Global Times: ´Reporters without Borders´ unveiled

Source: China Daily | 07-02-2008 18:10

China is stepping into the global limelight, as the upcoming 2008 Beijing Olympic Games has attracted worldwide attention, but in the meantime also attracted the political speculators as well as those with ulterior motives who attempt to vilify China for their own purposes.

'Reporters Without Borders', or Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) in French, is such an organization and has been acting as the pioneer spearheading the anti-China forces in the world in such a malicious way as involved in harassing the 2008 Olympic torch relay, imposing pressure on the International Olympic Committee, backing 'Tibet independence' segments, and trying to deter some Western leaders from attending the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games next month.

French political commentator Maksim has described the organization as a clumsy bomber equipped with a golden rotor, due to the fact that even though it cannot gain much altitude, it still can make much noise. RSF, clad in various disguises, has all along reached out to the influential and the power for attention and funding, as he remarked.

Hovering specter RSF was founded in Montpellier, France, in 1985 by its current Secretary General Robert Menard, and is now a Paris-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press.

When Robert Menard founded RSF 20 years ago, he gave the group a name which evokes another French organization respected worldwide for its humanitarian work and which maintains a strict neutrality in political conflicts -- Doctors Without Borders. But RSF, since its establishment, has been anything but non-partisan and objective in political affairs, in particular in its approach to Latin America including Cuba.

From the beginning, RSF has made Cuba its number one target. Allegedly founded to advocate freedom of the press around the world and to help journalists under attack, the organization has called Cuba 'the world's biggest prison for journalists.' It gives the country the lowest ranking on its press freedom index and has even waged campaigns aimed at discouraging Europeans from vacationing in Cuba and the European Union from doing business there, so as to damage Cuban economy.

The founder, Menard himself has been described by some French commentators as a specter hovering the French press, and his group a self-built ladder for him to climb up the social hierarchy. Within the group, Menard monopolies on the decision process, which has driven away many others, and it is said that Menard used to state, 'I like to make decisions all by myself.'

RSF issues more than 1,000 reports annually, covering many countries. That such a tiny group with at most 60 personnel could produce so large a quantity of annual reports covering such a wide range is beyond anybody's common sense, and therefore, the astonishing 'efficiency' of the group and the accuracy of its reports are both open to doubt.

It can be easily found from RSF's official website that those with 'free press' records are mostly the sponsors funding the group. RSF used to blast Taiwan for driving away reporters from the Chinese mainland, but since Menard was rewarded by the then Taiwan leader Chen Shui-bian a medal and a beautiful check of US$100,000, Taiwan has since been listed among "the world's top states and regions with press freedom."

Spearheading pioneer in anti-China forces

Among the bewildering mass of the so-called human rights organizations, RSF has been playing an instrumental role in anti-China efforts. Logging onto the group's website, one will not miss the eye-catching symbol it fabricated to demonize China and Beijing Olympic Games -- five linked black handcuffs with the caption 'Beijing Olympics'. It is evident that the group has put boycotting Beijing Olympics its top priority in the run-up to the Games.

Its despicable performance was highlighted at the Olympic flame lighting ceremony in Greece, where a RSF staff attempted to disturb the speech being delivered by a senior Beijing official by rushing to the forefront and unfolding a banner with the 'five linked handcuffs' intending to vilify China and 1.3 billion Chinese people. The poor show has been denounced in concert by the international community as a slur on Olympics and sports spirit, but it also incited the anti-China campaigns in some Western countries.

In the following days and along the route of Beijing Olympic torch relay, RSF members sowed and fueled hatred toward China and Chinese people anytime and anywhere using whatever ignoble ways they could conceive, even including delivering physical assaults to Chinese torch-bearers, as we have witnessed. On top of that, RSF has also exerted pressure on some Olympic sponsors calling for a boycott of the Beijing Games.

In November, 2007, on the eve of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's debut visit to China, RSF again put on its act imposing pressure upon Sorkozy and calling on him to "prompt China's government to improve its human rights." When the March 14 Lhasa bloody riots erupted, RSF immediately issued a statement launching a verbal attack on China, saying "we are appealing to the international authorities to express their denial to China's policies by proclaiming they have no intention to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games."

Inside operations

A book entitled Menard's Archive published in Canada gives a detailed account about the operations inside RSF. The subject interviewed in the book is a Cuban dissident reporter, who had long been used by RSF as a shooter attacking Cuban government. In return, he was awarded a lap top, a mobile phone, as well as remuneration. But when Menard asked him to describe Fidel Castro as a 'man-slaughter' in his article, the reporter declined saying in so doing, he could cause trouble to himself. Menard was, of course, unhappy with his attitude, and very soon replaced him with a new recruit.

What Menard wanted him to do, according to the Cuban reporter, was to encroach the bottom line of Cuba's law, incurring a possible arrest, which would be easily used to accuse Cuba of political persecution of its reporters by RSF.

The above is not a matter of chance because it turns out that RSF is on the payroll of the US State Department and has close ties to Helms-Burton-funded Cuban exile groups. As a majority of members of the US Congress work toward normalizing trade and travel relations with Cuba, the extremist anti-Castro groups that have dictated US Cuba policy for 40 years continue working tirelessly to maintain an economic stranglehold on Cuba. Their support for RSF is part of the overall strategy.

Jean-Guy Allard, a journalist with Granma International, wrote a book about RSF's leader Robert Menard, laying out the true pieces of the puzzle regarding Menard's activities, associations and sources of funding in an attempt to explain what he calls Menard's 'obsession' with Cuba. It is true that Menard has many big-cash sponsors in Europe and the US, in addition to the Center for a Free Cuba (CFC), as a RSF member said on condition of anonymity that RSF's US$50,000 payments from the CFC and a January grant of US$40,000 from the National Endowment for Democracy only constitute a fraction of the organization's budget.

Feeding off its sponsors, RSF has to show adequate loyalty and obedience to them and working as an agent on behalf of its sponsors' interests.

Editor:Du Xiaodan