Street roots
June 21, 2013
WITNESS, fro m page 8
the death of Colvin, he was asked to appear
on a panel to discuss the arms trade in the
House of Commons, alongside human rights
activists and a representative from the
Russian Federation.
“I didn’t know the protocol too well,” says
Conroy. “So I said, ‘can I ask a person on
the panel [the Russian representative] a
question,’ and they said ‘yes’. I said, ‘ilt’s a
three part question, with just yes or no
answers... Are you aware that the Russia is
supplying the Syrian regime with heavy
weapons and munitions?’ and he said, ‘yes’.
And I said, ‘are you aware that the Syrian
regime is using heavy weapons and
munitions against the Syrian people,
civilians?’ And he said yes. ‘Does Russia
have any intention in stopping the supply of
heavy weapons and munitions to be used
against the Syrian people?’ And he said ‘no.’
And he thought for a second and said, ‘if we
don’t do it, someone else will’. It’s kind of
what a drug dealer would say really.”
The situation in Syria is dire with
evidence emerging lately of war crimes.
Indeed, recent samples smuggled back from
Syria to both Britain and France, tested
positive for the Sarin - suggesting that the
regime has deployed chemical weapons. A
potent nerve agent, Sarin causes a violent
and painful death. President Obama
previously said that any use of chemical
weapons by the regime would be a ‘game
changer’. However, in an interview with the
BBC, Conroy accused the west of hypocrisy.
He said: “It’s almost saying that for three
years it’s kind of legitimate to use heavy
explosives, battlefield weapons, missiles,
rockets ... on civilians, but please don’t use
chemical weapons? Death is death whether
it’s brought about by a red hot piece of
shrapnel or a piece of gas ... There’s no
difference.
“It’s hypocritical at this point. The only
reason that we’re involved now that
chemical weapons have been found is that
they might leave Syria and be used against
us.”
Whilst Conroy’s book deals with the
heaviest of topics he manages to interweave
lighter moments and a certain gallows
humour.
“Ninety percent of the time,” he explains,
“apart from when tragedy strikes, it’s just
funny. You look at yourself in these
ridiculous situations and you have to laugh,
thinking, ‘what the hell are we doing.’”
Indeed, Conroy and Colvin first met
through one of those more ridiculous
incidents. “Ah, the boat episode,” Conroy
says with a mischievous laugh, “one of my
finer moments.”
In the weeks before the Iraq war started
SA LTZM A N , fro m page 3
in 2003, Conroy was one of 20 members of
a western press corps waiting in a small
town on the Syrian side of the Iraqi border,
all desperate to get into northern Iraq to
cover the allied forces invasion. Weeks went
by as the group were repeatedly denied
visas to cross the border, and their hopes
began to fade.
“It was as I watched the lifeblood begin to
drain from the journalists gathered in the
Petroleum Hotel, that the idea of the boat
was born.”
And so, with the innertubes of lorry tires,
rope, wood and some netting, Conroy and
two accomplices built a raft with which they
hoped to sail down the Tigris River and into
Iraq.
“The invasion of Iraq had already begun,
and we knew we were taking a serious risk
by travelling illegally into a fully-fledged war
zone on a homemade boat.”
Unluckily (or perhaps the reverse), the
vessel never set sail on her maiden journey,
as Conroy and his co-conspirators were
caught by Syria’s notorious Security
Services.
Once released, Conroy was the pariah of
the press corps who feared his nautical
exploits had destroyed their chances of ever
being allowed passage into Iraq.
“I skulked in my room, smoked and read
the instruction manuals for my camera
because I had no books ... After two nights,
I made a rare foray into the restaurant in
search of anyone willing to talk to a pariah
R E U T E R S /Z O H R A B E N S E M R A
G ir ls queue to buy bread at the only bakery serving the outskirts o fld lib province on A u g . 1,
are on the complaints they get. They can’t
accept that there’s nothing that can be done
about it.
A.W.: There was an effort to create a
A.W.: A really memorable m om ent fo r me
happened a couple years ago after the sit lie
ordinance was declared unconstitutional.
Then-mayor Sa m A d a m s a n d Com m issioner
F ish went in fro n t o f the Portland B u sin ess
A llian ce (P B A ) a n d basically told them to get
over it. Is that pretty m uch yo u r attitude?
D.S.: Yes. The PBA is obviously less
focused on the legal side of things and the
First Amendment side of things than they
lines from rebel-held to government-held
areas; the same in Syria.”
Indeed, Conroy and Colvin entered Syria
fully aware that the Assad regime had
allegedly issued orders that any western
journalists caught should be shot on site,
and their bodies tossed onto the battlefield,
to make it appear they’d been caught in the
cross-fire.
During his escape from Homs, an injured
Conroy came painfully close to falling into
the hands of the Syrian regime. With Marie
dead, and a hole blasted through his leg, he
spent six days lying in a makeshift field
hospital in Baba Amr, under constant
bombardment.
On the third day, the shelling suddenly
stopped. A temporary cease-fire had been
agreed, and Conroy was informed that
ambulances from the Syrian Red Crescent
(SRC) were making their way into the city of
Homs to collect him, and the injured French
journalist, Edith Bouvier.
Their brief euphoria was shattered,
however, when an SRC Medic took Conroy
to one side and confessed the real plan. He
told Conroy: “At the checkpoint in Baba
Amr, they have a state television crew. The
idea is to film us being put into Red Cross
ambulances and then, when we drive out of
Homs ... We are to be executed. Our bodies
are to be put on the road and the
government would then announce that the
FSA ambushed us and murdered us.’”
With the SRC ambulances mere Trojan
horses, Conroy had no choice but to flee to
Lebanon through the storm-tunnel once
more, aided by FSA rebels. The dramatic
story of his escape is beyond even the most
vivid of Hollywood scriptwriters’
imaginations; it makes “The Shawshank
Redemption” look easy. There are times
when the situation seems so dangerous, his
health so precarious; you have to remind
yourself that he survived to write the book.
In spite of everything he’s been through,
Conroy insists that he would go back:
“I remember the night before Marie was
killed. We sat there and the shelling was
advancing and she just looked at me and
said, ‘Paul, if you weren’t being paid, would
you still be here?’ and I said ‘of course I
would’
“I think at the heart of it for everyone
that does that it, (is) the desire to tell
stories, but stories that count... we just
happen to tell the extreme stories of people
with no voice, and without that presence,
there just wouldn’t be the knowledge that
this is happening.”
From the Street News Service, a news
collaboration o f the In tern atio n al Network o f
Street Papers.
2012.
is like beating a dead horse.
D.S.: That’s a good characterization. It is
like beating a dead horse. I don’t think
there’s going to be anything new under the
sun that isn’t going to be challenged very
vigorously by the Oregon Law Center or the
ACLU. On the other hand, you’re going to
have the business community try
unsuccessfully to get something done in
Salem that would have given cities more
permissive authority. I don’t see anything
happening to really change the status quo. I
don’t want to take away from what Mayor
Hales has up his sleeve, but that s how I see
the situation.
journalist. No luck. My presence was met
with icy stares.
Suddenly, the restaurant door burst open
and there stood Marie Colvin. She cast her
head around the room and shouted to the
gathered journalists, ‘Who and where is the
boat builder?’ ... ‘I am,’ I replied meekly.
Marie strode over to my table and stuck out
her hand. ‘Marie Colvin,’ she said in her
inimitable American accent. ‘Good to finally
meet someone with some balls round here.
You like boats then, eh?”’
That night, a friendship was born that
would later see them both go through hell.
“There was something about the two of
us, it worked for us and it worked for the
paper... half of the time we didn’t even need
to speak, we’d just look at each other and
give a little nod and it was like, ‘let’s go.’”
Conroy’s first taste of battlefield
journalism was as a filmmaker in the
Balkans during the late 1990s.
Astonishingly, he describes the situation
then as comparatively ‘easy.’
“In the Balkans days, it was quite easy
really, to cross the front line, with just a
carton of cigarettes or a bottle of scotch or
the local hooch, you could generally talk
your way through the front line. You
certainly never felt that you were a target.
“Since Libya and the Arab spring,
everyone is now so media awar e... The
information game has become a really big
part of war... (in Libya) I would have never
dreamt of trying to cross through the battle
program, modeled after one in Eugene, where
homeless people would be allowed to camp in
their cars, in parking lots o f agreeing
businesses an d churches, but efforts to get it o ff
the ground fizzled. D o you think it could work
here?
D.S.: I thought it was a good idea. In
practice, it hasn’t panned out. The church in
Westmoreland had a very unfortunate set of
circumstances. Given that it worked in
Eugene, you would think that it would work
here. Others in this building were
disappointed that it seemed to unravel.
A.W.: Would you be w illing to fin d other
sites or negotiate a compromise to make it
work?
D.S.: My position right now would be that
if a faith-based organization, like a church or
another group has an idea of how they want
to do this and they approach us, that is what
I would be looking for us. Approach us do
their homework so they can go in with their
eyes wide open.
A.W.: In the past, you have been fairly
outspoken against the existence o f R ight 2
Dream Too. I f they were in fu ll compliance o f
code, would you support letting them stay
there?
D.S.: We’re still being sued by Right To
Dream Too, so I’m not supposed to
comment on that. [Editor’s Note: The City
of Portland has a policy that its employees,
including city commissioners not comment
on pending litigation]
A.W.: Northwest Pilot Project and other
organizations have been charting the decline
in availability o f low-income and affordable
housing over the last few decades. There are a
variety o f issues about costs o f construction, the
recession, m aking a project pencil out despite
subsidies, but what do you think can be done
to increase the stock again?
D.S.: We can play a big role there in
either helping construction come on line but
preserving existing buildings. The program
to make sure that we acquire buildings with
long-term Section 8 contracts has largely
been successful under Commissioner Fish’s
leadership. But there are going to be other
opportunities.
A.W.: What opportunities are you thinking
of?
D.S.: I’m thinking of opportunities to
assist in renovation or the purchase of
existing housing stock. I think we need to
be opportunistic about stepping into
purchase, and hopefully increase the
availability of affordable housing.
A.W.: With the 30-percent tax increment set
aside decreasing gradually, what other
resources or fu n d in g streams would you like to
see become available?
D.S.: TIF, while looking like it’s on a
death spiral, there are circumstances that
could change that outlook.
A.W.: L ike what?
D.S.: There is the educational urban
renewal area that has not reached its full
potential yet. There could even be the
desire of council to create an additional
urban renewal area, or two. I couldn’t tell
you where those would go at this point. But
we’ve done it in the past.