THE PRICE OF TRUTH
Syrian army targets – and kills – journalists.
Marie Colvin of The Sunday Times was courageous, dedicated and utterly determined to tell the world of atrocities committed by despotic regimes. Yesterday those virtues cost her her life.
She was one of two journalists killed by Syrian forces in the city of Homs, prompting Western governments to pledge to redouble efforts to end the daily carnage in the country.
Colvin, 56, and Remi Ochlik, 28, a French photojournalist, died instantly when Syrian forces trying to crush the rebellion shelled an improvised media centre in the besieged district of Baba Amr early in the morning.
Paul Conroy, a British freelance photographer working with Colvin, and Edith Bouvier, a French journalist with Le Figaro, were injured, Bouvier seriously. It was unclear last night when or how they could be extracted.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office summoned the Syrian Ambassador to demand the swift repatriation of the journalists’ bodies and medical treatment for their injured colleagues.
Local sources said that seven opposition activists were caught and killed as they tried to take medical aid to the journalists, but that could not be confirmed.
It appears that the building was targeted deliberately. Syrian activists said that it was hit by more than 10 shells, and last week its top floor was destroyed by rockets.
‘‘I can sort of figure out where a sniper is, but you can’t figure out where a shell is going to land,’’ Colvin told CNN on Tuesday.
A multinational Friends of Syria meeting to be held in Tunis tomorrow will discuss:
A request from the International Committee of the Red Cross for a two-hour daily ceasefire so that emergency supplies can be taken in and the injured and sick evacuated.
The feasibility of establishing humanitarian corridors inside Syria.
Tougher sanctions against the regime of President Assad.
But the West is hamstrung by its reluctance to intervene militarily in Syria.
British Prime Minister David Cameron led tributes to Colvin, who was smuggled into Homs from Lebanon early last week and was the only British newspaper journalist in the city. He described her as ‘‘talented and respected’’, and said the death of the prize-winning American reporter was ‘‘a desperately sad reminder of the risks that journalists take to inform the world of . . . the dreadful events in Syria’’.
John Witherow, the editor of The Sunday Times, described Colvin as an ‘‘extraordinary figure’’ who believed profoundly that reporting could curtail the excesses of brutal regimes.
‘‘But she was much more than a war reporter. She was a woman with a tremendous joie de vivre, full of humour and mischief and surrounded by a large circle of friends, all of whom feared the consequences of her bravery,’’ he added.
Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corporation which owns The Sunday Times and The Times, called Colvin ‘‘one of the most oustanding foreign correspondents of her generation’’, adding: ‘‘She put her life in danger on many occasions because she was driven by a determination that the misdeeds of tyrants and the suffering of the victims did not go unreported.’’
She and Ochlik were just two of at least 20 people killed in Homs yesterday, and of many hundreds who have died since the uprising began last March. But their deaths produced ringing declarations of intent from Western leaders.
President Nicolas Sarkozy, of France, said: ‘‘That’s enough now. The regime must go.’’ Alain Juppe, the French Foreign Minister, said: ‘‘France is more determined than ever to end the savage repression that the Syrian people are experiencing every day.’’
William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary, said that the two journalists died ‘‘bringing us the truth about what is happening to the people of Homs’’.
He added: ‘‘Governments around the world have the responsibility to act upon that truth and to redouble our efforts to stop the Assad regime’s despicable campaign of terror.’’
Their sentiments echoed those of Colvin, who told the BBC shortly before her death that ‘‘There’s just shells, rockets and tank fire pouring into civilian areas of this city’’.