COTE D IVOIRE: Using the media to orchestrate violence

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

ABIDJAN, 26 Jan 2006 (IRIN) - As the United Nations this week considered slapping sanctions on Cote d’Ivoire leaders undermining peace efforts, one young hothead warned this could be a trigger for war.

Those responsible for last week’s anti-UN protests could bring 10 times more people onto the streets, Eugene Djue, leader of the “Patriots’ Union for the Total Liberation of Cote d’Ivoire”, this week told the daily newspaper “24 Heures” (24 Hours).

His group would “consider sanctions as a declaration of war,” he said. Mobilisation of the Young Patriots movement loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo last week was at “a tenth of its capacity”, he added.

To get their supporters out into the streets last week, youth leaders aired hate messages on radio and state TV, a favoured medium for whipping up political sentiment in Cote d’Ivoire since the country descended into civil war after a failed coup in September 2002.

The battle for control of the airwaves has been at the centre of the struggle for power in Cote d’Ivoire, with factions notably seeking a hold over state radio and television broadcaster Radiodiffusion Television Ivorienne (RTI).

Several people died in last week’s protests, hundreds of UN peacekeepers were forced to beat a retreat, UN offices, compounds and vehicles were torched and ransacked, and there has been severe disruption to humanitarian aid to more than three million people.

Reacting to this first wave of violence ever targeted at a UN peacekeeping mission in West Africa, the Security Council last week demanded “the immediate end of this violence and of all hate messages in the media, in particular the attacks against the United Nations.”

Some 10,000 UN and French troops are in Cote d’Ivoire to help maintain peace and underpin efforts to reunify the country, split for more than three years between a rebel-held north and government-controlled south.

The UN operation came under fire last week after a panel of UN-appointed mediators said there were no grounds to prolong the National Assembly’s five-year mandate, which expired on 16 December.

Interpreting the mediators’ stand as a move to dissolve parliament, protesters accused the UN of meddling and hundreds of members of the Young Patriots militia invaded RTI state television, helping pro-government journalists to take over the main channel's programming.

After broadcasting the national anthem, youth leaders urged viewers to join the demonstrations. Several top television officials later said were told they would be replaced if they did not cooperate.

UN blasted

"Good evening," said anchorman Brou Amessan on 18 January. "The news in Cote d'Ivoire is dominated by the United Nations decision to dissolve the National Assembly, and by the great anger of the Ivorian people."

According to Amessan, UN special envoy Pierre Schori was attempting to "confiscate the republic".

"Ivorians do not want to be recolonised and they are determined to fight with their bare hands,” he went on. “The soldiers of the United Nations have already killed five Ivorians in Guiglo and they have used live bullets against demonstrators.”

Witnesses on the scene at the RTI network offices when the protesters took over, said that Ivorian army chief of staff Philippe Mangou initially took no action though he later urged the rioters to leave the grounds.

For several days, RTI news was presented by an anchorman known for his loyalist leanings and reports reflected the views of the proGbagbo camp. There was no mention that millions of residents dared not venture out into the streets, where barricades had crippled traffic.

Meanwhile, in the volatile Ivorian West, a frequent scene of ethnic strife and home to many loyalist militia groups, local radios came under strong pressure from the Young Patriots movement to broadcast anti-UN messages calling for people to take to the street.

One community radio in the town of Daloa, Radio Tchrato, even was ransacked and looted after journalists there refused to broadcast a Young Patriots message calling on attacks on UN troops and offices.

At RTI, tension rose a notch when Information Minister Martine Studer, a member of the new reconciliation government set up in December, turned up bearing a recorded message of appeasement from Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny.

Witnesses said Studer was slapped in the face by an RTI reporter when she insisted the message be broadcast in full, but the reporter has denied he hit her.

Fighting for control of state TV

Trying to control the The “Studer Affair”, as it is being called in Cote d’Ivoire, has refocused the spotlight on attempts to keep TV and radio independent. State TV, the only network available to people unable to afford cable TV, has already been used in the past as a propaganda instrument by the pro-Gbagbo camp.

Following the September 2002 rebel uprising, several journalists were replaced by others, trumpeting the victories of the loyalist army. Most notably, early in the war it was falsely announced that the city of Daloa had been liberated while it was still in rebel hands.

And when rebel leader Guillaume Soro was appointed as Communications Minister in a now defunct government of national reconciliation, he too quickly moved to sack several top managers. The rebel New Forces now have their own television station operating in the north, projecting their side of the picture.

Then when the Ivorian army broke a cease-fire and launched an air raid on rebel targets in November 2004, top officials considered too neutral were again sidelined to the benefit of pro-Gbagbo reporters.

That same month, in scenes similar to those that hit the country last week, a visibly angry Charles Ble Goude, the leader of the Young Patriots, called on the population to take to the streets and attack the French military. His call for retaliation followed the destruction of the Ivorian air force by the French army in response to an air raid against a French base.

A massive looting spree targeting symbols of the French presence in Cote d'Ivoire was the result, leading to the departure of thousands of expatriates.

But some analysts, while agreeing that exploitation of the media to political ends is rife, caution against using the term “hate media”.

"The term 'hate media' as the West uses it does not really apply to Cote d'Ivoire," said Jeroen Corduwener, media trainer for the American NGO Internews.

"The press is extremely polarized and politicized, there is a lot of mud-slinging against individuals, but there are no media-orchestrated hate campaigns against specific ethnic groups," said Corduwener, who has reported extensively about Rwanda.

"That said, some of the blue newspapers are coming dangerously close, considering what they write about the French," he said, referring to a term used for pro-Gbagbo dailies.

"Their readership might end up believing the French are constantly plotting against the government. That definitely has an impact, although the circulation of those newspapers remains relatively small."

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