INDONESIA: Radio station opens in remote Papua
Updated
A new community radio station's coming to the central highlands of Papua. And it could make the difference between life and death for people living in remote areas of this Indonesian province.
Presenter: Marianne Kearney
Speakers: Station announcer Kathe Vince Damarra; Media Development Loan Fund Jakarta representative, Tessa Piper
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 were even denied the delights of text messaging. 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 Indonesian 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 its 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 accurate 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 mis-understanding about something or for lack of information. And then they get angry and want to react.
KEARNEY: The misunderstandings were often amplified by language barriers because the Yahukimo tribesman 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 tribesman, 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 village is completely isolated. Just over two years ago, 60 people starved to death because they had no means of contacting the outside world during a severe famine. It was this news which prompted the NY based Media Development Loan Fund to build a radio station says Tessa Piper, the organisation's Jakarta representative.
PIPER: No-one knew for 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 reaching the outside, this meant that no-one knew what was going on.
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 giving the people of Yahukimo, the security forces will come under increasing scrutiny.
PIPER: I think there is no doubt that there continue to human rights violations in that area, and I think that this is something 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 a huge problem. And we're hoping, and I'm sure the local population is hoping, that by being able to discuss these problems on air, it will lead to some kind of positive response from the police and the government, in that area.
KEARNEY: But equally important to the impoverished farmers of this regions, 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 telecom tower in this area, and there is no mobile signal. But the reaction from people has been very enthusiastic. After we gave news about Wamena, for example they willa came 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 rest of the world will have a window into their world.
