Burundi
27 July 2005
Radio station allowed to resume broadcasting
Reporters Without Borders hailed a decision today by the National Commission for Communication to allow the privately-owned radio station Radio Publique Africaine (RPA) to resume broadcasting.
The head of the CNC, Jean-Pierre Manda, meanwhile submitted his resignation yesterday to President Domitien Ndayizeye in order to scotch rumours that he had been settling a personal score when he ordered RPA’s closure.
RPA manager Alexis Sinduhije said the station would not resume broadcasting today because he needed to verify that all the equipment was there after several days of forced closure. He welcomed Manda’s resignation and said he hoped his successor would "really help the Burundian press to progress."
25. 07. 05 Police close radio station, briefly arrest eight journalists
Reporters Without Borders today condemned the closure of a privately-owned radio station, Radio Publique Africaine (RPA), by police on 22 July and the arrest of eight of its journalists for several hours. The station had reopened the previous day after suspending its broadcasts on 19 and 20 July at the behest of the National Commission for Communication (CNC).
"It is shocking that the authorities sent armed police to close the station’s premises and arrest journalists," the organisation said, deploring the CNC’s failure to respect its commitment to let the station reopen.
Police said it was President Domitien Ndayizeye who gave the orders to close the station on 22 July. The day after the raid, the president received representatives of journalists’ associations who are trying to mediate between the CNC and RPA. The president’s spokesman subsequently said RPA would be able to reopen soon. The head of a local press watchdog, Abbot Emmanuel Muyehe, said the station would be able to resume broadcasting this week.
The CNC ordered RPA’s indefinite closure on 14 July for failing to respect "pluralism"in its coverage of municipal and legislative elections on 3 and 4 July. The station was above all accused of failing to give live coverage of the meetings held by the president’s party, the Front for the Defence of Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU).
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One of Burundi's most popular radio stations, "Radio Publique Africain", has been allowed to re-open. 

RPA was  forcibly shut down on Friday July 22, allegedly on the orders of President Domitien Ndayizeye.

The move came just a day after RPA resumed broadcasting, having  observed an earlier two-day ban, following a disagreement with Burundi's "National Communications Council" (CNC). 

The CNC had accused RPA of giving disproportionate coverage to the opposition FDD party, who heavily defeated Ndayizeye's FRODEBU party in last month's national elections. Ndayizeye is due to relinquish power in August. 

The radio station's Director, Alexis Sinduhije, had denied the CNC's charges. President Ndayizeye was quoted by BBC monitoring as saying that he had decided to close the radio station to "safeguard the integrity of state institutions."

The closure of RPA was condemned in Burundi, where the radio station, founded in 2001 to promote reconciliation between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups, has a wide following. The US-based "Committee to Protect Journalists" led international condemnation of the ban, which Burundi's "Collectif des Professionels des Médias de la Diaspora Burundaise" described as an "abuse of power", setting up an online petition in protest. 

"The National Council of Communication judged that RPA has respected council sanctions, but we have also allowed the radio to reopen because a lot of people requested it," CNC chairman Jean Pierre Manda told Reuters, earlier this week.

Manda has now resigned, although he denies that the move is connected with the row over RPA, and cites "personal reasons". The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that the CNC is to be reformed, with Radio Publique Africain's Deputy Director sitting on the board in future. 

There is some confusion over when the ban was lifted, with Reporters Sans Frontieres and the Committee to Protect Journalists reporting that it remained in place until Wednesday this week, while Reuters claims that the ban was lifted on Monday. 

RPA Director Alexis Sinduhije has told Reuters that some of the radio station's material has been destroyed by  the Burundian police, and suggested that broadcasting will not resume until a damage inventory has been taken.

This week's row is merely the latest manifestation of a long-running personal dispute between President Ndayizeye and the RPA Director Alexis Sinduhije, says journalist Gratien Rukindikiza, writing on the Burundian news website Burundi.news.free.fr.  Rukindikiza traces the root of the affair to a telephone call last year in which Ndayizeye tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade Sinduhije to endorse his campaign, through Radio Publique Africain, to amend Burundi's constitution. The amendment would have allowed Ndayizeye to seek a second term in power, in contravention of a 2003 peace agreement.