/ARTS WEEKLY/MEDIA-ARGENTINA: Quechua Language on the Air

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, May 7 2003 (IPS) - Descendants of indigenous people in northwestern Argentina have launched a radio station that broadcasts in both Spanish and the Quechua language, as part of a plan that includes the creation of six similar stations.

The project has been developed by the Campesino Movement of Santiago del Estero (MOCASE), a network of peasant communities in the province of that name made up of 9,600 families of small farmers who are fighting for recognition of their land rights.

FM del Monte is the first of seven radio stations that are to be set up in various parts of Santiago del Estero, to give the local peasant farmers a voice and to provide a channel for broadcasting in the Quechua language, Angel Strapazón, one of the coordinators of MOCASE, explained to IPS.

Quechua was the official language of the Inca empire, which stretched from modern-day southern Colombia through Ecuador and Peru to northern Chile and northwestern Argentina until the Spanish conquest in the first half of the 16th century.

Today it is one of the official languages of Peru, along with Spanish.

Up to a century ago, two dialects of Quechua were widely spoken throughout northwestern Argentina. One of the dialects, found in the northern province of Jujuy, has virtually disappeared. The other is basically confined to Santiago del Estero, a region of 137,000 square kms located some 1,500 kms northwest of Buenos Aires.

Linguists estimate that around 160,000 people in this Southern Cone nation of 37 million are bilingual Spanish-Quechua speakers.

After Latin America freed itself of the Spanish colonial yoke, indigenous communities in northwestern Argentina suffered under British companies that employed them in exploitative conditions and cut down thousands of hectares of forest for timber, for export and for use in the construction of the railways.

Strapazón said the FM del Monte radio station, which has a staff of around 50, took its name (Spanish for ”FM of the woodland”) from the fact that it is located in the middle of a vast forest of ”quebracho”, ”algarrobo” and other native species of trees, three kms from the town of Quimilí, which has a population of just over 16,000.

The station still has a limited, and uneven, broadcasting radius. In some directions the signal can be tuned in up to a distance of 200 kms and in others only 70 kms. The goal is a steady radius of 100 kms, he said.

”Some people complain because they can’t hear it and have to set up bamboo towners to be able to pick up the signal,” said Strapazón.

Although the station has been on the air for only a short time, its influence has already been felt by the media in the province of Santiago del Estero. For nearly a century, local media outlets have been concentrated in just a few hands, with close ties to the provincial government.

Strapazón said El Liberal, one of the main local newspapers, has stopped denouncing incidents of cattle-rustling since FM del Monte began to give names last month of people implicated in the cases of cattle-rustling, who are close to those holding political power in the province.

Quechua is widely spoken in eight of the 27 departments into which Santiago del Estero is divided, and spoken by a portion of residents in the other 12. Quechua speakers, who also speak Spanish, often try to hide the fact that they speak an indigenous language, out of a sense of shame and stigma.

FM del Monte so far produces three music and news programmes, which end with a summary or interview in Quechua.

But the project is planning a section that will begin to be aired this month exclusively in Quechua. Local rural leaders will take part in the broadcast, which will be called ”Identity of the Native Peoples.”

In one of the station’s programmes, the presenters recall the heroic deeds or achievements of indigenous peoples who have fought for their rights against invaders.

”We are not only talking about invasions with missiles, but about the invasion that comes with new ways of dressing, McDonald’s, and transgenic foods,” said Strapazón.

”Indigenous people are often seen as uncouth and peasants as illiterate, and we want to show that this is not true,” he added.

Another of the radio station’s programmes is hosted by two daughters of Vilela Indians, who broadcast Latin American poetry and songs.

The project will soon open another station on the outskirts of the town of Tintina, which is located in the same forested area, as soon as the electrical hook-up question is resolved. ”The idea is to have seven bilingual radio stations run by MOCASE in Santiago del Estero within two years,” said Strapazón.