By
Tom Rhodes/CPJ East Africa
Representative
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Members of the
public visit the office of The Patriot. The paper's former chief editor says
critical journalists risk being labeled rebel supporters. (CPJ)
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On
December 15 last year, fighting that broke out between supporters of South
Sudan's President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar--who had been vice president until
Kiir fired the entire Cabinet--escalated into a civil war that has increased
pressure on an already fragile independent press.
More
than 1.9 million citizens have been displaced, and more than 50,000 have been
killed since fighting broke out, according to figures
from conflict prevention organization International Crisis Group and the U.N.
Against this backdrop, South Sudan's media have come under orders to show
loyalty in their reporting.
In
late September I traveled to South Sudan to meet journalists, lawyers,
government, and U.N. officials to develop a better understanding of the
problems faced by the media there.
While journalists have never enjoyed a free
press in South Sudan since it gained independence in 2011, contacts I met said
conditions had deteriorated further during the civil war. The country's
transitional constitution safeguards press freedom, but it is not adhered to,
leaving journalists to censor themselves to avoid harassment and threats.
Even
before the civil war authorities were not supportive of an independent press.
After a protracted war to gain sovereignty from Sudan, authorities in the newly
created country continued to harbor a war
mentality that tolerated little media criticism. Now that conflict has
resurfaced, pitting South Sudan's two largest ethnicities (Dinka and Nuer)
against one another, authorities have asserted a hardened stance against the
press and demanded blanket loyalty.
"You
are under duty to protect this country. Whenever you are writing or talking on
any FM radio, please put your country first. You must be seen to be a
nationalist," Information Minister Micheal Makuei Lueth ordered
journalists during a press conference in the
capital, Juba, in September.
Once
the conflict began, certain topics became no-go areas for local
and foreign
journalists alike. "After the crisis, if you say anything that is seen as
negative towards the government, you are labelled a rebel supporter,"
Bullen Kenyi, former chief editor of The Patriot, a privately
owned paper that folded due to financial problems in August, told CPJ. Former
soldiers turned security agents, accustomed to power over the population during
the war of independence, have continued a crackdown on South Sudan's press with
little oversight from superiors.
Since
fighting broke out not a single month has passed without incidents of security
agents harassing the press, often with little or no pretext, according to CPJ
research. Government security forces have raided all major media outlets in
Juba this year, according to news reports. Edward Terso, secretary general of the Union
of Journalists of South Sudan, estimates at least 32 cases of harassment,
intimidation, and arbitrary detentions have been recorded by the union since
the conflict began.
But
Paul Jacob Kumbo, director of public information at the Ministry of
Information, disputed these claims. He told me the government was
"committed to protect journalists" but journalists must act
professionally and "be aware of guidelines" to ensure their security.
He did not state what these guidelines were however.
Security
agents have raided and confiscated print runs from the privately owned daily Juba
Monitor five times since the conflict began, subjecting them to fiscal
losses estimated at about $9,500 each time, its chief editor Alfred Taban said.
On two of those occasions, agents targeted the paper for Taban's columns that
proposed a federal government system as a solution to secure peace, he said.
Members of the National Security Service had decided the topic was a threat to "national
security," local journalists told me--despite a letter written by
Makuei denouncing any censorship of the federalism debate. When The Citizen,
another privately owned daily, published the minister's letter in June,
security forces confiscated its print run as well, the paper's chief editor
Nhial Bol said.
Local
journalists told me that security agents often conducted operations on an
ad-hoc basis, with little supervision or prior knowledge from their superiors.
"There are two governments here in South Sudan, the security forces and
then the rest," said Godfrey Bulla, managing director of the former weekly
The Patriot. While Information Ministry Undersecretary
George Garang Deng told me that South Sudan was "far more free than other
countries," he admitted that security agents often confiscated newspapers
and raided broadcasters without consulting them.
With
a sprawling untamed security system, local journalists fear covering sensitive
topics and self-censor as a means of survival. The most censored topic, despite
public interest in the conflict, is any coverage of the rebels.
At
press conferences in
March and September, Makuei told the media not to
cover rebel activity because "you are actually agitating the people
against the government." The minister has yet to provide any legal
provisions to justify the apparent ban, and did not state what the penalty
would be for those who failed to follow his directive.
One
of Makuei's warnings came after the Juba-based independent Eye Radio interviewed
members of the rebel opposition at peace negotiations in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,
in March. Later that month, security agents interrogated the radio's chief
executive Stephen Omiri, deported French national Beatrice Murail--the editor
who approved the story--and temporarily suspended the station's registration
certificate, Omiri said. "We now have to censor ourselves when it come to
reporting the rebels," said Eye Radio director Koang Pal Chang.
"While we'll have a sound byte from the army spokesman, for example, we
will not add a clip from the rebel spokesman."
In
August, security agents raided another major broadcaster, Bakhita Radio, a
Juba-based station that makes up one of seven Catholic Radio Network
stations in the country. Security officers closed the station for a month,
arrested news editor Ocen David, and detained him for four days in a dark room,
managing director Albino Tokwaro told me. "They came to the station and
lectured the staff for two hours not to report political programmes,"
Tokwaro said. "I was forced to write a letter of apology--that we would
focus on faith-based programming and not politics." The station's crime?
Reading an online news report that quoted the rebel spokesman, he said.
Weeks
after Bakhita Radio was forced off air, Joseph Garang, deputy governor of
Western Bahr El Ghazal State, threatened to close the Catholic Radio Network's
Wau-based station, Voice of Hope, according to news reports. The network reported that Garang told radio
staff to distance themselves from political coverage and "concentrate on
homilies and Gospel music."
Media
in the rebel-controlled region receive similar, if not worse, treatment as that
in government-controlled areas. In January, rebels took over the network's
Malakal, Upper Nile State station, Sout al Mahaba (Voice of God's Love) and forced
the station to air messages from the rebels. "We really did not want to
broadcast their information since the station was mainly designed for peace
messages, prayers, and to help people find lost relatives," Catholic Radio
Network's director Eliana Valentina said.
The station has been off the air
since February due to looting from both sides, she added. In April, rebel
forces temporarily captured the oil-rich town Bentiu and commandeered the state
radio. Rebels used the station, part of the Unity State Radio network,
to broadcast a message to urge men to rape women of specific ethnicities and
demand that rival groups be expelled from the town, according to news reports.
The strategic town is now under government
control. The rebels currently operate two radio stations, local journalists
told me, one in Jonglei State and another in Upper Nile State.
The
crackdown on the press from both sides has led to a vacuum of critical
reporting and a populace starved of information during this crucial, restive
period. Bakhita Radio's "Wake Up Juba," formerly one of the country's
most lively political talk
shows, has become a shell of its former self, managing director Tokwaro
said.
Many journalists have either quit or gone into hiding, fearing
persecution, he said. The once bustling studios of the U.N.-backed Radio Miraya have been reduced to a skeleton staff. Local
journalists told me the station is far less critical than in the past, an
allegation news editor Patricia Okoed Bukumunhe denies. Other stations such as
Liberty FM and City FM no longer cover politics, and Classic FM reports news
from pro-government newspapers only, local journalists said.
Out
of roughly ten newspapers in regular circulation, only two remain genuinely
independent, journalists and members of civil society told me, when asked if
they thought news coverage was balanced. In March, National Security Service
Director Major General Akol Koor Kuc sent a letter to the Information Ministry accusing
the independent Arabic-language weekly, Al Mijhar Al Siyasi, of false
publication and conducting "interviews with disgruntled politicians,"
Stephen Chang, who used to be a reporter for the paper, said.
The ministry also
accused the paper of supporting the opposition because several staff were
ethnic Nuer, Chang, who has fled into exile, said. The paper's staff wrote
a letter of complaint to the National Security Service and the ministry, citing
constitutional protection of freedom of expression, but received no response.
The information ministry ordered the closure of the paper the next month, local
journalists told CPJ. The paper remains closed.
Since
former vice president Machar and the majority of his rebel soldiers are Nuer,
authorities categorize all Nuer journalists as opposition supporters.
"There's an assumption of bias," said Bonifacio Taban, a Nuer
journalist who fled in January after a tip-off from government security
contacts that he was to be targeted.
A reporter for the popular news site Sudan Tribune,
Taban faced anonymous phone threats for his coverage of government military
operations in Unity State, he told me. In some cases, Nuer journalists are
targeted not for their reporting, but for their ethnicity. Nyuon Ruai, a former
reporter for the bi-monthly New Nation, said security officers arrested
him in November, while he was walking in the street in Juba. The
officers detained him for three days at military barracks, accusing him of
being a rebel spy, he said. "They took me to an open place, tied me to a
tree like an animal and beat me while asking which military battalion I
allegedly worked for," he told me.
Ruai, who wasn't working for the paper
at the time of his detention, fled South Sudan soon after. "You can't work
as a journalist in a place where you can be arrested at any time, simply for
walking in public," Ruai said. Only a handful of Nuer journalists remain
in South Sudan, the majority having either quit or gone into hiding, according
to journalists at the country's media outlets, and displaced Nuer journalists I
spoke to.
One of those who has continued to work is Eye Radio's director,
Koang. The fear that he could be arrested by security forces if he leaves the
station compound means that Koang sleeps and eats in the office, he said. CPJ
estimates at least 21 Nuer journalists have fled into exile or are hiding in
internally displaced camps during this conflict period. The figure was
determined after interviews with exiled journalists and others I spoke to who
are currently hiding in the internally displaced camps in Juba.
Hopes
within the media fraternity that three media laws could help protect
journalists appear to be dashed. Presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny claimed
the bills--the Authority Act, the Broadcasting Corporation Act, and the
Right of Access to Information Act--were passed in September. But journalists, civil society groups,
lawyers and members of the UN I spoke to all agreed that none have been
implemented to date. The Media Authority Act, for instance, should set up a
regulator with a board chosen and represented by the media fraternity.
But
without any signs of implementation, coupled with authorities' track record of
ignoring progressive legislation, the press remains skeptical.
"The laws provide freedom of expression but if security organs do not
understand this legal right they just become pieces of paper," Classic FM
news editor Dhieu Williams told me. Article 24 of South Sudan's Transitional
2011 constitution guarantees freedom of expression but authorities rarely abide
by it, Issa Muzamil, chair of the South Sudan Human Rights Law Association,
told me. "The constitution is a dead document," he said. "People
are only using it when it supports the government."
Meanwhile,
the potential passage of the National Security Service Bill is raising concerns
among journalists. If passed, the document would allow security agents to
arrest and detain suspects without a warrant, monitor communications including
broadcast stations, and seize property. "As [if] war and starvation were
not enough for the people of South Sudan, now one of the worst crackdowns on
journalists and democratic freedom will be a reality in a new national security
bill, making it very difficult to report, live, and act in this place,"
freelancer Jacob Zocherman, who is based in South Sudan, posted on social
media. A disagreement by ministers about whether the bill was passed with
quorum in parliament last month is likely to delay it being signed into law,
according to news reports.
Widespread
intimidation of the press with no recourse to legal protection not only affects
journalists but the entire country. A lack of independent media to cover South
Sudan's tense situation is making it hard for citizens to gain access to
balanced information, and allows government actions to go unchecked. "This
conflict will not end without an independent media since people are induced to
follow rumors or impartial sources," former chief editor of The Patriot,
Kenyi, told me. "If repeatedly fed the wrong information, citizens will
continue to support a conflict few genuinely understand."
Many of the
journalists I spoke to said that the peace negotiators were not being directly
affected by the conflict because their families were living in safety abroad.
When Radio Tamazuj asked Makuei to confirm the station's claims that delegates
in the peace process were paid a $1,000 allowance per day on top of their
salaries and benefits, Makuei refused to give details. "Citizens don't
need to know," he told the station.
Tom
Rhodes is CPJ's East Africa
representative, based in Nairobi. Rhodes is a founder of southern Sudan’s first
independent newspaper. Follow him on Twitter: @africamedia_CPJ
Source: http://www.cpj.org
CPJ is an
independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom
worldwide.
Media contacts:
Sue Valentine
Africa Program
Coordinator
Peter Nkanga
West Africa
Representative
Email: pnkanga@cpj.org
Tom Rhodes
East Africa
Representative
Email: trhodes@cpj.org
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