Subject: categories: AP on young Myles

From: Peter Freyd <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 07:05:10 -0500 (EST)

Slain, Wounded Journalists Praised
 By TED ANTHONY
 AP National Writer
 902 Words
 5682 Characters
 01/12/99
 AP Online
 International
 Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

   They came from all over one continent - from New York City, from
Ontario, from Iowa - to cover a war in the corner of another, to tell
the world about a place that few had heard of and even fewer had ever
considered visiting.

   Myles Tierney, Ian Stewart and David Guttenfelder, journalists for
The Associated Press in Africa, brought a long list of reporting credits
- and risks - to their assignment in the chaotic West African nation of
Sierra Leone.

   But on a hot, sunny Sunday, the dizzying unpredictability so familiar
to those who have covered Africa caught up with them for several
seconds.

   Tierney, 34, from New York City, a Kenya-based producer for
Associated Press Television News who one colleague said "lived his life
like it was the 100-yard dash," was killed instantly when a rebel
soldier peppered the AP vehicle with gunfire.

   Stewart, 32, from Toronto, known for chasing one story and coming
back with many more, was seriously wounded in the head. Guttenfelder,
29, of Waukee, Iowa, one of the AP's most intrepid photographers, was
cut by flying glass and was the only one of the three who escaped
serious injury.

   "They just wanted to kill someone. Maybe we were the closest to
them," Guttenfelder said Monday from his home base, the AP's West Africa
bureau in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

   Stewart, the West Africa chief of bureau, was airlifted Monday to
London, where he was to undergo surgery for a bullet in the brain. He
was in stable condition Monday night.

   AP President Louis D. Boccardi praised Tierney as "a brave and
adventurous man" and mourned the attack. "We are in awe of the
sacrifices they and others make so we can carry out our mission,"
Boccardi said Monday.

   "Africa was the opportunity in his life to realize himself," said
Tierney's mother, Hanne. "And he did. This was where all of his talents
really came to the fore."

   Guttenfelder recounted a surreal day that began at a hotel outside
downtown Freetown, the unstable capital, with the AP journalists and
their colleagues from other organizations trying to obtain firsthand
information about the situation in the city.

   They'd tried to move around Saturday but couldn't because of the
warfare on the streets. Sunday seemed less tense, Guttenfelder said.

   On the street they came upon Julius Spencer, Sierra Leone's minister
of communications, who offered to escort them into town. With him were
soldiers from ECOMOG, the West African regional peacekeeping force.

   "He said ... it was a matter of mopping up," Guttenfelder said. "He
wanted to show us - and us to show the world - that they were very much
in control."

   The journalists were skeptical, but they saw subtle signs of
improvement: troops moving freely, gasoline stations reopening.

   As they neared downtown, and part of the convoy headed down to take a
look at the city's center, shots reverberated in the distance. Down a
hill they went, past the soccer stadium, past hulks of blown-up cars,
past fallen traffic lights, past shuttered buildings, past corpses set
upon by vultures.

   Then, around a corner, they encountered five armed men in American-
style jeans and flipflops. One, Guttenfelder remembered, "was wearing
a black bowler hat - like in `A Clockwork Orange."' No one was sure:
Were they rebels or looters?

   "They looked kind of charged up, maybe drugged up. They were smiling,
kind of laughing, acting like everything was cool," Guttenfelder said.
"I felt immediately they were different. ... (But) it seemed impossible
that a rebel would get that close."

   Then, in seconds: An ECOMOG soldier spoke to the men in a Nigerian
tongue; one responded in another dialect. And things fell apart. One
armed man fired a burst of shots into the AP car - a brazen act, given
the ECOMOG firepower surrounding him..

   "I get the feeling that he knew they were going to be killed, and
they didn't care," Guttenfelder said.

   Tierney died instantly. Stewart went down moaning.

   "I just felt this blast of heat and glass," Guttenfelder said. "I
immediately put my head down and I heard shooting for a couple of
seconds. ... Myles was obviously dead. ... I grabbed Ian and drug him
down into the car, then got out of the car into the street.

   ECOMOG soldiers fired back, killing the shooter and another rebel.
The driver took off with Stewart and Tierney to the ECOMOG staging area
in western Freetown. Guttenfelder was left behind. He shot a few
pictures, then hurried to the base to help arrange an airlift for
Stewart and for Tierney's body.

   Though he was a cameraman, Tierney's byline appeared on a range of
stories from Africa. He joined AP's TV arm in 1996, organizing coverage
of a military coup in Burundi. He set up the agency's first TV bureau in
New York before returning to Africa in 1997.

   Tierney is survived by his mother and a sister, Loren, both of New
York City. The family planned a private funeral; the AP was arranging a
memorial service.

   The AP has withdrawn all foreign journalists from Sierra Leone for
now.

   Tierney is the 24th AP journalist to die in the line of duty in the
organization's 150-year history. On Monday, at AP headquarters in New
York City, his picture was posted in memoriam. In it, he appears dressed
for action. Atop his head is an AP hat.

   And he is smiling.