Role of Media

RWANDA'S CONFLICT

Rwanda is a country situated in the Central East of Africa, neighbor of the countries Congo, Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania.

Rwanda have been a country that`s been directly related to ethnical differences which have lead in many ocations to governmental disputes and oppression by different groups which obviously ended in conflict. After the 1^st World War, the Treaty of Versailles established that Rwanda would become a colony of Belgium (as his past influence, Germany, had lost and being punished by the Treaty). The Belgians decided to use a policy of destroy and rule, they decided to divide the country into two different ethnical groups: The Tutsis (Defined by the finest physical factions) which were the 9% of the country, and the Hutus (the rest of the country), the 91%, the huge majority.

Belgians decided to give the power to the Tutsis, that generated a total resentment by the vast majority of the countries (Hutus) who were oppressed by Tutsi`s ruling. But then in 1962, Rwanda became independent and what the Belgians decided to leave as their legacy was the Hutus at the power, leaving the Tutsis totally exposed. The time past and civil wars took place but in 1994, the United Nations intervene to sign a peace agreement between both Hutus and Tutsis. However, before the peace agreement was signed, the president (Hutu) was killed and after that, a massacre was unleashed.

In this massacre, the Hutu army along with the Interhamwe (Hutu militia), started killing every single Tutsi. Obviously it wasn`t that easy to difference a Tutsi from a Hutu and less when there was so many people and both ethnics were mixed up in the population. So this obsessed Hutu militia and fundamentalist population, started to kill just everyone in their way as they even consider a Hutu that hide a Tutsi, a cockroach (Tutsi). This lead the chaos and genocide due to a resentment generated years ago when the Belgian legacy differenced the population by ethnical groups and giving power to one of them.

The Role of the Media

The Role of the Media played a very important role in this conflict/genocide, nationally and internationally speaking. This is because the media and its news construct the ideas of what people think and believe of different cases due to the information they provide. If for example something horrible is happening around the World, and it’s totally exposed and showed drastically for the World in the news, many would put their voice up for the people on that territory, this could meant big support from different organizations around the World and a big development on the solution of the problem. Also pressure could be put on the government of different countries which could lead to even a major support on the conflict.

International

 First of all around the World political news were the main breaking news like South African elections. As that was happening, the actual media business was very profitable by remarking those cases, so the Rwanda’s genocide wasn’t that deeply explored and shown to the World. By not having the adequate focus, the ones who showed actually around the World the genocide, they show it like a small information so actually not everyone knew really good what was truly happening in Rwanda.

 So we could say that there was not a big impulse (global aid) given by the World, due to a poor interest showed by the World biggest media companies. But there were actually important people who knew about this case, the big global powers along with the United Nations. But the UN didn’t gave quite a big support because they just sent peacekeepers, not peacemakers, the UN army wasn’t allowed to shoot. They didn’t do this because the United Nations didn’t consider the Rwandan case an actual genocide. A mass murder is considered genocide after a 500000 deaths, in Rwanda it was clear that there were more than that amount of deaths, despite of that the United Nations didn’t wanted to admit that number. That surely would be because of what involves on sending peacemakers, a country would send their own soldiers to fight on a “war”, risking their own life deaths and what the budget sending and preparing them means. International powers didn’t had the guts to risk themselves to help others, also considering what happened to American blue helmets in Somalia, when many where assassinated.

Neither the media or the United Nations expressed clearly what was happening in Rwanda, so with a poor support of the UN, the population of Rwanda was doomed to deal with that massive problem by themselves due to external priorities, the same external participation which doomed them to the resentment that lead to the massacre.

National

The National media also played an important role on this conflict for the fact that it was mainly controlled by the Hutus. These Hutus had a radio called RTLM in which they expressed their ideas over the local people. It was evident that people could be brainwashed by this radio because in Rwanda there was an extremely poor level of education. So if people aren’t actually that confident and efficient on their thoughts due to low education, easily they could be convinced by someone who gives very self-confident speeches and based his opinions on history (even though it was completely biased).

So in the end, if they speeches sound really convincing (as they actually sound), the ideas could be strongly imposed around the Hutu population. What was said on RTLM was horrible things about the Tutsis and their oppression, the terrible they were, and how this ethnical group should be totally exterminated. By leaving the Tutsis on such a horrible position and blaming the same Tutsis on their failure and different miserable positions form the Hutus, many Hutus around the country started to develop a further resentment against the Tutsi ethno and with that the desire of their extermination was living strongly.

So in the end the RTLM helped to increase tension between Tutsis and Hutus and generating many more Hutus against the Tutsis and being disposed to assassinating them after their “barbaric actions”… 

TITO VASQUEZ

SUDAN CONFLICT

SUDAN´S GEOGRAPHY

Sudan as a whole was the largest country in the African continent. But in 2011 the country was split in two: SOUTH SUDAN and SUDAN, that now is the 3^rd largest country in Africa.

Capital city: Khartoum

Borders: N: Egypt to the north - NE: the Red Sea to the northeast - E: Eritrea and Ethiopia - S: South Sudan - SW: the Central African Republic - W: Chad -  NW: Libya.

Climate: in the north is dry and hot and in the south is more tropical.

Main economic activities: Agriculture. Oil

Geographical characteristics:

North: between the Egyptian border and Khartoum. It has the Nile Valley region with its alluvial strip and the dry Sahara Desert with Nubian Desert to the east of the Nile and Libyan Desert to the west.

West: where Darfur lies with Kordofan to the east. Nuba Mountain range stands out in southeast Kordofan, arising abruptly from the great Sudanic plain, with many isolated hills and also large hill masses with internal valleys.

Centre: clay plain expands eastward from the Nuba Mountains to the Ethiopian border, broken by the Ingessana Hills. Here the water allows people to produce more. In the middle lies Al Jazirah state in Khartoum, between the Blue and the White Nile where the Gezira Scheme, irrigation project was developed.

East: divided between desert and semi desert and contains Al Butanah; the Qash Delta, above the surrounding plain; the dry and cool Red Sea hills that stretch into Egypt and the coastal plain of the Red Sea, also dry.

South: is just an extension of the northern clay plains, with paths of savanna grassland that extend all the way to the border with actual South Sudan.

Sudan has some islands located in the Nile, as the Aba, the Badien, the Sai or the Tuti Islands and the Suakin Archipelago in the Red Sea.

(Alonso Padilla)

HISTORY of SUDAN

Sudan means “Land of Blacks” and there is evidence of life in its territory since the Paleolithic period. Then in Neolithic, 8^th millennium BC, people started to settle in villages along the Nile River. And the country had like small different groups of people living around. Among the years Sudan has joined many diverse cultures and its population is a mix of different ethnics, religions, languages and geographical backgrounds. But it has been divided principally between the Arabs in the north that arrived around the years 800 CE (mostly traders) and are mainly Muslims and its Black African heritages to the south, that had been there since Stone Age and today are mainly Christians.

Since about 3100 BC, different Egyptian dynasties extended control traveling down the Nile River. By 1500 BC Egyptians reached the region of Merowe and then occupied what is known as Nubia (region from Khartoum to border with Egypt), leaving there an important legacy of culture. Egypt and Sudan are linked almost since ever (mostly the north part).

Since the 1300´s Egyptian tribal dynasties ruled in Sudan. Later in 1821 an Egyptian-Ottoman administration took control and established an administrative centre, in “Khartoum”. Sudan was the Southern Province of Egypt. But Egypt unified the north but had weak control over the south that was an area with fragmented tribes.

In 1881, Mohammed Ahmed a religious leader took advantage of the discontent of Muslims and proclaimed himself as the Mahdi (prophesied redeemer of Islam) and started a fight and in 1884 his forces sieged Khartoum. Mahdi died soon but for the next 13 years a military Islamic state ruled in Sudan; until 1898 that an Anglo-Egyptian alliance recovered power. Then in 1924 Britain expelled Egyptian forces and ruled alone for 12 years. Under British rule Sudan was divided into two administrative zones: north and south. The south became increasingly marginalized. British´s taught in the south mostly English and Christianity, while an Islamic education led in the north. Also Darfur was neglected, facilitating domination of tribes and the region became underdeveloped in relation to the north. Britain and northern Sudanese nationalists planned to unify north and south.

In 1936 an Anglo-Egypt treaty restored the role of Egypt in Sudan. In 1953 Britain and Egypt started actions for independence and on January 1^st 1956, Sudan achieved independence.

1^st CIVIL WAR (1955-1972) few months before independence, a civil war started between north and south. Rebel groups from the south fought for independence from the threat of Muslim domination that wanted Sudan to be a fundamentalist Islamic state. War lasted 17 years until the government gave relative autonomy to the south and ended with the fight. 

North and south lived in relative peace, until 1980 when central government (controlled by northern Islamic Arabs since 1956) took oil revenues to the poorer south. (Oil reserves are mostly in central and south Sudan that has most of them).

2^nd CIVIL WAR (1983-2005) in 1983 central government, implemented Islamic law in the country and broke 1972´s treaty bringing the south back to central administration. Southern non-Muslims got angry and Sudanese People´s Liberation Army (SPLA) a rebel southern group intensified fight, so war broke again. Situation worsened in 1989 when a coup confirmed the Islamist National Islamic Front (NIF) with General Bashir a fundamentalist Muslim as president. Opposing Bashir´s dictatorship aggressive style, people of Darfur, also joined the SPLA to fight against their marginalization. War lasted 21 years until 2005 that with the help of USA and the African Union a peace agreement gave the south the right for more participation in government, the right to a portion of oil revenues and the right to hold a referendum in 2011 to decide if they may or may not become an independent country. With this war about 1.5 million people have died and 3 million refugees have been displaced.

Besides in early 2003, while peace negotiations between north and south were occurring, Darfur´s conflict started. (Conflict explained below).

In 2010 Bashir tried to give some signs of democracy and called for multiparty elections after more than 20 years. He was elected (It is said voter intimidation was practiced). Northerners are pro Bashir; due oil revenues region´s economy has improved. But in other regions there was and is discontent because of high poverty and the lack of representation within the government.

In 2011 a referendum gave the south its independence. So since July 2011, south Sudan is an independent republic. War has existed in Sudan for more than ¾ of its existence. Darfur´s conflict remains alive and by 2012 fighting’s arose in states bordering the two Sudan´s, mostly because of oil interests. Abyei territory is main part of dispute. In 2013 Sudan and south Sudan had achieve agreements fro oil exploitation and had agree to create a demilitarized zone in their border.

(Alonso Padilla)

DARFUR´S STATE GEOGRAPHY

Location: western Sudan

Capital: Al-Fashir

Borders: International: N/NW: Libya - W: Chad - SW: the Central African Republic – S/SE: South Sudan. National: NE: Ash Shamaliyah - E: Kordofan.

Sub states: North, Shamal Darfur, main town Al-Fashir - West, Gharb Darfur, main town Al Geneina - South,  Janub Darfur, main town Nyala.

Geographical characteristics: It is mainly an immense rolling plain dominated in its central part with the volcanic Marrah Mountain range. The drainage from the mountains onto the plain holds settled population. These highlands receive heavy rainfall that allows intensive cultivation and several “wadis” (seasonal watercourses) rise in the mountains and flow south across the plains. Away, there are some populated plains, relatively arid, particularly in the north, where they merge into the Libyan Desert. Darfur has soils and sporadic hills, which are mostly stony or sandy that support some seasonal grass and some scrubland vegetation.

North and east Darfur is semi desert, with a dryer climate, with little water from intermittent streams or from wells that may dry during winter. The southern region to the west is more tropical and it has many “goz´s” that are lands with sand dunes that cover with grass during rainy season.

(Alonso Padilla)

DARFUR CONFLICT

In early 2003 the conflict started. Darfur had been kind of isolated. There has been tension for the grazing right and land between the Arabs (mostly nomadic herders) and the black Africans (mostly farmers) in Darfur, both have existed in the region for long. Moreover, the Africans claimed that central government did not support them during drought and near-famine times, and said that the government did support Darfur’s Arab Population. Furthermore, opposition groups said that the authorities marginalized the Africans and are pro an ethnic discrimination against black people, supporting the Afro-Arabs; also government and Arabs wanted the country not to be divided and Africans wanted the independence of south Sudan. Other protest was that Darfur had been left out of the peace negotiations. But the government claimed that the conflict was due to the competition for land from the different ethnic groups.

So rebel armies in the region, mainly recruited from Black ethnic groups, as the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem) rose to fight for the rights of their people and lands against central government and the Arab Janjaweed militia group. Janjaweeds colluded with central government, had been invading with violence Darfur´s lands, stealing, murdering people and raping women. So in 2003 the SLA and the Jem, attacked government targets, protesting against the support they show to the Janjaweed´s. Despite Bashir had called Janjaweeds “thieves and gangsters” and authorities denied support to them; actions showed the contrary, the government had given them economical support and had participated in join attacks with them.

By 2004 the government had move the army to control rebels and to defend its interests. Pro-government militias responded in a brutal way to crush the opposition, an maybe the most violent conflict started in Sudan. Exodus and genocide began; hundreds of thousands of refugees escaped to bordering Chad an others closer to central towns in Darfur and systematic killings of Darfuris started. UN accused pro-government Arab Janjaweed militias of murdering non-Arab villagers in Darfur. UN declared Sudan has not achieved to disarm pro-government militias and must accept outside help to protect civilians. US defined what was happening as “genocide”. UN despite recognized systematic abuses of the government and the militias against Darfuris, stopped calling murders as “genocide” and referred to them as “war crimes”.

In 2006, the government and the SLA, signed a peace accord. But two smaller rebel groups rejected the deal, including Jem, so fighting continued. Aid agencies had been trying to help in Darfur, but actions are limited due the insecurity in the area. Also a joint of African Union and United Nations with the intention to help in the region formed UNAMID, a peacekeeping mission. But Sudan´s government had kind of mistrust with UN and African Union, claiming it would compromise sovereignty.

In 2008, Jem made a huge assault on Khartoum. That same year International Criminal Court (ICC) called for arrest of Sudan´s President Bashir accused of war crimes. By 2010 the ICC issued 2^nd arrest warrant for Bashir and for his defence minister for alleged genocide. And that same year Khartoum and Jem signed a deal in Qatar, encouraging Bashir to declare the Darfur war over. But failure to agree specifics and continuing conflicts with smaller rebel groups endangered the deal. United Nations, African Union, Arab League, Qatar and Chad tried to help to arrange peace. And by 2011, the Doha Peace Agreement brought optimism.

Darfur needs the Sudanese Government to show constant commitment to peace and development in the region in order for the international community to continue helping. By 2013, after ten years that conflict started, the region’s people are still suffering and continue needing support. Many still rely on food aid for survival. There is still a lot of work to do to make Darfur a better place for its people.

Sudan´s government says around 10,000 people have died in the conflict, but it is known that more than 300,000 had been killed and it is even said that more than 2 million had died. Many killed in war, but others because of hunger and diseases due hard living conditions. More than 2.5 million people had escaped from rural areas in Darfur, many move to live in camps close to main towns in the state. Around 200,000 people camped in a 600 km stretch of the border inside Chad, but remained vulnerable to attacks from Sudan´s side. Also in Chad, ethnic conflicts started.

(Alonso Padilla)

ROLE of MEDIA in Sudan

“MEDIA” can often be recognized as the “fourth POWER” because of how the information revealed can influence people. In every democracy the media plays a very important role. The ideal situation may be the Media informing in a unilateral position, only transmitting real facts, with exact data, to avoid misunderstandings. People have the right to know the truth and to generate the own point of view. But biased media exists, and it is often used to make propaganda especially of politics and may try to persuade and influence people.

With Darfur´s conflict, it is known that central government in Sudan controlled and hid information. So they tried to show only what they want. Journalists that tried to inform government abuses and real numbers of murders had been jailed or killed. President Bashir insisted and insists in diminishing real consequences of this conflict, he avoided the idea of “genocide”, despite today most of the world considers that what happened in Darfur can be called genocide.

It was the press responsibility to keep people well informed on everything happening in the country. But they failed to do it correctly. Important newspapers around the world, for example informed wrongly, saying that there were no Arabs in Darfur. Or that Sudan wanted military help, because rebels were the cause of the country´s inequality. Many newspapers gave information with supposedly exact data, even though they said it was impossible to go to Darfur and prove the situation. Biased information may be explained because of the strict control of Bashir´s regime and dangerous of journalists when going into the country, so most journalists just transmitted information controlled by the government. But some courageous journalists did get into the country and received tours by the rebels so they had the other side´s point of view; such a risk, because if they were discovered by the government maybe they were going to be imprisoned or murdered.

Also the media could not achieve to really attract the world´s attention, because of the lack of resources; this cause desperation in people of Darfur, increasing the conflict. The poor press gave the people a wrong vision of Darfur. And the right to receive a balanced press that would have helped to solve problems by telling the truth was denied to the weaker part, “the Darfuri´s”. There were almost no peace journalists as government´s manipulation inclined the press to one side. How media acted with Darfur´s conflict is an example of how media can be controlled or how can media fail to help improve a situation.

(Sebastian Figari)  

THE ROLE OF MEDIA IN VENEZUELA

“MEDIA” is the most powerful way of communication. So the role played by its professionals is really important, because the ideal situation is unbiased media, but many times information is hidden, manipulated or influenced. And this is what is happening in Venezuela, “biased media”, with the government trying to control information with the intention to let know only what they want, trying to affect people’s perspective of the affairs happening and trying to influence in Venezuelan’s ideas, to win more followers.

“Venezuela ranks 168 out of 197 countries on Freedom House’s Freedom of the Press 2012 rankings”. Venezuela’s Law on Social Responsibility in Radio, Television and Electronic Media is imprecisely expressed, so in the last years with Chavez and today with Maduro, both “camouflaged dictatorships”, many organizations or persons had been censured because they have expressed against the authoritarian regime. With scare tactics and threats to the owners; the law had been suppressing private media companies that are critical of the regime.

 “Globovisión” is the last standing independent television network, and it was the best hope for unbiased election coverage among most state-sponsored television networks in the country. But sadly, this situation is coming to an end, because the government had been imposing fines, harassing and threatening this company that oppenly showed its position pro democracy, confronting the regime and giving a chance to opposition to have a window and express its ideas, added to the terrible economic situation of the country that had pulled Globovision almost to the bankruptcy and furthermore the government concession given to this TV network will not be renovated in 2015. So last March 11 the owners announced that the company had become "economically," "legally," and "politically unviable”. This company is actually changing ownership. A new independent proprietor will lead Globovision, but it is anticipated to be less critical of the regime. So maybe Venezuela is going to lose its only TV media guardian of democracy.

But still some of the country’s newspapers and print outlets are private and independent and despite many times they receive government or police threats, there is still not a really heavy pressure over them because in Venezuela print newspapers and magazines, are generally directed more for the elites, due working class avoid reading information. Most population gets their news from TV and radio sources instead of print. With the new Globovisión, working class Venezuelans will lose access to real information about the opposition and criticism of the current regime. These persons will hear mostly news that are less critical to the regime and more hostile to opposition forces.

Working classes also prefer as an alternative to state-based TV, the radio. Chavez’s government popularized community-based radio stations in poor neighborhoods where people could not access to television or computers. These radio stations, of course are also biased. Community members create their own radio content, but it must be within the bounds of the government. This practice that allows them to create their own radio content is as close to freedom of expression as many Venezuelans can achieve.

Maduro’s controversial victory, of course had been presented by “his” media as a legal election.  And Capriles’s, the opposition, is trying to show his country and the world that fraud was committed, but he has limited opportunities to express. For example once, while he was talking the audio signal was cut; this is a clear prove that the government controls the media and that they only want people to hear their ideas. Maybe democratic countries of the world may be better informed than Venezuela working classes of which is the real economic, politic or social situation in their country and of how the government is trying to silence and beating opposition. International media in democratic countries are trying to give Enrique Capriles a window to show the world the tyranny of the actual regime.

Role of private media in Venezuela is really hard. Disappearing private media companies and increasing dominance of state-based media represent a reduction of information sources, resulting in less informed public. It is unknown how many more years the authoritarian regime may rule, so private opposition media channels may be in danger of disappearing. So many Venezuelans will not be able to hear the opposition and decide to support one or the other side as the law continues trespassing upon media channels’ freedom of expression.

It can be said that Nicolas Maduro the actual president is emulating Chavez´s style. So despite he also proclaims his country lives a democracy it is clear that many aspects of a democracy are not respected. And free expression and liberty of media are obviously one of the disrespected facets. And if Venezuelan’s government takes advantage of the control of media, the actual regime will have all the facilities to make propaganda and to act with impunity. And despite Maduro proclaims he acts only thinking in the best for his country, is clear that not living in a democracy and not being able to have freedom of expression is awful for any Nation.

SEBASTIAN FIGARI and ALONSO PADILLA