[imc-ottawa] BBC Defends Refusal to Cover War Crimes Tribunal

[David Creighton]

BBC Defends Refusal to Cover War Crimes Tribunal
Posted: 2009/11/10
From: Mathaba

	
Not only the BBC, but ALL the news networks of USA, Canada, Europe and  
Australia refused to cover an important conference of relevance to  
world peace and justice.


Kuala Lumpur (Mathaba) This may not come as a surprise to some, but  
will no doubt shock many. Sky, BBC, ABC, UPI, AFP, VOA, CNN, as well  
as all American and European news agencies, did not give any mention  
whatsoever, much less any coverage, to 2 important events that took  
place in Malaysia's capital city recently.

The white out was total. Not a word was said about a two day  
International Conference on the Criminalization of War. Not a word was  
said about a further 2-day War Crimes Tribunal Commission that cross  
examined witnesses from Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan and Iraq, that  
will implicate senior British and American officials as well as  
agencies in crimes that make killers like Jack the Ripper look like  
fairies.

So, if there was not a word said about these major international  
events, were they then not major and not international but just some  
gathering of crack pots, tin foil hats, or other nut cases? Clearly  
not. The Tribunal Commission included international legal experts such  
as Francis Boyle of the USA, and leading lawyers and judges from  
Malaysia. The Conference speakers included two former senior United  
Nations officials, a former assistant UN Secretary General, and the  
former UN Humanitarian Cooordinator in Iraq.

United States National Laboratory radiation experts, a former United  
States Presidential Candidate and 6 term Congresswoman, a British MP,  
former military leaders, lawyers and human rights experts, all shared  
the panel in the Conference that was advertised widely in advance, and  
Asia's longest serving leader, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia,  
Dr Mahathir Mohamad, chaired the proceedings.

Is that really something that all the "major news networks" could fail  
to cover? Yes, and it is not the first time. Mathaba was ALONE in  
covering the events, both in the lead-up, during, and since. And we  
have been alone before. We were alone in covering the abduction by  
Israel of the African American leader Cynthia McKinney several months  
ago, on the high seas of the Mediterranean. We were alone in covering  
the biggest ever gathering of experts on the September 11  
investigations which took place in Sydney. None of Australia's media  
were there.

So why not? It's time that millions of people around the world face  
the simple truth. The reason that no Australian media covered the  
Sydney Conference on 9/11, is simply because that media there is owned  
by Rupert Murdoch, an arch Zionist Jewish fanatic, and the Packer  
family, both of which have plenty to lose if their political friends  
are implicated either in involvement or in neglect resulting in  
massive loss of life.

The Kuala Lumpur Conference and Tribunal were not mentioned in any of  
the British, American, European or Australian media, simply because  
those media networks are either owned by governments (the BBC is owned  
by the British Government and VOA by the US Government) or by media  
empires which are sponsored by major British, American and European  
corporations which have benefited hugely from the recent war in Iraq.

To cover these events, risks a rising awareness of the populations of  
those countries, that they are being lied to, and that truth is being  
concealed from them. The reasoning of these media moghuls goes thus:  
let us wait and see if anyone ELSE covers this conference, and if not,  
then we won't need to either. And that is where even the most hardened  
of us journalists who know the workings of these agencies, may yet be  
surprised:

Neighbouring countries news networks failed to cover it. Alternative  
media failed to cover it. Alex Jones failed to cover it.  Al-Jazeera  
failed to cover it. Al-Jazeera, even though one of its own  
journalists, and its Head of Liberties and Human Rights Affairs, Sami  
Al Hajj, who was abducted by the Americans while covering the war in  
Afghanistan as a camera man and flown to Guantanamo where he was  
tortured for years, was a called witness, Jazeera also failed to cover  
it.

Mathaba however, covered it, and in great detail starting 2 weeks  
prior to the event on a daily basis, and with live reporting of many  
of the proceedings. Because we have a great many readers (ranked in  
the top 1% of most popular sites in the world) and these include all  
the above mentioned news networks, governments, UN agencies, and a  
great many "VIP's", some of those readers decided to write to the BBC  
to question why it failed to mention this conference at all.

The BBC reply was telling, and it would be severely damaging if only  
enough of these readers would get off their back sides and forward  
this report to everyone they know and ask them to also forward this to  
everyone that THEY know too. It would also help to tip the news  
audience even further in our favour, since we do a better job with  
resources a fraction of the size of the BBC which includes close to  
$100 million yearly for its web site ALONE:

"The choice of stories we include in our bulletins is a subjective  
matter. There are factors we take into account, including how unusual  
the story is and how much national interest there is in the subject  
matter."

Thus replied the BBC. No national interest in an international war  
crimes tribunal which is implicating British military, intelligence  
and government officials in crimes punishable by life imprisonment in  
Britain and by death in the United States?

No national interest in a legal process to make the starting of war a  
crime, which, quite unbelievably, it currently is not? Murder of small  
numbers of people is a crime, but starting a war under false  
pretences, deliberate lies, and with aggressive purposes and nefarious  
objectives, sadly, is not. That so many people gathered in a  
conference, addressed by several former leaders and a few current  
ones, took place, is certainly world news.

Some readers may put this down to failure. We know better. We know  
that these networks knew of these events, and that we have a large  
readership on the Internet that knew about them. It's just that, as  
stated earlier, if Mathaba is the only international (but also the  
only independent news agency) to cover those events, then they'll keep  
silent. Because, if they don't, so their reasoning goes, the damage to  
their sponsors and interests will be greater.

The total failure of other independent and alternative media to cover  
this event, is however, a different story for a different time. That  
has completely different reasons, that we are only too well aware of,  
and which are justified: they did not know, and are already struggling  
with resource issues. There organisers of such conferences on issues  
of justice, human rights, peace, GM foods, nuclear weapons, and other  
serious issues never covered truthfully by government and private  
media networks, have to learn that such coverage can not come  
automatically.

Whilst news networks such as Mathaba operate to a far higher degree of  
economic efficiency, sacrifice, and commitment, and often at higher  
standards of journalistic and technical professionalism, we need to be  
informed too, and we need to be assisted. The delegates, speakers, and  
attendees at such conferences also fail to assist us in our work, by  
also remaining silent. Truth is, they still expect coverage by the  
very media who will never cover such issues and events unless forced  
to do so, and, they fail to appreciate the need to work together with  
the few networks such as Mathaba who will.

The reasons for this, and how to resolve that, are subject matters for  
a future conference to be organised by the Cuban News Agency (ACN) as  
a representative of government news agencies, and the independent  
Mathaba News Agency, to which editors of alternative media networks  
and independent news networks, are to be invited. Pass this on via the  
many buttons and methods below the end of this article, and be sure  
also to click the following link to join the Mathaba Daily Briefing in  
order to stay informed of this and other issues:
    http://www.mathaba.net/go/daily


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The link for this item is: www.mathaba.net/news/?x=622064 
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