Canadian film on Afghanistan

Scott Taylor (left) & Sasha Uzunov (right): filming in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2007.

Canadian film on Afghanistan

View the complete film at this link:

www.cpac.ca/forms/index.asp?dsp=template&act=view3&pagetype=vod&hl=e&clipID=4759

Canadian documentary film, "Afghanistan: outside the wire," 60 minutes long, camerawork by Scott Taylor (host/producer), David Pugliese and Sasha Uzunov.

CPAC Special
"Afghanistan: Outside the Wire"

Join respected military journalist Scott Taylor on a journey outside the protective walls of NATO bases into the heart of Taliban country.

This one-hour documentary examines how the war has affected the people of Afghanistan. It reveals efforts by Canada and its international partners to rebuild the country while dealing with political corruption. Come face-to-face with aid workers, diplomats, warlords and would-be suicide bombers in this exclusive CPAC special program.

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Created by Cable for Canadians

CPAC, the Cable Public Affairs Channel, is Canada’s only privately-owned, commercial free, not for profit, bilingual licensed television service. Created in 1992 by a consortium of cable companies to preserve an independent editorial voice for Canada’s democratic process, CPAC provides a window on Parliament, politics and public affairs in Canada and around the world. Since 1992, the cable industry has invested close to $50 million in CPAC, and today CPAC programming is delivered by cable, satellite and wireless distributors to over 10 million homes in Canada, and worldwide via 24/7 webcasting and podcasts available on this website.

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TAYLOR & PUGLIESE: THE REAL McCOY - GENUINE MEDIA TOUGH GUYS


Sasha Uzunov, an Australian cameraman/ independent film maker/ freelance journalist and former Australian soldier, talks to the New Zealand media about his involvement in an up-coming documentary film on Afghanistan, produced by award winning Canadian journalist Scott Taylor,


Money shot Quote:

Uzunov has praised Scott Taylor, the producer of “Afghanistan: outside the wire ,” and fellow cameraman on the project, David Pugliese, an award winning print journalist with Canada’s national newspaper, The Ottawa Citizen.

“Taylor and Pugliese are genuine media tough guys, there’s no pretense. They are the Real McCoy! The focus is on the story not on cheap theatrics or clichéd war reporting poses such as wearing a flak jacket and acting tough in front of camera... But unfortunately we now get celebrity style of war reporting on Australian TV screens.”



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- New Zealand Press Association (NZPA) wire story -

www.voxy.co.nz/national/aussie-cameraman-inspired-kiwi-courage/5/71620

Friday, 12 November 2010.

AUSSIE CAMERAMAN INSPIRED BY KIWI COURAGE

An Australian cameraman whose work features in an upcoming Canadian documentary film about the Afghanistan War says he drew inspiration from tenacity and bravery shown by the average New Zealander (Kiwi).

Sasha Uzunov, an independent film maker, freelance cameraman, and former Australian soldier who served in East Timor, is featured in the Canadian documentary film: “Afghanistan: outside the wire,” which will be broadcast on Canadian Cable TV news network, CPAC -the Cable Public Affairs Channel, on Sunday 20 November 2010, produced by award winning Canadian journalist Scott Taylor.

Uzunov said that New Zealand, with a small population of over 4 million, punched well above its weight on the international stage.

“Take a look at film director Peter Jackson and his conquering of Hollywood or humble bee keeper Sir Edmund Hillary conquering Mount Everest in 1953,” he said. “Recently, there was the New Zealand national soccer team, The All Whites, fighting like uncaged wild lions against the might of Italy at the 2010 World Cup.”

“I see myself in the same boat, that of underdog fighting against the odds,” Uzunov said. “Unfortunately, some sections of the Australian media do not believe that a film maker or journalist who is an ex-soldier has a democratic right to voice an opinion on defence/national security issues.”

“But that makes me more determined to get my point of view across.”

Uzunov said he cannot understand why Australia’s top war reporter John Martinkus is not being used by the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS TV) to cover that conflict.

“Martinkus is a heavy hitter who understands the Afghan war inside out and for the life of me, I can’t understand why SBS TV Dateline program isn’t using him,” Uzunov said.

“It would be like having legendary Australian leg spinner Shane Warne at his peak as 12th man and carrying the drinks during a cricket test match.”

Martinkus, a former SBS TV Dateline reporter ,is now an academic at the University of Tasmania.

Uzunov, who has worked in Iraq and Afghanistan, made his comments in response to SBS TV Dateline’s controversial story about Australian commandos and the accidental killing of Afghan civilians in a raid last year.

“In their haste to get the story out, the powers that be at Dateline were inadvertently fooled by a group of imposters claiming to be relatives of those Afghanis killed during the Australian commando raid,” Uzunov said. “Eventually the real relatives were tracked down. This is a huge mistake, something that Martinkus would’ve avoided.”

Uzunov has praised Scott Taylor, the producer of “Afghanistan: outside the wire ,” and fellow cameraman on the project, David Pugliese, an award winning print journalist with Canada’s national newspaper, The Ottawa Citizen.

“Taylor and Pugliese are genuine media tough guys, there’s no pretense. They are the Real McCoy! The focus is on the story not on cheap theatrics or clichéd war reporting poses such as wearing a flak jacket and acting tough in front of camera,” Uzunov said. “That is why Martinkus was devastatingly effective when he was on Dateline. But unfortunately we now get celebrity style of war reporting on Australian TV screens.”

Uzunov said he wanted to report on Afghanistan without military assistance.

During his two trips to that country in 2007 and 2008, he dressed in local outfits and toured the country to interview locals with fellow journalists Scott Taylor and David Pugliese from Canada.

“A lot of the reporters go embedded,” he said. “That is, they go with the military, so their movements are largely confined to what the military allows them to do.

“We decided that we had to go what they call ‘outside the wire’ and basically take a look for ourselves what was going on.”

Uzunov, an Australian of Macedonian heritage and is olive skinned with dark southern European features, was often mistaken for being an Afghan.

He said appearing like a local and showing the people from Kandahar, the heartland of the Taliban insurgency, some respect helped grant them access to locals’ stories.

“As unembedded journalists we were able to go to villages (which embedded journalists couldn’t go to),” he said.


“A trickle of fund money was being used (in these villages) to give them water, and to help them build a bakery and so on,” he said.

“But a lot of the problems aren’t being solved. There’s lots of corruption.”

Uzunov has also praised Australian reporters Paul Toohey of News Limited, ex-ABC-TV legend Chris Masters for their in depth understanding of the Afghanistan War.

He has also singled out Mark Corcoran, of ABC-TV. “Mark is the ABC’s only badge-qualified war reporter, having served in the Royal Australian Navy and later in the super-secret Defence Signals Directorate (DSD). I find it strange that the ABC don’t use him more, especially as an expert comments man as well as war reporter,” Uzunov said.

Uzunov released his first documentary film in 2009, TIMOR TOUR OF DUTY.

IRANIAN FILM MAKER DETAINED

Sasha Uzunov (left), Scott Taylor (centre) and Stefan Nitoslawski (right), Talafar, Iraq, 2005.

Nitoslawski films Taylor interviewing Iraqi Army General, Talafar, for Maziar Bahari's documentary, Targets: Reporters in Iraq. Photo by Sasha Uzunov.

IRANIAN FILM MAKER DETAINED

by Sasha Uzunov

News has come that Canadian-Iranian film maker and journalist Maziar Bahari has been detained by the Iranian authorities.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090621/national/iran_cda_journalist

"In a statement, Newsweek said that "on Sunday morning in Tehran, Newsweek's Maziar Bahari was detained without charge by Iranian authorities and has not been heard from since."

"Mr. Bahari is a Canadian citizen and a renowned journalist and filmmaker, who has been living in and covering Iran for the past decade." "

I briefly met Bahari in Turkey in 2005 as a photographer working for Canadian journalist Scott Taylor, who was held hostage in Iraq in 2004. I followed Taylor and cameraman Stefan Nitoslawski into Talafar, Iraq to retrace Taylor's steps for a documentary by Bahari .

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090621/national/iran_cda_journalist

"In fact, Bahari directed a 2005 documentary film on the effects the killing and kidnapping of journalists was having on reporting in war-torn Iraq.

"Peter Svatek, who produced the film "Targets: Reporters in Iraq" with him, described Bahari as quiet, serious and cautious.

"In the documentary, Bahari interviews people like fellow Canadian journalist Scott Taylor, who was kidnapped and held for five days by insurgents in northern Iraq."

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/print/CTVNews/20090227/unembedded_excerpt_AM_090227/20090227/?hub=CanadaAM&subhub=PrintStory

Book excerpt: 'Unembedded: Two Decades of Maverick War Reporting'
by Scott Taylor Updated: Fri. Feb. 27 2009 8:14 AM ET

Among the Mujahedeen

Sasha Uzunov had agreed to accompany me on this trip, and Stefan Nitoslawski was filming the entire venture for a cbc documentary entitled Targets: Reporters in Iraq. I had already signed a contract and begun participating in Targets before receiving the call from Dangerfield. The producers had wanted me to venture to Iraq on my own for the movie, but after two sleepless nights of anxiety at the prospect I told them I could not do it. I was prepared to travel right up to the border but not beyond it. The offer of flying in by helicopter changed all that.

Links:

http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=55198

Targets: Reporters in Iraq (2005)

SCOTT TAYLOR ON CNN'S LARRY KING

Scott Taylor (left) and Dr Yashir, local Iraqi-Turkoman leader (right). In 2005 Taylor went back to Talafar, Iraq after being held hostage in 2004 to retrace his steps for a Canadian TV documentary. Photo by Sasha Uzunov

SCOTT TAYLOR ON CNN'S LARRY KING

My colleague, Canadian journalist and war reporter Scott Taylor was speaking on CNN's Larry King show about his experiences as a hostage in Talafar, Iraq in 2004.

I went with Taylor to Iraq in 2005 when he was retracing his steps for a Canadian TV documentary.

King did a story about the 2 journalists recently held in North Korea and released after the intervention of ex-US President Bill Clinton

Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHU1KxCsfqA&feature=email

Larry king ( Freed Journalists are Reunited with their Families ) AWESOME !!! 8-5-09.
The 2 journalists Larua Ling and Euna Lee who were held hostage in North Korea for nearly 5 months were freed and now reuniting with their families. Thanks to the Obama administration, Al Gore, the state dept. and the brilliant diplomacy of former President Bill Clinton. AWESOME !! AWESOME !!! Part -- 2 of 3

(end)

Taylor's book
Douglas & McIntyre
Unembedded: Two Decades of Maverick War Reporting
By: Scott Taylor
Excerpt
from Chapter 9: Among the Mujahedeen

On June 16, 2005, I received a telephone call from Zeynep Tugrul asking me to have a look at the photograph on the front page of the International Herald Tribune. In the photograph, four Iraqi men, identified as insurgent suspects captured in the city of Tal Afar, were huddled together in the back of an American vehicle. The individual on the left of the photograph—even with B-5 scrawled on his forehead in grease pencil—was instantly recognizable as one of the mujahedeen who had beaten me during my captivity the previous September.

On the morning of June 18, I was still trying to figure out whom to provide with this information when I received a phone call from Major Gary Dangerfield of the U.S. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar, inviting me to make an “all-expenses-paid visit” back to Iraq. As a result of the regiment’s commanding officer having read my book Among the Others: Encounters with theForgotten Turkmen of Iraq, I was being asked to come and provide a briefing to the 3rd Armored Cavalry. After accepting the proposal and being assured that I would have “more fucking protection than the president,” I pointed out to Dangerfield that his regiment had arrested one of my tormentors.

Although he was aware of my having been taken hostage, Dangerfield was not aware that prisoner B-5 had been involved. As a result, B-5 was relocated and isolated from the other prisoners until I could arrive to give a 100 per cent identification and statement. True to their word, the Americans sent a Black Hawk helicopter and an Apache gunship to pick us up at the Iraq-Turkey border. Sasha Uzunov had agreed to accompany me on this trip, and Stefan Nitoslawski was filming the entire venture for a cbc documentary entitled Targets: Reporters in Iraq. I had already signed a contract and begun participating in Targets before receiving the call from Dangerfield. The producers had wanted me to venture to Iraq on my own for the movie, but after two sleepless nights of anxiety at the prospect I told them I could not do it. I was prepared to travel right up to the border but not beyond it.

... the confusion at the Iraq-Turkey border when we had shown up at the American military office and said we were expecting a helicopter pickup. The U.S. soldiers had been amused and had explained that American helicopters were not authorized to operate in this airspace. Their smugness had turned to awe when an Apache suddenly swept in over the border checkpoint, and a Black Hawk landed at a nearby soccer field. There were plenty of curious stares from the Kurdish and Turkish border guards as Sasha, Stefan and I strutted out to the Black Hawk, carrying a briefcase and camera bags.

TALK THE TALK IN THE A-STAN

Scott Taylor - Canada's number one war reporter. (above)

Chronicle Herald newspaper (Canada)

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Opinion/1118902.html

Time for our soldiers to talk the talk in Afghanistan

By SCOTT TAYLOR On Target
Mon. Apr 27 - 6:00 AM

DURING MY LAST unembedded tour in Afghanistan, I teamed up with Australian war correspondent Sasha Uzunov. Like me, Uzunov is a former soldier, and when necessary we would carry weapons for self-defence.

When operating in the volatile Kandahar region, the two of us "horajees" (foreigners), even armed with Kalashnikovs, would have been easy prey for the Taliban or criminal hostage-takers. As such, we employed a small group of Afghan security guards.

The leader of this contingent was a huge, fiercely bearded Pashtun whom we jokingly dubbed Chew Bacca due to his uncanny resemblance to the Star Wars wookie. In his workmanlike English, "Chewy" also acted as our tour guide for the Kandahar district. He would proudly point to a muddy canal and proclaim with a toothy grin, "This is the Arghandab River."

To Uzunov and me, it appeared to be a virtually dried-up irrigation ditch, but to Chewy, it was on par with the mighty Nile.

Dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, Chewy advised us that he knew why the world has come to Kandahar.

"It is because this region is so fertile," he said. Sweeping his arm to indicate a smattering of freshly planted fields, he asked, "Have you ever seen such a fertile place?"

We didn’t have the heart to tell him that his homeland is one of the most desolate and arid regions on the planet that is still considered habitable. Anyone in Canada who has seen the images in the newspaper or watched the videos on the nightly newscasts would be hard pressed to call the Afghan landscape "lush."

We realized that Chewy was illiterate and had no access to the Internet, and the only world he knew was the infertile area around Kandahar and the even more desolate desert that surrounds it.

Chewy had no idea that inside the NATO airfield, the assembled foreign soldiers have access to three massive mess halls serving four meals a day, and fast-food outlets that include Burger King, Pizza Hut and Tim Hortons — complete with Timbits and iced cappuccinos.

In Chewy’s opinion, all these troops and all their technology had descended on his home province to secure the dried apricot harvest of Kandahar.

Obviously, this example serves to illustrate the enormous cultural gap between the local Afghans and NATO forces, due to mutual ignorance. As guests — unwanted or invited, it makes no difference — it is incumbent upon us, the international community, to bridge that gap.

Our troops make extensive use of young Afghan translators. Despite the fact that we have been deploying troops to Afghanistan for seven years, we still do not have a single soldier in our battle group who is fluent in either Pashtu or Dari.

Every effort needs to be focused on training our soldiers to acquire at least a conversational level of Pashtu. In the army’s newly published doctrine on counter-insurgency operations, this communication shortcoming is noted. That’s a promising start.

Learning to speak Pashtu and being able to converse directly with the locals and comprehend all discussions at meetings with local tribal elders would enhance the operational efficiency of our battle group. Admittedly, Pashtu is not an easy language to learn, and I know that the Canadian Forces have had difficulty finding qualified instructors from among the Afghan diaspora in Canada.

But we have managed to build three gymnasiums on the airfield in Kandahar, where organized basketball leagues play, and Canadians’ pride and joy — an outdoor ball hockey rink, complete with boards and bleachers.

And plenty of time and effort has been devoted to building the recreation centre known as Canada House to provide a relaxing area for our off-duty troops to battle boredom by watching the NHL playoffs on large flat-screen televisions. There are even instructors available at Kandahar airfield to teach the twice-weekly ballroom dance classes.

While no one would suggest that our soldiers don’t deserve time to unwind while in theatre, I’m simply stating that many of these off-hours could be better spent learning the local language so that we may better understand the Afghan culture.

Given that we are scheduled to remain in Afghanistan until at least December 2011, it’s not too late to start.


( staylor@herald.ca) - http://www.espritdecorps.ca/

A JAMES BOND OTHER LIFE

ABC TV rejects FOI request for information on man who "sold the Iraq War"

On-Line Opinion - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8075&page=0
28 October, 2008

A JAMES BOND OTHER LIFE


by Sasha Uzunov


There are moves to have ex-politicians banned from sitting on the board of the ABC, in an attempt to de-politicise and maintain the independence and integrity of Australia’s public broadcaster.


But the ABC has some internal unfinished business it needs to take care of: an issue it has deliberately swept under the carpet for the past five years in the hope that the public will forget the life and death of controversial ABC TV cameraman Paul Moran.


Last year the ABC rejected a Freedom of Information request for access to the personnel file of the late Paul Moran, a cameraman accused of having links to the United States Central Intelligence Agency.


Moran, 39, was killed on March 22, 2003 by a car bomb while covering the war in Northern Iraq for ABC TV. He was an Adelaide-raised freelance cameraman who worked on and off for the ABC as well as US public relations firm Rendon, which had ties to the CIA and the Bush Administration.


Walkely Award winning Australian journalist, Mr Colin James, of the Adelaide Advertiser newspaper, was the first to break the story about Moran’s shadowy past when he attended Moran’s wake in Adelaide.


He talked to relatives who revealed that Moran had a James Bond other life.


“For a freelance cameraman, Moran sure had some incredible access to US State Department officials in Washington,” Mr James said. “How many freelancers get to play games of social tennis with US diplomats?”


Moran had worked for Rendon for over a decade in places like the Middle East and Kosovo, pushing US government spin while doing freelance work for the ABC TV as a combat cameraman.


On November 17, 2005 prominent American journalist, academic and former US Navy intelligence analyst James Bamford wrote in the influential American magazine Rolling Stone a detailed account of Moran’s work with Rendon and its link to the CIA and its selling of the Iraq War to the US public.


The controversy surrounding Moran stems from his exclusive story about an Iraqi defector who had knowledge about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction program. A Rendon colleague gave him the scoop which turned out to be false, but was a pretext for the US invasion of Iraq, according to Bamford.


The Australian cameraman also helped to set up a television station for the Iraqi National Congress (INC). The INC was established by the US as an opposition group to the Saddam Hussein regime.


In January 2003 I was hired as a photographer for Canadian war reporter Scott Taylor (http://www.espritdecorps.ca/) and we tracked down Mr Gaan Latis, who was recruited by the INC to become a member of a US trained exile army à la Bay of Pigs.


US advisors had set up a training camp at the Taszar Army base in Kaposvar, Hungary. Each new recruit was paid US$3,000. But the plan failed when there were not enough suitable candidates. We went to the army base in Kaposvar and were stopped at the front gate and were threatened with having our cameras confiscated.


I had a front page photo of the Taszar base published in Canada’s national newspaper, The Ottawa Citizen (January 24, 2003), and Esprit de Corp Magazine (February 2003) along with Taylor’s revelations of the exile Iraqi Army in training.


For five years I have been following the Moran story and attempted to gain access to information from the ABC.


Ms Joan McKain, the ABC’s FOI Coordinator, in a letter dated July 10, 2007, rejected my request for Moran’s personnel file under Section 41 (1) of the FOI Act.

The Act spells out that any documents affecting personal privacy are considered exempt if their disclosure under this Act would involve the unreasonable disclosure of personal information about any person (including a deceased person).


Instead, Ms McKain released a different document, a draft reply from then ABC TV News boss, Mr Max Uechtritz, given to ABC program Media Watch, dated April 14, 2003, about Paul Moran.


Mr Uechtritz, in his reply to ABC program Media Watch aired on April 14, 2003, wrote: “The ABC is not in the habit of following up Adelaide Advertiser stories.”


The Media Watch program had chastised the ABC and Uechtritz: “The story was followed up by some parts of the media, but not by the ABC. It should have been.” (Death in Bagdad, April 14, 2003 episode).


The irony of all this is Mr Uechtritz complained to The Age newspaper on June 30, 2003 about freedom of speech after coming under attack from the then Communications Minister, Senator Richard Alston, for alleged biased reporting by the ABC over the Iraq war.


“It is the duty of independent journalists in a robust democracy to question everything, “Mr Uechtritz wrote. “The senator seems to think the media's duty in time of war is to fall meekly into line with the government of the day.”


But it appears this does not apply to journalists scrutinising Paul Moran!


In 2006 the ABC’s then Managing Director, Mr Russell Balding, was approached and asked if he would launch an internal inquiry into the Moran allegations. Mr Shane Wells, his spokesman, said there would be no comment.


The ABC needs to shake off the public perception that it is a closed society and a law onto itself. Australia’s taxpayers need to have a national public broadcaster with no skeletons still rattling in the closet.


(end)


Other On Line Opinion articles by Sasha Uzunov

» A superpower by default? - October 13, 2008
» Is Rudd the real McCoy on defence? - September 30, 2008