12/26/2006 BBC MONITORING INTERNATIONAL REPORTS

Analysis by Chris Greenway of BBC Monitoring on 26 December

The beleaguered Somali transitional government - forced to flee Mogadishu by Islamist militias six months ago and now based in the provincial town of Baidoa (Baydhabo) - has launched its own radio station.

This is an important development in a country where radio remains a powerful mode of mass communication. Although there is a distinctive Somali internet culture (along with a thriving mobile phone market) and a variety of Somali chat rooms and news websites have operated for a number of years, much of their audience is amongst the large Somali Diaspora in the West, the Gulf states and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, no newspapers have a national circulation and BBC Monitoring's observations indicate that many press reports are simply repeats of news already carried on the radio. Local TV broadcasting remains limited.

Radio has filled this gap. Since the fall of the Siyad Barreh government in January 1991, the BBC Somali service has been, in effect, the country's "national broadcaster". On the air four times a day on several shortwave frequencies, it can also be heard via FM relays in five Somali towns and cities, including Mogadishu.

Competing with the BBC are a variety of indigenous stations, though none with truly national coverage.

The government's new station - known as " Radio Bay, Voice of the Somali Republic" - was opened at a ceremony in Baidoa on 24 December attended by President Abdillahi Yusuf Ahmad and Prime Minister Ali Muhammad Gedi, according to Somali news websites. It is said to broadcast locally on 95.2 FM and for a wider audience on shortwave.

Baidoa lies roughly half-way between Mogadishu and the Ethiopian border. There has been fighting near the town over the past week between forces of the transitional government, supported by Ethiopian troops, and those loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).

Islamists now control Radio Mogadishu

Reporting the opening of the new government radio, one website (Somaliweyn) reported Information Minister Ali Ahmad Jama (alias Jangali) as saying that it could be heard across Somalia, though the report did not give precise details of its frequency or broadcasting hours. An official of the Information Ministry who worked for state radio in the Siyad Barreh era has been placed in charge of the new station.

Another website (AllPuntland.com) said President Abdillahi Yusuf had declared that now was "a good opportunity for the government to get a radio of its own". The report did not mention, however, that the government had lost control of its former mouthpiece, Radio Mogadishu, when it was forced out of Mogadishu by the UIC in June 2006.

Following that change of political control in the capital, BBC Monitoring observed that Radio Mogadishu had been taken over by the UIC, which appended the title "Voice of the Somali People" to the radio's name. It is based at Villa Somalia, the former presidential palace.

Other stations in Mogadishu

Other stations confirmed by BBC Monitoring to be broadcasting in Mogadishu at present include Radio HornAfrik and Radio Shabeelle (Shabelle) (both of which are on FM and satellite), Radio Banaadir (Banadir) and Holy Koran Radio (also known as IQK).

HornAfrik - www.hornafrik.com - is the longest established (since 1999) independent broadcaster in Mogadishu. It also has a TV service. Radio HornAfrik is a BBC World Service rebroadcasting partner.

Another popular station, Radio Shabeelle, transmits on shortwave (6960 kHz) in addition to FM and satellite. Launched in 2002 in Marka, the capital of Lower Shabeelle Region, close to Mogadishu, it now operates in both Marka (on 92.1 FM) and Mogadishu (101.5 FM). It forms part of the Shabeelle Media Network, which also runs the website www.shabelle.net offering material in both Somali and English, and the daily Shabeelle Times newspaper. The Shabeelle Media Network operates with assistance from the Paris-based external broadcaster, Radio France Internationale (RFI).

Radio Banaadir - www.radiobanadir.com - is named after the region that encompasses Mogadishu and its immediate environs. It has been on the air since 2000.

Two trends

There have been two noticeable trends in recent years in Somali radio broadcasting.

The first - possibly triggered by the launches of HornAfrik and Banaadir in 1999 and 2000 - has been for many of the new FM radios that have appeared in recent years to be much less closely linked to warlords than previous stations were, and to have increasingly styled themselves as independent rather than affiliated to a particular faction or clan.

Parallel with this has been the second trend, the decline in the use of shortwave, with very few stations now broadcasting regularly on that waveband. Indeed, Radio Shabeelle and the government's new Radio Bay may be the only ones currently doing so on a regular basis (though BBC Monitoring has not yet been able to confirm Radio Bay's presence on shortwave). This marks a considerable change from some periods in the 1990s and early 2000s when several stations were active on shortwave, from Mogadishu, from Hargeysa (capital of the self-proclaimed Republic of Somaliland) in the north of the country, and from regional centers such as Baidoa, Galcaio (Gaalkacyo) and Kismayo. Most of them were affiliated to one or other of the country's various warlords.

The spectrum between 6700 and 7000 kHz was long a favorite portion of the shortwave band for these stations, although their broadcasts could often be irregular and erratic. Difficulties in obtaining fuel for generators to power their transmitters sometimes limited broadcasts. The transmitters themselves were often not designed for public broadcast use, but were units previously used for radio-telephony or other non-broadcast purposes. Transmitter power (and therefore coverage) tended to be limited and audio quality could be poor.

Media freedom

After the UIC swept to control much of southern Somalia in mid-2006, media freedom watchdogs expressed fears that the independence of radio stations and other media outlets was under threat. Such fears followed a spate of reports of Islamists acting to close or control media outlets of which they disapproved.

One case which received considerable publicity in the West - not least because it appeared to echo events in Taliban-era Afghanistan - was that of Radio Jowhar (near Mogadishu) which was temporarily closed by Islamist forces in September 2006 and forced to stop playing love songs and other "immoral" music.

More recently, on 17 December, UIC soldiers detained two officials of the National Union of Somali Journalists.

The transitional government has also been accused of infringing media freedom. An independent commercial station in Baidoa, Radio Warsan (formerly known as Democratic Media Concern, DMC), was forcibly closed by the transitional government on 14 December. The Paris-based lobby group, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), said Radio Warsan had received threats after airing news reports that displeased the government. It noted that the closure followed an incident in September when Radio Warsan had been forced off the air for over a week after seven of its journalists were briefly detained.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on 18 December said it was alarmed by an upsurge in arrests and harassment of journalists by rival groups battling for control of Somalia. It blamed both the Islamists and the transitional government for this development. One of the Somali regions it singled out for concern was Puntland, in the northeast, a stronghold of President Abdillahi Yusuf. It noted the detention by the Puntland authorities of a radio correspondent working for private stations.

Earlier, RSF had also expressed the same general alarm about the state of media freedom in the country. In a statement on 5 December, it criticized both the UIC and the Puntland authorities, saying that " Somalia is in the process of becoming a forbidden area for the independent press".

Recent behavior

The fighting in recent days around Baidoa and elsewhere has been reflected in the behavior of the local media. Reports on the fighting have dominated news bulletins. For example, Radio HornAfrik's main news bulletin at 8 a.m. local time today (26 December) was devoted entirely to the military situation.

Non-news programming has also been affected. On 24 December, HornAfrik - regarded as of the country's most influential and respected media outlets - was heard by BBC Monitoring playing patriotic and nationalistic songs that were popular during the 1977 Ogaden war, when President Siyad Barreh invaded southeast Ethiopia (largely inhabited by ethnic Somalis).

On foreign stations, BBC Monitoring has noted that Al-Jazeera TV (both its Arabic and English services) in particular has been giving plenty of attention to the news from Somalia. The station has a correspondent, Mohammed Adow, in Mogadishu and enjoys access to footage shot in other areas controlled by the UIC.

Source: BBC Monitoring research 26 Dec 06

BBC Monitoring