SOUTH-SOUTH RADIO FROM CARACAS TO AFRICA

COMMENTARY ARCHIVES, 9 Oct 2009

Mildred Pineda

Poverty, attacks on human rights and corporate fraud will be among the main news coverage focuses of a new regional public radio network, Radio del Sur, which will link stations from South America and Africa.

Radio del Sur (Radio of the South) emerged as "an instrument of integration in a world of shifting power alignments and geopolitical changes," said Helena Salcedo, director of the Radio Nacional de Venezuela (the state-owned national radio station), who heads the new Caracas-based station.

Salcedo said the Venezuelan government, which launched the new network of public stations, is providing "a small amount" of funding, but did not provide figures.

The new station is motivated by the same objectives underlying Telesur, the Caracas-based regional TV network that for four years has been broadcasting news coverage, documentaries and series aimed at "giving a voice" to those who have none in the mainstream media.

Telesur is a 24-hour Latin America-wide network jointly owned by the governments of Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua. The bulk of the station’s financing comes from the Venezuelan government, with other governments providing mainly logistical and in-country support.

For now, Radio del Sur is broadcasting mainly music and some news, using the internet for international coverage, over a network of stations that reach 40 percent of the country.

The first day it went on the air, on Sept. 27, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said "People in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa are going to learn about their history and their revolutionary political struggles."

That was a concrete objective, he said, laid out by the second Africa-South America summit held Sept. 26-27 on Venezuela’s Margarita Island, where the governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile and Ecuador pledged support for the initiative.

Radio del Sur will closely follow news on the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), the new regional lender Banco del Sur, Petrocaribe, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), the Universidad del Sur (University of the South), the Gasoducto del Sur (pipeline of the South) and the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) – blocs and projects aimed at political, financial, economic, energy and cultural integration, many of which were Chávez’s initiatives.

The radio network will also provide coverage of social movements and cooperation agreements between the regions.

The programming will be planned with partner stations from Mexico to Argentina. Contacts have also been made with community and indigenous stations in Colombia. Venezuela will provide the system with news programmes and interviews, and editing and coordination will take place in Caracas.

On the Radio del Sur web site, www.laradiodelsur.com, 88 stations from Latin America, the Caribbean, the United States, Canada and Spain are listed as partners: 18 from Argentina, 10 from Colombia, five from Bolivia, four from Uruguay and Honduras, three from Brazil, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay and the United States, two from Cuba, Ecuador, Haiti and Peru, and one from Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.

The eventual goal is to translate the programming into French, English, Dutch and Arabic, so that it can expand throughout the African continent.

Programming content will also be shared with several radio stations in Africa: stations in Gambia, Benin and Algeria – which have Spanish language broadcasts – and in Equatorial Guinea, where Spanish is one of the official languages.

Writer and media expert Luis Britto García, a member of the Telesur advisory council, told IPS that "Radio del Sur’s broadcasts must provide an accurate view of reality, because the conventional media tend to create an illusory world; they only air reruns while transmitting U.S. values as if they were our own."

In U.S. programming, "we are depicted as picturesque beings, but actually, we have our own cultures," he said.

The question of the impartiality of Radio del Sur could be a point of controversy, as it will be largely financed by the Venezuelan government.

But Britto said that will not be a problem, because the government "is governed by the constitution, which stipulates that news must be veracious."

Furthermore, the station "is not going to sit on news items until they are no longer important, nor is it going to lie or censor, as the transnational news networks do – something that can be seen simply by turning to certain channels," he said.

Salcedo said "nations that have been subjected to the transnational news networks will now have a station that will be open to participation."

Magda Gibelli, a 21-year-old journalism student at the Santa María University in Caracas, said "it is always good when new media outlets are opened, but that depends on the focus that it will have, because we often see that official channels only show one viewpoint on what is happening in Latin America – in this case, from the angle of the left."

Another journalism student, Yosvelin Saavedra, 23, said "on Radio del Sur, listeners can find other eyes and microphones to see reality as it is; I just hope they focus on social issues instead of waging media wars."

The new station itself complains about a smear campaign and "counteroffensive" against the Chávez administration’s so-called "Bolivarian revolution" by local and international stations.

The directors of Radio del Sur recall, for example, that in 2005, U.S. Congressman Connie Mack, a Republican from Florida, sponsored a bill that was to increase broadcasting to Venezuela "as a way to provide an accurate and comprehensive alternative source of news to the people of Venezuela" and counter Telesur’s "anti-Americanism." The broadcasting would be financed by the U.S. government.

In late July, the Venezuelan government broadcasting watchdog Conatel ordered the closure of 32 radio stations and two TV stations because they failed to comply with regulations – a decision that drew wide criticism, on both the local and international levels.

Public Works Minister Diosdado Cabello, who oversees Conatel, said some of the stations were shut down because they did not renew their broadcasting licenses, and others because the stations had been illegally transferred to new owners.

Radio del Sur will broadcast on 98.5 FM, which it was assigned by Conatel prior to the July closures.

Salcedo said her team "has fulfilled all of the legal procedures," unlike the outlets that were taken off the air on Aug. 1.

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