When Australian Defence Force media flacks met spokesmen from a raft of Afghan government agencies in southern Afghanistan late in January, critical ADF business was on the agenda - how to block independent reporting in the province by Fairfax Media.
Farid Ayil, a spokesman for the provincial chief of police, said he was pressured during the meeting to recommend to his boss, Matiullah Khan, that he should refuse to host a Fairfax news team - me and photographer Kate Geraghty - which would have made our reporting assignment virtually impossible.
Despite a denial, issued by an ADF spokesman earlier this month, that there had been an attempt to derail the Fairfax assignment, Mr Ayil said in an interview: ''The [ADF] guy went around the table getting everyone to say they had refused, and then he demanded to know why we were taking you.''
The unnamed ADF representative had then presented a litany of reasons to back his argument - the Fairfax team was in Oruzgan to ''write wrong stories''; it had travelled to Tarin Kowt ''without permission''; and it had entered Afghanistan ''without a letter from the Australian government''.
The ADF media doctrine is based on maintaining tight military control on the movement of journalists and their access to military and civilian interview subjects. As Geraghty and I worked our Kabul and Tarin Kowt contacts to find an Afghan agency that might host us in the provincial centre, it became apparent that unseen hands were working to thwart us.
A series of invitations that had been issued warmly were curtly withdrawn - in most cases, within hours. Mr Ayil said that after canvassing a decision by the provincial governor to withdraw his initial approval for us to lodge in his guest house, and an offer by an Afghan National Army general to arrange an ANA billet had also fallen through, he was put under pressure.
''I told them you were free journalists - that you didn't need to ask for permission to be here and that we didn't need to ask for permission to host you,'' Mr Ayil said a few days after the meeting in Tarin Kowt.
''I couldn't figure out why it was such a problem for them. I asked why they were making such a big deal out of it. I told the guy not to worry, because your security was our responsibility - we're good at security and you'd write the real story of Oruzgan.''
On arriving at Tarin Kowt on a commercial flight in mid-January, Geraghty and I were met on the tarmac by several Australian military officers. Geraghty was asked her identity and then told: ''You have no permission to be here.''
But even before the Australians had completed inquiries with their Afghan counterparts, Mr Khan had dispatched police to collect us.
Mr Ayil said that in the subsequent days there had been so many phone calls, by Afghan translators on behalf of the ADF, inquiring about our whereabouts, that his colleagues took to refusing to divulge our movements.
All foreign journalists arriving in Kabul are expected to register for accreditation with the Afghan Foreign Ministry, which requests a pro-forma letter from a journalist's embassy stating that Reporter or Photographer X indeed works for Publication Y in their home country.
The Australian embassy in Kabul has issued such a letter for me in the past.
In a phone message, which I was told came from the acting ambassador in Kabul but was relayed through the emergency consular hotline staff in Canberra, I was told that because we had entered the country ''under [our] own steam'' and not by ADF or DFAT invitation and because we were not accompanying a minister or officials of the Australian government, we would not be issued a letter.
The embassy was effectively denying our right as journalists to cover any of the story - because most arms of the Afghan security establishment require that visiting reporters have the Foreign Ministry accreditation.
In order to move without restriction, we had decided not to subject ourselves to ADF control by formally requesting to be embedded with the ADF at Tarin Kowt - but we did request an interview with the Australian commanding officer.
Despite our presence on the ground for 10 days in accommodation about 100 metres from the gate to his base, his media staff informed us that he was not available.
In response to written questions issued on March 4, the ADF said that ''your request for an interview … was approved; however, we understand that you had already departed Tarin Kowt''.
The statement finished cheerfully: ''We look forward to working with you for future visits and hope that you are able to provide us with sufficient notice to allow appropriate planning to occur.''
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