ANKARA
Awarded war journalist Patrick Chauvel says in order to stop wars, "we have to know and understand wars."
Chauvel delivered a speech at the Anadolu Agency Headquarters in Turkish capital city of Ankara on Tuesday in the scope of the third term of AA War Journalism Certificate Programme and shared his war experiences with trainees.
Chauvel's photos from the conflict zones including Vietnam, El Salvador, Afghanistan, Ireland, Eritrea, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Mozambique, Cambodia, Palestine, Panama, Haiti, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Thailand, Libya, Brazil were screened at the presentation.
Experienced war journalist shared the photo which he took in Chechnia, brought him the World Press Photo Prize in 1995. He said, "There are talks being held in order to conclude conflicts however the history repeats itself."
Talking over another photo taken by the 64-year-old French journalist, Chauvel underlined "As you can see, during conflicts, civilians are the ones who mostly get torn by these fights all the time."
Chauvel stated that journalists are there to report and in order to report wars to world and in order to stop war, people have to know it and understand it and said, "In order to block a danger, you have to understand what it is at first. People have to be able to protect peace. You have to make extra efforts for peace because the war comes naturally."
Respected journalist said the duty of a journalist was reporting what was happening and that he was taking photos for the sake of history, in order to add reality into history, not for some fame. Journalists are the witnesses he emphasized and added, "Because politicians then need to be more careful, so they cannot do whatever they want to as in 1940s, as there are witnesses and those are us, journalists."
He said that he became a photo-journalist after he met with world-acclaimed Turkish photo-journalist and and founder of the Sipa Press, Goksin Sipahioglu.
Chauvel added, Sipahioglu was the one who directed him into the profession and noted, "This is more than a profession for me, this is a passion. I love this job. I always came across people who gave me hope."
He told audience that a war journalists had to be objective all the time and keep his/her opinion to themselves, and made clear, "I would like to work on the Syrian regime's side as well. I would like to know what motivates them and would like to find our their point of view too."
The war journalist worked as an independent photo journalist over the years and witnessed many conflicts across the world.
Chauvel who is also the author of several books and documentaries, was wounded seriously in 1989 during the invasion of Panama.
