INDONESIA: Hopes community radio will save lives in Papua
Updated
In the Indonesian province of Papua, and it's hoped that the construction of a community radio station in the central highlands will make the difference between life and death for tribespeople from this isolated region.
Presenter: Marianne Kearney
Speakers: Tessa Piper from the Media Development Loan Fund
KEARNEY: In the Jaywijaya highlands of Papua news was a rare commodity until recently. With no electricity, no television, definitely no cable TV and without mobile phone signals, villagers couldn't even connect via text message. If tribal villagers wanted to check whether there was unrest in the nearest town of Wamena, or what was happening in the faraway provincial capital of Jayapura, it was a three hour trip into town.
But all that has changed since a New York-based media group, and an Indonesia radio station, 68H, decided to build a community radio station in Yahukimo.
Since its opening in September, Radio Pikonane has been broadcasting daily to an audience of around 70,000 people, causing a huge stir in the highlands, says Kathe Vince Damarra, one of the station's announcers.
Damarra says people no longer depend on the often unreliable bush, or in Papua's case, jungle telegraph to get their news.
DAMARRA: "For instance there might be one tribe, and then they pass the information, such as this and this happened in Wamena, then it's passed onto the next village, then out to the main highway. But the information is spread by one tribe, so we only have their version of events. But now people don't need to do this, they can just turn on their radios and find out what's going on."
KEARNEY: Providing villagers in Papua's central highlands with objective news, rather than gossip, is not just a matter of keeping villagers entertained. Rumours of a military or police crackdown in Wamena frequently led to riots or unrest, says Damara.
DAMARRA: "The security situation at the moment is calm in Wamena, but sometimes people react because of a misunderstanding about something or because of lack of information. And then they get angry and want to riot."
KEARNEY: The misunderstandings were often amplified by language barriers. The Yahukimo speak a different language to people in Wamena. But Radio Pikonane helps locals understand what is going on by broadcasting in the language of the Yahukimo, as well as Bahasa Indonesia.
Getting information in and out of the district has been a matter of life and death. During the rainy season roads and bridges are often washed away and the villagers are completely isolated. Just over two years ago, 60 people starved to death because they had no means of contacting the outside world.
It was this news which prompted the New York based Media Development Loan Fund to build a radio station, says Tessa Piper, the organisation's Jakarta representative.
PIPER: No-one knew for I think two months after the event, what was going on there, and I think this is just such a shocking situation when you have people living not that far away from a nearby town, where there was a warehouse with food in it, it wasn't that they were also facing shortages, but this lack of information of any kind reaching the outside, this meant that no-one knew what was going on so these people just basically had to suffer.
KEARNEY: Like the rest of Papua, Yahukimo also has a high number of troops, stationed there to fight Papuan independence guerillas. Church groups and activists have accused the military of frequent human rights abuses against civilians.
But Piper hopes that with Radio Pikonane the security forces will come under increasing scrutiny.
PIPER: I think there is no doubt that there continues to be problems with human rights violations in that area, and I think that this is something that's very important that the radio station should address. It's a common problem in Papua, and one that because of the location, you just don't get to hear about the human rights violations going on and therefore the abuses continue unchecked, and that's obviously a huge problem. So we're hoping, and I think for sure the local population are hoping, that by being able to discuss these problems on air, it will lead to some kind of positive response from the military and the police and the government in that area.
KEARNEY: But equally important to the impoverished farmers of this region is news on health and how villagers can avoid common illnesses such as malaria, says Damarra.
DAMARRA: "Yahukimo is known for malaria, the most dominant problems are malaria, and diarhorrea, because when people come back from the fields they don't wash their hands before eating, so people are often sick."
KEARNEY: Response to Radio Pikonane, which provided the area with limited electricity for the first time has been very enthusiastic, says Damarra.
There are no telephones and no mobile phone reception in this part of the highlands but that hasn't stopped listeners engaging in a local version of talkback radio, says Damarra.
DAMARRA: If listeners want to call in they can't because there is not even a single telcom tower in this area, and there is no mobile signal, but the reaction from people has been very good. After we gave news about Wamena, for example they will come directly to the studio to ask us about the news, saying we don't understand it, can you explain.
KEARNEY: But it's not just news of the next town or the price of potatoes that interests residents of Yahukimo, they also want to use Radio Pikonane as a means of communicating with the wider world, says Damarra.
The station also broadcasts news programmes from their partner station in Jakarta 68H, as well as re-broadcasting news from the highlands, and through this connection people in Yahukimo hope that the rest of Indonesia and the world will have a window into their world.
