ProPublica article by Sheri Fink:“It was an inspired idea — bring independent radio programming to one of the most isolated, war-scarred regions of the world, providing millions of displaced Darfuris with news about the political, military and humanitarian responses to their plight.
Funded with a million dollars from the U.S. State Department, Radio Afia Darfur, a half-hour shortwave radio program, is beamed three times a day into war-torn Darfur, Sudan, and refugee-packed eastern Chad.
“The idea was to accurately report what was going on,” former Special Envoy for Darfur Andrew Natsios, who left his post before the program was launched, told ProPublica. “Both the government and the rebels were manipulating the people by lying to them and withholding information.”
But critics charge that the program — meant to provide displaced people in Sudan with “accurate and objective information about their country” — is instead broadcasting in a language most of its target audience doesn’t understand and has watered-down criticisms of Sudanese officials (whom the U.S. government holds responsible for genocide in Darfur). An outspoken Darfuri-American news reader who repeatedly challenged the program’s non-Darfuri editors has also been fired. Read more
