Photojournalist and filmmaker Paul Conroy joined Channel 4 News’ international editor Lindsey Hilsum at the Frontline Club on 6 June, to give a personal account of his experiences in Syria, detailed in his new book Under the wire: Marie Colvin’s Final Assignment.

Encouraged by his friends, Conroy wrote the book as he recovered from serious injuries suffered while reporting the siege of Homs in February 2012.

“In a way I was bringing Marie [Colvin] back to life, revisiting everything…but all of the time that I was writing this, I knew there is going to come a day – one day – when I am going to have to write that chapter.”

Along with French photojournalist Remi Ochlik, Sunday Times foreign affairs correspondent Marie Colvin was killed, and French journalist Edith Bouvier was seriously injured when a make-shift media centre came under intense fire from government forces, in the rebel-controlled district of Baba Amr.

Lindsey Hilsum and Paul Conroy in conversation. Photo credit: Millicent Teasdale

Without a doubt, said Conroy, the media centre was a deliberate target. Reading an excerpt from his book, he described the room as:

“. . . the headquarters of a hunted and starving band of outlaws, bound together by their desire to survive . . . targets of a murderous regime. They were the media and this was their temporary home.”

Hilsum asked him about the role of a “camera as shield”. While fighting his way out of the city and after field surgery to his injured leg, he continued to film footage of his fellow wounded:

“I had a flip cam; all my other cameras had been blown up. I felt a bit useless . . . but I thought I might be able to get something out of what’s happened.”

He added that during the attack his laptop was demolished and few images from his camera were recovered after it was found and returned. Conroy then explained how he escaped through a secret tunnel with the help of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Commentators have subsequently expressed opinions that this help has made his views biased in favour of the rebel group. On this, Conroy said:

“Anyone who says I was a cheerleader for the FSA has got to suck it up really – they saved my life. I actually saw, because of those guys, what was happening.”

“That is why we went, that is why Marie died, that is why Remi died . . . Syrian activists who stood on rooftops and were blown to pieces . . . and everyone else who has died out there, and suffered and been maimed and wounded. There is no reason the world shouldn’t know this.”

With the death toll now estimated at 80,000 by the UN, there is little hope of a conclusive resolution anytime soon. The Syrian conflict threatens to destabilise the region further, against a backdrop of cynicism towards diplomatic efforts.

Audience members asked about the implications of a lack of international support, which may have caused more radical groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra (JAN) to gain power. It is a reflection of how much the situation has changed since his time in Baba Amr, Conroy said, when the lone “jihadist” who showed up was kidnapped and escorted to Lebanon by the FSA.

Now, JAN has become a “definite presence” in the country:

“The Jihadists are a powerful fighting force and if you look at the situation, for years now Syrians have sat there and nobody has lifted a finger.”

Conroy has worked in combat zones around the world – the Balkans, Iraq, Congo, Rwanda, Libya and Syria – as well as spending seven years with the Royal Artillery as a soldier. His friendship with Marie Colvin goes back to 2003, when he made an ill-fated attempt to raft himself into Iraq to cover the final assault on Baghdad. Colvin, well known for not working well with photographers, was rather impressed by his efforts and the two struck up a friendship over their shared loves of sailing and whiskey. The two worked together in Libya in 2011 before being paired to cover Homs.

In spite of this adventurous background and the risks he has taken, one of his most serious injuries came a little over a month ago in Exeter. When walking down the High Street he was hit with a projectile after walking away from an altercation with a man. He now has a titanium plate holding up part of his face.

Hilsum told the audience she was shocked at the time to get a message saying he might lose an eye.

Conroy said: “I could not honestly have worn a patch could I?”

On the same day as this event, the Frontline Club published its white paper, Newsgathering Safety and the Welfare of Freelancers.

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/newsreview/features/article1267580.ece

You can watch the event or listen to the podcast below:

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/in-conversation-with-paul

“I would be more pessimistic if I had to rewrite the last sentences,” said Christophe Ayad, co-director of Syria: Assad’s Twilight. The documentary finished where it began – with Bashar al-Assad’s brutality unleashed upon his own people, captured only on shaking mobile phones – but with a feeling of optimism that the regime’s days are numbered and its power is waning.

But things have changed since Christophe Ayad and Vincent De Cointet finished filming in June 2011. There is no longer any certainty that the Assad regime will have to go. On the same day as the UK premiere of their documentary, Kofi Annan told the UN Security Council that the Syrian government had agreed to withdraw forces from towns and cities.

The film takes us back to the beginning of the Assad regime in 1971, to Hafez’s establishment of a single-party state that ruled with an iron fist, to his longstanding conflict with Israel, and his entrenched involvement in Lebanese politics. Little changed in 2000, when Bashar came to power after his father’s death. In particular, neither man could tolerate opposition.

We see parallels between father and son in the only surviving evidence of the 1982 Hama massacre – four weeks of mass murder, rape, and torture – a series of faded photographs of destroyed buildings, looking then like the Homs district of Baba Amr does today.

After the screening, Patrick Seale, author and Middle East expert featuring in the documentary, joined Ayad on stage for the Q&A.

Ayad was asked to expand upon his pessimism. He said: “The peaceful demonstrations were totally new to the regime, but the moment the demonstrators took up weapons they entered a game that the regime knows how to play.”

Seale described the mounting layers of Syria’s problems: “Unemployment, drought, a demographic explosion and an education system and government services over-burdened . . . coupled with the mindset of Bashar – he has faced a series of external conspiracies which have threatened the regime.”

Ayad agreed, but said: “The external problems can be changed, solved, but I’m pessimistic about the regime’s capacity to reform in its approach to its own people. The regime does not consider them as citizens – they are just there to shut up. Syria has lost its people, but you can run a country without your people.”

“After 2005, Bashar felt that he had overcome something and that he didn’t have to listen anymore. Even Hafez was more political – for example, he sided with the US against Iraq during the Gulf War – but Bashar is not political. He’s a mix of Western idealism and Eastern autocracy.” – Christophe Ayad

Ayad is no longer certain that we are witnessing the Assads’ twilight because Syria has various assets that prolong its grip on power: agricultural wealth and the support of two substantial powers – Russia and Iran. It also maintains control of a strong security apparatus which, until now, has not fallen apart. But what remains of Bashar’s capacity to rule?