By IPS Correspondents
NAIROBI, Feb 26 2002 (IPS)

A new radio network has been launched in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to coincide with the start of the Inter-Congolese dialogue in Sun City, South Africa.

Radio Okapi began broadcasting this week with correspondent reports from across the country. Reports are in French, Lingala, Swahili and Tshiluba. It was the first nation-wide Congolese broadcast since the current war began in Aug 1998.

“As of seven o’clock Kinshasa time, a radio went on the air that touched all corners of the Congo for the first time since the war began,” announced the station’s head, David Smith.

“Radio Okapi has radio stations on both sides of the front line so people in Goma are talking to Kinshasa, people in Kinshasa are talking to Kisangani for the first time in four years,” he said.

There are few politically independent broadcasters in Congo. Until now, no medium in the country had the capacity to broadcast nation-wide, although the government has announced its intention to establish one.

In the capital, Kinshasa, there are several FM radio stations, and a wide choice of newspapers on the streets. But this is not the case elsewhere. Outside Kinshasa, FM stations disappear almost completely, with a few notable exceptions.

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. However, their reach is very limited.

Control of the state broadcasting station, Radio Publique Nationale Congolaise (RPNC), is divided between the rebels and the government.

“There has been no single voice that covers the entire country. RPNC is in the hands of whatever particular organisation happens to be ruling that particular piece of Congolese territory,” explained Smith.

In the eastern city of Goma, that is the Rwandan-backed Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD). In Gbadolite in the north, it is Jean-Pierre Bemba’s Ugandan backed Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC). In Kinshasa, it is the government of President Joseph Kabila.

Radio Okapi breaks new ground. A partnership between the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo (MONUC) and Fondation Hirondelle, a Swiss aid agency, many of its programmes focus on peace making.

Radio Okapi hopes to contribute to the peace-process by helping Congo’s warring parties understand each other.

“By keeping information from people, by controlling information and not letting people in a certain area know what the needs, the desires, the concerns are of their compatriots in other parts of the country, it breeds ignorance and ignorance tends to breed hate. If we don’t understand each other, it’s very difficult to work together,” said Smith.

“If we’re serious about ending the war in this country, all sides, all parties to the conflict have to understand each other. They have to start talking at some point.

“And radio – being extremely important in Africa as the most important form of electronic media – is the easiest, most efficient, least expensive way of doing that,” he said.

There will be regular programmes covering the inter-Congolese dialogue, the MONUC mission and the disarmament and repatriation process.

“We are the voice for MONUC, for the UN agencies, NGOs, and the inter-Congolese dialogue,” said Smith.

“Radio Okapi is going to collect information — news as well as features — about the problems, the realities, what is happening, people’s way of life, daily problems, in the east, west, north and south. Then it will send it back out again across the whole country,” says Jean- Etter, president of Fondation Hirondelle.

“It this way, there will be a genuine inter-Congolese dialogue across the country. The Congolese people can talk to each other via Radio Okapi.”

Radio Okapi will be working with an American aid agency, Search for Common Ground, who will be supplying them with conflict resolution programmes.

‘Search for Common Ground’ have a lot of experience working in the Great Lakes region. For example, they support Studio Ijambo in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura. The studio is famous for its popular soap operas and discussion programmes aimed at overcoming centuries of hatred and distrust between Burundi’s Hutu and Tutsi communities.

Radio Okapi began broadcasting simultaneously from three studios in Kinshasa (103.5 FM), the northeastern city of Kisangani (95 FM), and Goma (103.5 FM). Broadcasts are also receivable 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).

The radio’s transmitting stations are guaranteed freedom from censorship under agreements with the various authorities in the DRC. They broadcast from UN military mission bases, guarded by UN troops.

Etter is confident Congo’s warring parties will respect Radio Okapi’s independence. “It is a radio which is being put in pace by the UN. I think that all the parties on Congolese soil want to see it develop as we have envisioned it — independent, rigorous, professional. There is a lot of good will right now.

“What is important is also that not only the population but the different authorities can have confidence in the quality of the station’s work. They will see that it is professional, solid reporting and will trust in us,” he predicts.

The initiative has won praise from regional media experts. “In a country like Congo, certainly we need more outlets for divergent ideas that represent the collective diversity of the country. We need political and economic voices that are looking at how to liberate the country from its destruction,” says David Makali of the Media Institute, based in Nairobi.

Makali says other African countries could also benefit from the development of more independent mass media outlets: “Generally in Africa, we need freer voices. African countries are developing and we need a marketplace of ideas, free from government control, for the expression of views and ideas so that people can make informed decisions about their lives.”

Radio Okapi’s programmes run 24 hours per day, seven days per week. The material broadcast by Okapi will be made available to other local media free of charge.

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 1.63 Million U.S. dollars), according to the organisers.

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