New York, July 27, 2005The National Communications Councilknown by its French acronym CNCauthorized independent radio station Radio Publique Africaine to resume broadcasting as of today, after police shuttered it on Friday in a standoff over news content.
President Domitien Ndayizeye also named a new CNC, following the resignation yesterday of its former chairman Jean Pierre Manda. The new CNC will be headed by a former journalist and will include RPA's deputy director Jean-Marie Hicuburundi.
Hicuburundi told the Committee to Protect Journalists that RPA wants an official inventory of equipment before it goes back on air, to ensure that there is no loss or damage to its property as a result of the forced closure. He said the station nevertheless expects to be back on air shortly.
The CNC had ordered RPA closed indefinitely on July 15, due to allegations of biased election coverage and insulting the council. RPA director Alexis Sinduhije, a 2004 recipient of CPJ's International Press Freedom Award, initially defied the ban, saying it was unjust. The following week RPA agreed to close the station for 48 hours on the understanding that the CNC would lift the ban immediately afterwards. However, the CNC failed to lift the ban. RPA resumed broadcasting on Thursday, July 21, and police moved in the following day.
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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.