Reporters with bias

[Re: “Photos for freedom,” May 3] Reporters Without Borders/sans frontières (RSF), eulogized by Patrick Lejtenyi, owes its reputation to the name it borrowed from Doctors Without Borders. RSF’s name gives it an image of credibility and hides its links to the U.S. government and radical Cuban exile groups. Reporters Without Borders doesn’t need to sell cookies or books to raise money. It has a wealthy Uncle Sam and Anti-Castro. RSF gets regular cheques from USAID, the U.S. State Department and other American government agencies, often funnelled through organizations linked to the U.S. campaign against Cuba.

Anyone who examines RSF’s annual report carefully and its index of world press freedom will see clear anomalies. Cuba is ranked 165 out of 168 examined. No journalist was killed in Cuba. However, Iraq, where 65 journalists were killed last year, is ranked higher than Cuba. Columbia, where death squads track journalists who are regularly killed or forced into exile, is rated higher.

RSF claims that 24 independent Cuban journalists are imprisoned. Interesting that, before they were arrested, these journalists were paid monthly by RSF to write anti-Castro critiques. If the article was not sufficiently critical, they claim the reporters were not paid. Now RSF defends them. Does not sound like an arms-length relationship to me.

Cuba suggests the 24 were working for the U.S. government to destabilize Cuba. Hmm... RSF, U.S. government—is there much difference?

Another country that RSF criticizes bitterly is Venezuela. Surprise. However, when an American tank unit fired on a hotel in Iraq and killed a journalist, the RSF ignored the testimony of the tank operator in order to whitewash the American army. Surprise. The journalist’s family asked the RSF to withdraw from the case but RSF refused.

By some strange coincidence, the RSF tends to mirror the views of the U.S. government. Does this remind us of a rhyme about a piper? Of course, to maintain some credibility it has to put some water in its wine.  

Even Wikipedia has recognized the controversy around RSF. You can check this out on its RSF page. So, if you want to support the American campaign to spread “democracy” and the American way of life, buy the RSF book. If you want to support journalists around the world, send money to Amnesty.

>> Fred Jones

Metro a Rube
Goldberg-ian crypt

The Front section of the May 3 Mirror issue contained the photo of Laval’s new de la Concorde metro station. The photo might have been appropriately named “Rube Goldberg is alive and well, living at Montreal’s metro.” Goldberg was that zany, legendary creator of intricate contraptions designed to effect simple results.

The Laval extension could have been completed at 1/3 the billion-dollar cost, if outdoor conventional traction were possible. Rube Goldberg’s spirit was evident when metro engineers devised the present system of big, cumbersome rubber tires running on concrete platforms, side guide rollers and a complex, three-phase, AC electrical power system to provide for “smoother torque,” which has been modified to the basic DC system. 

As one glances down from a station’s platform, we witness this mélange of complex traction implements, yielding a wide breadth with a more narrow, confined and expensive coach structure, which is outfitted with under-slung steel-on-steel emergency trucks (which would be dropped in event of a failure with these big rubber wheels). Moreover, the tires develop flat-spots, producing vertical vibration, which shakes the fillings out of your teeth... whew!

This entire system was the idea of a few engineers, some 45-years ago, who inspected Paris’s metro system and desired to emulate it as a banner for Montreal’s World Expo in 1967. So, extensive (and expensive) tunnelling commenced—this cumbersome arrangement is not amenable to outdoor use, and so we are now relegated to more-and-more tunneling, as expansion becomes desirable, if not necessary.

The expansion into Laval has taken years of tunnelling, even for the short stretch over the Rivière des Prairies. Meanwhile, Paris has discarded most of this traction system for conventional steel-on-steel traction. Montreal should bite the bullet and do likewise. Expense notwithstanding, a short blue-line conversion would be a good start.

My fantasy: The Montreal metro is extended to Trudeau airport from perhaps Snowdon, with attractive overhead trestles instead of some expensive, formidable underground crypt.

>> Edward Abramic

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