LM's Mick Hume Response to Guardian's March 12th articleThe following letter was written in response to the cover story in today's second section of the Guardian newspaper ===
To the Editor
Luke Harding may be entitled to tell the world that he does not like Living
Marxism, me or the German journalist Thomas Deichmann ('A shot that's still
ringing', Guardian 12 March 1997). But it might have been more useful for
your readers if he had bothered to deal with the actual evidence that
Deichmann has presented, which shows exactly how ITN's award-winning
reports from Trnopolje camp in August 1992 fooled the world.
Instead, on this central issue, there is a resounding silence. Perhaps
Harding simply did not have space to deal with the facts, by the time he
had finished compiling his catalogue of cheap insults, scare stories,
innuendoes and inaccuracies about LM magazine and its supporters.
Alright, I admit that I wear good suits, I went to university, I sometimes
drink 'vin rouge' and I am a Communist-Fascist-Serbomaniac-Alien-From-the
X-Files. But what has any of that to do with the truth revealed by the ITN
rushes from Trnopolje, which Deichmann showed in public for the first time
last week at the London event to launch the LM libel appeal, The Off the
Fence Fund?
The Guardian appears to have put aside its own recent criticisms of the
censorious use of the libel laws, and allowed Harding to act as a
cheerleader for ITN's attempt to gag LM and prevent proper discussion of
Deichmann's story. As a result, a story which has been debated in respected
papers across Europe remains effectively blockaded in Britain, the one
country where it ought to cause a scandal.
Harding reports that, at the Off the Fence fund launch, 'after a rousing
speech by Mick Hume, the entire audience rose to its feet as one for a
standing ovation'. He does not mention that the issues which roused the
500-strong audience were the need to defend the freedom of the press, the
integrity of the truth, and journalistic standards. If Harding's scurrilous
hatchet-job is the best that such a Vulliamy-wannabe can come up with after
a fortnight of full-time dirt-digging, it seems I may have seriously
underestimated the problem.
Yours faithfully,
Mick Hume (yes, it's my real name!)
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