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UN Radio
UN and Africa
Programme Number: 168
Week of: Sunday, 2nd September, 2007
Recording Date: Thursday, 6th September, 2007
Topical Issue(s):
" The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is on a
mission to Sudan, Chad and Libya as part of preparations
for the deployment of a hybrid African Union/United
Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur. He has seen first
hand the suffering of internally displace people in
this troubled region of Sudan.
" Thousands of people are forced to flee their
homes in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic
of the Congo as government troops, renegade soldiers
and militias resume fighting. The Force Commander of
the UN peacekeepers in the country, General Gaye says
MONUC is doing its best to resolve the problem.
" Amadou and Mariam are a couple of musicians
from Mali whose music is popular throughout Africa and
Europe. But Amadou Bagayoko is concerned about the negative
impact of piracy on the livelihoods of musicians and
is appealing to people to stop it and to support artists.
RESENTER: This is United Nations Radio in New York.
Hello and welcome to UN and Africa. I'm Derrick Mbatha.
PRESENTER:
In today's programme, the United Nations Secretary-General
visits camps for internally displaced people (IDP's)
in the troubled Darfur region of Sudan.
CLIP 1: Ban Ki-moon
"I was so shocked and humbled when I visited IDP
camps. I was shocked at the poverty and hardship all
these tens of thousands of people were undergoing"
PRESENTER:
You will hear more on that in a moment. Also in this
edition, fighting in the eastern part of the Democratic
Republic of the Congo forces thousands of people to
flee their homes.
CLIP 2: Babacar Gaye
"What is occurring is that, unfortunately, we are
seeing confrontations between the government and forces
loyal to Laurent Nkunda."
PRESENTER:
And later in the programme, a popular musician from
Mali appeals to his fans to support his music by not
illegally downloading it.
So, stay tuned to UN and Africa.
UN Secretary-General Continues His Visit to Sudan
PRESENTER:
The United Nations Secretary-General this week continues
his visit to Sudan as part of preparations for the deployment
of a joint United Nations African Union force in the
troubled Darfur region. Today, that is Thursday, the
Secretary-General went back to the capital, Khartoum
to meet with Sudanese authorities including President
Omar Al Bashir. Mr. Ban Ki-moon and his entourage have
been in Sudan since the beginning of this week. He has
already visited South Sudan, to bolster a peace agreement
reached in 2005 to end a two-decade conflict between
the North and the South. Of course, the main focus of
the Secretary-General's mission to Sudan, is Darfur,
where approximately two-hundred thousand people have
been killed, and more than two million displaced since
the conflict started there in 2003. At the end of July,
the Security Council adopted a resolution which, following
intense negotiations, finally authorized the deployment
of the United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur,
UNAMID. Before he left Darfur, the Secretary-General
spoke to the press about his mission. One of the major
reasons for the Secretary-General's visit to Darfur
was to see first hand the conditions under which internally
displaced people or IDPs live.
CUT Ban Ki-moon
I was so shocked and humbled when I visited IDP camps.
I was shocked at the poverty and hardship all these
tens of thousands of people were undergoing. I really
wanted to give them even a small sign of hope as Secretary-General.
PRESENTER:
UN Radio's Jerome Longue is part of the media corps
travelling with the Secretary-General. My colleague,
Diane Bailey spoke with Jerome during the Secretary-General's
stop in Darfur. Here is Diane.
DIANE: At a camp for internally displaced, he received
a warm welcome from the thousands of displaced persons,
telling them he brought with him a message of hope,
peace, security and water. There was one glitch though
when a group of IDPs tried to force their way into a
meeting, as Jerome Longue of our French Unit, explained
to me on the line to Darfur.
JEROME: Well, there were two meetings with IDPs, the
internally displaced persons. There was an incident
since some IDP representatives were not invited and
they tried to force their way into the meeting. Security
precautions had to be taken. The Secretary-General was
scheduled a little bit later and it was an incident
which apparently had other implications for the second
part of the visit in one of the three of internally
displaced persons, in Al Fasher, in the camp of Al Salim.
We were supposed to visit this camp, the Secretary-General
and all the media group accompanying him and apparently
they had to reduce for security reasons drastically
this group. So the Secretary-General visited only with
five persons of his entourage and also a few journalists.
DIANE: The difficulties that the Secretary-General
and his team experienced do they bode well for the deployment
of the actual hybrid force?
JEROME: I think the people on the ground know that
the situation is really difficult. The Secretary-General
also knows and as he mentioned even before his departure
in New York during a press conference and even here
when he arrived in Khartoum he said the population to
make a big progress to try to change this situation.
So I think there was a lot of optimism. All the displaced
persons are now trying to get their situation improve.
They try to go home, they try to get their land back,
they try to get new incomes. The SG wanted to see for
himself the situation - and I think now he knows better
than before.
DIANE: As someone who is visiting Sudan and Darfur
for the first time, what are your impressions of the
area?
JEROME: The first big impression you have is it's a
big, big country and with really different regions.
We started out in Khartoum which is completely different
from Juba in the south which is not Muslim, but mainly
Christian and also the geographical differences: now
it's the rainy season and it's really green in Juba,
it's really dry in Khartoum. In El Fasher it's a little
in between, I would say. In Juba, I felt that the population
is recovering from a long conflict. The people are struggling
in El Fasher. They are really still suffering
PRESENTER:
That was UN Radio's Jerome Longue who is travelling
with the United Nations Secretary-General in Sudan.
STING UN AFRICA THEME MUSIC
Thousands of Civilians Flee Fighting in the Eastern
Part of Congo-Kinshasa
PRESENTER:
Tensions and fighting in the eastern part of the Democratic
Republic of the Congo have forced thousands of people
to flee their homes. The fighting involves government
troops and a renegade Congolese General, Laurent Nkunda
who once captured and occupied Bukavu, the capital of
South Kivu. As the central government in Kinshasa tries
to integrate all fighters into one national army, rebel
forces in the eastern part of the country continue to
fight government forces. The Force Commander of United
Nations peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, General Babacar Gaye is in New York, and so I
caught up with him and asked about this crisis in the
country.
GAYE: What is occurring is that we are facing the last
phases of a long crisis in this country. Currently,
unfortunately we are, seeing confrontations between
the forces of the government and the forces loyal to
Laurent Nkunda. What the government would like is to
see the troops loyal Laurent Nkunda go to brassage.
Brassage is the process in which we are merging all
the former combatants and all the former belligerents
in order to form a new army. And it looks like they
are not willing to go and that's why the government
resorted to the use of force and, as usual, the main
victims are the civilians.
MBATHA: From what you know, why are they refusing to
become part of the national Congolese army?
GAYE: I did not say that they are refusing, but the
reality is that there is a confrontation. You may summarize
the issue around one name. The name is the FDRL, these
Hutu Rwandese that left Rwanda and went and settled
in the Congo. And mainly when they settled, part of
the population has to leave also Congo and to go to
Rwanda. So the return of the refugees is one of the
requests of the people loyal to Laurent Nkunda, and
so on and so forth. But there is a need for them to
understand that there are now government with elected
authorities and these authorities are trying to restore
the state authority country-wide.
MBATHA: And what is MONUC doing to try to resolve this
problem and facilitate a situation whereby these people
will smoothly integrate into the Congolese army?
GAYE: MONUC is doing and MONUC did a lot. First of
all at the political level, since two months, there
is like a diplomatic ballet where a lot of stakeholders
intervened vis-à-vis the President and all the
different stakeholders in order to avoid a confrontation.
This has been triggered by MONUC. And also, at the field
level, not only the military but all the UN agencies
are doing their very best to alleviate the suffering
of the people. And in addition to that last but not
least, the military are deploying on the ground. We
have one brigade, three thousand men from India deployed
in this North Kivu to give a sense of security, the
maximum that we can to the population. We are trying
to do our very best in order to restore calm and security
in this part of the country.
MBATHA: Have you approached General Nkunda himself
and try and find out what he actually wants?
GAYE: No, I did not.
MBATHA: I mean, MONUC.
GAYE: Not to my knowledge.
MBATHA: Apart from these problems in the eastern part
of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, how is the
overall situation in this country?
GAYE: Our SRSG Mr. William Lacy Swing used to say to
visitors that if you look Congo through a picture you
will not very optimistic, but if you look to Congo through
a video like we are doing because we are in the country
still, let's say a moment, of course the things are
improving, are improving particularly in the western
part or in the Katanga or in Ituri. So I will submit
that things are improving. We are in a phase of consolidating
the situation. But, unfortunately, there are locations
such as the Kivu where the issues are still pending.
MBATHA: Do you see any solution in the near future?
GAYE: There is no other way than finding a solution.
It may be difficult to find. It may cause damages, but
there will be a solution at the end of the day.
PRESENTER:
That was General Babacar Gaye, the Force Commander
of the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic
of the Congo.
STING UN AFRICA THEME MUSIC
PRESENTER:
Amadou Bagayoko and his wife Mariam Doumba are popular
musicians from Mali. In fact they are loved across the
African continent and Europe. They are simply known
as Amadou and Mariam. But, Amadou is very concerned
about music pirating which, he says, makes life difficult
for musicians. Amadou, who speaks French, tells his
story through an interpreter.
MUSIC
Amadou Mariam and music, a double love story because
that's how we found each other, though music. I was
already a musician. And so was Mariam. She was a singer.
So it was music that brought us together.
MUSIC
Music is a passion. It's our life, and it's a love
story too. Our music is Mali Bambara music. It's inspired
by Ngoni-Lut music and our influences are blues and
rock. So it's these three elements that we have mixed
together and which have made us successful.
MUSIC
It's hard to get good recording facilities in Africa
and that makes it difficult for us as songwriters, especially
to get established in the music market place, that and
,above all, the problem of getting good distribution.
Our last album has been pirated. Pirate copies have
already been seen in Mali. Apart, of course, from the
Internet, people download music. They listen to our
music but without buying the CD. So that really puts
a break on production and on creativity.
MUSIC
Piracy can damage our chance of succeeding. But it's
not just that. It affects everybody. It's a deplorable
phenomenon. It kills creativity. It kills culture. It
kills the creators. We tell young people who are copying
and downloading music illegally that they are killing
the music. If you really like an artist and you want
him to go on making the music you enjoy, well then,
why don't you pay for his CD so that he can make a living.
We can't survive just on what we are paid for giving
concerts. There have to be rights too. It's copyright
that allows the artist to earn his living and to keep
on working. I think that the artists, the authorities,
everybody who is involved, they should all get together
to try to find a solution which can put a stop to this
piracy which is eating us away.
What I myself and Mariam would most wish for apart,
of course, from plenty of success is that Malian music
should become known as universal music that everybody
everywhere can appreciate, can listen to and can dance
to.
PRESENTER:
And that's all for this edition of UN and Africa. Our
Production Assistant was Charles Appel and our sound
engineer was Zach Pruwitt. I am Derrick Mbatha saying
bye bye.
*** CLOSING MUSIC ***
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