Speech by Incoming IAPA President Robert J. Cox,
The Post and Courier, Charleston, South Carolina
at the IAPA 57th General Assembly,
October 16, 2001, Washington, D.C.

Queridos amigos,
Dear friends,
Everything has changed, they say, since the September 11 apocalypse. Now that's a fine sounding word. It came to me in the middle of the night when I tried to put into one word the events of September 11. But apocalypse doesn't fit the case. The horror of that day wasn't the prelude to Armageddon. It was the logical, although previously unimaginable, escalation of terrorism. Unimaginable, because who could have divined that human beings could be capable of such vicious malevolence, that they would negate our common bind of humanity?
But for that lack of imagination, it could have been anticipated and, perhaps, prevented.
"Picture a warm and sunny day in Washington, D.C. The Israeli Prime Minister is in town and is scheduled to meet the President. At 11.00 a.m. the leader of an obscure Muslim sect and several accomplices armed with guns and machetes storm the headquarters of B'nai B'rith. a Jewish service organization. Three other members of the group seize the city's Islamic Center. Two additional fanatics invade Washington's City Hall, killing a radio reporter in the process. Altogether, the terrorists take 134 hostages in three buildings at gun point, force them to the floor and threaten to kill them unless their demands are met."
That scenario is taken from a speech that the late Katharine Graham gave to the English-Speaking Union as the Churchill Lecture on December 6, 1985. The subject was "Terrorism and the Media" and she was describing a terrorist attack that actually did happen here in Washington - on March 9, 1977, the day that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was meeting with President Jimmy Carter.
The Hanafi Muslims eventually surrendered and there was no further loss of life.
Mrs. Graham went on to define terrorism succinctly: "It is violence against innocent people in order to achieve generally political objectives."
That definition is as valid today as Mrs. Graham's other remarks, particularly when she said:
"I believe the harm of restricting coverage far surpasses the evils of broadcasting even erroneous or damaging information. I believe freedom itself is at stake, the freedom Churchill defended with such memorable eloquence and heroic resolve."
"If the terrorists succeed in depriving us of freedom, their victory will be far greater than they ever hope and far worse that we ever feared. Let it never come to pass."
Terrorism, which is violence against innocent people to achieve political power and negate freedom, is precisely what the Inter American Press Association has been fighting against since its inception 57 years ago.
At the welcome reception on Saturday, Mrs. Graham's son, Donald, recalled the last time the IAPA met in Washington 32 years ago. And he generously said that we who have lived and worked in Latin America have gone through far more difficult and dangerous times.
Journalists do sometimes exchange tales of times of danger and difficulty. In the dark days of the dirty war in Argentina, when I was editor of the Buenos Aires Herald, visiting journalists would often tell me that they felt somewhat inadequate because they didn't face the threats that were our daily bread,
Well, we're all in the same boat now. Terrorism is truly, virulently global. It's an ironic reversal of fortune that some Latin Americans say now that they feel safer in their home countries than in the United States.
But the truth is that no one is safer anywhere. That knowledge should, and I am sure will, bring us closer together in our defense of freedom throughout the hemisphere. That is what IAPA is all about.
The price that journalists have paid to defend freedom is high. At each of our meetings, we receive a new death toll. Since our 2000 General Assembly, 18 journalists have been assassinated in seven countries. 10 of them in Colombia.
IAPA is striking back with two initiatives that I intend to continue with all my might: the Impunity Committee and the Journalists-at-Risk project. The former is bringing the killers to justice; the latter will seek ways to prevent the continued murder of the messengers.
I will also continue the work of promoting the Declaration of Chapultepec, our Magna Carta of Freedom.
Let us remember that long before these major initiatives, for which we are indebted to the Knight Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation, IAPA was saving lives. Many journalists have echoed the words in 1962 of the late Demetrio Canela, a Bolivian editor and publisher who said simply: "I owe not only my freedom, but my life, to the Inter American Press Association."
This organization has true martyrs and real heroes, yet it has the image, fortunately somewhat faded by now, of being "a rich man's club."
Goodbye to that myth. I think I can say with absolute certainty that I am the poorest president in the history of IAPA - both before and after the stock market decline. You may have heard of Hemingway's famous answer to Scott Fitzgerald's remark that the rich are different: "Yes, they have more money."
Well the members of our rich man's club are quickly impoverished, because they pay their own way wherever they go and whatever they do when they give their services to IAPA. That is truly "pro bono."
The depiction of IAPA as a club of wealthy newspaper owners is false Nevertheless I would like to bring more poor newspapers into our fold. As long ago as 1960 Mary Gardner, a much admired journalism professor who wrote the first history of IAPA, noted that the association tended to attract the larger and wealthier publications of Latin America. When I was the editor and president of the Buenos Aires Herald I myself felt that I could not justify the expense of membership and attendance at meetings. I gave priority to staff salaries. I believe there must be many newspapers in this situation. As James Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank told us so eloquently, "After the events of September 11 there is only one world." I believe we must make another effort to lower the economic barriers that make the participation of small publications so difficult. IAPA is, of course, working with the World Bank on a seminar in April that is in concordance with the bank's mission to better the lives of the poor.
I would also like to intensify our efforts to explain the inner workings of our organization. We must protect and honor the traditions of this great institution, but I have sometimes thought that the IAPA somewhat resembles a labyrinth created in the universal mind of Jorge Luis Borges. New members need guidance on the ways of our complex democracy. If I do manage to discover how it works I will pass on the knowledge.
I should give you fair warning that I have been a fierce critic of bad journalism. In my experience I have seen venerable, respected newspapers cringe before authority and become accomplices of dictatorships by denying information to their readers. The phenomenon of "los desaparecidos" is explained, in great part, by the failure of some major newspapers to report what was happening or to denounce state terrorism. I have also been amazed by the extent of institutionalized corruption among journalists.
The special circumstances of this General Assembly allow me to state my admiration for two fine newspapers in Argentina that courageously resisted dictatorial pressure and menacing threats. I refer to El Día of La Plata and the newspaper, Río Negro.
The escalation of global terrorism is a challenge that we must meet. We have many experts, whose expertise is based on personal experience within our organization whom we can call upon. I am thinking, particularly of our Peruvian colleagues who faced the Sendero Luminoso, perhaps the most barbarous terrorist group the world had seen - before bin Laden and al Qaeda came upon the scene.
These are difficult and dangerous times, but many of us have never known anything but difficult and dangerous times. That is why it will be business as usual for IAPA whatever the future has in store for us.
I will do my best to continue the work of the men - and, alas, so far only one woman - who have served you before me. Now, to the officers who will serve with me. There are no surprises. We have a fine team. I have asked all our committee chairmen and vice chairmen and committee members to continue their valued work for IAPA. I am particularly grateful to Scott Schurz, who has been superb as chairman of the Newspapers in Education Committee. He has agreed to replace Gregory Favre, who has retired as chairman of the Membership Committee for the United States and Canada. Scott is the best man for this vital post. We must increase our membership in the United States and Canada and I would like to ask you to help him. Roger Parkinson, the only Canadian at our meeting, will take over the chairmanship of the Newspaper-in-Education Committee. Bruce Brugmann will take over from our new secretary, Bob Caldwell, as chairman of the Future Sites Committee.
I thank all of you who have had a hand in granting me this great honor and challenge. I would like to express my love and gratitude to my wife Maud and Victoria, the eldest of our five children, who are here tonight, for their support throughout our difficult years in Argentina and in exile, before we settled in Charleston, South Carolina. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Peter Manigault, who brought me into IAPA, and who backed the Buenos Aires Herald to the hilt. Peter always asks after his friends here. IAPA is still dear to his heart.
I will close with words that need be said in only one language:
Viva la vida
Abajo la muerte.
Please join me in a toast to freedom of the press and to freedo