a207  1154  21 Aug 86
AM-Afghan Journalists, Bjt,0823
Boston University To Train Afghan Refugees near Conflict
By CAROLYN LUMSDEN
Associated Press Writer
    BOSTON (AP) - Boston University's agreement to train Afghan refugees
as journalists so they can spread the word of the Soviet invasion
that drove them from their country has sparked a fierce debate that
already has cost the school two deans.
    To Sen. Gordon J. Humphrey, R-N.H., who sponsored the bill
allocating the money for the program, it's a simple plan: ''If we
train freedom fighters in the use of cameras to bring out footage,
that might help raise international public outrage. It's propaganda
in the best sense of the word.''
    But 10 faculty members at the 1,800-student College of Communication
say academic standards would be compromised from the start because
the refugees will be trained in Pakistan, near the border of the
conflict, rather than at the school.
    ''The gravest risk,'' they said in a November letter to Provost Jon
Westling, ''is that the program would be seen by the outside world
and by the American academic community as not an educational
enterprise at all but as a venture in propaganda and
counterintelligence.''
    The university hopes to train up to 30 refugees in Peshawar with a
$180,364 grant from the U.S. Information Agency. King Features
Syndicate will distribute the refugees' work with a $309,696 grant.
    In two six-week sessions starting as early as September, the
refugees will be taught to use television cameras and other tools to
report the war in the closed country occupied by 115,000 Soviet
troops. Since the troops entered in 1979 to support the Marxist
government against Moslem insurgents, 3 million refugees have crossed
into Pakistan.
    Afghanistan's charge d'affaires, Rohullah Erfaqui, said the program
will interfere in his country's internal affairs and violate
international law.
    H. Joachim Maitre, an East German defector who spearheaded the
project, said the refugees will bring back news that only the most
intrepid of Western journalists cover.
    Maitre, a MiG pilot trainee before his defection in 1953, will
select students from among candidates chosen by Islamic Unity, a
coalition of anti-communist Afghan tribes in exile.
    Faculty members said in their letter that proper training
''certainly cannot be nurtured in the turmoil of a refugee center
awash with secret agents, rival political factions and intense
emotions.''
    The college submitted a proposal to train the refugees in Boston,
but USIA spokeswoman Lesley Vossem said the agency preferred the
university plan because ''the cultural adjustment might interfere
with the refugees' training.''
    The communications college dean, Bernard S. Redmont, quit in July
after refusing to give the university plan his backing and after
demoting an associate dean for working on the program without
Redmont's approval.
    Redmont was named dean emeritus and assigned to spend the fall in
London supervising a college internship program. He declined comment.
    Maitre was named interim dean by President John Silber on Aug. 12,
after his return from a two-week fact-finding trip in Peshawar.
    One faculty member said few dared risk their jobs by speaking openly
against the program.
    Faculty members who spoke on condition they not be identified said
Maitre has written articles for the defense magazine Strategic Review
and that its publisher, Arthur Metcalf, is a university trustee who
shares the conservative political views of Maitre and Silber.
    ''In the past, Dr. Metcalf has never interfered in my work,'' Maitre
said. ''I'm a working journalist and want to stay a working
journalist.''
    Professors said the project has divided the college's 45 faculty
members over the proper role of reporters and schools that train
them.
    ''I think of journalism as the practice of inquiring about and
describing the world, but there are people who bring more of a sense
of mission to journalism,'' said Bernice Buresh, an associate
professor and former Boston bureau chief for Newsweek. ''They talk
about it as a tool for defending the American way of life.''
    Other professors pointed out at faculty meetings that such
journalists as the late Edward R. Murrow have worked for the USIA and
that the college also trains students in publicity and advertising.
    ''This government has a stake in developing a free press in foreign
countries,'' said Robert Lewis, president of the Society for
Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi. ''I can't see anything
inherently wrong about such grants with two provisions: that the
university has control of the contents of the educational program and
provided that it's all done aboveboard.''
    George A. Krimsky, executive director of the year-old Center for
Foreign Journalists in Reston, Va., said his organization declined to
apply for the USIA grant because of inexperience in training
reporters abroad.
    But Krimsky added, ''I guess it's fair to say we were queasy about
the partisanship implied in a program designed to train Afghan rebels
engaged in a military conflict in journalistic practices.''
    
AP-NY-08-21-86 1453EDT
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