Radio Okapi bulletins to be available via internet

Beginning on Monday 19 April, Radio Okapi's morning bulletins from Monday to Friday will be available worldwide over the internet at http://www.radiookapi.net, the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (known by its French acronym, MONUC) has announced.

The latest updates will be available every morning within an hour that the news has been broadcast in the DRC, in French, Kiswahili, Lingala, and Tshiluba.

A joint initiative of MONUC and the Fondation Hirondelle, a Swiss-based nongovernmental organisation that specialises in using information for peace, Radio Okapi was launched on 25 February to coincide with the convocation of the inter-Congolese dialogue in Sun City, South Africa. It broadcasts simultaneously from three studios in the capital, Kinshasa (103.5 FM), the northeastern city of Kisangani (94.8 FM), and the eastern city of Goma (105.2 FM), 24 hours per day, seven days per week. Broadcasts are also available via short-wave radio throughout most of the DRC, on 9550 KHz.

In the coming months, additional stations will be opened in Kananga (south-central DRC), Mbandaka (in the northwest), Kalemie (southeast), Gbadolite (northwest), Kindu (east-central), Bukavu (east), and Bunia (northeast).

Currently, no medium in the DRC has the capacity to broadcast nationwide, although the government has announced its intention to establish one. Few politically independent broadcasters exist, although Radio Amani in Kisangani, and Radio Maendeleo in Bukavu have managed to survive as independent news broadcasters, and have operated intermittently over the past three years. Their reach is very limited, however.

The material broadcast by Okapi is made available to other local media free of charge. Radio Okapi will enable Congolese to talk to each other across the country's political divides, the organisers said. The radio's transmitting stations are guaranteed freedom from censorship under agreements with the various authorities in the DRC, and broadcast from UN military mission bases, guarded by UN troops.

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.