At a recent meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Information and
Broadcasting the Director General, Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC)
Murtaza Solangi said that Voice of America programmes are broadcast by
his organisation under an agreement. He said that PBC Peshawar
broadcasts VOA programmes for four hours a day while 11 FM channels air
its programmes for one hour daily. Solangi who is said to be a friend of
President Asif Ali Zardari had never been an employee of PBC nor hails
from any ministry. He is however a former employee of Voice of America
and now part of Pakistan government and chief executive of a sensitive
organisation like PBC. A board of directors nominated by the government
of Pakistan runs the organisation he heads.
It is strange that the PBC board had resolved to hand over its airwaves
over the sensitive tribal belt and other areas of NWFP to the Americans.
In addition to using PBC transmitters, the American are also
broadcasting for the area through satellite whose signals are far better
and clear than PBC. Under the deal, VOA will use PBC equipment and
transmitters in Peshawar, Islamabad, and Lahore to distribute VOA
material in Pashto and Urdu on medium and FM waves. The federal cabinet
has ratified the agreement between PBC and the VOA. Which will force
millions of people in all parts of Pakistan to listen to the VOA’s
popular news and information programmes as signals of other PBC stations
are not stronger enough in many areas.
So the VOA would enjoy easy access to the Pakistani population in
addition to BBC radiating from the island of Masirah in the Gulf. Whole
of Pakistan especially the tribal areas in the north and Balochistan are
currently going through a critical stage. The broadcast from Peshawar
are especially sensitive because their target areas cover the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas where an open war is going on between the
armed forces of Pakistan and the militants that include a sizeable
number of foreigners. Being the state run medium great responsibility
rests with PBC. Can the organisation enjoy the luxury to lease out its
transmitters to an alien broadcasting network is a big question that
needs answer from Solangi and those at the helm of affairs at the
ministry of information and broadcasting. Right from its inception on
the 14th of August 1947, the track record of PBC or Radio Pakistan, its
sign call, had been excellent. On each and every difficult occasion
despite limited resources, the editors, producers and engineers of Radio
Pakistan had stood to the test of time. They had informed and educated
the masses and grabbed their attention through standard entertainment
programmes thus creating a sense of confidence amongst the masses. In
the post partition period, when the greatest migration of the history
took place in the sub-continent in the aftermath of large scale anti
Muslim riots in India, Radio Pakistan was the only medium that had
created a sense of confidence and a ray of hope amongst the people.
With only three low powered medium wave transmitters, two in West
Pakistan at Lahore and Peshawar and one in East Pakistan at Dacca the
then Pakistan Broadcasting Service (later renamed as Radio Pakistan)
having resources almost nil not only discharge its professional
obligations but also created confidence and a sense of belongings among
the people. In the later years radio Pakistan did well during the 1965
and 1971 conflicts with India and on other occasions.
In our tribal belt, you can hardly catch the signals of PTV News, the
state run channel, but even then it was deemed appropriate to give VOA
three transmitters to unleash US propaganda inside this small patch of
Pakistan. The deal to lease out PBC transmitters to VOA is bound to
generate anger when the government is yet to fully recover from
accusations of a sell-out on the Kerry-Lugar Act. In fact PBC is short
of frequencies to take its own population into confidence that is being
diverted towards foreign media. In 2006, the United States set up a
transmitter in Afghanistan for the radio broadcast of US political and
military propaganda in that occupied country. Four years later, this
propaganda moves to Pakistan. The irony is that Pakistan, which disputes
unverified US claims that terrorist camps exist deep inside Pakistan in
Quetta and Muridke, will now be allowing a US government financed
propaganda arm to say as much using transmitters owned by the Government
of Pakistan and directed at Pakistani citizens. Two US propaganda radio
channels, Deewa Radio in Pashto and Urdu-language program Radio Aap Ki
Dunyaa will now reach more parts of Pakistan with stronger signals.
Since there are major differences of opinion between Islamabad and
Washington over how to manage America’s floundering Afghanistan
occupation, it is yet to be seen how the Pakistani government will
tolerate if the two foreign propaganda radio channels aired material
that contradicts official Pakistani position. It should be remembered
that Deewa Radio and Radio Aap Ki Dunyaa are part of the US government’s
information warfare effort targeting certain regions where US has
strategic interest.
—The writer is former Controller News and Current Affairs, Radio
Pakistan.
