Sudan election special

Listener Thomas Wiri is interviewed about the Sudan elections by Radio Emmanuel reporters Dimo Silva and Ochan Athanasio Lokolia. [Bridget Burrows / CAFOD]

Sudanese citizens go to the polls for the first national multi-party elections in 24 years. Read how pioneering Catholic community radio stations are broadcasting vital election news to first-time voters

When polling booths open on April 11, the majority of voters from Sudan’s south will be casting their ballot for the very first time, following a devastating civil war between northern and southern Sudan that lasted two decades, killing two million and making four million homeless.

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Voters face a complicated process of up to 12 different ballots, to elect national and regional executives and legislators. Yet more than 75 per cent of the population in southern Sudan cannot read or write.

Following a breakthrough peace agreement signed in 2005, getting information to citizens has never been more important. But as the largest country in Africa, it is difficult to reach the most remote communities.

Radio network

Responding to this challenge are the community radio stations of the Sudan Catholic Radio Network, a CAFOD partner, who transmit crucial election information across seven dioceses in southern Sudan.

Regular programmes like ‘Know Your Country’ and ‘One People’ broadcast voter education, impartial news and promote peaceful polls, while lively phone-in debates get listeners involved in hot topics of the day.

The radio network is on air up to nine hours a day, broadcasting around the capital Juba, and the towns of Malakal, Rumbek, Torit, Tonj, Yei, and Gidel in the Nuba mountains.

Father Lounoi Santino runs one of the stations, Radio Emmanuel, in the Diocese of Torit, home to eight million people and still awash with arms after decades of civil war.

He told CAFOD: “Radio reaches further, faster. Our station broadcasts in five local languages. Without this vital service of election awareness-raising we cannot have peaceful and fair elections.”

Overcoming the odds

The brainchild of the Sudan Catholic Bishops Conference and the Comboni congregation, the radio network has been operating for just over three years.

On the site of buildings neglected and bombed in the war, brand new offices to house the radio stations have been built. There is no electricity in the Nuba mountains to run the radio transmitter, it relies on solar and wind power.

Twenty-two local young people have been trained as journalists. Before starting, some had never held a computer mouse before. Now they are able to operate sound mixing desks.

The popular women’s empowerment show called ‘Nuba Women Stand Up’, is run by two women, both illiterate, both learning amazing new skills.

Duku Martin John, one young person that has benefited from training, is now a newscaster and host of the peace and reconciliation show ‘One People’ on Radio Emmanuel.

“I remember the first time I went on air, I couldn’t handle the papers because my hands were shaking,” he says. “I’m very proud of myself, though I was exiled and from a poor school. My parents are proud of me too. If I’m off-air my father always asks where I’ve been.”

Educating listeners

The remote rural town of Ikotos is a three hour drive from where Duku presents the news, but it is not difficult to find a Radio Emmanuel listener here. Working in the busy market, three carpenters are tuned in to the midday news.

“I listen to Radio Emmanuel because it gives programmes like health and education. Without education things cannot stand right,” says Thomas Wiri, one of the local carpenters.

Media freedom

However, broadcasting during the election period is not without its problems. On 3 March 2010, in the southern capital of Juba, the Archdiocese’s own radio station Bakhita (which transmits from the bell tower of Juba Cathedral), was temporarily taken off air after an interview with an independent candidate for State Governor.

The Archbishop of Juba, Paolino Lukudu Loro, admonished security officials for harassing media during the election period. “I strongly urge those who are eligible, to make sure they vote, because the genuine voice of the people is the voice of God. The church has the moral obligation to guide this important process.”

By CAFOD’s Bridget Burrows in Nairobi

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