New Dawn FM and the Bougainville mining lobby machine?

PACIFIC MEDIA WATCH’S Alistar Kata has just filed an interesting report about the virtual “shut out” of no-mining critics in Bougainville in the lead-up to the elections next month. The report was about a head-to-head interview with the Bougainville Freedom Movement’s long-time campaigner Vikki John and New Dawn FM broadcaster Aloysius Laukai, both past award winners for their contrasting roles.

John claimed the “ownership” of news websites was hampering opposition news, saying this was another form of “brainwashing” by the company that is angling for resumption of copper mining at Panguna, the mine which triggered the 10-year Bougainville civil war. However, Laukai was at great pains to reject any alleged links to the powerful Bougainville Copper Limited mining lobby.

Last month’s new mining law passed by the Autonomous Bougainville Government’s legislature last month has paved the way to make reopening of the mine possible.

“No, we have no links and that’s why we have put up heaps of stories and cover events such as the mining forums,” Laukai told Kata. “There must be some confusion with us and another Bougainville news website.”

He was probably referring to Bougainville24 news website, which is produced by Bougainville Copper Ltd. But that isn’t the end of the story.

According to the European Shareholders of BCL, they have been backing New Dawn FM and have promoted an appeal to channel funds to the community broadcaster, founded with UNESCO support in 2008.

A link to this was revealed in a posting on the Pacific Media Centre website today, which referred to ABG and Bougainville Copper Foundation funding for New Dawn. The European Shareholders webpage goes like this:

The European Shareholders of Bougainville Copper New Dawn appeal.

RADIO NEW DAWN NEEDS YOU!
Radio New Dawn on Bougainville has been founded a couple of years ago. It is the first free network made by Bougainvilleans for Bougainvilleans. At the present, the radio station is in threat of shutting down.

Small revenues from local businesses and the Autonomous Bougainville Government cannot guarantee its existence. Bankruptcy would be fatal.

Radio New Dawn is the only genuine voice of Bougainville compared to all other media who report from PNG’s capital Port Moresby – some 1000 kilometres away. 

Aloysius Laukai, manager and chief editor, [has] been honored for his work in the past. But honors alone cannot assure the broadcaster’s survival. The ESBC appreciate a lot [of] the crew’s information work. After years of uncertainty during the Bougainville crisis, Radio New Dawn created a new public awareness and self-confidence on the island.

Therefore, the European Shareholders of Bougainville Copper (ESBC) are proud of supporting this shining project. This is in the interest of locals and all those from abroad who benefit from Radio New Dawn’s internet blog that updates information on the positive development in Bougainville.  Financial funding will be highly welcome.

We strongly hope that our initiative will be successful and help to maintain Radio New Dawn’s services in future. Please find our account information here! You also can send funds directly to Radio New Dawn on Bougainville.

Late last year, on October 7, the BCL mining website announced that New Dawn FM had turned to modern mobile phone apps and social media to cover news in remote parts of Bougainville region.

“Station manager Aloysius Laukai now has 15 staff members working under him as the team seek to build awareness on the biggest issues affecting Bougainville,” reported the BCL website.

“Laukai and his reporters use WhatsApp and Viber, cross-platform mobile apps, to exchange information and file stories.”

It was also reported that a radio infrastructure upgrade was being funded to enable FM coverage across the whole region. Who was paying the bills? “Jointly funded by the Autonomous Bougainville Government and the Bougainville Copper Foundation," said the BCL website.

Bougainville's two-week regional elections next month begin on May 11.

• Listen to Alistar Kata’s Pacific Media Watch report here giving another side to the story.

• PNG Mine Watch

Bougainville's New Dawn FM comes into the limelight

CONGRATULATIONS to Aloysius Laukai and the team at New Dawn FM in Bougainville. They have become the first Pacific group to win the global Communication and Social Change Award, hosted and sponsored by the University of Queensland. The "brave and pioneering" community radio station was charged with the mission in 2008 of helping rebuild the shattered province after a decade-long civil war with estimates of up to 20,000 people dying in the conflict or related health and poverty issues because of the blockade imposed by Papua New Guinea. An estimated 40,000 people were internal refugees at the height of the war.

UQ’s head of the School of Journalism and Communication, Prof Michael Bromley, says 19 entries were received for the award, which recognises and honours outstanding contributions to the theory and practice of communication and social change. Café Pacific understands at least two other nominations were from the Pacific – femLINK Pacific in Fiji and the Pacific Media Centre in New Zealand. Nominations also came from 11 other countries - Bangladesh, Burundi, Canada, Congo, India, Nigeria, Philippines, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Uganda and the US.

New Dawn’s chairman and manager Aloysius Laukai was delighted with the station's recognition and he will fly to Brisbane to receive the award next month. The jury for the award included ABC foreign editor Peter Cave, AusAID Deputy Director General Annmaree O'Keeffe and former secretary-general of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union Hugh Leonard. They were joined by chair Prof Ken Wiltshire and three other senior Queensland University academics.

The award constitutes a commemorative plaque and a cash prize of $2500. The jury also awarded a special meritorious commendation for Communication and Social Change Award to Indian graphic designer and artist Lakshmi Murthy for her “innovative and ground-breaking use of graphic design to promote communication and social change”. She will receive A$1500 and a plaque.

New Dawn FM was established after early planning in 2000 with the assistance of several Australians who had worked in broadcasting in PNG, including Keith Jackson AM, Phil Charley OAM and Prof Martin Hadlow, now director of the Centre for Communication and Social Change at UQ.

The radio was dubbed New Dawn FM to “mark our optimism about the future of Bougainville following a terrible civil war that left countless thousands of people dead, injured or internally displaced”, explains Laukai on the radio website:

We believed the project would contribute to establishing a public sphere of community discourse, enabling discussion and giving a voice to a community dispossessed by civil insurrection and seeking to rebuild a democratic society.

The [planning] talk continued and reached a lunch table in Sydney, Australia, where our board member Carolus Ketsimur met his old Papua New Guinea broadcasting buddies Phil Charley, OAM, and Keith Jackson, AM. They sought the assistance of Martin Hadlow of UQ, himself formerly a radio station manager in PNG and a senior UNESCO executive.

Together we developed a concept that saw UNESCO and the German government provide funds for studio equipment and a transmitter. After a number of false starts, we finally started testing the station in April 2008. Then, at the end of June, our transmitter was destroyed when strong winds damaged the telescopic mast. We paid for another and a standby transmitter and went back on air in November 2008.

We are now on air with a transmitter power of 300w. Since our establishment we have covered the Bougainville presidential byelection and also the celebrations of the inauguration of the second Autonomous Bougainville Government. This was done in Arawa in Central Bougainville and we covered it live for listeners in the north.

Pictured: A pro-peace protest in Bougainville calling for a speeding up of the destruction of guns. Photo: New Dawn FM.

• New Dawn FM
• The award on Pacific.Scoop
• More background on the award at UQ