America's public diplomacy that kills...

...especially if you happen to be Pakistani.

[See also Interview: On Pakistan, US PD, and VOA]

I was forwarded a news article from the New York Times yesterady about the assassination of a Pakistani reporter on January 17. Very sad:

"A masked gunman strode into a mosque during evening prayers in Shabqadar, a small town in the tribal area of northwest Pakistan, on Tuesday evening and opened fire on the reporter, Mukarram Khan Aatif, as he was praying, his colleagues said. Mr. Aatif was struck by at least three bullets in the chest and head, they said. He was taken to a hospital in Peshawar, 15 miles to the south, but doctors there pronounced him dead on arrival. The killer escaped on a motorbike driven by a second masked man."

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility and "warned that others would be targets in the future." Why did they kill him? He was working for Voice of America - rather, for VOA's Pashto-language Deewa Radio station, to be more precise. In short, he collaborated with the Americans - he did the dangerous yet the unwanted job on the ground to promote American interests.

Image from Beenasarwar. 

So, he was killed, and what did he get? A three-paragraph press release from the US Embassy, a statement from the Broadcasting Board of Governors from faraway Washington, and an article in the New York Times. Nothing from the State Department itself - not even on its much promoted blog - and worst of all, nothing in the mainstream American media (with the exception of the NYT, of course).

Even the French had a statement on their Foreign Ministry website...

Oh, I almost forgot. VOA, on its English-language website, reported that:

"Pakistani information minister Firdous Ashiq Awan said the government will conduct a “thorough and transparent” investigation into the incident and promised financial assistance to the victim’s family."

Yeah, right...

This brings up a whole range of issues that should be discussed pertaining to this situation. I don't even know where to begin: America's misguided public diplomacy in one of the most critical parts of the world, complete disregard for the sensitivities of those affected, the totally oblivious American public which doesn't even get the opportunity to hear about these brave men (yes, mostly men) who risk and lose their lives for what are essentially American interests...

(And, just by the way, according to a genius and not-at-all outdated document called the Smith-Mundt Act, Americans should not be reading material put out by the likes of the VOA or the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, so as to prevent exposure to potential propaganda. Yet, these are the media that would actually carry such stories.)

Yes, I do realize that VOA has always claimed - still does - that it is a news organization, even if set up to serve the purpose of public diplomacy. Therefore, it has tried hard to blur its links with the actual government of the United States. There is also the other point of the so-called "coinciding interests": the argument can be made, quite justly, that what VOA (and American public diplomacy itself) are trying to promote actually serves Pakistan's interests as well, helping its people discover certain freedoms and thus lay the foundations of a solid civil society. I do recognize the noble intentions.

Breakdown of journalists murdered in Pakistan (1992-2012) -- From CPJ: Pakistan

But what good intentions can one actually speak of when it comes to American public diplomacy at that part of the world? I would suggest looking at it from the local perspective, to do which I reached out to a former reporter from Pakistan I happen to know. You can read the full interview here.

People take up jobs with foreigners not because they have "bought the message", but because they want a better pay, even if that means risking their own life, as well as that of their entire family (because now they are "collaborators," too). As suggested by my interviewee, they also often find themselves stranded between a rock and a hard place, where they not only have to walk a thin line attempting to maintain the journalist "ethic" that they supposedly preach, but also - as it turns out - undermine that very ethic to serve a certain (foreign) purpose.

Pakistan. Map from World Atlas.

Perhaps the greatest irony in it all is that there still is a strong belief in that feeding information or dollars to the local population will help the U.S. win over their hearts and minds. Somehow, people should forget the random shootings, nightly drone attacks, disgusting soldiers urinating on dead bodies, the very presence of a foreign force... and buy into VOA's message. Or, perhaps the rodent-infested rice or expired powder milk will do the job?

Seriously.

And when a person is thus brutally murdered for cooperating with foreigners, not only is his work not recognized by the country and the people he essentially worked for, but his family is offered monetary compensation. I guess there's nothing money can't do, right? I would like to see if the Pakistani government even pursues this promised "investigation".

Last but not least: one of the major accusations against Bradley Manning, who allegedly transferred hundreds of thousands of U.S. documents to Wikileaks, has been that these documents endangered the lives of people who helped or cooperated with Americans in various parts of the world. The evidence that this has actually been the case is close to nil (if not non-existent). But somehow, unlike these "threatened" individuals, reporters like Aatif don't matter. After all, they are cooperating in broad daylight and everybody knows it. "They chose to do so themselves."

Yet, the thing is, they didn't choose to be born in the wrong country.

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UPDATE: I came across another great piece on this story on The Daily Beast. It addresses the issue of Pakistani reporters working for the American-sponsored news media. Worth a read.