UN mission to launch radio station next week

The United Nations Mission in Cote d’Ivoire (ONUCI) will launch its own radio station early next week as part of its efforts to bring about peace and reconciliation in the divided country, members of the team setting up the radio said on Tuesday. They told IRIN that ONUCI FM would initially broadcast on 95.3FM in Abidjan, but within a few weeks its broadcasts would be also relayed by satellite to several towns in the interior. The initial target was to extend ONUCI FM broadcasts to Daloa, a government-held town in western Cote d'Ivoire, and the rebel-held cities of Bouake, Korhogo and Man in the north, they told IRIN. ONUCI FM will thus become only a national radio station broadcasting news and current affairs programmes throughout Cote d'Ivoire. The FM broadcasts of state-run Radio Cote d'Ivoire can only be heard in the government-controlled south of the country. The rebels who have occupied the north since civil war broke out in September 2002, have meanwhile taken over several FM radio stations in their own area. ONUCI FM was set up under the auspices of a UN Security Council resolution in February this year which authorised the creation of a 6,240-strong UN peacekeeping force in Cote d'Ivoire. A similar radio station was set up by the UN peacekeeping mission in nearby Sierra Leone three years ago and another is currently being created in neighbouring Liberia. ONUCI FM will hit the airwaves at a time when the United Nations is coming under increasing attack from the militia-style youth groups in Abidjan that support President Laurent Gbagbo. They accuse the United Nations and France, which maintains a separate 4,000-strong peacekeeping force in Cote d'Ivoire, of not doing enough to persuade the rebel forces to disarm under the terms of a January 2003 peace agreement. Last month, thousands of these "Young Patriots" demonstrated in Abidjan wearing blue plastic bags and buckets on their heads in mockery of the blue helmets worn by UN peacekeeping troops. On Monday last week, gangs of Young Patriots smashed 38 UN vehicles in the city in a more violent round of anti-UN protests. Their behaviour was subsequently toned down during the run-up to a meeting between Gbagbo and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York on Friday. The team setting up ONUCI FM, some of whom previously worked on UN radio stations in the Balkans, said the new radio station would be mainly staffed by Ivorian journalists. It would report on efforts to promote peace, national reconciliation and cohesion, the humanitarian situation, the work of local and international organisations involved in efforts to end the 21 month-old conflict, they said. However, the 24-hour radio station would also carry music cultural, sports and “lighter news” programmes, the team members said.