On my long transatlantic flight this week, I managed to catch up on a movie I’d been meaning to see for some time. It usually takes flying to force me to commit to watching anything on the screen for more than 20 minutes. So between a couple short naps I finally watched Transformers 2. Though the movie was lame, I’d been reminded of how much I loved the Transformers as a kid. I grew up wanting to be an evil Decepticon who wreaked havoc on humankind. (Just seemed more fun than to be a friendly Autobot.)
So I guess it was my childhood fascination with cartoon robots that fueled my interest in the idea of a robot takeover of Japan. And while that is far from being an even exaggerated reality, we’re surely seeing a growing number of them pop up in Japan. For a number of reasons Japan’s population is in decline: xenophobia, women are choosing to pursue careers and saying no to marriage, the Japanese aren’t having sex (no explanation).
And so, robots seem to be the solution — in a very odd Japanese way — to the shrinking workforce that’s threatening Japan’s economic vitality.
Since I did my story in Japan there’s been a slew of new robots, including a robot fashion model, scary horror movie child robots, jumping robots, even a sex robot (you can google that one on your own). How these robots –except perhaps the last one — address population decline, I’m not sure. But they’re fun distractions I suppose. Perhaps they’re not alone, though…because now, we’re starting to see robots invade other nations. This just might be the oddest one yet. Enter the shopping mall robot guide in the UAE.
Adam Yamaguchi and I are making a presentation next week to a group of public information officers for large institutions on the topic of why Vanguard is great and worth co-operating with. Which, as we prepare for it, forces us to confront the question: Are we?
One of our ambitions for being in the Vanguard is to tell you about important stuff that you ideally didn’t know too much about, if at all. Think of the new episodes that we’ve put up this season, and the worlds that Mariana and Adam and Adrian have entered to show you things that you should know. We sometimes like to think of ourselves as sometimes serving as an early warning for issues that later will become prominent—hence our name. But for you to heed what we’re telling you, you have to trust that we know what we’re talking about, that we’re not exaggerating, or misunderstanding, or misrepresenting the situation at hand.
Why should you trust us?
The same question pervades what we do in producing Vanguard. A lot of what we do behind the scenes involves talking with various individuals and institutions and asking them to cooperate for free with us in putting together one of our documentaries. Imagine that you’re minding your own business and I call you up, say my name and the name of this network, name some subject or another that I’m researching, and launch into a series of questions. If I were calling on behalf of some more recognizable entity—such as MTV or the Newshour on PBS, which I have—it still requires a leap of faith for you to engage me. What if I’m lying? I could be: 1) a prankster; 2) an identity thief; 3) a salesperson; or 4) a nut. When you add to that dynamic the fact that I work for a new series, Vanguard, on a new network, Current, that average person might not yet know about, then it’s even more amazing how the vast majority of people respond cooperatively. Sometimes I’m overwhelmed by how nice people can be and feel like blurting out into the phone: “Thank you sir/madam for not hanging up on me!” But that would probably make the person on the other end of the line suddenly wonder if I was 4) a nut.
Anyway, what we hope persuades the subjects who agree to help with or be in our documentaries, is the same thing that persuades you to trust our work when you watch it: As much as possible, we approach our stories without a particular angle. We’re not trying to prove a particular point, we’re trying to illuminate a situation so that you can make your own mind up about it. If, for example, Laura makes a Vanguard documentary in which there are both cops and criminals, which she has, then we like to think that she could show the result to both an audience or cops and an audience of criminals, and both groups would feel fairly represented. Ideally, if you cooperate with us when we’re shooting a story, we portray you as you are, without us filtering the information or telling the viewer how to feel about it. And similarly, if you watch one of Vanguard’s documentaries, you shouldn’t get the feeling that we’re manipulating you to react in a particular way. The human spirit rebels when it senses that it is being pressured to abandon independent judgment. Oscar Wilde put it most famously: “It would take a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.” Three quarters of a century later, Andy Warhol used a more laconic version of the same thought: “But that’s what I like about it.” We try our best to bring you compelling stories with important information. We leave it up to you how to react. And we like to think that this makes us trustworthy.
The first time I visited Sri Lanka was in 2001. I was working as a correspondent for a travel show in Portugal, my home country, and had three days to tour around this small Island nation and put together a 5-minute piece about the wonderful sights and scenery.
Before traveling there, I was handed a folder with all the hotels I’d be staying at and monuments I’d be visiting. But what really caught my attention was a little footnote with an intriguing name – the Tamil Tigers. Having majored in International Relations in Lisbon, I had heard about the group and knew they’d been waging a war against the Sri Lankan government since the early 80’s to establish an independent state for the country’s Tamil minority. But that was pretty much it. So instead of leafing through travel brochures and pictures of resort pools and marble lobbies, I spent much of my research learning more about the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, better know as the Tamil Tigers. And what I found out was fascinating.
Here are some facts about the group that if you didn’t know are bound to leave you amazed too:
1. They were the only non-state organization with its own army, air force and navy.
2. They were early pioneers in the use of suicide bombings as a tactic, creating a commando unit called “the Black Tigers” just for this purpose.
3. They invented the suicide vest, and conducted more suicide attacks than Hamas and Hezbollah combined.
4. They were the first group to use women in suicide attacks.
6. They were notorious for their recruitment of child soldiers.
Pretty good resume, right? So, as soon as I set foot in the country it became apparent to my cameraman and our driver that I was far more interested in hearing about the powerful Tigers than I was about the pristine beaches or the ancient temples. But since I was a travel reporter, I was steered as far away as possible from any sign of the war and instead was whisked around from tour site to tour site, asking questions such as, “Is this your idea of paradise?” to honeymooning couples who were having a relaxing day at the beach, at least until I came along.
But earlier this year I finally got to pursue the itinerary I was really interested in, when I returned to Sri Lanka to witness a historic moment: The defeat of the Tamil Tigers and with that the end of Asia’s longest-running civil war. In “Sri Lanka: Notes from a War on Terror”, which airs tonight at 10pm EST/PST we look at what led to the downfall of one of the most powerful militant groups the world has ever known, and what lessons, if any, can be learned from the Sri Lankan government’s War on Terror.
Ongoing trials are taking place in Chongqing, a megacity located in Sichuan, a province in western China. Xie Caiping, aka ”The Godmother”, was the ringleader in an extensive organized crime network that ran 20 illegal gambling halls, all protected by the police. (Chongqing’ deputy police chief, who happened to be Xie’s brother-in-law, reportedly bought a $4.4 million villa from bribes.) The investigation has been going on since last year and over 1,500 suspects—from gangsters to high-ranking officers—have been rounded up. This AP article notes: “Intended to display the Chinese leadership’s renewed resolve to stamp out corruption, the Chongqing campaign has instead highlighted how entrenched criminal gangs have become through China.”
Back in 2007, Adam Yamaguchi and I travelled to Chongqing and profiled people from different walks of life in this megacity on the rise. We visited a city in transition between the old and the new. The old could be very picturesque—smoky, crumbling old teahouses where old men played checkers and card games, freelance porters known as “bang bang” men stooped under the heavy load they toted on their backs, peasants eking out a meager existence on the few remaining plots of land within city limits that hadn’t yet been seized by greedy developers.
We also couldn’t help but be confronted by the new look of Chongqing—as revealed to us by young Chinese yuppies who had filled their new apartment with IKEA-esque knock offs, the real estate developer super-confident he’d be able to sell thousands of apartment units before they were even built and the homegrown auto company that aspired to be China’s answer to BMW. Even the “bang bang” man who we profiled was no longer carrying loads across his back using a traditional, old-fashioned bamboo stick. Instead he was valiantly carrying gigantic sacks, filled with Western-style garments, for a department story catering to China’s rising middle class. It was clear that the new Chongqing was quickly replacing the old Chongqing and most residents seemed, on the surface, happy about it, as long as everyone’s lives were getting better (read: richer) by the day. So what if all the construction dust and power plant pollution made the air seem as thick as pea soup?
Instead, the central government periodically goes after provincial and city officials in cases like this one. It’s happened time and again in many of the megacities on China’s East Coast. Now it’s Chongqing’s turn. The scandals are covered breathlessly by the state-run media. Scapegoats are found. Colorful characters like “The Godmother” and their extravagant lifestyles are trotted out for show trials that rivet the population at large. All this, of course, deflects from examination of the deeper underlying problems in China’s hybrid, Communist-yet-Capitalist system.
In the past three decades as China’s economy has undergone its stratospheric rise, organized crime has re-emerged, like any other well-run business enterprises. And with the reform of China’s tax code in which local governments had to send their revenue to Beijing, local government officials like the ones in Sichuan, became all too susceptible to shady dealing making with organized crime groups .
“The Godmother” has been sentenced to 18 years and some of her cohorts have even gotten death sentences. But in a country as vastly populated as China, this measure is kind of like cutting one head off a hydra-headed monster. You can bet this web of businessmen, mobsters and officials isn’t unique to Chongqing. And until the central government is willing to undergo the difficult, systemic reform to get at the root causes of corruption, organized crime will keep on gathering economic and political strength.
Yesterday my colleague Darren wrote about how the world is becoming increasingly dangerous for journalists. While the recent high profile events that Darren mentioned (Roxana Saberi, Laura Ling) have put a spotlight on the perils of journalism, there is an interesting corollary trend that has largely escaped mainstream attention. Slowly but steadily the world is becoming a more dangerous place for humanitarian organizations.
Non-profits, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), aid agencies all used to be afforded a larger degree of protection in the countries and conflicts in which they operated. It’s difficult to define when the trend started occurring, but there has been a rapid escalation in the last two decades of violence against aid organizations. Perhaps the most notable example is the withdrawal of Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF, or known commonly as Doctors Without Borders in the US) from Afghanistan in 2004. Doctors Without Borders had been providing medical services in Afghanistan since 1980. They fearlessly worked throughout the bloody confrontation with the Soviets, the brutal civil war that followed, and the repressive regime of the Taliban in the 1990s. But, after 24 years of operating in one of the most difficult places on earth, coupled with an incident in which five of their staff members were killed, MSF decided that it was too dangerous to operate in the country. This left a major void and a population without access to basic medical treatment at a time it was desperately needed.
Similarly, last year in Somalia, MSF was forced to halt all operations and withdraw 87 staff members after three of its people were killed in a roadside bomb. This was on the heels of an incident in which two staff members were kidnapped. I was in Somalia in 2006 and could see the rampant escalation of violence against what used to be perceived as neutral actors. When I was in Mogadishu, the UN had pulled out all international staff, using only local Somalis as proxies to conduct their activities.
These are but a few examples. The general trend line is that more and more aid organizations are being targeted in conflict zones. The humanitarian space is rapidly shrinking. Even in places where NGOs can still operate, they have to devote a larger and larger portion of their resources to security, thereby diminishing the care they are able to give to the local population, which in turn makes them perceived less as allies and more as foreigners, which makes the aid organizations more vulnerable. It’s a vicious cycle.
Its reasonable to ask why the humanitarian space is rapidly disintegrating. There is a combination of factors. One component is that in both Iraq and Afghanistan the insurgency style conflict has blurred the lines between combatant and non-combatant. This has had spill-over effect to the NGO community. The UN peacekeeping branding has lost some of its perception as a strict peacekeeping force as well. Blue Helmets with .50 cals don’t exactly scream peace, and it is likely that the NGO community as a whole has been impacted by the changing perception of the UN. Finally there is a more worrisome reason that has been whispered about in the aid community. It has been suggested that the military itself is blurring the line between military action and humanitarian action. In an effort to win hearts and minds, the military is engaging in many of the same types of missions that have traditionally been the domain of humanitarian organizations. Detractors say that when the missions are the same, it makes it less important for combatants to distinguish between the motivations of different organizations. For example when I was in Afghanistan in 2005, I was embedded with the US military when they went on a mission called a MedCap. The purpose was to provide medical care in rural Afghanistan. Some in the humanitarian world claim this is exactly the kind of thing that pollutes the line between aid and military action, and puts providers at risk.
The military disagrees with this analysis and believes it is critical to their efforts to engender good will among the civilian populace. Its difficult to know the answer, but it is troubling that an organization like MSF which survived the Russians, a Civil War, and the Taliban in Afghanistan, couldn’t survive the American occupation.
What is clear though is that what (and who) were once considered safe in some of the most difficult areas in the world are no longer so. Aid workers joke with the gallows style humor that the famous red cross plus sign, used to act a bullet proof vest. A vehicle emblazoned with it on the side could drive through the middle of a fire fight and the shooting would stop. Now its considered a bulls-eye.
Whatever the reasons, the shrinking humanitarian space is a reality with fairly severe consequences. In many places organizations like MSF are the only people operating there. Without them, the populations, become less healthy, more impoverished, and increasingly isolated from the outside world; exactly the root conditions that make them ripe to become conflict zones in the first place.
There’s a lot of soul searching going on in the field of journalism these days. It’s been a tough year. And I don’t just mean for the declining newspaper industry.
It’s a little early to be doing end-of-year accounting, but it relates to Vanguard’s story this week, so bear with me.
Looking back, 2009 was a year that saw perhaps more high profile cases of journalists in jeopardy than in a long while: freelance reporter Roxana Saberi, New York Times reporters David Rohde and Stephen Farrell, Newsweek’s Maziar Bahari and of course our colleagues Laura Ling and Euna Lee, just to name a few.
Reporting, especially in conflict zones and repressive environments, has always been and will always be a risky endeavor. Our president of programming likes to quote “The Godfather” when we talk here about the risks that reporters often assume: “This is the business that we have chosen.”
And while it’s true that many of us often choose to parachute in and out of risky places in order to tell stories that we believe need to be told, there is also the understanding that we have a safe place to retreat when things get too dodgy.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case for local reporters.
While reporting this week’s episode of Vanguard, “Sri Lanka: Notes from A War on Terror”, Mariana van Zeller and I encountered one of the toughest media crackdowns we’ve ever experienced. Like all independent reporters, we were shut out of the war zone, refused entry into hospitals where the sick and wounded were being taken, and banned from refugee camps. But worst of all, in Sri Lanka’s War on Terror the government had drawn an eerily familiar line: “You’re either with us or against us in the fight against terror.” And few people felt comfortable speaking openly or challenging the government’s prosecution of the war out of fear that they would be labeled a traitor or worse, a supporter of terrorism.
Much of the risk reporters take on is when trying to navigate around the barriers that are put up to block them from getting information, information that is often vital to drawing a true picture of events. Needless to say, Sri Lanka’s media crackdown was frustrating for us. But the struggles we faced were put into perspective when we visited the office of The Sunday Leader newspaper. There we found the empty office of Lasantha Wickramatunge, a prominent Sri Lankan journalist and editor of the Sunday Leader. Lasantha was a dogged reporter who spent his career exposing corruption and misdeeds in government. He was also a vocal critic of Sri Lanka’s War on Terror. It was a stance that would cost him his life.
In January, just months before the war officially came to an end, Lasantha was shot in the head and killed by unknown gunmen while on his way to work. But knowing that he was a target, just days before he was killed, Lasantha wrote an editorial that on his instructions was only to be published upon his death.
“When finally I am killed,” he wrote. “It will be the government that kills me.“
Lasantha’s letter from the grave received worldwide attention. But he was not alone. According to Amnesty International, at least 14 Sri Lankan journalists and media workers have been killed since 2006. And many others have been assaulted, arrested or fled the country. Unfortunately, Sri Lanka is also not alone. All over the world, there are journalists who daily suffer repression and intimidation, risk imprisonment and sometimes their lives in pursuit of truth.
This is the business we have chosen.
***
Within the journalism community there is a healthy debate now taking place about how we can better look after ourselves and members of our community, and still cover important stories. A few weeks ago, Mariana van Zeller and I were invited to New York by PBS’s FRONTLINE/World to participate in a small gathering of journalists and media representatives to discuss the challenges of covering conflicts and working in repressive environments.
The participants ranged from New York Times reporters to freelancers, established media organizations to fairly new upstarts like ourselves.
The idea is to eventually create a resource for journalists of all stripes when it comes to covering difficult stories. For more info go here.
Every now and then, something that seemed impossible to achieve, comes to pass. But we don’t always notice and say, “Holy Shit!” That’s because we live in an age where an over-abundance of trivial information is coupled with a rapid pace of change. Often, when we learn about a new occurrence, it’s difficult to think back even a few years and remember why it’s significant.
That’s the case with the subject of this week’s Vanguard doc, Mariana van Zeller and Darren Foster’s Sri Lanka: Notes from A War on Terror. Which is one of the reasons why it’s so cool.
Without spoiling the suspense in Wednesday’s episode, in it Mariana and Darren look at the recent demise of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam, the LTTE, one of the nastiest and most formidable insurgent/terror organizations in the world. With the US facing escalating violence in Afghanistan, they’re telling an important and engrossing story with big implications.
But besides plugging their episode, what I want to do here is vouch as to how nasty—and seemingly impossible to defeat—the Tigers really were.
In April of 2000, when the Tigers had a huge offensive going, Laura Ling, Gotham Chopra and I went to Sri Lanka, after Laura succeeded in getting us journalist visas in two days of trying, after I tried for a year and a half and failed. We arrived in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, and found out that in order to get past the military checkpoints to head to the conflict zone, we needed a Road Permit, which we didn’t have. It took Laura a few days of negotiating with the Minister of Defense to get us the permit, and meanwhile we looked around Colombo a bit—what struck us was how common large suicide bombings by Tigers were. Our hotel had been bombed, and many public places had huge doves painted on the pavement—a sign that there had been a bombing. Hundreds of people had been killed in the city in the previous couple of years.
Outside the capital, fighting between the Tigers and the Sri Lankan government continued to intensify. The week prior to our visit the Tigers had staged an amphibious landing at Elephant Pass and over-run a large Sri Lankan military base. The guys at the US Embassy in Colombo told us: “There are only two groups in the world that could stage an amphibious landing of that size—the US Marine Corps, and the Tamil Tigers.” The city seemed to live on edge.
Laura finally got us our road permit, and we drove out to the east, where the government controlled the main highway via a series of fire bases built along it—until night fell, and then the Tigers controlled the highway, along everything else off the highway which they controlled during daylight also. En route to a safe hotel run by a Tiger sympathizer, the sun set on us, and we had a pretty intense few hours driving the highway in the dark, afraid the soldiers in the fire bases we were passing would mistake us for Tigers and shoot, while the Tigers would mistake our van for a military vehicle and shoot.
The second day, we reached the end of where the government controlled the highway. There was a military base, and a barrier, like a train crossing, leading to Tamil Tiger country. Laura got on the phone with her friend the Minister of Defense back in Colombo, the soldiers raised the gate and we headed into Tiger Territory driving a steady 40 km per hour and honking our horn every 100 meters as a sign to the Tigers not to fire on us. Finally, some Tigers flagged us down, took us to a nearby command post. For such dread folks, they seemed very soft spoken and placid. They served us ice cold Coke—it was hot—and then showed us the cyanide capsules around their necks—they all wore them so they could commit suicide if captured. Then they gave us a tour of the area. We met a couple 16 and 17-year old girl Tigers who’d already had several years of combat experience. They were also placid, but now it began to seem spooky. Not surprisingly the Tigers were big into a culture of martyrdom. They showed us a lot of monuments to dead leaders, and a cemetery with 1000 fresh Tiger graves. They offered to let us stay to the night and go with them to fire mortars at a Sri Lankan military base, but we decided to head back.
My conclusion back then: What a nightmare. So when Laura and I heard early this year that the Tigers might be close to being defeated, we found it astonishing. And then Mariana and Darren went over to check out this important but underappreciated development. And the result is not only fascinating, but important. Check it out Wednesday.
The biggest drug bust in the history of the state of Kentucky took place last week. Aptly named “Operation Flamingo Road,” it was the culmination of a three-year, multi-agency investigation into the bustling “pill pipeline” that stretches from the pain clinics of South Florida to the hills of Kentucky. More than 500 arrest warrants were issued and so far more than 300 people across 34 counties were snared in this sprawling roundup.
A tsunami of pills from Florida is flooding Appalachia but so far it is unclear if any out of state doctors have been charged in this investigation. As Darren, Mariana and I learned shooting The OxyContin Express, it’s much easier for law enforcement to go after addicts and street level dealers than the doctors who prescribe the pills. We had difficulty getting to the doctors too. Mariana endured multiple hang-ups when she called for an interview and none of them would speak to us on camera. We were chased from a clinic within a matter of seconds of attempting to film from across the street.
Producing a story under these circumstance means you sometimes have to get a creative with how you film and report it. In addition to the hidden pen camera, there’s Craigslist. The website is often a useful tool when it comes to finding characters but here it provides a window into the economics behind the pain clinic boom underway in South Florida.
An Ad from Craigslist
It’s hard to believe that most doctors employed by these clinics are making half a million dollars a year for working two days a week, but with the volume of patients seen and the number of pills sold, it’s safe to say that many clinics are flush with cash. A busy clinic can handle up to 60 patients a day, each of whom pays an average of $500 per visit, making Florida’s pain clinics, which don’t accept insurance, cash-only cash cows.
Many states don’t allow doctors to dispense the drugs they prescribe, except in small amounts or in emergency situations, because it creates a medical and financial conflict of interest. But in Florida, where doctors prescribe oxycodone at a rate that is five times higher than the national average, this is legal. Most clinics are equipped with in-house pharmacies and are able to dispense medication onsite, which is why many of the job posts on Craigslist, like this one, are for doctors who have or can obtain a dispensing license.
An Ad From Craigslist
This ad is also interesting because of what it doesn’t mention as a requirement, namely experience in pain management. One former addict we interviewed in Florida said he is the only guy he knows that has been to a gynecologist. This doctor happened to be the physician he saw at a pain management clinic at the height of his addiction. We were also told that clinics often bring a doctor with a DEA number out of retirement to work at a clinic part time, which might explain why many of the ads on Craigslist use the work-to-compensation ratio to attract MDs:
An Ad From Craigslist
Florida is home to the top 50 dispensing physicians of oxycodone in the country and in the last half of 2008 the state’s dispensing doctors prescribed 85% of all the oxycodone distributed by physicians nationwide, primarily through pain management clinics in South Florida.
The number of clinics in the southern part of the Sunshine state more than tripled in 2008 and in Broward County alone there are over 100 “pill mills” operating out of strip malls, former travel agencies and even the occasional refurbished fast-food restaurant.
If you’re not a doctor, you can still get in on the boom because you don’t have to be a physician to own a clinic. A clinic in Palm Beach County is going for $120k and can be fully staffed and operational in three months. Serious inquires only though and you better act fast. I just called the number listed in the ad and I was told that an offer has been made.
With the launch of our season, we’ve given a number of presentations and have received a lot of questions from our viewers about how this “Vanguard” thing works. So today, I thought that I would address some of the most common questions.
Q: How many people go out on a story and which cameras/equipment do you use?
We usually go out in teams of two. A correspondent/producer and a producer/cameraperson. We’re a small team here at Vanguard, so most of us know how to do a little bit of everything — shoot, produce, edit, and make coffee. It’s all very DIY and roles often overlap.
The equipment we use all fits into a backpack. Our “big” camera is the Sony V1U, which is still really small by comparison. We also use the A1U as a second camera and sometimes as the primary camera in sensitive areas. We’re actually exploring some new options as well.
Having a small footprint is definitely part of our ethos. We don’t want to overwhelm people with our presence. The more it feels like we’re a film crew, the more things are going to feel staged. We really want to capture things in as authentic a way as possible.
Q: Do you already have an idea of what your piece is going to look like before you go out on the field? Read the rest of this entry »
The number of people charged, while eye-opening, still doesn’t show the true extent of the problem, said Kevin Payne, head of the state police drug-enforcement unit for Eastern Kentucky.
State police have information on 1,700 other people going out of the state to get pill prescriptions, Payne said.
“It tells me that this is a huge, huge problem,” he said.
We’re trying to get Greenup County Sheriff Keith Cooper, who was featured in “The OxyContin Express”, on the phone. According to the story at least 9 warrants were served in Greenup alone.
