[allAfrica.com]











Cote d'Ivoire: UN Radio Station to Start Broadcasting On Tuesday

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
NEWS
August 9, 2004
Posted to the web August 10, 2004
Abidjan
A UN radio station which is due to broadcast impartial news and messages of
peace and reconciliation throughout Cote d'Ivoire will start broadcasting on
Tuesday following two months of delaying tactics by the government, a UN
spokesman said on Monday.
Jean Victor Nkolo, the official spokesman of the UN Operation in Cote d'Ivoire
(ONUCI), told IRIN that the Abidjan-based radio station, ONUCI FM, would start
broadcasting music on Tuesday, following the government's agreement to let it
use frequencies reserved for state broadcast Radio Television Ivoirienne (RTI).
After a day or two, once the new station had gained an audience, it would start
broadcasting a daily news programme and would then work up to two news
programmes per day, he added.
The UN radio station, which eventually plans to broadcast nationwide through a
series of FM relays, had originally hoped to go on air in mid-June.
However its launch was delayed by endless bureaucratic wranglings with the
Ivorian government while Cote d'Ivoire's faltering peace process remained
deadlocked.
Following a crisis summit in Accra at the end of July to put the country's
January 2003 peace agreement back on track, the authorities finally gave
permission at the end of last week for ONUCI FM to start broadcasting on RTI
frequencies.
Journalists working on the station told IRIN that it soon planned to reach the
rebel-held towns of Bouake, Korhogo and Man in the north of Cote d'Ivoire, as
well other towns in the government-held south.
ONUCI FM would thus become the only radio station broadcasting nationwide in
the divided country, since it erupted into civil war in September 2002.
Diplomats closely involved in efforts to resolve the conflict have frequently
lamented the very partisan nature of Cote d'Ivoire's local media, particularly
the country's privately owned newspapers, most of which are closely aligned
with particular political interest groups. They have often been accused of
whipping up political and ethnic hatred rather than promoting national
reconciliation.

   

  =============================================================================
   Copyright © 2004 UN Integrated Regional Information Networks. All rights
        reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
  =============================================================================