Swiss NGO, UN to set up radio station

A Swiss nongovernmental organisation, Foundation Hirondelle, in collaboration with the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo plans to start a nationwide radio station within the next month, the mission's information officer, David Smith, said at the weekend. "It will give priority to the needs of people worst affected by the conflict," he said. The station, Radio Okapi, will also promote a peaceful resolution of the country's civil war, broadcast entertainment and impartial news. Using frequency modulated (FM) and shortwave frequencies, it will broadcast in at least three local languages, in addition to French and English. It will also carry information from seven regional FM stations, and from FM and shortwave stations in the capital, Kinshasa. Around 100 staff are being recruited, nearly all of them local. Expatriates will manage the stations. Currently no medium in DRC has the capacity to broadcast nationwide, although the government has announced its intention to do so. Few politically independent broadcasters exist, although Radio Amani in Kisangani, in the northeast, and Radio Maendeleo in the eastern town of Bukavu have managed to survive as independent news broadcasters, and have broadcast intermittently over the past three years. Their reach is very limited, however. The material broadcast by Okapi will be made available to other local media free of charge. Radio Okapi would enable Congolese to talk to each other across the country's several political divides, the organisers said. The radio's transmitting stations are guaranteed freedom from censorship under agreements with the various authorities in Democratic Republic of the Congo, and will broadcast from UN military mission bases, guarded by UN troops. "It's a good idea to put resources into a new radio station," a Congolese journalist, Juakali Kabali, told IRIN in Kinshasa. "We can have confidence in an international organisation backed by the UN." Initially, Okapi will be broadcasting two hours a day, first from Kinshasa, and then, within the next two months, from regional stations. However, the volcanic lava that has engulfed the eastern town of Goma has delayed the start date and caused one of the stations to relocate from the town to Bukavu, the organisers said. The other stations set to go ahead are at Kisangani, in the northeast; Mbandaka in the northwest, and Kalemie in the east. There are also plans to set up stations at Kindu in the east, Bunia in the northeast and Gbadolite in the northwest, as UN troops move to these locations, the organisers said. Among the topics to be given priority will be the Inter-Congolese dialogue, the disarmament of armed groups and reintegration of ex-combatants. The main sponsors for the project are the British and Swiss governments. So far, the project has a budget of 2.67 million Swiss francs (about US $1.63 million), according to the organisers. Foundation Hirondelle, which specialises in broadcasting impartial news in conflict zones, was founded in 1994 by Swiss journalist Philippe Dahinden, in response to the Rwandan hate-radio station Mille Collines. Radio Agatashya, broadcasting in Rwanda and the Congo, was the NGO's first initiative. Since then it has launched radio stations in Liberia, Timor, Kosovo and the Central African Republic.