‘ Marie was targeted because she was a journalist’
A landmark ruling has found that war reporter Marie Colvin was murdered by the Syrian government. Polly Dunbar speaks to her friends and family about why Marie risked everything to report the truth – and what makes today’s female war reporters continue to head to the frontline
there’s a moment in A Private War, the biopic of the late journalist Marie Colvin, that her sister Cat finds particularly difficult. Marie – whose rakish eye-patch became her trademark after she was injured by a grenade in Sri Lanka – receives a sparkly version crafted by a friend’s child. ‘My daughter made her one of those,’ says Cat. ‘All the girls in our family would make little eye-patches out of paper. That detail… it’s very emotional to watch.’
The new film, which stars Rosamund Pike, captures the unique bravery of the war correspondent, who was killed aged 56 while reporting from Homs in Syria in February 2012. Her passionate mission to uncover the impact of conflicts on ordinary people led her to take extraordinary risks in areas other journalists balked at visiting, from the Balkans and Chechnya to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Last week’s release of A Private War follows a landmark ruling last month by the US District Court in Washington that Marie’s death was not a tragic accident, but rather a murder by Syrian President Assad’s regime. ‘She was specifically targeted because of her profession, for the purpose of silencing those reporting on the growing opposition movement in the country,’ wrote the judge. For Cat, a lawyer who brought the civil case, the ruling marks the end of a long battle to hold the Syrian government accountable. ‘ The judgement was a resounding condemnation of the regime,’ she says. ‘I hope it sends a message to the world about the targeting of journalists.’ The judge awarded Marie’s family punitive damages of more than $300m (£231m), although they are unlikely ever to receive it. ‘Eventually, though, I hope the evidence we gathered will be used in a criminal case against the perpetrators of war crimes,’ Cat says.
Last year, 53 journalists were killed, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, with 34 targeted in direct retaliation for the work they were doing – almost double the previous year. Since the rise of ISIS, fewer correspondents have been sent into conflict zones, but those who have ventured into them have been subject to an increasing number of attacks, including kidnappings, torture, sexual assault and killings.
‘Marie’s death has helped bring so much attention to this issue,’ says Cat. ‘Journalists are giving their lives to bring these stories out, so we can know what’s happening in these conflicts. Theirs are such important voices in the world. We have international laws to protect them and the court ruling shows that individuals and regimes who break them will be held to account.’
It has been seven years since Marie’s death, but the court case and release of the film, as well as a biography, In Extremis, by her friend Lindsey Hilsum, have put Marie’s remarkable life back in the spotlight. For Cat, who was nine years Marie’s junior, it has been bittersweet. ‘She was my big sister, my idol and my inspiration,’ she says. ‘I never worried about her because I always thought she was invincible. She’d been in so many dangerous situations and she always came out with a funny story. When she died, it was a complete shock. This past year, watching the film and preparing my statement to read to the court, has been really emotional. It’s incredible that there’s so much interest in her, but it’s also taken me back to when she died, which is very painful. I think about her all the time.’
Lindsey, who first met Marie in 1998 during the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, is Channel 4’s international editor and has been reporting from the front line for two decades. She welcomes the court judgement, saying, ‘It sends a message to governments and rebel groups who murder
journalists that one day they may face justice. I’m not naive – and nor was Marie. It doesn’t mean that the culprits will immediately be brought to book. But it indicates that there should be no immunity for those who kill journalists.’
A Private War and In Extremis both explore the mythology surrounding Marie, one of very few women in her profession. ‘ There’s a fascination with female war correspondents,’ says Lindsey. ‘She and I would always say there was no difference between us and men in the way we reported. But it’s undeniable that she was glamorous. She held parties with actors, poets and politicians; she wore little black cocktail dresses.’
‘Marie never felt that there were rules she needed to follow,’ says Cat. ‘She’d just dive passionately into everything. That’s how she got her famous interview with Gaddafi [the first with the Libyan leader during the Arab Spring]: she just knocked on doors until someone gave her what she wanted.’
As Lindsey acknowledges, this attitude came at the expense of her physical and psychological wellbeing. ‘She always went in further and stayed longer – that was Marie,’ she says. ‘She said she wrote about “humanity in extremis, pushed to the unendurable”, but she lived her own life in extremis. She didn’t take care of herself enough. There were times when reporting wasn’t enough for her, such as in East Timor in 1999, when she stayed behind in a compound full of refugees. Militia were circling it and she knew if she left it would be overrun. When she died, she had returned to Baba Amr in Homs because she felt she was abandoning people by leaving.’
As A Private War shows unflinchingly, Marie’s vocation took its toll long before her death. She suffered PTSD and her personal life was turbulent. ‘She certainly had her vulnerabilities, one of which was that she never thought she was a good writer,’ says Cat. ‘She always thought that if she could express it more clearly or dramatically, people would feel what she was feeling. She was very empathetic: she’d often see my kids or me in the women and children who were victims of war.’
Cat says that watching Rosamund Pike play her sister was ‘a strange feeling’, but, ‘I thought it was a brilliant performance, particularly after meeting Rosamund and realising how different she is from Marie.’
Syria entered its eighth year of civil war last month. ‘Marie’s legacy is drawing attention to the tragedies of places like Syria,’ says Cat. ‘ The work she did must continue.’ ‘ In Extremis’ by Lindsey Hilsum (£20, Chatto & Windus); ‘A Private War’ is in cinemas now