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February 23rd, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
The deaths of the two journalists prompted an international outcry. William
Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said governments around the world had to “redouble
our efforts to stop the Assad regime’s despicable campaign of terror”,
while Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, said: “Enough is enough.
This regime must go.”
Last
night, Britain summoned the Syrian ambassador, Dr Sami Khiyami, to the
Foreign Office to lodge a protest over the deaths.
Its political director Sir Geoffrey Adams expressed the Government’s
“horror” at the continued violence and demanded Syria’s co-operation in
repatriating the bodies.
The EU described the killings as “crimes” in a statement, while French foreign
minister Alain Juppe said Paris was holding the Syrian government
responsible. The White House offered its condolences.
Colvin in the mountains of Chechnya in 1999
Hours before she died, Colvin had given interviews
to several broadcasters including the BBC, Channel 4 and CNN in which she
described the bloodshed as “absolutely sickening”.
She also accused Mr Assad’s forces of “murder” and said it was “a
complete and utter lie that they are only targeting terrorists…the Syrian
army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians”.
Sources in Damascus confirmed that Syrians, including Mr Assad, would have
been able to watch Colvin’s broadcasts – a fact that could have sealed her
fate.
Jean-Pierre Perrin, a journalist for the Paris-based Liberation
newspaper who was with Colvin in Homs last week, said they had been told the
Syrian Army was deliberately going to shell their media centre, which had a
limited electricity supply and internet access thanks to a generator.
Mr Perrin said: “A few days ago we were advised to leave the city
urgently and we were told ‘if they [the Syrian army] find you they will kill
you’.
“I then left the city with [Colvin] but she wanted to go back when she
saw that the major offensive had not yet taken place.”
Mr Perrin, who went to Beirut from Homs, said the Syrians were “fully
aware” that the press centre was broadcasting direct evidence of crimes
against humanity, including the murdering of women and children. He said: “The
Syrian army issued orders to ‘kill any journalist that set foot on Syrian
soil’.”
Colvin with Libyan rebels in Misurata in 2011
In Beirut, he was told about the intercepted radio traffic and said it was
clear that Mr Assad’s forces knew that there would be “no more
information coming out of Homs” if they destroyed the press centre. A
video posted on YouTube by opposition fighters purported to show the
aftermath of the attack, with two unidentified bodies lying in a pile of
rubble.
Reporters working in Homs, which
has been under siege since Feb 4, had become concerned in recent
days that Syrian forces had “locked on” to their satellite phone
signals and attacked the buildings from which they were coming.
Abu Abdu al-Homsi, an opposition activist, said the Syrian army had cut phone
lines into the city and was bombing any buildings where they detected mobile
phone signals.
Two other Western journalists, the British photographer Paul Conroy, who was
on an assignment with Colvin, and the French reporter Edith Bouvier were
wounded in the attack.
Activists said Bouvier is at risk of bleeding to death if medical aid cannot
reach her. She was being treated at a poorly-equipped field hospital in
Homs’ besieged district of Baba Amro.
“There is a high risk she will bleed to death without urgent medical
attention,” said a member of the global advocacy group Avaaz, which has been
working with journalists and activists inside Syria.
A man stands before a bombed oil pipeline in Homs, the besieged city
where Colvin died
“We are desperately trying to get her out, doing all we can in extremely
perilous circumstances.”
Colvin, who had worn a black eye patch since losing an eye to a shrapnel wound
while working in Sri Lanka in 2001, was the only journalist from a British
newspaper in Homs.
Her editor, John Witherow, spoke of his “great shock” at her death,
describing her as “an extraordinary figure in the life of the Sunday
Times” who would be “sorely missed”.
He said she “believed profoundly that reporting could curtail the
excesses of brutal regimes and make the international community take notice”.
Colvin’s
mother Rosemarie said her daughter had been due to leave Syria yesterday
after the Sunday Times ordered her to leave because it was so dangerous.
“She had to stay. She wanted to finish one more story,” she said. “Her
legacy is: Be passionate and be involved in what you believe in. And do it
as thoroughly and honestly and fearlessly as you can.”
Rupert Murdoch, who owns the Sunday Times, described Colvin as “one
of the most outstanding foreign correspondents of her generation” with
a “determination that the misdeeds of tyrants and the suffering of the
victims did not go unreported”.
David Cameron said her death was “a desperately sad reminder of the risks
that journalists take to inform the world of what is happening and the
dreadful events in Syria”. Ed Miliband described her as “an
inspiration to women in her profession” and Mr Hague said Colvin was “utterly
dedicated to her work, admired by all of us who encountered her, and
respected and revered by her peers”.
The White House offered its condolences over the deaths of the two
journalists, saying its “thoughts and prayers” were with their relatives.
Colvin with the Duchess of Cornwall in 2010
“These tragic deaths… are a reminder of the incredible risks” that reporters
take in war zones, said White House spokesman Jay Carney, adding “our
thoughts and prayers” are with the victims’ families.
Colvin, who was from New York but lived in London, was married three times but
never had children. She had worked for the Sunday Times for 20 years
and twice won the British Press Award for Foreign Correspondent of the Year.
In a report published in the Sunday Times over the weekend, Colvin
spoke of the citizens of Homs “waiting for a massacre”. She wrote: “The
scale of human tragedy in the city is immense. The inhabitants are living in
terror. Almost every family seems to have suffered the death or injury of a
loved one.”
In 2010, Colvin
spoke about the dangers of reporting on war zones at a Fleet Street
ceremony honouring fallen journalists, at which she was introduced to the
Duchess of Cornwall.
She said: “We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is
worth the story. What is bravery, and what is bravado? Journalists covering
combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes
they pay the ultimate price.”
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