Killing of French Journalists Reverberates in France and Mali

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/07/world/europe/killing-of-french-journalists-in-mali.html

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PARIS — Diplomats, journalists and humanitarian workers gathered in Paris on Wednesday to mourn the brutal killing of two seasoned French journalists by insurgents in Mali, an episode that has raised questions about France’s plans to withdraw some of its troops from the country over the next two months.

The death of the two journalists, Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon, who worked for Radio France Internationale, reverberated in France and in Mali. Several Malian officials traveled from Bamako to attend the memorial on Wednesday at the Quai Branly Museum, which houses indigenous art from Africa, Oceania and the Americas.

In their remarks, they asked the French to understand that the insurgents who killed the two journalists had betrayed Mali’s tradition of openness to the world. They credited the French for creating national unity in Mali, and seemed to be asking for France’s continued support.

“I invite French people to understand that those who committed those odious crimes on Nov. 2, 2013, are not representative of Mali,” Tiébilé Dramé, a former Malian foreign minister, said before a sometimes tearful crowd of more than 700 people, including Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, and Aurélie Filippetti, the culture minister.

“Those odious actions have absolutely nothing to do with the history of Mali, which is a very ancient country that knows tolerance, that respects the human being and that respects women,” Mr. Dramé said.

An affiliate of Al Qaeda claimed responsibility late Tuesday for the abduction and killing of the journalists. But it was impossible to verify the claim, which was made on a jihadist website.

With about 3,000 troops in Mali, France is trying to stabilize the country after it intervened last winter to stop the advance of extremist insurgents in the north.

The two journalists were seized in Kidal, a town in the desert north, after they interviewed a leader of the Tuareg separatist movement. They were forced into a pickup truck by masked men and were later found dead a few miles outside the city.

A Western diplomat in the region, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the subject, said that while Malian authorities had arrested 35 people in connection with the case, those suspects were “pretty peripheral” to the killing.

The diplomat said that while the Malian government does not control Kidal, there are many foreign troops there, including French and Malian soldiers and United Nations peacekeeping forces, so the seizure of the journalists was audacious.

“It was an incredibly ambitious kidnapping attempt, and it went wrong,” the official said, adding that it appeared that the kidnappers became frightened of capture and then killed their hostages.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based organization concerned with journalists’ freedom and safety, a total of 42 journalists have been killed around the world so far this year.

“Even the most seasoned war correspondents, who take all the necessary precautions, can still fall victim to extremists who see political or monetary advantage in attacking journalists,” said Rob Mahoney, the deputy director of the committee.

Ms. Dupont, 51, started covering Africa in the 1980s, reporting from Djibouti and then from Ethiopia and Eritrea when those countries were at war; she later spent 10 years covering the Democratic Republic of Congo. When she and Mr. Verlon, 58, a radio technician known for resourcefulness in desolate places, were kidnapped last week, they were working on a feature about the situation in Mali as elections neared.

Ms. Dupont elicited warm tributes from the Malians she covered.

“I have lost my sister,” Mr. Dramé was quoted by Le Monde, the French daily, as saying soon after learning of the killings. “She has come to die here, in my home, in Mali, in Africa where the dead don’t die. So she will stay with us, in the desert, in the Sahel, in the steppe, the savanna, the river. You will sleep in peace, in the sleep of the just.”

<NYT_AUTHOR_ID> <p>Adam Nossiter contributed reporting from Dakar, Senegal.