Mourners demand answers over fate of cameraman killed on the Lebanese border
By Robert Fisk
"They buried Ali Shabaan as a martyr-reporter yesterday, another journalist of the Syrian war to die in action – but a Lebanese this time, unknown in the West but loved in his little south Lebanon village, not least by the girl to whom he was to have become officially engaged this Saturday....
Shot in the heart. By the Syrians. Forty bullets hit the cameraman's car and that of his fellow crew at Wadi Khaled. A quick death, I suppose....
Every journalist who dies in violence in Lebanon is called a martyr. Not a bad description of all of those who die trying to report the truth, that subtle narrative that must name the guilty party. But Al-Manar, the television station of the Hezbollah – Syria's ally – did not speak of Shabaan as a "martyr" but as a "victim" of a battle between Syrian troops and "terrorists". As one of Shabaan's employers said yesterday, he was wiped off the news agenda of Hezbollah as a victim of "crossfire", the old explanation of Palestinian deaths at the hands of the Israelis. "But for God's sake," he said, "this wasn't an Israeli television station – this was a Hezbollah station!".....
....a larger clutch of Lebanese journalists who believed that this was the result of – I quote one in particular – "a planned murder, Don Corleone-style". According to them, and to New TV (NTV) officials, Shabaan's killing was "a message"......
NTV's staff is adamant that at no point did they enter Syrian territory.....
There was a range of feeling in Maifadoun yesterday. "We are with the Hezbollah when they fight Israel," one villager said, "but we are not with the Syrians when they kill their people."
Ahmed Shabaan watched the body of his only son placed in the earth. Muslims out here have no coffins. And oh yes, Syria sent its official condolences."
By Robert Fisk
"They buried Ali Shabaan as a martyr-reporter yesterday, another journalist of the Syrian war to die in action – but a Lebanese this time, unknown in the West but loved in his little south Lebanon village, not least by the girl to whom he was to have become officially engaged this Saturday....
Shot in the heart. By the Syrians. Forty bullets hit the cameraman's car and that of his fellow crew at Wadi Khaled. A quick death, I suppose....
Every journalist who dies in violence in Lebanon is called a martyr. Not a bad description of all of those who die trying to report the truth, that subtle narrative that must name the guilty party. But Al-Manar, the television station of the Hezbollah – Syria's ally – did not speak of Shabaan as a "martyr" but as a "victim" of a battle between Syrian troops and "terrorists". As one of Shabaan's employers said yesterday, he was wiped off the news agenda of Hezbollah as a victim of "crossfire", the old explanation of Palestinian deaths at the hands of the Israelis. "But for God's sake," he said, "this wasn't an Israeli television station – this was a Hezbollah station!".....
....a larger clutch of Lebanese journalists who believed that this was the result of – I quote one in particular – "a planned murder, Don Corleone-style". According to them, and to New TV (NTV) officials, Shabaan's killing was "a message"......
NTV's staff is adamant that at no point did they enter Syrian territory.....
There was a range of feeling in Maifadoun yesterday. "We are with the Hezbollah when they fight Israel," one villager said, "but we are not with the Syrians when they kill their people."
Ahmed Shabaan watched the body of his only son placed in the earth. Muslims out here have no coffins. And oh yes, Syria sent its official condolences."
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