By Norm Dixon
"The closure of Radio Australia would in effect be an intensification of the media blockade that has been placed on Bougainville by PNG for the past eight years", an angry Moses Havini, spokesperson in Australia for the pro-independence Bougainville Interim Government, told Green Left Weekly.
Havini echoes the fear of many that the closure would deprive people in the region of a vital source of news and information — one that is relatively independent of the many repressive and media-restrictive regimes in the region.
As part of his review of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, former Optus boss Bob Mansfield recommended that the ABC Charter no longer include a commitment to international broadcasting. He recommended that RA and Australia Television (ATV) be either closed down or privatised.
Some have interpreted the recommendation as offering Canberra and ABC management an easy source of savings without much political cost, because those most affected are outside the country and don't vote here. The axing of RA and ATV would save the ABC only $20-28 million (depending on where you get your figures) a year — 3-4% of the ABC's total budget.
Despite being starved of funds over many years, resulting in its technology becoming archaic, RA produces 43 hours of programs every day in nine languages. It is estimated that RA's short-wave broadcasts are listened to by as many as 20 million people in the Asia-Pacific region.
In response to Mansfield's suggestion, federal minister of communications Richard Alston said RA and ATV were "expendable". The Coalition stated during the last election campaign that it was "strongly supportive of Radio Australia's existing services" and promised to "ensure that [these services] are not prejudiced or downgraded in any way".
The Pacific News Agency (Pacnews) on January 27 reported that the recommendation to close Radio Australia had "provoked a storm of criticism from Pacific islanders, many of whom rely on Radio Australia for a wide range of services including news, current affairs and sport".
Moses Havini told Green Left Weekly that all the cash-strapped radio stations and media outlets in the poorest South Pacific countries rely on RA for their regional and world news.
This point was endorsed by Radio Tonga, which issued a statement calling on Canberra to retain the service. Radio Tonga's general manager, Davake Fusimalohi, said Pacific stations would find it "very embarrassing" to turn to other news services which do not have RA's reputation for independence and impartiality.
"Not only will the closure of RA shut down Australia's window to the South Pacific, but it will also shut the Pacific window into Australia", Havini added. RA reporters provide the bulk of news reports about developments throughout the Pacific that sometimes make it into ABC news broadcasts.
Havini fears that the already pathetic coverage of the war on Bougainville that reaches the Australian people's ears will evaporate.
RA coverage of the war has allowed news of PNG atrocities to get to the outside world, and allowed the rebels to answer the claims of the PNG government.
"In shutting that window from Bougainville, Australia would virtually shut the world off from what's happening in Bougainville. In one way, we see this as the continuation of the media blockade that has been placed on Bougainville by the PNG government", Havini.
Havini pointed out that "in the past we have had our disappointments with coverage of the Bougainville issue by RA and the ABC". The coverage was often one-sided and pro-Port Moresby, but Havini is often given the opportunity to put the BIG's case, and this reaches the people of PNG and Bougainville.
Interestingly, Havini's fears are shared by the Port Moresby-backed Bougainville Transitional Government. BTG Premier Gerard Sinato said in a statement on January 27 that "people in Bougainville tune into RA for the latest information and entertainment. Most Bougainvilleans knew of the killing of the late [BTG premier] Theodore Miriung through RA a day after the incident."
RA broadcast the findings of a government inquiry that found that PNG troops and their allies were responsible for Miriung's murder, while the PNG media said nothing.
Max Lane, national coordinator of Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor, told Green Left Weekly that the attack on RA "is more than a budgetary measure. It is a political attack on the right to free speech. While Radio Australia continues to play the role of Australia's official 'voice', its broadcasts provide news of developments in both Australia and Asian-Pacific countries that the rulers of these countries often prefer not to be aired.
"Radio Australia's news service is widely respected, especially because it often allows dissidents to have their say. The simple fact that it reports on developments that are largely ignored by the commercial news giants and European and US state broadcasters has made Radio Australia a political irritation to many governments in the region including Canberra."
The Australian government has often been embarrassed by the candour and accuracy of RA news reports at a time when its foreign policy hinges on boosting Australian economic penetration into, and political ties with, the Asia-Pacific region, Lane added. "Australia's foreign policy is today premised on disregarding human rights violations and political repression in countries it seeks to influence."
RA has exposed criminal, environmentally destructive and socially undesirable practices of Australian companies in Bougainville, PNG and the Philippines. In February 1992, it revealed that the Australian government operates a phone and fax tapping facility in Geraldton which spies on Asian and Pacific countries.
In 1992, environmentalist David Suzuki warned PNG, via RA, about the activities of Malaysian logging companies. In 1995, Nunu Santos, a survivor of the of the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre, told Green Left Weekly how his parents kept in touch with developments in their own country of East Timor by listening to reports from RA.
Also in 1995, RA provided the best radio coverage of the militant Papeete demonstrations against French testing, including regular interviews with Tahitian independence leader Oscar Temaru. It has given extensive coverage to the struggles in East Timor, Indonesia and Burma.
It is not surprising, then, that the Coalition government and many foreign affairs bureaucrats now believe "It's time to dump the voice of the past", as former diplomat Duncan Campbell urged in the January 28 Australian. RA's relative independence from government is what calls its existence into question.