More than two weeks after earthquake that devastated Haiti
, several community radio stations are still off the air. In the western and southeastern parts of the country, at least 16 stations are facing serious problems that have suspended their broadcasts, Sony Esteus, executive director of SAKS, a local organization of community radio stations, told CPJ. The earthquake obliterated SAKS’ office in the Bourdon neighborhood, east of Port-au-Prince.
Community radio stations play a leading role in local news
coverage in Haiti’s
most remote communities, filling the void left by private radio stations in the
capital. Most of them operate with low power
transmission equipment—between 10 and 500 watts. SAKS has a network of around
30 community radio stations throughout Haiti and has made bringing them
back into operation its priority.
Esteus, also a 1992 CPJ International
Press Freedom awardee and the Caribbean representative of the World Association
of Community Radio Broadcasters, said the premises of Radio Fondwa
in the city of Jacmel was completely destroyed by the
earthquake. No casualties were reported, he said, adding
that two Fondwa reporters who were in station’s studio when the earthquake hit
In Petit Goave, Radyo Kolf Pye, a
community radio station in the town of Value
suffered great losses; in Leogane, the facilities of Radio Zetwal Peyizan
collapsed, Esteus said. Radio SAKA’s building in Gran Goave was damaged and its staff has reportedly been
broadcasting from another location.
Esteus, an experienced radio reporter, worked
for Radio Haiti Inter for almost a decade till the station was closed in 2003. During
the military coup of September 1991, while he was working as a reporter for
radio Tropic FM, he was imprisoned and beaten at the headquarters of the in Port-au-Prince police
department, he told CPJ.