the Club President

Election Results — 2010

Dear Members, Imagine that you have just landed at Hong Kong International Airport early in the morning, having never before set foot outside your native country. In fact, until it was issued just 12 hours earlier in emergency fashion, you had never even had a passport.

Your welcoming party at Chek Lap Kok is waiting for you at exit A, as per the notice on the �ight arrivals board. But as sometimes happens, after passing through immigration you somehow cross over to exit B, where there is no one to greet you. Consider also that you had managed just one hour’s sleep the night before, your mobile phone does not work overseas and English is your third language.

What is your reaction?

I know what mine would be. I’d probably panic.

But not Myrna Reblando, a Filipina mother of six, the widow of a journalist slain in November’s Mindanao massacre and the FCC’s special guest at our annual Human Rights Press Awards (see story, page 26). Myrna calmly walked over to a stranger, asked to borrow his mobile and rang the contact numbers she had been given. “Hi, I’m here. Where are you?”

Upon her arrival at 8:20am on Saturday, April 17, Myrna was just halfway through a gruelling 48 hours. She had spent the previous day attending press conferences and other events in Manila, representing the families of the Mindanao tragedy. Her plans to continue on to Hong Kong were up in the air, after being informed that her passport would not be ready until the following week. �anks to last-minute help from the Philippines consulate in Hong Kong and the assistance 2

THE CORRESPONDENT

of Harry Roque, a Manila lawyer, Myrna was able to pick up her travel document just before the passport office closed on Friday evening and board the �rst �ight on Saturday morning to Hong Kong.

Once in Hong Kong, Myrna was shown to her hotel room for just a few hours’ rest before being rushed to the FCC’s packed Main Dining Room. �e Club looked forward to honouring her, and all the families of the Mindanao victims, with a simple presentation of a plaque and �owers. Knowing that Myrna might be overwhelmed by the experience, we emphasised that there was no obligation for her to speak.

Indeed, Myrna was not sure she would be up to doing so. But as the ceremony began, she collected herself and calmly began to scribble out a few remarks in English, a language she repeatedly told us she was not terribly comfortable in.

When it came time for the presentation, Myrna spoke eloquently in English and then repeated her remarks in Tagalog.

She also sat calmly as a short video

about the massacre, featuring Myrna and her late husband, Alejandro “Bong” Reblando, was played. Anyone who was in the audience can tell you that Myrna displayed true grace under pressure – and bravely personi�ed what the Club’s annual Human Rights Press Awards are all about.

Myrna stayed on in Hong Kong for another three nights as a guest of the FCC. �e Club is grateful for all the organizers, judges and sponsors who helped make this year’s Human Rights Press Awards, in association with the Hong Kong Journalists Association and Amnesty International, such a success.

A special thanks is due to AI’s Milabel Cristobal for kindly taking Myrna under her wing and introducing her to Hong Kong’s Filipino community. Myrna drew much comfort and strength from the support she found here, and the FCC looks forward to staying in close touch with the Reblando family as they and others pursue justice for the victims of the Mindanao tragedy.

I would also be remiss not to thank everyone who turned out on May 7 to help christen �e Van Es Wall in honour of Hugh. Kees Metselaar curated an outstanding exhibition of Hugh’s photojournalism. �e Wall Committee, led by Chris Slaughter and John Batten, has organised a remarkable run of displays over the past year. If you haven’t already, do stop by the Main Bar area during a quiet period to appreciate Robin Moyer’s stunning photographs.

Tom Mitchell Club President

PRESIDENT: 1. Tom MITCHELL - Financial Times.

74 votes

FIRST-VICE PRESIDENT: 1. Anna HEALY FENTON – Freelance.

68 votes

SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT: 1. Francis MORIARTY - RTHK.

217 votes

CORRESPONDENT MEMBER GOVERNORS: 1. Frederik BALFOUR - Bloomberg.

2. Keith BRADSHER - The New York Times.

3. Thomas William EASTON - The Economist.

4. Bonnie ENGEL - Asian Art Newspaper.

5. Leslie Katherine HOOK - The Wall Street Journal.

6. Tara Anne JOSEPH - Reuters.

7. Colum MURPHY - Lloyd’s List.

8. Carsten SCHAEL - Carsten Schael Photography.

9. Christopher SLAUGHTER - APV. 10. Peter M. STEIN - The Wall Street Journal.

11. Stephen VINES - Freelance Correspondent.

12. Neil David WESTERN - Bloomberg. * Tied Vote

Election count night: All images by Bob Davis

49 votes 55 votes 48 votes 31 votes 21 votes 40 votes *36 votes 35 votes 48 votes *36 votes 64 votes 41 votes

JOURNALIST MEMBER GOVERNORS: 1. Barclay CRAWFORD - South China Morning Post.

2. Jake VAN DER KAMP - South China Morning Post.

54 votes 64 votes

ASSOCIATE MEMBER GOVERNORS: 1. John BATTEN - John Batten Gallery 2. Andrew CHWOROWSKY - Fat Angelo’s Italian Restaurant 3. Thomas CRAMPTON - Ogilvy 4. Kevin Barry H. EGAN - Baskerville Chambers 5. Susan LIANG - Susan Liang & Co Solicitors 6. Steve USHIYAMA - Gotham Financial Limited

139 votes 176 votes 169 votes 211 votes 150 votes 159 votes

Birthday Boy: On June 1st, a group of old pals helped Club Icon, Arthur Hacker, celebrate his birthday by filling his Grantham Hospital ward with cards, cake, chocolates, champagne flutes and a mountain of heart-felt good wishes. Arthur, who has had various stays in both Queen Mary and Grantham Hospital since taking a nasty fall last year, also got a birthday present from his Doctor who told him that his blood pressure is down and his health is gradually getting better. Despite the good news Arthur is likely to be in Grantham for at least another few weeks yet,

and as such he is always happy to see old friends from the Club. Arthur, your wisdom and wicked wit are missed at the Main Bar. You get back as soon as you are able.

THE CORRESPONDENT

3

What’s on

What’s on Membership

Golf Society makes the best of a cool spring March and April found scores soaring among the FCC linksters. An unusually cool spring caused the fairways and greens around Hong Kong to deteriorate. Whether Kau Sai Chau, Fanling or Discovery Bay, the greens were tough to putt and some fairways looked like moonscapes. But, as the saying goes, “the good singer doesn’t blame the song” so the society’s golfers pressed on and made the best of it – especially at the 19th hole.

In March, Stacy Kwan took St. Patrick’s Day honours on the south course at Kau Sai Chau with a nett 67. Other notable players with low netts included Wendy Allen, 73 and Stephane Gadombski, 75. In April, Neil Campion made shot after shot over a tough east course recording a 73 to win honours just edging out Russ Julseth’s 74.

In June we will have a road trip to Thailand to compete with other local clubs.

To join in with the fun contact Golf Society Convenor Russ Julseth at russjulseth@netvigator.com

Left to right: Rick Allen, Neil Campion, Wendy Allen, Jeremy Bolland, Norm Janelle

Letters: FCCHK is the best

“Dear Sir, A number of elements of your MarchApril 2010 issue reinforce your standing as the gold standard of the club industry.

I will now detail them as I see them.

1. From the president. Here the president faced up to several problems: the wider problem for the industry in the Mindanao massacre, and then the one that related to the FCC. These were explained. Then the Club’s conduct was spelled out with the correct invocation that clubs must confront controversy and not sidestep it. The president also went to bat for the seemingly besieged press freedom committee and its convenor.

2. Back Page Bitch. This was an expert treatment of the besetting flaw in journalism which is the fear of igniting a legal action. It is as serious in its way as the perils posed by the internet and the free model as a whole. Many a true word said in, well, semi jest.

3. Suzie’s World. Here the pill was entertainingly and informatively gilded with an analytical background that, among other things filled me in on the elusive Richard Mason. Someone that I had half consciously confused with James Mason.

Yours faithfully Peter Isaac, President www.nationalpressclub.org.nz”

4

THE CORRESPONDENT

Cricket: season wrap

The FCC social cricket team wrapped up its inaugural season with a match against The Taverners on the hallowed astroturf of the HKCC ground on Wong Nai Chung Gap Road. The game ended with a resounding nine wicket victory for the hosts who fielded a strongly competitive XI that included former Hong Kong skipper Mark Eames.

The game nevertheless lived up to the finest traditions of social sport with players sharing beers and a barbeque under the sun on a hot April afternoon. It marked the end of a successful season during which a ramshackle bunch of middle aged members who had last picked up a bat or ball several decades earlier recaptured flickers of their former glories and bonded into a spirited team.

The match at HKCC started badly for the visitors when they lost two wickets for no runs in the first two overs to the paciest and most accurate bowling attack they had yet faced. Despite early resistance from Neil Runcieman (26) and Hari Kumar, the FCCCC slumped to 78-8 by the drinks break. Fears of having to bat again in order to use up the allotted 35 overs vanished once the habitually strong tail came to the rescue once again. Barclay Crawford, playing his last game before moving back to Australia, Ian Harling and Jeremy Payne all raced past 20 to post a respectable target of 158. Yet any hope of an unlikely victory was soon crushed as HKCC began at more than 10 runs an over.

With three players making their debut for the FCC, there are now 18 players in the squad and the team is looking for more. Any members wishing to join the team for next season should contact organiser Neil Western: neil_ western@yahoo.co.uk. Nets will begin again at the end of August.

This issue sees the first of a regular column dedicated to the comings and goings of members.

It’s for you and about you. So just had a baby? Got married? Should you wish your fellow members to know about changes in your life?

E-mail marketing@fcchk.org.

An extremely warm welcome to new members Correspondents: Katie Bryan, HK Contributing Editor of Asian Art News/World Sculpture News, Robert Cookson, Asia Markets Correspondent at the Financial Times, Anum Istafa, Far East Asia Representative of National Herald Tribune, Liz Kim, Hong Kong Correspondent at Yonhap News Agency, and Craig Smith, Executive Editor of Cai Business Indepth Journalists: Rex Aguado, Publisher & Editor of Harrex Media, and Catherine Evans, Founder & Editor at Art Radar Asia Associates: Michelle Garnaut, Alexander Ho Wing-Wah, Chairman/ Chief Executive of First Direct Holdings, Lai Hau-Wan, Owner of Empyrean Fine Chinese Antiques, Linda Loi Tsz-Fan, Director at Botta Group, Henry Schlueter, Managing Director of Schlueter & Associates, Paul Schmidt, Lawyer at Baker & McKenzie, John Spelich, Vice President of Alibaba Group, Neil Taylor, Editorial Director, HSBC Global Publishing Services, Gavin Walker, President & CEO of Singer Asia, and Lily Wong Shu-Ting, a Doctor at Dr Jamieson & Associates.

Diplomats: Jeffry Seals, Commercial Consul at the American Consulate General, and Nomatemba Tambo, Consul-General of the South African Consulate-General Corporate: Telstra International HK Limited represented by their Senior Vice President, Naushad Madon Welcome back to absent members who have returned to Hong Kong and reactivated their membership: Associates Pat Fok, Robert Green and Joan Piper.

On to Pastures New: We bid a fond farewell to members leaving Hong Kong: Andrew Bullard, Senior Copy Editor at Dow Jones, Pamela Woodall, Asia Economics Editor of The Economist, Leonard Apcar, Deputy Managing Editor of The International Herald Tribune, Graeme Hall of Lloyd Wise & Co, Max Roest of International Commerce Corporation, Psychological Counsellor Gloria Cheng, and Sheldon Trainor-Degirolamo of PacBridge Capital Partners.

Also resigning were the Freelance Writer Tamsin Bradshaw, Adrian Addison, Editor at AFP, Hermann Hofmann of Advantage Asia Pacific and Tony Yeung Siu-Tung of the Peterson Group.

Bon voyage to those also leaving these shores but who became Absent Members prior to their departure. Correspondents Anthony Spaeth of The JoongAng Daily and David Watkins, Editor at AFP and Journalist Euan McKirdy of Total Media. Associates Sambamurthy Bhaskar of Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (China), Edward Chalk, Ivo Hahn of Stanton Chase International, Paul Harris, Walter Hungerbuhler of Egon Zehnder, Amy Pang Tze-Ha at Marketnews, Philip William Stubbs of UniServity and Bundy Walker of Colorcraft.

Despatched: It is with great sadness we announce the deaths of Journalist David Chen and Associate Susan Pinshow; their spouses Kathleen Chen and Edward Pinshow have been granted Honorary Membership of the Club in their memory.

Other: Charles Lee from The Editors Group changed from Journalist to Correspondent. And congratulations to Associates Patrick Chu KwokHei, Frank van Ginkel and Bruce Aitken on their Silver Membership.

THE CORRESPONDENT

5

What’s on

Club News

Reciprocal Clubs

FCC Japan It is not hard for an FCC HK member to feel at home in the FCC Japan. The two clubs resemble each other remarkably closely, possibly because we’ve each had about the same amount of time to figure out what makes an Asian journalist club work, writes Robin Lynam.

In fact the FCCJ is the older of the two. It was established in 1945 – four years before this FCC – by correspondents who had covered the last stages of the Second World War. It was meant to give journalists some independence from the military.

It too has survived a number of moves of premises, although it has never moved more than a few blocks from its original No. 1 Shimbun Alley address in the Ginza area. Shimbun means newspaper.

The current base is a bit like the FCC in the Sutherland House era. The club is conveniently located on the 20th floor of the Yurakucho Denki North Building, right above the Tokyo Metro’s Hibaya Station, next door to the Peninsula Tokyo hotel.

Like our club the FCCJ has evolved from a bar cum representative organization for war correspondents into a meeting place and resource centre for foreign and local journalists, and an important proponent of press freedoms. It also has a broad base of associate members who like to hang out with media folk, and appreciate access to relatively cheap food and drink in pleasant surroundings in the heart of one of the world’s most expensive cities.

The club is an important venue for speakers from the worlds of politics, business, economics and sundry other affairs, and claims to have about 300 members currently working for news organizations.

Others are a familiar mix of professionals of various kinds, diplomats, and PR and advertising people. In short much the sort of crowd you would run into in the Hong Kong Main Bar on a typical Zoo Night.

Their Main Bar is Tokyo’s direct equivalent to ours, and the Pen & Quill Dining Room and Masukomi Sushi Bar are well up to Tokyo’s exacting standards of F & B, while falling agreeably short of its equally exacting prices.

For a variety of reasons a trip to Tokyo can be exhausting.

The FCCJ is a good place The FCC of Japan, 20/F Yurakucho to relax and unwind, and for Denki North Building, Yurakucho visiting journalists it is a well 171, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 100-0006 equipped and accommodating Tel: 853 2871 4000 working base. Show up with your front@fccj.or.jp membership card and the front http://www.fccj.or.jp office will make you welcome.

6

THE CORRESPONDENT

Club Speaker Events

The Club’s status as the best public-speaker platform in town continued in May with lunchtime talks by a host of visiting academics, business and community leaders and at Lest one globe-trotting TV celebrity.

Speakers included: International Executive Director of Greenpeace Kumi Naidoo who addressed the Club on “Can China and the BASIC countries save the climate?” on May 25th, Journalist Mark O’Neill who spoke on “The Biggest NGO in the Chinese World - Tzu Chi Foundation” on June 2nd and Professor Robert Sutter who spoke on “China’s Rise in Asian and World Affairs on June 10th.

The biggest name to come to the Club was author, professional traveller and TV and movie star, Michael Palin, who gave a witfilled talk – entitled “Travelling on Television” – to a packed Main Dining Room on May 28th (see the next issue of The Correspondent for a full review).

As ever, many more events are planned for June and July and to check on upcoming speakers, head to the Club’s website www. fcchk.org or check out the Club’s many marketing-flyer emails.

Web Crawl

The Club’s new(ish) website turned one in May. As with all things digital, the site continues to develop and grow but it needs your feedback to remain useful and functional. Recent usage stats show that readership has continued to grow and probable new improvements may include a private Club members’ area complete with bulletin board plus an online searchable archive.

If you have suggestions – or complaints – mail the Club Editor at fcc@wordasia.com

Obituaries Albert Ravenholt

An FCC Founder

Albert Victor Ravenholt, 90, passed away April 25, 2010, at his home in Seattle.

He was born September 9, 1919, on the family farm in Milltown, Wisconsin, one of Ansgar and Kristine Ravenholt’s ten children. After the death in infancy of an older sister, Albert became the eldest of five boys and four girls in this Danish-American family who survived the difficult years of the Great Depression.

After high school and the loss of the family farm to bank foreclosure, Albert attended Grand View College, Des Moines, Iowa, for one semester before leaving to work at the New York Worlds Fair in the summer of 1939. Inspired to travel, he hitchhiked across the country to California where he signed on as cook on a Swedish freighter sailing for Asia and on to the Mediterranean Sea and Marseilles, France, before returning around Africa to Shanghai where he remained. During 1941 and 1942, Albert led the trucking of medical supplies for the International Red Cross on the Burma Road and into the Chinese interior.

From 1942 to 1946 he served as a war correspondent for the United Press International in the China-BurmaIndia theatre where he interviewed such luminaries as Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Ho Chi Minh. During this period he became a founding member of The Foreign Correspondents’ Club.

In 1946, Albert married Marjorie Severyns, who was then serving with the OSS, in Shanghai. Later that year they returned to the United States where Albert became a Fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs and studied at Harvard University as a Nieman Fellows Associate in 1947 and 1948. Albert and Marjorie then returned to China where he reported on the Communist takeover of China and wrote widely for the Chicago Daily News and the Institute of Current World Affairs. In 1985, they were among the seven veteran journalists invited to return to China by the Deng Xiaoping government. Albert was a founding member of the American Universities Field Staff and from 1951 continued his research and writing throughout Asia for many decades.

Albert and Marjorie maintained homes in both the Philippines and Seattle. Albert developed mango and coconut plantations in the Philippines, provided early support for the nitrogen-fixing tree association and was a pioneer grower of wine grapes in Washington State (abridged from The Seattle Times, May 9, 2010).

Kayser Winsiang Sung

Long-time FCC member and editor-in-chief and publisher of Textile Asia

Kayser Winsiang Sung passed away peacefully at the age of 90 on January 12, 2010, in Hong Kong.

He was born on October 1, 1919, in Nanjing, China. After honing his journalistic skills as chief reporter and feature editor of Chinese newspapers, he joined the Reuters News Agency as reporter, translator and feature writer in 1947. He was transferred to Hong Kong in 1949 and remained with Reuters for the next ten years.

In 1959, he was asked to join the Far Eastern Economic Review, and was managing editor and publisher there until 1968. In 1964, he received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for journalism and literature jointly with Richard G. Wilson, then editor of the Review. The Magsaysay Award was in recognition of “their accuracy, impartiality and continuing search for facts and insights in recording Asia’s quest for economic advance.” The citation also said: “In their editing of the Review, they have demonstrated that journalism can play a constructive role in fostering healthy growth.”

Since 1960, Kayser Sung has applied his journalistic acumen to the Asian textile industry, editing the bilingual Hong Kong Textile Annual and the Asian Textile Annual and Survey. His expertise was recognised in 1965 when he was asked to join a four-member textile experts group in a joint research project on the Asian textile industry for the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) of the United Nations. The textile industry was at that time the most substantial industrial activity undertaken by developing nations, which were moving from being textile importers to exporters.

In 1970, Kayser Sung established and co-founded Business Press, Ltd., with the late Cha Chi-Ming, a well-known Hong Kong industrialist, and started publication of the monthly journal Textile Asia. In 2010 he was still the title’s editor-in-chief and publisher and was planning the title’s 40th anniversary celebration at the time of his passing.

THE CORRESPONDENT

7

Cover Story

Vanes and Vietnam

Cover Story

A GUY WALKS INTO A BAR… The bar happened to be the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment’s Air Rifle Platoon enlisted men’s club at Quan Loi, Vietnam, near the Cambodian border. The bar wasn’t really a bar, but a tent on a wooden floor.

It was the Fall of 1969.

At a table sat four civilians, at least the guy assumed they were civilians. They wore mismatched bits of military uniforms and they had more style than any military personnel. The guy thought they were the coolest people he’d ever seen. They had cameras, lots of cameras. Worn cameras that had obviously seen a lot of combat.

Since the guy was a combat photographer in the Cav, he introduced himself and to his surprise, the four were happy to meet him. They treated him like a colleague. The group talked about various operations, about cameras, and about photography.

Mostly the guy just listened, because he realized that this was the day his life changed. This was the day he figured out what his life was going to be. This was the day he realized that he could travel the world with cameras, taking pictures and telling stories.

The four people at the table were UPI photographer Nik Wheeler, UPI photographer Kent Potter, CBS cameraman Dana Stone, and AP photographer Hugh Van Es. Only Nik Wheeler survives. Stone was captured in Cambodia in April, 1970. It’s believed that he was executed by the Khmer Rouge. Kent Potter was shot down in a helicopter over Laos, with three other photographers covering Operation Lam Son 719. Van Es died last year after suffering a brain haemorrhage.

In May the FCC remembered much-loved Club stalwart, Hugh Van Es, who died a year ago. A wonderful retrospective of this famous photographer’s work – deftly put together by Vanes’ close friend and fellow photographer, Kees Metselaar – started proceedings while a huge gathering of old friends and media professionals, many of whom had just attended events in Vietnam and Cambodia that commemorated the 35th Anniversary of the “fall of Saigon”, brought things to a suitably rowdy close. It was fitting – as a consummate social networker, Vanes had always been instrumental in arranging the previous reunion gatherings. Former FCC President John Giannini attended both the Vietnam and the Hong Kong events and here, for The Correspondent, he remembers when he first met Vanes in a bar (that was actually a tent) in Quan Loi in 1969. Overleaf, former Vietnam war journalist Don Kirk uses the reunion to trigger media memories from the war while Luke Hunt finds that the mystery surrounding the disappearance of famed combat photographer Sean Flynn is as strong as ever.

8

THE CORRESPONDENT

It’s only fitting that the wall in the Main Bar should be dedicated to the memory of Hugh Van Es. After all he shot the defining picture of the fall of Saigon, 35 years earlier. That one picture summed up the futility of the wasted lives and treasure that was the Vietnam War. But Hugh was more than that. He was a friend.

A friend to many who passed through the FCC over the years and a link to an era in journalism, the like of which will never be seen again. He was the Club’s historical archive; much of that archive was displayed on the walls of the Main Bar.

Top: Annie Van Es addresses a Main Bar packed with Hugh’s friends and colleagues. (Image: Bob Davis) Above: Kees Metselaar, creator of the retrospective, points out the details. (Image: Bob Davis) Below: Hugh Van Es on one of the many reunion trips back to Vietnam.

Fast forward to May 7th, 2010. Same guy walks into a bar on his way back from Saigon, after a lifetime of travelling the world taking pictures and telling stories.

It’s a familiar bar. One that he’s called home for many years, but one that he seldom gets to visit. He’s there to honour one of those who had changed his life that day in 1969. Thanks Hugh.

John Giannini

THE CORRESPONDENT

9

Cover Story

Cover Story

�e Media and the War

During the Vietnam war, Western journalists had a very free hand to see and write about what they wanted. Many have since mused these media liberties cost the United States the war. American journalist Don Kirk was in Vietnam in the ‘60s and ‘70s and was back there again recently, for the 35th anniversary events in May. For Kirk, the reunions kick-started a lot of conflict memories and also once again raised the debate about the function of the media – both then and now – in combat zones.

T

he diminutive president of Vietnam, Nguyen Minh Triet, was on the reviewing stand greeting high-level well-wishers after the reuni�cation day parade in Ho Chi Minh City.

In the absence of Vietnam Communist Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh, Triet was the central �gure lending top-level dignity to a three-hour review of history as reenacted on the 35th anniversary of “the fall” of the ancien regime of old “South” Vietnam.

After compelling journalists to arrive at dawn and stand on a platform for the media, minders and guards mostly wandered off as the crowd dispersed in the heat. Policemen who had blocked us most of the morning from getting down from the media perch on a platform had lost all interest. Jim Pringle, veteran of years in the region with Reuters and Newsweek, suggested venturing across the street for a closer look.

President Triet was managing diffident smiles for a cluster of the faithful gathered around him. No one questioned our presence as we shook hands, offering “congratulations” that he accepted with a polite if uncomprehending grin.

Nor did anyone stop me from following the president down the avenue in the centre of a smaller entourage toward the gates through which a tank had crashed on April 30, 1975, and then rolled onto the expansive lawn of Independence Palace, once the center of power of the old U.S.-backed Saigon regime.

Inside the gate, I met a man in white shirt and dark trousers who said he was providing security before pointing the president and aides to their limousines, parked behind the fence. Apologizing for breaking off our brief exchange, he hopped into an SUV and was off, just ahead of the VIPs in vehicles massed behind him.

It was a strange ending to an anniversary laden with symbolism and signi�cance for a country and a society that seems strangely uncertain whether it’s 10

THE CORRESPONDENT

socialist or capitalist – and old-style communism exists less as a frighteningly repressive in�uence than as a �rm reminder that the power still lies with the forces that marched to victory in 1975. �e �ag of Vietnam, gold star on a red �eld, �ew everywhere, from shops and stores and office buildings, for the long holiday weekend, but whoever planned the celebration seemed more interested in appealing to southern sensitivities, and promoting capitalism, than in preaching revolutionary values. �e course of the parade was only a couple of miles, up the broad avenue leading to the palace, and all those in the cheering throng had to have passes to attend, but non-stop television coverage on a panoply of government and party networks insured maximum publicity. It was the biggest event of the holiday, this city’s day to wallow in pride – or, more accurately, the chance for the Ho Chi Minh People’s Committee and the local branch of the party to breathe inspiration and loyalty into a populace that tries not to think about the dominance of Hanoi.

In that spirit the vice chairman of the HCM People’s Committee dwelled on the vibrancy of a metropolitan region that rivals that of some of the major cities of China in its aggressive pursuit of industrialization and modernization. “You can see a lot of changes here,” he reminded foreign journalists, most of whom had covered Vietnam in “the old days,” that is, before April 30, 1975. �e vice chairman held forth in a setting laden with historical ironies, the rococo HCM People’s Committee building, that is, the French-built city hall, a confection of mansard roofs and gables and marble �oors and statuary, at the end of Nguyen Hue, as much the Street of Flowers as it ever was. “We are the most vibrant centre for economic advance,” he assured us.”We are a city of enormous economic potential with an average economic growth rate of ten percent a year.”

Don Kirk at a Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) base to the south of Danang in early 1972.

(Image: David L. Terry)

He was sensitive to the need to preserve old architecture, but he made no apologies for the imminent demise of the nearby Eden Building, a hulking, shadowy warren of mostly abandoned offices and apartments where the AP, NBC News and Visnews, not to mention Indian money-changers, made their headquarters for years. On the corner, opposite the revived Continental, its ground-�oor “shelf ” now glassed in and sedate, Givral’s, where correspondents and Vietnamese staffers shared news, views and rumours throughout the war, was shuttered and about to close, its sign still drooping as a sentimental reminder of years gone by.

As the holiday parade suggested, the policy of Hanoi is to display nationalist benevolence, to encourage free enterprise and let the good times roll. �ere is just one catch: all news and views, everything in print, on the air, in theatres or on the internet, even if non-political, has got to be reviewed and censored. And, of course,

there is no bona �de political opposition in a society where the party, which includes the president but is controlled by the general secretary, reigns supreme. �us a retired general, Nguyen Van Tai, talked about the “Ho Chi Minh campaign” that precipitated the downfall of the Saigon regime but had no information about the reeducation camps to which thousands of southerners were consigned, many of them never to return. “Our policy is to put aside the past and look to the future,” said Colonel Nguyen Van Bach of the Veterans’ Association. “�e victory was a victory of the whole nation.” �at was a message repeated constantly as television channels broadcast endless footage of Communist forces on the march to victory. For those who had known “South” Vietnam in the late 1960’s and early 1970s, the whole show conjured other memories. One letter in those days from an employer to the Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office on the ground �oor of the Rex THE CORRESPONDENT

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ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER STORY – MERITING HEADLINE, WITH PHOTO, ACROSS THE TOP OF PAGE ONE OF THE NEXT DAY’S WASHINGTON STAR. IT WAS ALL DECEPTIVELY EASY, AND THEN SUDDENLY IT GOT DANGEROUS

Hotel in Saigon, or two letters from editors willing to vouch for freelancers, sufficed to get a press card good for U.S. military transport, for cheap dining in military mess halls, for discount shopping at post and base exchanges, and even for receiving and sending mail via the Army post office. And hotels, markets, bars, and restaurants of Saigon offered services at amazing discounts for those who changed their dollars for local dong at “the bank of India” – money-changers from India who operated behind the cover of book stores and offices.

One-time war correspondents in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos shared nostalgic memories of restaurants purveying �ne French menus, mingled with the adrenalin rush of rocket attacks and �re�ghts, distant battles and close-up coups. �e daily military brie�ngs, the “�ve o’clock follies,” evoked stories of tiffs with brie�ng officers while soldiers on all sides waged war in very different environments in which the pleasures of Saigon, Phnom Penh, and Vientiane were nonexistent.

“We had incredible freedom in Vietnam and Cambodia,” Dan Southerland, a former correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor and United Press International, observed at a panel that packed the huge ground-�oor ballroom of a new hotel by Phnom Penh’s river front. Southerland, revisiting Phnom Penh as executive editor of Radio Free Asia, a US government network that broadcasts news into Asian countries, compared the ease with which journalists ranged over the region with the practice now of “embedding” reporters with military units if they wish to cover what they’re doing. “What you need is both embedding and the outliers,” he said, meaning news organizations should rely on reporters both within and outside military units. In general, he said, “I think they are doing the best they can.”

Others, however, strongly disagreed with the whole concept of “embedding,” as required by the Pentagon of anyone who wants to write and report from inside a military unit. “My instinct is not to get embedded,” said Simon Dring, who reported on Vietnam for Reuters in the 1960s and spent much of his later career with the BBC, covering wars in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. He sees reporters 12

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as having done some of their “best work” in Iraq and Afghanistan beyond the scope of military control. “It is very dangerous,” he observed. “�ey take tremendous risks. �ey do fantastic reporting.”

If covering wars in the states of former French Indochina carried many of the same risks, returning journalists seemed to have more of a sense of camaraderie than do those from later con�icts in Eastern Europe, Central America, and, lately, the Middle East. One-time Vietnam and Cambodia correspondents, banded together in a network of “old hacks,” looked back fondly on good times there and in Laos.

Even the daily military brie�ngs known as the “�ve o’clock follies” evoked stories of tiffs with brie�ng officers, of reporters noted for relying more on the word of MACV, the Military Assistance Command Vietnam, than on �rst-hand views from the scene. �ose days, old-time correspondents conceded, have disappeared into the miasma of history while U.S. forces wage war in very different environments in which security is never certain and nightlife, as experienced in Saigon, Phnom Penh, and Vientiane, the sleepy capital of Laos, is largely nonexistent.

Danger lurked in different forms, often where least expected, in Vietnam and Cambodia where 69 correspondents, photographers and local interpreters and assistants were killed. �ose who had to get the images on camera took the greatest risks. �e �rst casualty was the photographer Dickey Chapelle, killed by shrapnel set off by a booby trap in the Mekong River in November 1965. �e last was another photographer, Frenchman Michel Laurent, killed on April 28, 1975, two days before South Vietnam’s last president, Duong Van “Big” Minh, broadcast the surrender at noon on April 30.

Prince Norodom Sihanouk loved to call Cambodia “an oasis of peace,” and it seemed that way when I hitched rides from Saigon after he was overthrown while drumming up support for his policy of “neutrality” on a mission to Moscow and Beijing. On well-travelled Route One, then as now the highway between Saigon and Phnom Penh, I chatted on the way with CIA-�nanced Khmer Serei, Free Khmer, identi�able by their shiny new American M16 ri�es.

It was a relief to be away from the morass of Vietnam. Here was major news that was simple to cover. You could go to war in Cambodia, accompanied by a local assistant, in an old Mercedes-Benz taxi, picked up behind the Hotel Royale, listening to the latest in American pop music on the Armed Forces Vietnam Network. Down the road, you might hear the crump of artillery or even staccato of small arms �re, interview a few villagers about the spreading war, return in time to �le a story by cable or telex, and then relax over dinner by the Royale pool. Nor was I all that concerned when I ran into North Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge troops while driving far south of Phnom

Above: The author on a South Vietnamese army truck in 1970. (Image: David L. Terry) Left: British photographer Tim Page in Vietnam for the 35th Anniversary reunion in May. (Image: Don Kirk)

Penh with a Canadian TV team led by globe-trotting correspondent Bill Cunningham at the beginning of April. �ey let us go with propaganda lea�ets, written in Vietnamese and Khmer after Cunningham showed his Canadian passport – and did not ask to see my US passport.

Another day, another story – meriting headline, with photo, across the top of page one of the next day’s Washington Star. It was all deceptively easy, and then suddenly it got dangerous. Several days later, I counted the bodies of 90 Vietnamese refugees gunned down overnight by Cambodian soldiers in a barnyard in the eastern Cambodian town of Prasaut. Down the road, stopping at a roadside stand, I ran into photographers Sean Flynn and Dana Stone on motorcycles.

An old woman, through my interpreter, told us the Khmer Rouge were “over there,” but Flynn and Stone drove off, �ushed in their eagerness for photographs.

I returned to Phnom Penh with my story on the massacre. Flynn and Stone were never seen alive again.

“In Cambodia , we just couldn’t believe how bad it was going to be,” said Southerland, who saw them that day too. “I feel very badly. You couldn’t be unaffected by this stuff.”

Correspondents who were there have never forgotten those whom they knew. We all have special memories. I never saw my interpreter, Ith Chhun, again after visiting Cambodia in July 1974 when we interviewed peasants telling us the Khmer Rouge were terrifying the populace, sawing off heads with sugar palm leaves in public displays of torture. On my most

recent visit, in April, a Cambodian who had worked for a foreign news agency told me he believes Chhun, who had learned English from Christian missionaries and was offering tours around Sihanouk’s palace when I met him, died of starvation after the Khmer Rouge drove the people from Phnom Penh and other cities into the countryside.

British photographer Tim Page, wounded severely four times, now walking with a limp but still taking pictures and writing books, has been searching for years for clues as to what happened to Flynn and Stone. Page responds indignantly to claims by four young Australians that they dug up the probable remains of one of them north of Phnom Penh. He suspects the four want to capitalize on the mystique surrounding Flynn, son of the swashbuckling actor Errol Flynn. He feels especially disdainful after the U.S. Joint Prisoners of War, Missing in Action Accounting Command, based in Honolulu, dismissed the �nd as having nothing to do with either Flynn or Stone.

More memories of forays down empty roads �ashed by as three busloads of one-time correspondents, plus a few latter-day journalists covering the return of the hacks, drove 40 miles south of Phnom Penh past sunbaked �elds to the site of more killing of colleagues 40 years ago. A former CBS cameraman, Kurt Volkert, told how two competing network correspondents died along with their crews covering a war that no one understood. First George Syvertsen of CBS and producer Gerald Miller ran into an ambush and were THE CORRESPONDENT

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gunned down along with their crew. �en, Welles Hangen of NBC and his crew were stopped, led to a nearby schoolhouse and detained overnight before their captors, saving bullets, bashed in their heads.

Volkert had gone down a different highway but led the search for the bodies, including excavation more than 20 years later of a muddy streambed in which the bones of Hangen and four others were buried. He talked about the search as villagers gathered around, smiling at their foreign visitors, seemingly oblivious to the memory of the scourge that swept the land a generation ago. “�e area has changed completely,” Volkert told us, looking over the parched land. “�e road has doubled in width. All the buildings are new.”

New construction forced traffic into a single lane while a convoy of bullock carts competed for space.

Freshly slaughtered beef hung on roadside stands, and marketplaces were ablaze with umbrellas fending off the hot sun. �ere were no signs of the tragedy of the Khmer in the villages on the way. “�e hospitality of the Cambodian people shines once again,” said Carl

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Robinson, who covered the war for the Associated Press and organized the reunion of “old hacks.” Carl, now living in Australia and running tours to Vietnam with his wife, Kim Dung, whom he met and married in the Mekong Delta, synthesized the sensations. “It brings a lot of closure,” he said, “to our feelings after all these years.”

Vietnam was actually a less dangerous place for foreign journalists. Far more correspondents were based in Saigon than in Phnom Penh, and fewer died, 32 as opposed to 37. �e vast American troop presence offered a better sense in Vietnam than in Cambodia if a road was safe to travel. Periodic offensives and �ights over scenes of con�ict presented the worst danger.

Four photographers – Larry Burrows, Henry Huet, Kent Potter, and Keizaburo Shimamoto – were aboard a helicopter that went down over Laos in February 1971. Four reporters – John Cantwell, Ronald Laramy, Michael Birch, and Bruce Piggot – died in an ambush in Saigon in May 1968 during “mini-Tet,” the Communists’ second gasp after the Tet holiday offensive three months earlier in February. François

Don Kirk meets Vietnamese journalists at a specially arranged anniversary lunch. The lady on the left is a retired TV journalist who covered the Ho Chi Minh Trail for the Hanoi government during war. (Image: David L. Terry)

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Sully of Newsweek went down in a helicopter carrying a senior South Vietnamese general in February 1971.

Robert Ellison died when the plane carrying him into the besieged Khe Sanh combat base near the Laotian border in northwestern South Vietnam was shot down in March 1968 before he ever saw the cover and layout he had photographed for that week’s Newsweek. Freelancer Alex Shimkin, on assignment for Newsweek, was gunned down by invading North Vietnamese troops in July 1972.

Such episodes, though, seemed isolated, almost like accidents in a war that ebbed and �owed over widely diffused stretches of highlands, coastal lowlands, and the Mekong Delta. �ere was no censorship, no worry about officials slowing the �ow of stories or photographs. Nor did correspondents in those days have to worry about Internet messages or calls on cell phones. You never called your office, and you waited for the surprisingly efficient postal offices in Saigon, Phnom Penh, or Vientiane to deliver cables the next day on the fate of the pieces you had �led the night before.

“Journalists today don’t have fun like we did,” lamented Sylvana Foa, who �led for United Press International, which years later she served as top editor. “�ere was no way our offices could contact us. Nowadays journalists can spend their whole time �ling on a 24-hour news cycle.” Mostly, though, she worries about the in�uence of embedding, a system the Pentagon developed as a response to the often adverse reporting of the Vietnam era. “�is whole system of embedding is a disgrace,” said Foa, citing restraints placed on photographing coffins containing the bodies of fallen soldiers. Foa, who may have forgotten the Obama administration partially lifted controls on such coverage last year, sees a mounting problem: “�is censorship is very worrying,” she said. “When a country sends its people into war, they should know what happens to them.”

Not that journalists covering Vietnam and Cambodia in those days were always free to do as they wished. MACV withdrew accreditation from correspondents for violating an embargo imposed on reporting plans to withdraw from Khe Sanh after the 77-day siege was broken. Nor did reporters witness the “secret air war” over portions of Laos and Cambodia except on rare occasions when they went up in U.S. warplanes from bases in the central highlands of Vietnam, either Kontum or Pleiku. �e bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail down which North Vietnam shipped men and supplies to the South remained a mystery, exposed occasionally but rarely actually seen.

For all the freedom they had, correspondents puzzle over the deeper mystery of how Cambodia sank into mass killing under the Khmer Rouge. Matt Franjola, who covered Vietnam and Cambodia for both UPI and the Associated Press, is sure of one thing: “�e Americans never had any clue of how to run this war.

“JOURNALISTS TODAY DON’T HAVE FUN LIKE WE DID,” LAMENTED SYLVANA FOA, WHO FILED FOR UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL, WHICH YEARS LATER SHE SERVED AS TOP EDITOR. “THERE WAS NO WAY OUR OFFICES COULD CONTACT US. NOWADAYS JOURNALISTS CAN SPEND THEIR WHOLE TIME FILING ON A 24-HOUR NEWS CYCLE.” MOSTLY, THOUGH, SHE WORRIES ABOUT THE INFLUENCE OF EMBEDDING, A SYSTEM THE PENTAGON DEVELOPED AS A RESPONSE TO THE OFTEN ADVERSE REPORTING OF THE VIETNAM ERA. Every generation makes the same mistakes as the one before. �e Americans have no idea what they’re doing in Iraq and Afghanistan either.”

On the six-hour express bus ride from Saigon to Phnom Penh, I searched for reminders of war. �e Cao Dai temple, where I had seen black smoke rising one morning in June 1972 after a South Vietnamese A1 Skyraider showered it with napalm, was freshly painted and festive. �e road where I had seen the napalmed girl and her brother running was �lled with the normal traffic. As we neared the Parrot’s Beak, where Cambodia juts into Vietnam, the names of the towns, Mocbai on the Vietnam side, Bavet on the Cambodian, �itted vaguely into memory. �ese were datelines from stories I had �led when U.S. troops roared into Cambodia in May 1970, paving the way for the Khmer Serei. Nowadays Vietnamese show their passports to bored immigration officials, �rst their own, then Cambodian, lured by garish casinos and cushy hotels across the line.

Donald Kirk a life member of the HK FCC, covered Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos for the Washington (D.C.) Star and Chicago Tribune in the late 1960s and early 1970s, wrote articles for �e New York Times Magazine and others and is the author of two books from that period, “Tell It to the Dead: Stories of a War,” an expanded edition of “Tell it to the Dead: Memories of a War,” and “Wider War: �e Struggle for Cambodia, �ailand, and Laos.”

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Flynn Claims Continue

Saigon Faces

When the communists marched into Saigon on April 30 1975 they signalled the end of a war and an era that had crystallized the1960s, 1970s and Cold War dogma. The communists were on a roll, South Vietnam and Laos had been overrun and just two weeks earlier the cadres had also marched into Phnom Penh, but in Cambodia much worse was to come. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge ravaged what was then Democratic Kampuchea and the wars continued almost until the end of the 20th century.

Sean Flynn, the combat photographer son of iconic tough Hollywood star Errol Flynn, disappeared in 1970 along with cameraman Dana Stone as the pair headed to the Cambodian front line. It is thought they were held and then killed by the Khmer Rouge but despite many searches their bodies have never been found. It’s a saga that still causes controversy today, writes Luke Hunt �eir ranks were thinner, the hair a little greyer but their collective moral backbone was as strong as ever. About 40 journalists gathered in Vietnam to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. Absent were the likes of Hu Van Es, Kate Webb and Philip Jones Griffiths.

But foremost in most people’s minds was the death of a colleague more than 40 years ago. Sean Flynn was again in the headlines after a couple of self-anointed adventurers claimed to have found his remains, ending one of the great mysteries of that era. “�e best thing about all this, whatever you want to call these people -- bone hunters, collectors -whatever you want to call them, they have �red a BB gun into a hornet’s nest,” said photographer Tim Page, a great friend of Flynn’s.

Known as the Old Hacks’ Reunion, correspondents who covered the Vietnam War gathered in Saigon -Ho Chi Minh City is still struggling for acceptance as a name -- every �ve years when the government in Hanoi commemorates the “re-uni�cation” of North and South Vietnam.

Many had come from Cambodia where a similar event was held amid claims by Australian Dave MacMillan and Briton Keith Rotheram that they had found Flynn’s remains in the south-eastern Cambodian province of Kampong Cham. �ey also created a stir within the journalism industry and in Cambodia where long-time observers questioned the intentions of MacMillan and Rotheram, and their moral judgment.

Flynn, the son of Hollywood star Errol and French actress Lily Damita, had disappeared with colleague Dana Stone on April 6, 1970. �e pair had rented Honda motorbikes in Phnom Penh and rode into the countryside to �nd the front lines of �ghting in Cambodia. Investigations indicate that Flynn, 28, and Stone, 32, were taken to the village of Sangke Kaong, and then moved around before being handed over to the Khmer Rouge.

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Most believe Flynn was killed by the Khmer Rouge in June 1971.

In late March bones were dug up, wrapped up and delivered to the US embassy for veri�cation by the US military’s Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command based in Hawaii. �is has raised accusations the bones were not excavated properly, evidence was damaged and if the information MacMillan and Rotheram had acted on was correct then JPAC should have been informed and handled the entire excavation from the start. �en as Page was packing his bags for Vietnam, JPAC and the US embassy in Phnom Penh revealed the bones recovered were not that of a Caucasian.

“I feel very sorry for the poor bugger who they found,” said Page. “�e skull belonged to someone. �at someone had a family, a mother and a father. �is was a person. And they destroyed the evidence.”

Few were surprised. Cambodia is littered with bones. Other high pro�le killings – like those of three Western backpackers in 1994 and a British deminer in 1998 – have also attracted their fair share of unwanted bounty hunters claiming to have found their remains. �is obviously throws enormous stress on the families and friends.

“What can you say? It’s such a touchy subject, it’s about the death of a colleague,” said former CNN reporter Peter Arnett.

Former Reuters, Times of London and Newsweek correspondent Jim Pringle added: “It’s a bit ghoulish that they’re doing this thing. It’s also wrong. “�ey were using equipment like spades that destroyed the evidence and those bones were someone – who knows who?”

Perry Deane Young – the author of Two of the Missing which documents Flynn and Stone’s disappearance – said the retrieval of remains from Vietnam and Cambodia was the responsibility of JPAC and no one else.

“It belongs in the hands of professionals – not idiots. We’re all upset about it.”

Hacks hold maiden bash in Cambodia

Former FCC President John Giannini with Jim Okuley, the brother of Bert, with the Saigon River in the background. (All three images by Luke Hunt)

It was against this backdrop that correspondents who covered Cambodia, and what some now call the Lon Nol War, finally gathered in Phnom Penh.

“It could not have come anytime sooner, it was the first time in 35 years,” said former Reuters, Times of London and Newsweek correspondent Jim Pringle, who helped organise the reunion. The Cambodian affair was modelled on the Reunion of Old Hacks held in Vietnam to commemorate the end of the Vietnam War every five years, and in line with government-sponsored events.

Among those making the trip back were the American and British photographers Al Rockoff and Tim Page, who presented a Cambodian edition of Requiem – a portfolio by combat photographers who died on the battlefields.

Pringle said one highlight was a trip to Wat Po, a pro-communist village that the Khmer Rouge drew heavily upon for support.

Former UPI correspondent Perry Deane Young with George Hamilton, the Hollywood actor and friend of Sean Flynn.

“It’s still very isolated and there was a bit of edginess to it.” he said. “The villagers told us they were afraid of foreigners and didn’t like us. It’s not all sweetness and light in Cambodia.”

Many more turned out for a panel discussion on the war, which was hosted by the Overseas Press Club of Cambodia and included correspondents Jon Swain and Dan Southerland and the author Elizabeth Becker. Youk Chhang, the director of DC-Cam which has spent the past decade collecting evidence of the atrocities committed

by Pol Pot, used his resources to help locate journalists and photographers.

“I grew up during the war time and I have heard of them since I was a young boy and 30 years later I have met some of them. The event was very emotional for many of them because they have never been forgotten and they are part of Cambodia’s history,” he said.

Jim Pringle, Peter Arnett and Perry Deane Young strike a pose at the Old Hacks’ Reunion in Saigon.

Luke Hunt

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The Wall

Robin Moyer: Out of Time

Robin Moyer, whose photography is so well-known to readers of Time Magazine and whose wit and warm humour are very familiar to Main Bar regulars, held a retrospective on the Club’s Wall space in May. Looking at the depth of this body of work, which spans all walks of Asian life over more than four decades, and it’s clear: Robin has lived his life with his eyes wide open.

I

t is easy enough to forget, amid our nightly festivities here at the Club, that there are among us distinguished practitioners—noted craftsmen, world-calibre professionals, people with the eyes and hands of artists. �ese walls sometimes spare us this error, and now Robin Moyer’s pictures �ll them— forty or so prints spanning a photojournalism career of four decades that he traversed, recording what he has seen on �lm. It is a retrospective of a kind, and as retrospectives usually do, these images give us a mere glimpse of a vast body of work. Most of these photographs were taken on assignment, many during Robin’s long service at Time magazine. �is gives us a contradiction between purpose and presentation.

Most of these images were shot for the thin pages of news weeklies, monthlies, and other publications, and the stories they tell were usually accompanied by other stories—written stories. �e intent was to illuminate many separate moments. One cannot line up the pieces of too many correspondents and �nd much satisfaction in the succession of them. But with the best photographers, as Robin’s pictures remind us, one can. Certain themes emerge when we play the trick of gathering the work into one. Robin’s abiding concern, we �nd, has been �nding the extraordinary to be discovered within the ordinary. Whether ripples on a stream, a man with a tuna on his shoulder, or that 1984 shot of an Afghan madrassa, for instance— they are perfect illustrations of the point. Life as it is lived, work as it is done, change as it occurs, irony as we always �nd it, pathos, the revelatory 250th of a second—these are what Robin has lifted his lens to show us. If sculptors talk of “�nding the form in a block of stone,” Robin’s photographs give us “moments preserved in the passage of time.” �is is the aesthetic that runs through pictures that begin in America in the 1970s and �nish continents and miles later in the Rangoon home of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. All of these images are what Robin chooses to call them: they are moments taken out of time. Together they make a document. It is a record of our brief passage in history—and of the career of a photographer who has lived through it with his eyes wide open.

Patrick Smith, May 2010.

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Above: Caine Road, 1977: Street shooting in Hong Kong Below: Tokyo, Japan, 1987: From a cover essay for the London Sunday Times Magazine entitled “The Japanese Have Problems Too“, a traditionally dressed elderly man leaves Yoyogi Station in Tokyo.

Image by Bob Davis. 1978

Above: Photographer Robin Moyer as he compiled his late-1970s Lamma Island large-format series (see images on pages 22-23).

Fisherman, Mindanao, 1991: From a long story on Muslim Mindanao for Time magazine, ďŹ shermen in small boats land their tuna catch on a beach in General Santos City, Southern Mindanao.

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Top: Lamma Island, 1976-79: Farmer Above: Lamma Island, 1976-79: Tanner

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The Wall

Top: Lamma Island, 1976-79: Farmer Above: Hong Kong, 1988: Cheung Yiu Fai, a high steel worker on the 35th oor of the Bank of China building

Above: Chiangmai, Thailand, 1988: Rice Farmer Ta Somboon. 8x10 for Fortune magazine

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Left: Amritsar, Punjab, 1979: From a story on water in India for Science 80 and Smithsonian magazines Above: Jakarta, Indonesia, 1994: Barbie Doll production line. For Time magazine Below: Irian Jaya, Indonesia, 1989: High in the mountains of central West Papua, formerly Irian Jaya, members of the Yali Tribe prepare to cremate a tribal elder. For Editions Didier Millet, Indonesia: A Journey Through The Archipelago

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Human Rights Press Awards

Human Rights Press Awards

Bringing the truth to light The 14th Human Rights Press Awards was a successful but emotional affair.

The awards ceremony, held at the FCC in April, was addressed by Myrna Reblando. Her husband Alejandro, a journalist with the Manila Bulletin, was among the 57 people murdered in the Maguindanao massacre in the Philippines on November 23 last year. No one in the room will forget her speech, writes Jake Van Der Kamp.

T

here are rewards to holding the position of treasurer of the Club and one of them was signing the cheque for a return air fare to Hong Kong for Mrs Myrna Reblando so that she could be present at the 14th Annual Human Rights Press Awards on April 17.

Mrs Reblando’s husband, Alejandro Reblando, a journalist with the Manila Bulletin, was among the 57 people murdered in the Maguindanao massacre in the Philippines on November 23 last year. Mrs Reblondo is the vice-chair and spokesperson for the Justice Now! movement, an association of the families of the slain journalists. �e organisers had invited her to come to the awards ceremony as a special guest.

She was almost not able to come.

She only received her passport at the last minute and only after FCC President Tom Mitchell interceded with the Philippine consulate. It was her �rst trip outside of the Philippines and she only had an hour’s sleep for the night when she arrived at the Club.

It was not even certain at the time that she would want to address the gathering. Asked to say a few words in English she did so. But then she asked to speak in her native Tagalog and, although few people in attendance could understand her, there was no 26

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Myrna Reblondo speaks at the FCC

mistaking her grief and anger and the determination she displayed that something good should come in the end from the tragedy. It left more than just a few people in the audience teary-eyed, all by a speech of which not a word was understood but every word comprehended.

A documentary on the circumstances of the massacre, �lmed by correspondent Mark Willacy of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, then followed to set Mrs Reblondo’s talk in context.

�is emotional moment was the high point of a ceremony in which 16 prizes and 42 special merit certi�cates were awarded by independent panels of journalists, photojournalists, academics, legal experts and rights specialists. �e Club’s Francis Moriarty, who has been instrumental in making the Human Rights Press Awards the most prestigious and longest-running journalism prizes in Asia, told the gathering he was particularly pleased by the range and quality of the submissions this year. �ere were 250 covering 14 nations and territories from around the Asian region. �e number of Chinese-language submissions was almost double the previous year.

Locally, the South China Morning Post did particularly well in the English-language category with, among others, the general news prize collected by Greg Torode (not ...ahem... pronounced Tawr-a-day) for a series on �ailand’s treatment of Rohingya refugees while the features prize went to Raymond Li and Al Guo for their reports on Sichuan one year after the earthquake.

Your correspondent will here admit that he does not write of the South China Morning Post entirely at arm’s length but, in fact, so much attention was given to the newspaper at the awards ceremony that even the Club President was at

one point inadvertently promoted from the Financial Times back to his desk in the Post’s old newsroom.

Mak Yin-ting, chairperson of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, said this year’s entries displayed a growth in journalists’ understanding of rights issues.

“After holding the Human Rights Press Awards for more than a decade, a deeper and wider understanding of human rights can be seen from the entries,” she said.

“Seldom mentioned articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have been cited, re�ecting the different kinds of rights issues that arose during reporters’ encounters, e.g. the right to compensation from the state for the sacri�ces made by local people in the protection of water resources. “�ese stories serve our intention of recognizing outstanding journalistic work, as well as enhancing journalists’ understanding of the human rights to which we are all entitled.”

Amnesty International Hong Kong’s chairperson, Mabel Au, noted that more than 100 Chineselanguage entries were submitted.

“Most told of rights violations ranging from discrimination against sexual minorities, welfare recipients and young drug offenders, to the arrest of human rights defenders and the continued suppression of the Tianamen Mothers and other backers of the June 4 movement,” she said. “�ere were stories about the Hong Kong journalists who were harassed, beaten, detained and arrested while carrying out their duties along with stories from elsewhere in the region.

“With threats to our rights increasing and increasingly varied, it is imperative to bring these stories to light so people might learn the truth.”

The Award Winners The following tables list the winning entries from the 14th Annual Human Rights Press Awards. The Awards are co-organized by Amnesty International Hong Kong, The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, HK, and the Hong Kong Journalists Association.

WINNERS: CHINESE-LANGUAGE CATEGORIES GENERAL NEWS PRIZE Green Dam Software Blocks Photos of Leaders – Koo Zhi Xiong – Ming Pao SPECIAL MERIT

MAGAZINES PRIZE Liu Xiaobo’s Dreams Cannot be Imprisoned – Zhang Zu Hua – Open Magazine SPECIAL MERIT

21 Liu Xiaobo supporters at Lo Wu. Mainland Security Crosses Borders To Arrest Hong Kong Protesters – General Assignment Desk, Apple Daily Eight Instances of Power Abuse.

Li’s Mother: Police always side with police – Lui Tsz Lok – Apple Daily

China’s Internet Battle – 冉雲飛, 凌 滄州 – Open Magazine Investigation on the Xinjiang Unrest – 許行, 王力雄 – Open Magazine

FEATURES PRIZE Liu Xiaobo Series – China Newsdesk – Ming Pao 20th Anniversary of the June Fourth Incident Series – Sze Ka Man, Chow Chin Hung, Ho So Man, Lin Ying – Ming Pao SPECIAL MERIT 60 Years of Communist Rule in China: The Hong Kong Story “Then ‘Five Black Categories’ Sigh at China’s Current Situation: Prisons that Fed Well” and “From an Illegal Immigrant to a District Councillor” – Choy Yuen Kwei and Cheng Ka Man – Apple Daily June 4th 20th Anniversary Series: Teacher Refuses to Grade a Student’s Drawing – Chan Pui Man – Apple Daily CARTOON SPECIAL MERIT Widows and Orphans are not Missed– Zunzi – Apple Daily

BROADCAST – RADIO PRIZE Bullying in High Schools – Leung Siu Fai – RTHK SPEICAL MERIT Refusing to Forget One Year After the Disaster – Lam Ka Yu – RTHK “Grass Mud Horse Awarded Overseas Chinese Netizen’s Creativity is Recognized – Chen Yu Hsin – Radio Free Asia Feng Zhenghu Attracts International Concerns – Chen Yu Hsin – Radio Free Asia BROADCAST – TELEVISION PRIZE The Hot Land – Lui Ping Kuen – Cable TV SPECIAL MERIT Dangers of the Green Dam – Wong Suk Ling – Cable TV Headline News – Liu Wai Ling, Yick Wing Yan, Chen Nga Ting, Mak Ka Wai, Wu Wing Yan – RTHK 20th Anniversary of the June Fourth Incident – Guarding the last Candlelight – Choy Yuk Ling, Lee Siu Mei, Tang Yuen Fun, Choi Toi Ling, Ma Chim Wai – RTHK Fishing – Like Law Enforcement – Wong Suk Ling – Cable TV

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Human Rights Press Awards WINNERS: ENGLISH-LANGUAGE CATEGORIES GENERAL NEWS PRIZE Thailand’s Secret Refugees – SCMP TEAM, Alan Morison, Chutima Sidasathian, Maseeh Rahman, Ian Young, Greg Torode – SCMP SPECIAL MERIT Massacre in Mindinao – Carlos H. Conde – International Herald Tribune Confronting a Chilling Past in Korea – Choe Sang-Hun – International Herald Tribune Hunan’s Stricken Village – He Huifeng, Shi Jiangtao – SCMP The Mainland Public Defenders Who Want to Reform the System – Mark O’Neill – SCMP FEATURES PRIZE One Year On the Sichuan Earthquake – Raymond Li, Al Guo – SCMP SPECIAL MERIT A People Ignored – Paul Mooney – SCMP China’s Forced Abortions – James Pomfret – Reuters 20 Years On From Tiananmen – Albert Wong, Eva Wu, Vivian Wu – SCMP SPECIAL PRIZE A body of work from AFP on Afghanistan and Pakistan: Pakistani Christians Fear more Extremist Attacks – Khurram Shahzad Afghan Singer’s New Refrain is a Call for Freedom – Sardar Ahmad Pakistani Couple Married for Love, Hiding in Fear of Tribal Justice – Hasan Mansoor Afghan Threats Mean Empty Ballot Boxes – Emmanuel Duparcq Artists Flee Pakistan’s Swat Valley to Escape Fanatics’ Threat – Hasan Mansoor

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MAGAZINES PRIZE The Lost Boys – Paul Mooney – SCMP SPECIAL MERIT Interview: Gao Xingjian – Didi Kirsten Tatlow – Asia Literary Review Human Resource – Simon Parry – SCMP Post Magazine COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS SPECIAL MERIT Shock and Awe in Myanmar’s ‘diplomacy’ – Greg Torode – SCMP Face Up to Tragedy so Nation can Move On – Ramon Odlum – SCMP CARTOON SPECIAL PRIZE For a body of work – Harry Harrison – SCMP BROADCAST – RADIO SPECIAL PRIZE For a body of work – Louisa Lim – NPR SPECIAL MERIT Better City? Better Move! On Shanghai – Anthony Germain – CBC BROADCAST – TELEVISION PRIZE Kidnapped – Adrian Brown – SBS SPECIAL MERIT China Rough Justice – Peter Sharp – Sky News Myanmar/Nargis Anniversary – Veronica Pedrosa – Al Jazeera China Black Jails – Melissa Chan – Al Jazeera The Cage Dwellers – Adrian Brown – SBS A Forgotten People – Dan Rivers – CNN Deadly Dust – Renato Reyes – TVB

Human Rights Press Awards WINNERS: PHOTOJOURNALISM

PHOTOJOURNALISM

FEATURES PRIZE Writing Wrongs – Du Bin and Violet Law – Post Magazine Pakistan Acid Attack Victim – Nicolas Asfouri – AFP SPECIAL MERIT How the Green Turns Grey – Qamruzzaman – Xinhua Korean Unwed Mothers – Jean Chung – International Herald Tribune Coal Miners in China – Michael Coyne – Black Star Photo Agency Child Labour in Pakistan – Nicolas Asfouri – AFP SPOT NEWS PRIZE Ethnic Violence in Xinjiang – Peter Parks – AFP SPECIAL MERIT Unrest in Xinjiang – Peter Parks – AFP Grieving Grandmother – Frederic J. Brown – AFP No Clearance of Tsoi Yuen Tsuen! – Ma Chuen Shung – Apple Daily Fight for Human Rights – Hung Hing Cho – Apple Daily Life in Cage – Sam Tsang – SCMP Pollution Leaves Its Mark – K.Y. Cheng – SCMP

Above: Writing Wrongs – Du Bin and Violet Law– Post Magazine Below: Pakistan Acid Attack Victim – Nicolas Asfouri – AFP

There were 250 entrants in the Awards’ various categories. There were 250 covering 14 nations and territories from around the Asian region. The number of Chineselanguage submissions was almost double the previous year. On the following pages are some of the award-winning photojournalism entries.

THE CORRESPONDENT

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Human Rights Press Awards

Human Rights Press Awards

PHOTOJOURNALISM

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PHOTOJOURNALISM

Above clockwise:

Clockwise from top:

Korean Unwed Mothers – Jean Chung – International Herald Tribune How the Green Turns Grey – Qamruzzaman – Xinhua Child Labour in Pakistan – Nicolas Asfouri – AFP Coal Miners in China – Michael Coyne – Black Star Photo Agency Below: Ethnic Violence in Xinjiang – Peter Parks – AFP

Fight for Human Rights – Hung Hing Cho – Apple Daily Unrest in XinJiang – Peter Parks – AFP Life in Cage – Sam Tsang – SCMP Grieving Grandmother – Frederic J. Brown – AFP No Clearance of Tsoi Yuen Tsuen! – Ma Chuen Shung – Apple Daily Pollution Leaves Its Mark – K.Y. Cheng – SCMP

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In Review

In Review

Red Guards, Grey Diaries In the late 1960s, dogmatic Red Guards held Reuters China correspondent Anthony Grey hostage for 26 brutal months during the madness of the Cultural Revolution. Grey has recently published his “secret” prison diaries and they make for compelling reading, writes Jonathan Sharp.

N

ow that hostagetaking has become frighteningly commonplace, many of us might wonder how we would react to being abruptly incarcerated, for an unknown duration or fate, and often for no better reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Anthony Grey (pictured, right), a former Reuters correspondent in what non-Chinese then called Peking, had just such a traumatic experience as a hostage four decades ago during the Cultural Revolution. Now he has published diaries that he kept secretly during his con�nement, and they make compelling reading: how one man dealt with, and whose indomitable spirit was never beaten by, the physical and mental torments that he was subjected to in 26 months of enforced isolation. �e ordeal began relatively innocuously on July 21 1967, when Grey, a 29-year-old recently arrived in Peking to cover the Cultural Revolution madness, was given the following chilling order at the Chinese Foreign Ministry: “From this moment onwards you must remain in your residence and not depart from it.” �e reason? “…the illegal persecution and the fascist atrocities in Hong Kong against Chinese correspondents” 32

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The Hostage Handbook The Secret Diary of a Two-Year Ordeal in China

By Anthony Grey The Tagman Press ISBN 978-1-903571-62-0

imprisoned during the territory’s 1967 riots.

Initially, Grey’s house arrest seemed benign. He had the run of the Reuters house, charmingly located near the Forbidden City, he could receive phone calls (he played chess by phone with a British diplomat) and he even continued writing, but not �ling, stories.

His immediate reaction to the �rst day of his imprisonment seemed, in view of what he later endured, staggeringly insouciant: “I drank several whiskies and soda, had a bowl of corn�akes and milk and eventually went to bed and read Henry Miller’s Sexus.”

Conditions got terrifyingly worse on August 18, when sloganshouting Red Guards smashed into his house, daubed walls, furniture, clothes and even his toothbrush with gobs of black paint, festooned his house with slogans, forcibly bent Grey double in the “jet-plane” position, and as a gruesome climax, hanged his cat Ming Ming and dangled the corpse in front of him yelling “Hang Grey! Hang Grey!”

Instead of being executed Grey was con�ned to an eightfoot square room, fed adequately although with no more whisky, but left with no clue how long his imprisonment would last.

So how did Grey deal with his predicament? With prayer, yoga,

reading and re-reading of books he was permitted to see, including Chairman Mao’a thoughts, organising ant races, compiling crosswords (later published), giving rude nicknames for his guards who were “sniffing, coughing, hawking and farting” in the next room -learning Chinese and keeping the remarkable diaries as an invaluable release, written furtively in immaculate shorthand with stolen ball pens and pencil stubs.

His rollercoaster spirits were buoyed by letters from UK from girlfriend Shirley, and his mother, although – another torment – his guards repeatedly delayed actually handing over the mail that Grey could see had arrived at the house. �e diaries are published complete with occasional bursts of expletives, fuming rants against the British government for its supposed inaction over his case – “Damn and fuck the British Government!”

– and painful accounts of his periodic slumps into bottomless depths of despair.

He was allowed two visits by British diplomats (who also suffered at the hands of Red Guards, who set ablaze the British mission with the staff trapped inside), including one

by Percy Cradock, who rekindled media interest in Grey’s fate with a forthright statement about his condition: “Grey lives in a void.”

Conditions gradually loosened up and Grey was freed in October 1969 following the release of the Chinese reporters held in Hong Kong. However, as Grey relates, on his �rst night of freedom which he spent at a British diplomat’s home, he could not resist dragging a chest of drawers across his bedroom door.

He was still not convinced he was safe from re-arrest.

THE DIARIES ARE PUBLISHED COMPLETE WITH OCCASIONAL BURSTS OF EXPLETIVES, FUMING RANTS AGAINST THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT FOR ITS SUPPOSED INACTION OVER HIS CASE – “DAMN AND FUCK THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT!” – AND PAINFUL ACCOUNTS OF HIS PERIODIC SLUMPS INTO BOTTOMLESS DEPTHS OF DESPAIR. HE WAS ALLOWED TWO VISITS BY BRITISH DIPLOMATS WHO ALSO SUFFERED AT THE HANDS OF RED GUARDS… WHO SET ABLAZE THE BRITISH MISSION WITH THE STAFF TRAPPED INSIDE

In 1971 Jonathan Sharp was the �rst Reuters correspondent to enter China following Grey’s release.

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Club Tie

Club Tie

Brash Barclay bares all Outgoing Club Board member and former SCMP newshound Barclay Crawford has left Hong Kong to go and ply his trade on Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. Before he left, true to form, he had just a few words to say.

Both images were leaving presents from his SCMP collegues. Above by Stephen Case. Right by Terry Pontikos

W

hen I tell a nonChinese reader I work for the South China Morning Post, the most common question is: so how hard is it working under the censorship imposed from Beijing?

And due to the nature of this 34

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job of journalism, where you are constantly meeting people, I would love the proverbial one dollar for every time I have been asked this in my five years at the Post.

My response is always the same: there is no press censorship in Hong Kong, from Beijing or

elsewhere. Sure, like anywhere else in the world, governments and corporations exert pressure and spin in order to obfuscate, complicate and mislead, but it is simply a myth that there is a dead hand from the North seeking to quash the news.

That I must answer this question on an almost daily basis has always worried me.

I still don’t know the answer as to why many otherwise informed people, many of whom have lived in the city or the mainland for many years, do not know that Hong Kong’s freedom of the press is enshrined in the Basic Law. Many are lawyers and bankers who thrive financially in this city because of Hong Kong’s strong rule of law. Just about every questioner is an internet user, who can browse the web without ever having to know what a proxy server is: the server you must use from the mainland should you wish to check your Facebook account or read contentious news.

However, as an educated guess, I believe the biggest reason why many remain ignorant of Hong Kong’s freedom of press is because many non-Chinese readers in Hong Kong are shockingly ignorant of the city around them. They wouldn’t know we have freedom of the press here because they’ve never bothered to find out. News, for many, is what’s going on back home, no matter how many years they’ve been here.

A recent example of the extent of ignorance in the expatriate community especially was the near hysteria caused by a horrible chain email which circulated a warning that two Chinese women had attempted to abduct a two-year-old Western boy at Ocean Park.

I was bombarded by emails and telephone calls about this by educated, professional parents, who if they had received the same email back in their home countries, they would have deleted it immediately.

Of course, I’m only talking

As an educated guess, I believe the biggest reason why many remain ignorant of Hong Kong’s press freedom is because many non-Chinese readers in Hong Kong are shockingly ignorant of the city around them. They wouldn’t know we have freedom of the press here because they’ve never bothered to find out.

about the vast community of generally privileged non-Chinese readers, not those who can read Chinese.

Those who can read Chinese will know that if there was censorship here, most of the newspapers would not exist. How else could the The Apple Daily publish a front page headline declaring: “Ma Lik: Cold-blooded” after the former head of the DAB declared that the Tiananmen Square crackdown against students in 1989 was not a massacre. The Post also ran a particularly damning editorial about the comments, as well as a picture from the scene showing bodies piled by the side of the square.

Nor would reporter John Carney at the Sunday Morning Post be able to write one of our best local scoops last year: “PLA didn’t play fair, runners claim”, with other runners complaining the soldiers violated the spirit of the Oxfam Trailwalker charity race by adopting a “win at all costs” mentality.

It is a real shame that more of those who have moved here and made their lives here don’t engage in the news and therefore the community around them.

Doing this would promote more action and activism which would help Hong Kong overcome some of the serious challenges it faces clearing the pollution and the path to democracy being perhaps the two most pressing.

As for my time in Hong Kong, all I can say is I hope I have the chance to work here again. And when I return, I hope to find an international community which is more involved in the fascinating city which surrounds them.

THE CORRESPONDENT

35

Press Freedom

Then and Now

Cheung Chau. Images by Bob Davis

Stiletto By Max Kolbe

Asia: grim, grim & getting grimmer As the protests in Thailand and the bloody violence that most of us saw coming claimed the lives of two foreign correspondents and injured a few more, the Thai government claimed victory over civilian protesters.

The dead were Hiroyaki Muramoto, a Japanese cameraman with Thomson Reuters killed on April 10, and Italian freelance photographer Fabio Polenghi (pictured) who died on May 19 from gunshot wounds.

Dutch radio and television journalist Michel Maas was injured while reporting on the violence in the Thai capital, as was Briton Andrew Buncombe and two Canadian journalists, Nelson Rand shot three times, and Chandler Vandergrift who suffered shrapnel wounds to the head.

Three Thai photographers and one reporter were also wounded.

The deaths were the highest profile killings of foreign correspondents in Thailand since the Australian cameraman Neil Davis died from shrapnel wounds inflicted during a 1985 coup.

The military has been clearly irritated by reports that claimed Muramoto was shot by troops.

Maas took a bullet in his right shoulder but said he was in relatively good condition. An army bullet hit him from behind as he was trying to get away.

“I really had no time to be shocked. When the army attacked I started running. I felt a hard blow but didn’t realise I had been hit by a bullet. I was given a lift to hospital on the back of a scooter,” he told Radio Netherlands.

“In the hospital I saw a dozen people with injuries worse than mine. I’ve been told my Italian colleague Fabio Polenghi was hit in the heart and stomach.”

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AFP

The Bangkok Post and The Nation newspapers were forced to send home staffers and close briefly. TV station Channel 3 was the target of an arson attack which took it off the air for two days.

The April 3 to May 19 standoff and political violence that resulted as troops brought protests by anti-government Red Shirts to a violent end left at least 53 people dead and 415 injured.

The basic maths of the journalist casualty rate over that six-week period puts Thailand up there with the Philippines, Iraq, Afghanistan and Mexico.

“We have restored order in the capital of Bangkok and in the provinces of Thailand,” Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said once the offensive was concluded.

Congratulations.

Still in Southeast Asia and five members of the now very famous Ampatuan clan have been transferred from the comparatively friendly confines of jail in their home provinces on Mindanao,

where they enjoyed home delivered pizzas and domestic help to clean their cells, to Manila.

These included former Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan and former Maguindanao vice governor Sajid Ampatuan, chief suspects in the massacre of 30 journalists who were among 57 people killed when their political convoy was ambushed last November.

Another 47 of the 50 policemen implicated in what local media are calling the Ampatuan Massacre have been transferred from their cosy camp in Quezon City and also sent to the Metro Manila District Jail in Camp Bagong Diway.

At last count, National Police are still looking for more than 130 others who were also allegedly involved in the massacre.

However, acting Justice Secretary Alberto Agra has cleared former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Governor Zaldy Ampatuan and Akmad Ampatuan of multiple murder charges in connection with the November 23 massacre.

In clearing Zaldy, Agra said conspiracy was not established.

“Being relatives and having similar surnames does not mean there was conspiracy,” he said.

But lawyers for the victims were unimpressed.

“This is evidence that the victims cannot get justice under the administration of President Arroyo,” Harry Roque, a lawyer for some of the victims, said.

The Ampatuans were supporters of President Arroyo.

Those killed were on their way to witness the filing of nomination papers of a candidate preparing to stand against the key suspect, Andal, in the May 10 elections.

1972: Cheung Chau in the early ’70s looks something akin to an early 19th Century George Chinnery painting

© Bob Davis. www.bobdavisphotographer.com

2010: Today the island is still unmistakable but the harbour view – complete with its sea of junks – has gone © Bob Davis. www.bobdavisphotographer.com

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37

Meanwhile in the Main Bar

Back Page Bitch

Send all media-related confessions and adulations to the Bitch.

Don’t hold back: backpagebitch@yahoo.com

June, 2010

Anyone know what’s been going on in our town’s various media factories this past month? Well, we don’t. Word has got back that the hacks don’t exactly like The Bitch. Happy to dish it out, it seems, but when it’s sent back in their direction they cry foul.

The Editorial Mandarins at the Post have had a bit of a moan as have the suited and booted frappe lattaccino slurping, big bucks earning, wunderkinder from Bloomberg, who have made it very clear that they are far too important to be bitched at on these pages.

The Ice House rumour mill – which had been barely turning to start with – has now, alas, well and truly ground to a halt. What a shame.

Luckily, up the hill, at the Asia Literary Review (ALR) it’s all change once again. Gone from the Editor-in Chief’s chair is Chris Wood and in comes Stephen McCarty. Both are former SCMP Literary Editors but there the similarity ends. McCarty is a longin-the-tooth hack who worked on the Manchester Evening News before coming to the Post in the mid-90s, where he went on to hold more positions than the Karma Sutra. Whereas Wood arrived in town with a backpack, bumbled onto the Post, stumbled into the Literary Editor’s desk and then found himself whisked to the rarified heights of the ALR. It’s a lucrative place to be, apparently.

Probably because it’s bankrolled by the very wealthy Ilyas Khan.

An ALR statement says that Wood is going to “undertake various literary projects of his

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own”, which is PR nothing-speak that may mean he’s writing a novel and may mean he got sacked.

Whatever happened, happened quickly because the latest issue was produced half by Wood and half by McCarty. Someone close to the publication says the two “are still friends”, which probably means they are no longer talking.

Take a swing around the net to see if there’s a whiff of cyber scandal on this and you find nothing, which is not that surprising. But what you do find is a lot about owner Ilyas Khan.

Ilyas “is a writer”, says one bio listing, who writes both fiction and non-fiction. Okay. He also owns a plethora of companies listed in Hong Kong, Tokyo and London, according to another listing. Okay, so he’s a writer who is also very successful in business. Lucky boy.

Reading more we learn that two years ago he moved from Hong Kong back to his birth place, the gritty and grey northern English town of Accrington, where he soon became a local hero by saving the iconic neighbourhood football team, Accrington Stanley, from liquidation. He is now the club’s Chairman. But not just that.

Khan also does adventure sports where he runs, for days on end, across deserts and jungles and things. And, sometime in June, he is getting into a boxing ring and is going to fight former World Heavy Weight Champion Tim Witherspoon, to raise money for charity. This is no joke, by the way.

“I will be proudly wearing my Club colours and climbing into

the ring for three rounds against Witherspoon. I am told it will be no more than a light sparring session for the ex-World Champ, but that’s what he thinks. I have entered into a strict training regime to rediscover the skills acquired as an amateur boxer in my youth and I’m hoping to catch Witherspoon with his guard down,” Khan told the Lancashire Business Review.

Whatever next? An un-aided solo glider flight to Mars while composing Sufi poems? Bon chance with Terrible Tim, Ilyas.

Of course, the other name that pops up when you do a quick google on the Asia Literary Review is that of the much-loved Nury Vittachi. In case you didn’t know, Vittachi is Hong Kong’s greatest writer (alive, dead or as yet unborn) and was the ALR’s founding editor before becoming involved in a quills-at-dawn spat with other board members of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival. Not interesting of course.

But what is very interesting is Vittachi’s wikipedia page. If you think Ilyas Khan’s achievements are impressive then check out the wiki entry on Vittachi. He is, after just a few short paragraphs, well-known, hard-hitting and bestselling. Who could have written this glowing prose? Surely, surely, surely not the writer himself?

THE CORRESPONDENT

39

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