Conflict and post-conflict
Media intervention type 5
Radio Okapi is a radio network set up in 2002 in the Democratic Republic of Congo to provide reliable, accurate, non-partisan information to the Congolese listening audience. A joint project of the UN Peace Observer Mission in the Congo and Swiss-based Fondation Hirondelle, it has an express mandate to promote the process of dialogue and peacebuilding in the Congo. It broadcasts in French and the four most commonly spoken languages in the Congo, with programmes devoted to themes such as health, education, human rights, culture and music.
Radio Okapi was launched to broadcast across the vast territory of the DR Congo, providing services to approximately 45 million inhabitants. It is a joint project of the UN Mission (known by its French acronym, Monuc) and the Fondation Hirondelle, a Swiss-based organisation of journalists which sets up and operates media services in crisis areas. Fondation Hirondelle has previously managed radio projects in the Great Lakes region of Africa, Liberia, Kosovo, Central African Republic, and Timor, and established a news service at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda at Arusha in Tanzania.
Hirondelle argues that the radio is the medium most suitable for applications in conflict or post-conflict situations. Radio combines relatively low costs, inherent flexibility and high impact among people who may be mostly illiterate.
Radio Okapi, which the UN mission views as a crucial part of its peacekeeping activities in the Congo, is by far the largest radio project that either the UN or Fondation Hirondelle has ever been involved with, and in less than a year, it has become the largest and most popular radio network in the nation. Based at Monuc headquarters in Kinshasa, it broadcasts in French and the four most commonly spoken Congolese languages, Swahili, Lingala, Chiluba and Kikongo, from ten studios and relay stations scattered across the Republic of Congo.
The Fondation Hirondelle has embraced a difficult and delicate mandate - it explicitly takes on a conflict resolution and peacebuilding role for itself, but it also adheres to a policy of strict impartiality, articulated in a Code of Ethics it provides to its newsroom. The code encourages its newsrooms to think ethically by subjecting information to concrete analysis, to double-check facts and sources, to engage in solid investigative reporting, and to distinguish between hard facts and opinion.
When, as so often is the case in conflict zones, so much of the available information is unreliable and biased, credibility translates into influence, suggests Fondation Hirondelle president Jean-Marie Etter. "When people know that radio is accurate and that [they] can believe what [they hear]," says Etter, "they go to that radio. We don't tell [them to] do this or do that - we say as far as we know, this is exactly what happened."
The organisation seeks to represent and serve the public interest, and it does so by basing its activities in the community, recruiting most of its staff from the community, creating locally-produced programming for local and national audiences, and providing training to its staff to assure the long-term sustainability of a professional media. The Radio Okapi project, for example, has a staff of around 100, of whom the vast majority are Congolese.
In fact, according to Fondation Hirondelle's David Smith, all the people who read, produce, and conduct interviews are local. Prior to the launch of the network, says Smith, Radio Okapi recruited staff from throughout the country. Even those not taken on staff received training.
The media environment
The media in the Congo has been tightly controlled by the government for most of the nation's post-colonial history. Journalists have often been harassed and jailed, and the upsurge in fighting which began in the mid-nineties gave the government an excuse to impose even more severe restrictions on the press, with even more restrictive measures taken in the name of 'national security'. In 1999, for example, 80 journalists were detained, radio stations were seized, newspapers shut down, and publishing houses and broadcasting outlets set on fire.
According to the BBC, about fifteen newspapers now appear regularly in the capital, including seven dailies. There is also an active private press in the Congo's second city, Lubumbashi, with other private papers being available in some provincial cities, but newspapers and other publications rarely reach smaller towns and villages, and according to Journalistes en Danger, a Congolese journalists' organisation, the press has practically ceased to exist in rebel-controlled areas. Most private publications that do publish exist through external sources of funding, usually from political parties or individual politicians who accordingly exert a strong influence on the editorial slant and content.
Under these circumstance, and in view of the high illiteracy rates in most of the country, radio is the most important medium in the DRC. About ten radio stations and eight television station are currently operating in the country, and foreign broadcasts from the BBC, RFI, Afrique Numero Un and the VOA are all received in Kinshasa, as well as other parts of the Congo. Until the launch of Radio Okapi, La Voix du Congo, the state-controlled broadcasting network, reached the largest numbers of citizens.
Project elements
Radio Okapi, which takes its name from a much-loved Congolese cousin of the giraffe, was launched on February 25, 2002, the same day that the inter-Congolese dialogue began in Sun City, South Africa. From the start, it clearly articulated its vision: "Okapi - peace frequency, Okapi - voice of dialogue, Okapi, 100% Congolese".
The network is served by satellite, short-wave and FM transmitters, and in order to reach the sizeable Congolese diaspora, it also broadcasts on the internet. Among its staff are about twenty journalists based in Kinshasa and another thirty scattered around the country. The programmes produced by Radio Okapi are distributed free of charge to local radio stations for rebroadcast.
Programming focuses on issues such as health, education, human rights and culture. News programmes are broadcast three times a day, five days a week in the five languages, with music, local reports and features, and national programmes filling the remainder of the broadcast time. Weekends are primarily devoted to music.
Radio Okapi pays particular attention to the plight of the many victims of the violence and war: refugees, displaced persons, and those who are destitute and especially vulnerable. In its information and magazine programmes, it provides specific information on the activities of the United Nations, its specialised agencies, and the Monuc mission. "It's the best way we have to explain about the activities of Monuc in the DRC to all citizens, at any moment," says Amos Namanga Ngongi, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in the Congo. It also provides extensive coverage of dialogue among the various political and military groups in the DRC. With Radio Okapi going on the air on the very day that the inter-Congolese dialogue began, it immediately assumed an important role in reporting on the discussions there, with a team of journalists on site.
Apart from the close co-operation between the United Nations and the Fondation Hirondelle, the Radio Okapi project involves co-operation with the existing media in the DRC, mainly with other radio stations, in the fields of production and training.
In January 2002, just prior to the project's launch, David Wimhurst, a spokesman for the UN's peacekeeping department, told Swiss Radio International's Roy Probert that the rationale for UN support for the project was based on the conviction that in post-conflict situations, reliable information is vitally important. "The need for information is parallel to the need for food, shelter, water, health care and so. It can cut right through the rumours and the hostile propaganda that often swirl around and through conflict situations. The population generally doesn't know what to believe. So if we can get out precise information to everybody - one single clear story which is truthful - that ... is a net benefit to the peace process."
He added that radio was undoubtedly the most effective way of reaching the bulk of the population in the Congo, particularly if information could be well-packaged. "In Africa, everybody listens to radio, and that's especially true in the Congo," noted Wimhurst. "You can walk around any village or town and there's somebody with a transistor radio to their ear. The Congolese like good music. They're great musicians. We're going to design our radio station so that it's a listenable station, it's a likeable station, an appealing station to the ear. Not a propaganda station. We will be putting out extremely useful and important information but it will be done in a context of an overall design that makes the radio station attractive to listen to."
A few months later, as the Radio Okapi website (www.monuc.org/radio) went live with streaming audio versions of the network's programming, Philippe Dahinden of Fondation Hirondelle declared that he was satisfied with what had been accomplished between February and April. "Radio Okapi has succeeded in its first endeavour," said Dahinden. "It has realised an old dream of the Congolese: to hear, in their own language, the news coming from all the parties in the country. It has provided a platform for all the players: both the politicians and those without a voice. It has provided a way to discover a little bit of the reality and the difficulties of life throughout the nation."
Since then, the network has continue to extend its range, opening relays in Kindu and Gbadolite and supplementing the original stations in Kinshasa, Kisangani, and Goma with additional stations in Kalemie, Kananga, and Mbandaka. In August 2002, looking back on its first six months of operation, the Radio Okapi expressed satisfaction with the enthusiastic response of its listening public. "You have adopted us. It is now up to our team - Congolese and international staff - to prove ourselves worthy of your confidence."
Challenges
But there have been setbacks as well. In fact, practising journalism has remained a hazardous profession in the Congo, with rebel groups frequently threatening or harassing journalists. In September 2002, Radio Okapi correspondent Franklin Moliba-Sese was arrested in Gbadolite by the Congolese Liberation Movement. The arrest followed a report by Sese on the poor living conditions which thousands of child soldiers serving in the MLC army must endure. The MLC justified the arrest, saying his report had not been 'sanctioned'. Moliba was eventually released after Monuc intervened.
Resources
www.hirondelle.org
Mater, Gene. Congo Republic's Press-Freedom Report Card. World Center/The Freedom Forum Online: September 16, 1999.
http://199.183.110.96/international/1999/9/16congo.asp
US Department of State. 1999 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Democratic Republic of Congo. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor/U.S. Department of State: February 25, 2000.
www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/af/8322.htm, Congo, Democratic Republic of the, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2001
Committee to Protect Journalists. Country Reports: Democratic Republic of Congo. Committee to Protect Journalists: 1999;
www.cpj.org/attacks99/pages_att99/country_frame_att99.html
IRIN. Journalists Complain Over Lack of Press Freedom. IRIN via Allafrica.com: October 5, 2000. http://allafrica.com/stories/200010050334.html
Freedom Forum Online Staff. Congolese Official Orders Shutdown of Radio, TV Stations. The Freedom Forum Online: September 19, 2000.
www.freedomforum.org/news/2000/09/2000-09-19-01.htm
Jensen, Mike. AISI-Connect National ICT Profile. AISI Connect Database.
http://www2.sn.apc.org/africa
http://real.sri.ch/ramgen/fh/okapi/swissmix.rm, Swiss Radio International report