
Spring 2002
	Story Index A table of contents to all of this issue's stories
	Archive Past issues of the communigator
	Contact us Tell us what you're doing
	communigator staff
	College of Journalism and Communications

In December 2001, the communigator sent letters to 150 alumni of the College who are living abroad, asking them to share what they were doing. In these pages, we’ll share their responses with you.

Stephen Shaver photographs demonstrations in Pakistan

The tragic events of Sept. 11 and the subsequent worldwide “War on Terrorism” have brought international ties into sharper focus. Several alumni of the College, working as print and broadcast journalists, military officers and even as attorneys, have been touched directly by the war.

		AFP photos by Stephen Shaver (top to bottom): Riot policeman on guard near Muslim mosque. Young Pakistani boy walks by riot police. Pakistani yells anti-US slogans amid a call for Jihad.

Stephen Shaver, JM 1993, a photojournalist with Agence France-Presse (AFP), has seen the violence personally. He is based in Bangkok, Thailand, but has covered the U.S.-led military attacks on Osama bin Laden’s terrorist networks in Afghanistan from neighboring Pakistan.

In October, he wrote, “I am having a wild, somewhat nervous, if not weird scary time in Pakistan, moving around the country and covering some fairly intense anti-West protests.”

At that time he was “taking refuge in the Karachi Marriott, which has gun-toting soldiers in the lobby, very cool, in an HBO kinda way,” he said.

He reported that he was “chased by several pro-Taliban Islamic fundamentalists … in an extreme sober rage. Tempers and emotions are running a bit warm here… Worked in Islamabad for a few days, shooting (“photographing”) Muslims praying and protesting, exploring the city and trying to keep my head down!”

Later he was at “another protest of 5,000 militant Islamic Pakistanis screaming ‘jehad’ …it was now their absolute duty to kill every American they see … and I was the only white human for miles. It really freaked me out … people shouting at me, shoving me, looking at me like I was their enemy … guns, knives, sticks, rocks.”

Shaver’s brush with harm in Pakistan was not his first. He was the center of an international incident in Beijing in June 2001, where he was based for three years.

The U.S. government lodged a formal protest when Shaver was beaten by police while covering a “Three Tenors” concert in the Forbidden City.

According to a June 26 Reuters report, “Shaver was punched in the head and ribs, knocked over and dragged along the ground while taking photographs before Saturday’s concert, staged to promote Beijing’s bid to host the 2008 Olympics.” He had photographed a protester being detained by police.

Shaver was based in Beijing with AFP for three years before his latest assignment in Bangkok, Thailand.

Deborah Amos reports for ABC News from war zone

Deborah Amos reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan. (Photo by Tariq Aziz/ABC)

For two months last fall, Deborah Amos, TEL 1972, covered the War on Terrorism for ABC News, reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan. She arrived in late October and stayed into December.

Amos is no stranger to the region. She reported from Afghanistan when Russian troops withdrew in the 1980s and the 1991 Gulf War. She was based in Amman, Jordan during part of her 16 years as a foreign correspondent for National Public Radio. She also reported the attacks on American Marines in Beirut, Lebanon.

She left NPR for ABC News in 1993. Her stories now appear regularly on the ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings and Nightline.

“Pakistan is a very complicated political scene,” Amos said. “It’s hard to understand its complexity.”

She recalled visiting a small village where many families had lost sons in the bombing attacks, “There was terrible resentment against Americans … but the graves of the martyred sons were joyfully decorated.” Amos said one father told her he would “gladly sacrifice his next son” for the cause.

She said the violent protests against Americans were orchestrated by leftist religious groups, most of whom oppose Pakistani President Musharraf and his overtures to the United States. She believes, however, that the “silent majority” really wants a “normal Pakistan.” She said life goes on rather normally in much of Pakistan, with people on the street shopping, playing cards and doing normal things.

Members of the al-Qaeda haved different “streams of thinking,” too. “The smaller subset of ‘internationalists’ have a broad mission which includes eliminating the more moderate Arab leaders and leading the 9-11 attacks on the U.S. But most of them,” she added, “are ‘regionalists’ who are more concerned about the struggle over Kashmir and with establishing a pure Islamic state.”

Members of al-Qaeda, including Osama bin Laden, were expelled in Saudi Arabia, where the Wahabbi brand of Islam dates to the 18th century and is very austere and strictly fundamentalist.

She personally discounts reports that bin Laden is on dialysis, but concedes that he has kidney problems and is probably in bad health. Last fall she met the doctor who reportedly had treated bin Laden (although the doctor denied doing so).

Since her return to the U.S., Amos has reported on the “war on drugs,” and specifically the killing of Ramon Arellano-Felix, Mexican drug kingpin who made the FBI’s “10 Most Wanted” list. His brother, Benjamin, was arrested recently. They allegedly controlled about 60 percent of the cocaine coming into the U.S.

Amos was named an alumna of distinction in the College in 1987 and was one of 47 alumnae honored on the 50th anniversary of coed education at UF.

She has also been honored with duPont-Columbia, Prix Italia, Ohio State and Breakthru awards and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1991-92 and is the author of the 1992 book Lines in the Sand: Desert Storm and the Remaking of the Arab World.

Bleichwehl's AFN broadcast team

Scott Bleichwehl commands American Forces Network

Scott Bleichwehl

Scott Bleichwehl, MA 1999, was deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan for a "shoot." But it was to tape a "Top Ten Good Things About Being in Kandahar" segment for the Feb. 21 David Letterman Show.

The segment was filmed from a bunkered site along the airport's perimeter using soldiers from the 101st Division (Airborne), Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

His team included an Army broadcaster, Army videographer and a freelance technician CBS hired from Barcelona.

The taping was delivered live back to New York via a CNN satellite uplink for post production.

Since June 2001, Bleichwehl has commanded the American Forces Network Europe, which has about 250 persons from all branches of the service and is based at Rhein Main Air Force Base in Frankfurt, Germany.

The combined listening audience of the affiliates is over 300,000.

‘Butch’ Meily with his son Marco in the Philippines

Butch Meily returns to volatile Philippines

The Philippines is one of the flash points in the War on Terrorism, with recent kidnappings and other violence. A 2000 Alumnus of Distinction, Rene S. "Butch" Meily, MA 1979, reports he has felt repercussions of the attempt to overthrow the government.

Meily is vice president and special assistant to the CEO of Philippine Long Distance Co., the largest company in the country, in Manila.

Meily's tasks range from supervising the company's aviation department, the CEO's security detail and the unit that deals with VIP accounts and political affairs and philanthropy.

Meily is a former vice president of TLC Beatrice.

Rick Jervis

Rick Jervis traces terrorists in Europe for The Wall Street Journal

Rick Jervis, JM 1993, is a stringer for The Wall Street Journal in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Southeast Europe. His reporting focus has changed since Sept. 11.

He said the Journal’s attention turned quickly to terrorism and the ensuing global investigation. “Prague became particularly interesting because the lead hijacker in the attacks, Mohamed Atta, was known to have visited the Czech capital more than once. We were the first paper to confirm in a report that Atta actually met with an Iraqi intelligence agent while here.”

In recent weeks, Jervis says he has been cultivating “sources within intelligence agencies, federal police force and the military attaché departments of foreign embassies, places I’d never thought I’d need a source.”

His investigations have taken him to Brussels to meet with Czech intelligence officers and to Bucharest to investigate human smuggling rings, possibly containing al-Qaeda members. In a recent WSJ article he reported on Semtex, the Czech-made plastic explosive popular among terrorists. The Czech government nationalized the company that makes it, mainly for security reasons.

Jervis went to Prague in 1999 after four years at The Miami Herald, where he shared in a Pulitzer Prize.

Jervis wrote, “As a freelance journalist, I eked out a living piecing together stories about politics and life in Eastern Europe for papers such as The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor and the Herald. In August 2000 The Wall Street Journal Europe asked him to help cover the International Monetary Fund/World Bank meetings in Prague. That turned into stories about anti-globalization and street riots.

Jervis wrote, “I’ve written about bank corruption scandals, the Absinthe distillery (the famous green liquor banned from most countries) in southern Bohemia, Czech TV strikes and interviewed President Vaclav Havel for a profile.”

An exciting life? “The past few months have been about the hardest I’ve ever worked. But it’s also been as fun and fulfilling as a ‘job’ can/should probably allow,” Jervis said.

Robert Buehn monitors ‘X-ray’ detainees at Guantanamo Bay

Bob Buehn, JM 1973, is commander of the U.S. Naval Base in Guan-tanamo Bay, Cuba. Before the War on Terrorism, their mission was to serve as a seaport and airport, conduct counter drug operations and show a military presence in the Caribbean.

But now, he is deputy JTF Commander and Naval Component Commander for the detainee mission.

Buehn said the order from Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld came right after Christmas: "Build a facility here to house 300 detainees and do so in short order.

"We were a sleepy Caribbean fishing village and now we have Humvees and troop carriers all over the roads," Buehn said. He said many of his sailors "felt frustrated that they were at a remote and isolated outpost. They wanted to be on the front line in the war on terror."

Four months to the day after Sept. 11 all that changed. "The first group of prisoners from Kandahar arrived at now famous Camp X-ray," he said.

Buehn said it is "Ironic that the base is a 45-square mile 'island within an island' in a communist country--and that the Cubans have not objected to the detainee mission here on the base."

Just out of college, Buehn worked as a reporter for the Stuart News before entering the Navy in 1978.

His career as a Naval Aviator has taken him in harm's way several times--escorting oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, flying missions over Northern Iraq during Operation Provide Comfort and leading a deployment in the Adriatic during Bosnian operations.

Buehn and his wife, Debra, have two sons.

Randy Bellows heads prosecution of John Walker Lindh

Randy Bellows, JM 1974, has a different vantage point on the conflict from his post as Assistant U.S. Attorney for Northern Virginia. He is the lead prosecutor of John Walker Lindh, the American captured fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The case is scheduled for trial in August.

Bellows has prosecuted other high-profile cases, including Wen Ho Lee, the Chinese scientist accused of leaking secrets, and William Aramony, the former head of United Way of America who was convicted of embezzling.

He negotiated a plea agreement with former FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Hanssen last year. The Washington Post said “He aggressively staked out the government’s legal position that Hanssen’s crimes could be prosecuted as capital offenses.

The Post also reported that Bellows was tapped by then-Attorney General Janet Reno to head the internal investigation of Wen Ho Lee because of his “reputation for fairness.”

Maj. Peter Mitchell

enduring freedom

Maj. Peter Mitchell, JM 1991, is a U.S. Marines public affairs officer assigned to the Central Command Operations at MacDill AFB in Tampa. The Central command has responsibility for parts of Africa and Asia. “Operation Enduring Freedom,” the campaign in Afghanistan, is managed from Tampa. Mitchell said it is easy to monitor activities 8,000 miles away through the use of secure cellular phones and the military Internet. But he said one challenge is to determine “ground truth”—what actually happened, not what has been reported by the media. In a January incident, Afghanistanis erroneously reported the U.S. bombing of a marketplace. But when the military does bomb civilians or make some other mistake, he said, “It’s best to tell the truth and ‘go ugly early.’”

Earlier in his career he worked in community relations and for the base newspaper at Camp Lejune and as a military spokesman at the Pentagon.