Richard Sia (who uses a Sony ICF-SW100)
Washington, DC
10-06-2001
TECOMMUNICATIONS: Shortwave Soldiers
While President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are
threatening
the Taliban with war, broadcasters from the Voice of America
and the
British Broadcasting Corp. are using shortwave radio to woo
the Afghan
citizenry.
Radio is the only form of unfettered mass communications left
in
Afghanistan. The ruling Taliban has banned both television and
the
Internet, and severely restricted press freedom, but the regime
loves
radio and uses it to communicate with its public.
The Taliban's radio station in the nation's capital, Kabul, typically
broadcasts between three and six hours each day in that city,
the VOA
says. The regime's radio stations in the provinces broadcast
for less than
two hours a day. Most Taliban programming consists of news reports
and
religious instruction.
But the Taliban lacks the technical ability to jam foreign radio
signals,
thereby allowing enemies of the regime to bombard Afghanistan's
airwaves
with Western-style news and entertainment.
Since the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and
Pentagon, the
VOA and BBC-two of the largest broadcasters in the region-have
expanded
their daily transmissions to Afghanistan. The VOA now broadcasts
about 25
hours of programming a week in Dari and Pashto, the country's
two major
languages. That's an increase of an hour a day. The BBC broadcasts
almost
50 hours a week, up from 32 hours. They also split their time
between Dari
and Pashto.
The other major foreign radio agencies broadcasting into Afghanistan
include Radio Pakistan, Deutsche Welle, and the Voice of the
Islamic
Republic of Iran.
Both the VOA and BBC claim to be extremely popular with the media-starved
people of Afghanistan. Citing their own and United Nations-sponsored
surveys, the BBC says that between 60 percent and 70 percent
of
Afghanistan's population tunes in to its programming; the VOA
says its
reaches 80 percent of the country's male population.
Their broadcasts rely on Western news accounts, and the producers
have no
qualms about calling Osama bin Laden a terrorist. "We make no
compromises," says Baqer Moin, head of the BBC's Persian and
Pashto
language divisions.
The VOA, however, recently came under fire for broadcasting part
of an
interview with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, in which
he explained
why his government would not turn over accused terrorist leader
bin Laden
to the United States. The State Department objected publicly
to the
broadcast, complaining that it contained little news and that
the VOA
simply gave the Afghan leader a soapbox. And New York Times
columnist
William Safire later penned a column titled "Equal Time for
Hitler," in which he suggested that the VOA ought to be vigorously
defending U.S. positions.
Moazzam Siddiqi, VOA's regional division chief, rejected those
criticisms,
saying the agency follows accepted journalistic standards and
that such
comments often arise in times of "crisis." He might have added
that even the agency's public service and entertainment
programming-designed to attract a larger audience-are implicitly
critical
of the Taliban's views and values.
The VOA, for example, broadcasts Afghan music banned by the Taliban.
It
also transmits a show that emphasizes women's achievements.
Another show tells about the lives of Afghans living in the United
States.
And a telephone call-in show encourages listeners to discuss
the issues of
the day.
One of the most-popular shows in Afghanistan is a BBC-produced
soap opera
called New Home, New Life. Set in central Afghanistan, the drama
considers
a variety of social issues, Moin says, through its depiction
of life in
two small villages.
The show's writers, Moin adds, meet regularly with officials
from the
International Red Cross, UNICEF, and other UN agencies to discuss
how to
weave discussions of land mines, opium use, and other topics
into the
script.
The BBC recently aired the 1,000th episode of the show, which
debuted in
1994.
Brian Faler is a correspondent with National Journal News
Service.