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propaganda war kicks in- BBC downgrades murdered UN staff to "NGO staff"

richard byrne | 14.10.2001 11:01

Press have now started reporting the UN guards killed by American bombs last week as "staff working for a non governmental organisation"

Yesterday (Saturday 13th October) the News bulletin on BBC 5 LIve at 11 am. referred to the 4 UN guards killed by an American bomb last week as "guards working for a non governmental organisation".
They deliberately did not refer to them as UN staff, as had previously been done.
This despite the fact that after the bombing a UN Official in pakistan, stephanie Bowker, appeared before the world's media reporting that 4 UN guards were killed and gave thier names etc.

The Observer is today reporting them as "4 workers who died earlier last week when an errant cruise missile was BELIEVED to have hit a building used by the United Nations for mine-clearing operations." (emphasis added)

I guess we shouldn't be too surprised at this re casting of the "news" but it's pretty clear that someone has told the BBC and others to do this.

Give them another week and who knows what they'll have changed the "4 UN guards" to?

richard byrne
- e-mail: richardbyrne98@yahoo.com

Comments

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Mine-Field

14.10.2001 14:46

This precision bombing, with near perfect accuracy, of a UN complex, has set mine clearance in Afghanistan back decades. Thanks to the 'protectors of freedom,' another thousand kids will be disabled for life. Princess Diana is turning in her grave, but that's why she was "silenced" in the first place.

UNdermined

free press??

14.10.2001 22:06

free press in britan you must be jokin its all right wing shite o apart from the socialist rags and their propaganda
fuck even the Irish times has better coverage than all the papers put together here and as for the bbc who runs it?
a government appointed stooge
WHY DO YOU EVEN BOTHER MOANING ABOUT IT its fucking obvious you dont beleive anything you read or hear do you you nieve or what?
shit why am i bothering to comment on it?

dogday

why bother "moaning"

15.10.2001 23:06

lots of reasons why to bother moaning, but why post it on indymedia is another question. The main reason I posted this story here is that lots of people who read indymedia don't share the last commentators analysis of the world. Some folk will be looking at indymedia from a perspective of knowing something is going wrong but wanting to find out more. Others , like me, see it as an opportunity to share information for working to stop the war. So information like this, is I think, important to post here.

richard byrne