FRANCOIS-XAVIER HARISPE, Islamabad | Sunday
THEY flooded in with hopes of scoops from Afghanistan, got stuck behind closed borders in Pakistan and their numbers have reached such a critical mass that the dateline joke is of “Journalistan.”
Since the start of the current crisis surrounding Afghanistan, the Pakistan authorities have registered 450 newly arrived journalists in the country, although the real number is estimated at more than 700, with many having slipped in unofficially.
While veteran correspondents swap memories — “the Gulf in ’91, Somalia ’92, Bosnia” — others are having trouble simply working out where they are.
“Three days ago, some of them didn’t even know where to place Pakistan on the map,” said one Islamabad-based diplomat.
According to a customs official, one television crew had asked bemused officials at Islamabad airport for a flight to Pakistan.
Apparently their assignments editor had told them they were headed for Afghanistan and they presumed they had already arrived.
In Islamabad, the foreign press corps have taken over the city’s luxury hotels like the Marriot, whose roof has become a jungle of satellite antennae, cables and camera tripods.
The rooftop is the favoured location for live broadcasts, with the heads and shoulders of earnest television reporters framed against a backdrop of the Margalla hills that surround Islamabad — far smaller, sadly, than the mountains of neighbouring Afghanistan.
In the hotel corridors, rooms have been transformed into editing suites and ad hoc newsdesks.
And in the main ground floor lobby, the celebrity reporters from major television channels greet their star interviewees in booming voices, while keeping a jealous eye on any big names trawled in by their competitors.
Wary of the reputations acquired by some hardened hacks, the hotel management felt obliged to issue a circular insisting that no one “visit the rooftop under the effects of alcohol in any circumstances” — a somewhat ironic request in this Islamic republic where alcohol is officially banned.
One of Islamabad’s few legal watering holes, “The United Nations Club”, has admitted to running dangerously low on liquor stocks.
And the Pakistani capital is not alone in bearing the foreign press invasion.
Around 150 journalists have descended on Peshawar, the northwestern frontier town lionised by Kipling and used by the CIA as a forward base in its support for the Afghan resistance movement during the Soviet occupation of 1979-89.
For Peshawar, the press invasion has proved an economic windfall, with enterprising street sellers doing a roaring trade in Osama bin Laden t-shirts.
Hotels and guest houses have upped their room rates to anywhere between 60 and 200 dollars a night, while journalist “fixers” — interpreters, guides and general arrangers — have started charging from 150 to 300 dollars a day for their indispensable services.
One Japanese television crew — shocked by the sudden hike in car rental charges — chose to purchase their own minibus and two four-wheel drive vehicles, gambling that the story would run long enough to merit the investment.
The “so near and yet so far” frustration for those seeking the coveted Afghanistan dateline has prompted some reporters to risk a clandestine journey across the border into areas controlled by the ruling Taliban regime.
Such subterfuge has proved largely counter-productive, with failed attempts at dodging the border police resulting in a further tightening of security.
And even if the camouflage accorded by a “burqa” – the head-to-toe dress worn by Afghan women — gets them past the frontier guards, the dangers are all too plain.
One woman British journalist was arrested for illegal entry by the Taliban on Friday and now faces the chilling prospect of spying charges.
Another 200 journalists are camped out in the western city of Quetta, amid expectations that up to one million Afghans might try to flee across the nearby border in the event of US military strikes — a scenario that seemed imminent one week ago but has yet to materialise.
Being in Quetta “is like having a ringside seat for only God knows what,” quipped one weary reporter. – AFP