Noramfaizul is the 35th journalist killed in direct relation to his job in Somalia. I share the losses, as a journo and as a Malaysian.
Elsewhere and since World War II, at least 5,000 journalists - reporters and photographers - were killed, intentionally and unintentionally while expediting their duty to keep about 3 billion people worldwide well-informed about what is going on in the planet.
Noramfaizul was one of the unfortunates. However, this news that he was shot by the African Union Mission in Somalia or AMISON (here) near Mogadishu Airport draws my attention.
The Committee to Protect Journalists in New York has called on the African Union to ensure the safety of civilians operating in Somalia after witnesses reported that AU forces fired on a Malaysian humanitarian convoy on Friday, killing one journalist and injuring another.
I believe the convoy was trapped in a crossfire between the rebels and the army. It has happened many times before, not only in Mogadishu but around the globe. There had been incidents where many civilians were killed by strayed bullets from both sides. They were there at the wrong time and the wrong place.
The Malaysian media is still very much a 'newcomer' to this nature of coverage. The practitioners were never really exposed to covering high risk areas such as wars. We only started to send them out for the Desert Storm in Iraq-Kuwait in the early 1990s. Even that, they were well-protected and did not encounter with the actual situation.
I remember when I first stepped foot in Baghdad to cover the Gulf War between Iraq and Iran in 1982, another Berita Harian reporter Mahfar Ali was despatched to Afghanistan a few years later to 'team up' with the Mujahideen. Rosnah Majid of Utusan Malaysia was also in Iraq for a short while.
So, when Info Minister Rais Yatim suggested for a standard operating procedure (SOP) be created to serve as a guideline for all parties (here), including media practitioners, before embarking on or taking part in any humanitarian mission abroad, I feel glad about it.... and of course, I second the notion.
The time has come for the SOP to be put in place to prevent any untoward incident during such mission.
It's a good idea although is should have been introduced many years ago. Ask Mahfar or ex-NST senior journo Ben d'Cunha (who joined me in Iraq during my third visit in 1986) and Petrus Suryadi of Indonesian Kompass about our mission then.
In 1982, I volunteered for it since nobody else wanted to take up the role of a war journalist. And war journalism was something very new and odd to our media at that particular time. I had to apply leave to go to Baghdad (a socialist-ruled country), and being a Socialist nation, only a few of my stories were used as we were still depending heavily on news from Reuters, AP, Afp, etc.
The Iraqi Embassy in KL arranged everything, including an insurance amounting to RM500,000 should I fail to return (my parents were the beneficiary because I was still single). My employer did not provide anything, not a single sen and was told that I would be 'on my own'. I did not blame them because reporting during that era was mainly focused on local issues. Almost all newspapers only published foreign news fed by wires.
In Baghdad, I spent a week in an army camp co-managed by the Iraqi and the United Nations Forces in Khanaqin, north of the capital, for a 'special intensive training', among which was how to handle a Russian-made Kalashnikov (AK47) for self defense, how to duck should a hand grenade was thrown at you, to distinguish types of jet fighters and to dig a bunker under a tank.
Together with about 35 local and foreign journalists, we were told to pass the test or being left out from going to the war zones. I passed, and so did Petrus. We were also taught how to escape crossfire and from situations like that. Most importantly is how to pull the AK47 trigger.
Journalism has gone through evolutions. When the Malaysian Press started to despatch reporters to Iraq (via Jordan), Kuwait, Palestine and other areas of conflict, I began to realise that the time has come for us to source the news ourselves, and from our very own context. It is time to avoid exploitation by the Western media.
I have seen some journalists lost their lives in Iraq. The internationally-known CNN journalist Peter Arnett was also with me in 1982 but I disagreed with his style of working as he preferred 'lobby'reporting' too much.
It was a common scenario for journalist got trapped in between the warring factions. If you are lucky, you escape. Otherwise, your parents or next of kin would be richer by the amount insured on you.
Many believe a few more wars would erupt. In fact, the conflicts in some Middle East countries such as Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Tunisia, Algeria and Syria would be worth-reporting if we have the budget and a well-trained team to select for the job.
I am saddened by Noramfaizul's death. He was a brave man. But we have to take the risk, sometimes, when attending to such a place and event. "Semoga Allah mencucuri rahmat ke atas rohnya... Amin!"