|
|
 |  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |  |
Most PopularCompany | Contact Us | Privacy Policy | Copyright | Affiliation Information | Reporter's Room |  DailyNK Bookmark |
2007年11月5日月曜日
orth Korea Jams Overseas Private Radio Broadcasts
ARTICLES
2007年9月19日水曜日
North Korean Human Rights Situation
North Korean Human Rights SituationChristian Whiton, Deputy Special Envoy for Human Rights in North KoreaRemarks to the Bangkok International Conference on the North Korean Human Rights Situation Bangkok, Thailand September 18, 2007 It's an honor to be here at the Bangkok International Conference on the North Korean Human Rights Situation. I would like to thank all of those who have made this conference possible. We are here to discuss and draw attention to an issue of great international and moral importance-the plight of the North Korean people, and steps that those of us in the free world can take to aid them, and in so doing, further the cause of peace and security in northeast Asia. It's fitting that we have chosen these particular days to talk about human freedom. Later this week, America will mark the 145th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, which led ultimately to the end of slavery in the U.S. It was the culmination of an abolitionist movement that dated back a century to before America's founding. It reminds us that great moral challenges can take time, but ultimately causes that may appear hopeless or indefinite can be achieved. I am pleased to be here among those of you who have committed so much time and effort to this cause. I appreciate the chance to talk to you as a representative of the U.S. Government, on behalf of Jay Lefkowitz, who is President Bush's Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea. The Special Envoy sends his greetings and regrets that his schedule did not permit him to be here in person. I. Guiding Principles President Bush has made clear the U.S. government's guiding principle on North Korean human rights. Earlier this month, speaking at the APEC summit in Sydney, he said "We must work for the day when the people of North Korea enjoy the same freedoms as the citizens of their democratic neighbors." This was an extension of a policy the President laid out in his second inaugural address, in which he said: "it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture…" We do this not only for reasons of conscience, but also because we see it as a compelling national interest. Earlier this year at the Henry Jackson Society in London, Special Envoy Lefkowitz explained why. He said: "The North Korean regime does not only endanger its own people through its barbaric actions. A nation that does not respect the rights of its citizens is almost invariably a nation that will not respect the rights of its neighbors. Dictatorships almost always threaten regional and even global peace. This is true for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that authoritarian rulers often need to create enemies simply to justify their repression. That is why human rights is not just an end in itself, but a vital objective of our foreign policy." As we have already heard from a number of speakers, North Korea exhibits some of the most egregious and infamous human rights abuses known to man. U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos summed up the human rights situation as the U.S. House of Representatives debated the North Korean Human Rights Act. He said: "The political system itself is Stalinist to the core. No elections. No freedom of the press. No freedom of assembly. No words of dissent. No criticism of the government or of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il." Special Envoy Lefkowitz has noted the existence of a large network of political concentration camps in North Korea. We believe these camps hold from 150,000 to 200,000 North Korean citizens. The network is vast, and can be seen easily on commercial satellite photos. Videos and images of various camps have been smuggled out of North Korea and appear on web sites like YouTube. These combined with accounts of life in the camps like the book Aquariums of Pyongyang, by Kang Chol-Hwan, who spent a decade in one, paint a terrifying and grim picture. Added to this is yet another serious affront to human rights. North Korea has yet to account fully for the foreign citizens it has abducted. II. Our Approach As we can see, action is clearly necessary. The history of recent advances in human rights and democracy shows that change in a nation must come from within, but it can be assisted by strong international pressure. Along with the principles I spoke of earlier, this notion has guided us in devising our operational approach to support the aspirations of freedom of the North Korean people. Our approach has three major components:
In seeking to build an international consensus, the Special Envoy and other officials have spoken frequently in public about North Korean human rights and met privately with dozens of governments and non-governmental groups to raise awareness. We have worked through international forums like the United Nations to build pressure for change. Last October, the UN General Assembly's human rights committee passed a resolution on North Korean abuses. We were happy to see South Korea vote in favor of the resolution- Special Envoy Lefkowitz had lobbied them repeatedly to do so. The European parliament passed a similar resolution. We will work to ensure this trend continues in the UN and other international venues. The perilous condition of the thousands of North Korean refugees in hiding in China and elsewhere in East Asia is of great concern to us. We have made it clear that the Chinese government's uniform classification of these individuals as "illegal economic migrants" is a position the U.S. does not accept, given the well founded fear of persecution these North Koreans have if they are forcibly repatriated. We continue to press China to treat these refugees humanely and in a manner consistent with the UN refugee protocol China signed. We have also sought the humane treatment of North Korean refugees elsewhere in East Asia. When we become aware of specific refugees in danger, we intervene with the appropriate officials and seek the safety and humane treatment of the refugees. The third leg of our strategy is to take steps that will aid North Koreans in seeking reform within their country. Funds appropriated by the U.S Congress have supported non-governmental organizations to conduct research on the human rights situation in North Korea, and build networks among those who might help bring about peaceful change. However, given the closed nature of North Korea, there are limited options for directly promoting respect for human rights there. One viable option, however, is to increase the flow of accurate information going into North Korea, which has been a priority for us. The regime attempts to control all information in the country, and to convince people that they live in a socialist paradise while the world outside is hostile and barbaric. Defectors have told us how receiving factual information from abroad stirred in them an awakening that the propaganda was not true. Through enhanced radio broadcasting and other forms of information dissemination, a number of groups are seeking to circumvent the blockade on information that the government has imposed on its people. We wholeheartedly support these ‘journalists with a cause.' It should also be noted that broadcasting is one method to reach abductees in North Korea-to sustain their hope and let them know they are not forgotten. III. Role of Information In my limited remaining time, I would like to speak more about this effort, because it is one we believe has the greatest likelihood of encouraging reform over time. Free information reaching people living under repressive government can have an effect at both the individual and mass level. We saw this at work behind the Iron Curtain when dissidents began to confront totalitarianism in Europe and two examples are worth noting. On an individual level, there is the case of Vasili Mitrohkin, who worked for the KGB in the Soviet Union. His particular transformation occurred when as he began to learn the true circumstances of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 that crushed the Prague Spring. According to a book he wrote with Christopher Andrew, Mitrohkin listened to broadcasts from the free world, and despite concerted Soviet jamming that made frequent radio adjustments necessary, he was able to receive news stories and fragments. He also read works of the Samizdat-or underground press. Thanks to these, he was able to conclude: "I was a loner, but I now knew that I was not alone." Mitrohkin ceased to be a willing part of the apparatus of oppression. He was moved out of the field to a desk job, and over the next two decades secretly copied major portions of the KGB's archives before fleeing with that catalog of horrors to the West. This is the sort of individual awakening that free information can cause. A closer look at the Prague Spring and the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia that awoke Mitrohkin provides us with a lesson on the power of independent and factual information on a larger, mass basis. What was attempted in Czechoslovakia that year was a peaceful effort to transform into "Socialism with a human face," as the reformist government called it. The transformation was successful domestically, but was suppressed by a Soviet-orchestrated military invasion. This is an interesting analogy, because were this type of peaceful evolution to occur in North Korea, there would be no foreign intervention to halt it-indeed it undoubtedly would be welcomed by the world. As it turns out, free information helped spark that evolution in 1968, and sustain it up to the point that it was crushed by Soviet intervention. A "writers' revolt" helped lead to the elevation of the reformist government. According the book Prague's 200 Days by Harry Schwartz, the outgoing government controlled all of the domestic media, but dissident writings were smuggled out and broadcast back into Czechoslovakia on BBC, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. Free information played a powerful, transformative and peaceful role. After discussing the effect of broadcasting, Schwartz summed up: "it was much more difficult for the propaganda chiefs to justify the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia than the 1956 invasion of Hungary. Their audiences in 1968 were far better educated, much more sophisticated, and more acquainted with foreign countries through personal travel than were the 1956 audiences, composed of masses still emerging from the intellectual anesthesia of the Stalin period." This is crux of what broadcasting and other forms of disseminating factual information can do. I have used Cold War analogies, but independent broadcasting has also played an important role in other human rights movements in Burma, South Africa and Latin American countries, to cite some examples. As the Book of John says: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." Indeed, we already have indications that independent information sent into North Korea is reaching people and having an effect. The U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees broadcasts like Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, has commissioned studies by InterMedia to assess the effects of external broadcasting on North Korea. They interviewed defectors and have found that almost half of recent survey respondents have listened to foreign radio inside North Korea, despite the risk of punishment. The survey also found that more than one-third of respondents had modified their fixed-channel radios to receive foreign broadcasts. While this sample of defectors is probably not representative of the whole North Korean public, this nonetheless indicates that there is a strong and healthy demand inside North Korea for news and information from abroad. The Special Envoy has worked with the Broadcasting Board of Governors to increase the duration and transmission quality of Korean broadcasts. We have also sought to obtain resources for the growing number of independent groups that transmit information. We have asked Australia to consider adding a Korean service to Radio Australia, and for the British to do the same with the BBC. We were pleased that the government of Japan began supporting a one-hour radio broadcast this year, and hope to see that effort expand and broaden in the future. IV. Conclusion |
 | |||
|
2007年8月18日土曜日
Russia forces World Service off FM radio
Russia forces World Service off FM radio· BBC partner station told to halt broadcasts · Move linked to diplomat row with Britain Luke Harding in Moscow Saturday August 18, 2007 The Guardian The fallout from the diplomatic row between Britain and Russia spread to the BBC yesterday when Russia announced it was closing down the World Service's main Russian-language broadcasts. The BBC World Service said it had been told it could no longer broadcast on the FM frequency in Russia. All broadcasts ceased at 5pm local time yesterday. On Thursday the Russian licensing authorities ordered the BBC World Service's Russian partner, Bolshoye Radio, to drop the BBC from its programming or lose its licence. Bolshoye Radio rebroadcasts the BBC Russian service to thousands of listeners across Moscow. It said it had no choice but to comply. It was now working on a new concept, it added. Media commentators said there was little doubt that the move was the result of Kremlin anger at Britain following the recent diplomatic row that culminated last month in the tit-for-tat expulsion of four Russian and British diplomats. Yesterday Sarah Gibson, head of the BBC's Russian service, said the decision was "highly irregular and extremely disappointing. "The timing is clearly suspicious and the climate is fairly suspicious," she said. "I'm not sure this is a way you want to regulate. But I can't say that this is due to the deteriorating climate between Britain and Russia." She added: "If we can't be available on an FM station to people in St Petersburg and Moscow it's a very serious blow." BBC insiders said the World Service - which is funded by the British government - was being targeted. "We've been caught in the crossfire," one said. The BBC has appealed to Russia's licensing regulator to reverse its decision. The BBC Russian service can still be heard via short- and medium-wave frequencies but the service is inferior and erratic. Bolshoye Radio was the Russian service's last FM partner station in Russia. Last November another partner, Radio Leningrad, axed the BBC two days after it broadcast an interview with Alexander Litvinenko in which he said the Kremlin could have had a role in his poisoning. A second station, Radio Arsenal, dropped the BBC on November 24 - a day after Litvinenko's death. It resumed broadcasts two weeks later but terminated them again in January this year. The BBC Russian service restarted FM broadcasts via Bolshoye Radio in May. The Kremlin was last year accused of jamming broadcasts by foreign radio stations - a tactic of the Soviet Union in the 1960s. It has also been accused of pressuring Russian stations to end rebroadcasting agreements with other foreign broadcasters, including the US-government funded Voice of America and Radio Liberty. Russia's main liberal radio station, Ekho Moskvy - one of the last media outlets in Russia regularly critical of the Kremlin - has faced similar problems with its rebroadcasting arrangements. Yesterday Richard Sambrook, the BBC's director of global news, said: "We are extremely disappointed that listeners to Bolshoye Radio in Moscow will be unable to listen to our impartial and independent news and information programming in the high-quality audibility of FM. The BBC has invested a great deal of energy and resources into developing high-quality programming for the station. "The BBC has similar broadcasting arrangements with partner stations around the world. Our services are available on FM in over 150 capital cities - some 75% of the global total." Yesterday's decision appears to be the latest chapter in a long-running Kremlin campaign against British interests. Previous targets have included Britain's ambassador in Moscow, Tony Brenton - harassed and intimidated by a pro-Kremlin youth group - and the British Council. Kremlin officials have also been involved in a campaign within the Russian media to blame the murder of Alexander Litvinenko on British government spies and Boris Berezovsky, the London-based former oligarch. Yesterday Yevgeny Strelchik of Rosokhrankultura, the federal media regulator, said the shutdown had nothing to do with the Kremlin. He told the Guardian: "Why do you bother calling me now when this happens to the BBC? When the same thing happens to Russian media like Echo Moskvy you don't react. This process [of terminating rebroadcasting agreements] has been going on for at least two years. It's a question for radio partner stations, not for us." He then hung up. |
2007年8月17日金曜日
Fragmenting audiences challenge shortwave broadcasters
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Fragmenting audiences challenge shortwave broadcasters
Analysis by Ian Liston-Smith of BBC Monitoring on 31 July
International radio broadcasting - predominantly via shortwave - has been with us since the 1930s. The BBC started its Empire Service in December 1932, and what is now the BBC World Service celebrates its 75th anniversary this year. But radio listening, particularly to international stations, is now in steep decline in many countries.
The political landscape in which these stations thrived has now completely changed. Access to FM radio, satellite and cable TV, and the internet continues to spread rapidly across the world. These facts are challenging the role of international radio broadcasting.
History
In the past three-quarters of a century many nations opened an international radio service, and they did so for a variety of reasons. Some did it in an attempt to spread political doctrine, or to project a government's foreign policy objectives, or perhaps just to keep expatriates in touch with news from home. In the 1930s, 40s and 50s, public awareness and popularity of listening to "exotic" foreign stations was such that even manufacturers of budget radios often fitted a shortwave band as standard.
During the Second World War, governments exploited the power and influence of radio and in the post-war years many more opened or expanded their overseas services. In the 1960s and 70s, relay stations were built around the world in countries friendly to the broadcaster in order to beam stronger and more reliable signals into their target zones.
Cold War
The stand-off between East and West was perhaps the zenith of international broadcasting, forcing the West to build greater numbers of more powerful transmitters to overcome the deliberate jamming from the East. The East countered Western broadcasts by also building more and bigger shortwave transmitters.
But the fall of the Berlin Wall brought all that to an end. Some of the East's jamming transmitters were even converted for broadcast use.
As political hostilities ebbed away, international broadcasters such as the BBC and VOA struck up agreements in host countries to relay programmes in major cities on medium wave and FM. Growing numbers of urban listeners now no longer need to battle against the vagaries of shortwave reception to hear these stations.
Multiple choice
There is now a huge choice of information sources and platforms available in the developed world and these are also rapidly spreading into the developing world. The public in many countries have access to satellite radio, television and the internet. The number of states launching their own international television news channels also continues to grow.
It is in the face of this increasing choice that shortwave radio listening in many parts of the world is declining. For example, radio audiences in India and China have shrunk significantly in towns and cities as cable and satellite television penetrate deeper into these communities. This decline will no doubt continue as wealth and development spread further into rural areas.
Broadcasters are forced by their paymasters to cut transmissions when their own audience research shows they have too few listeners. A number of broadcasters - including the BBC - have dramatically cut back shortwave programming to North America, Europe and parts of Asia. The USA's Radio Liberty (which beamed signals into eastern Europe) closed and demolished its transmitter site at Playa de Pals, Spain in March 2006; VOA faces big cuts next year and Radio Budapest's foreign-language service closed in June this year.
Paradoxically, all this is happening when the cost of shortwave radios continues to fall while their performance and ease of use increases. However, in the 2007 issue of the World Radio TV Handbook, the director of BBC World Service, Nigel Chapman says that 66 per cent of the audience is still listening via shortwave and although declining "...it's declining rather more slowly than we thought it would five years ago".
Dr Kim Andrew Elliott of the US International Broadcasting Bureau describes it as the "medium of last resort" and says: "Modern means of international mass communications will be blocked, destroyed, or swamped from overuse. That is when a global shortwave network will become the failsafe. We reduce that network at our peril."
Shortwave advantages
The technology of shortwave broadcasting may have been around since the 1930s, but it still has advantages over satellite broadcasting and the internet. The ability of shortwave signals to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles via high altitude reflective atmospheric layers makes them ideal for long-distance broadcasting.
Although the influence of satellite television is spreading rapidly, the receiving dishes and auxiliary equipment are expensive and the internet is only accessible by the relatively wealthy and literate. Both of these mediums rely on a good infrastructure and electricity supply. Therefore many media professionals think that international shortwave broadcasting with its multitude of stations, languages and relatively cheap radios is very far from dead.
Relays and rebroadcast agreements of international stations in major cities may provide a better signal than shortwave, but they have problems of their own; they rely on the continuing goodwill of the host nation. Any controversial programming can - and does - lead to the sudden ending of the agreement. Shortwave broadcasting rarely suffers from these "gate-keeper" issues.
At times of international crisis, even some listeners in the developed nations tune in to shortwave stations for news with an alternative outlook. This is confirmed by Grundig's US operations director, John Smith. The Detroit Free Press quotes him as reporting a 500 per cent increase in shortwave radio sales in the weeks following 9/11.
In countries where the population mistrusts their domestic media, shortwave listening also increases during the unfolding of important national events.
Shortwave broadcasts reach audiences across borders and programmes can still be heard in a myriad of languages. Although jamming has always been possible, it is rarely completely effective.
A poor literacy rate in many countries makes the medium of radio attractive and listening clubs set up by NGOs such as Unicef in Africa spread advice about health and agriculture, building upon the habit of radio listening.
Dodging state-controlled media
News from the bigger international broadcasters provides balance and context in countries where the media is "independent", but not necessarily accurate or impartial. In countries with state-controlled media or where satellite television and internet use is either prohibitively expensive or illegal, shortwave radio continues to provide clandestine access to the outside world.
An example of this is North Korea, where radios and televisions are provided pre-tuned to receive only state broadcasts and tampering with them can result in imprisonment. Nevertheless, according to some reports, cheap shortwave radios from China are flooding into the country and at least four radio stations beam programmes into this isolated nation.
Zimbabwe is another country with a tightly-controlled state media where the population is eager to get an alternative view of national and international events. Although access to satellite television and the internet is not legally restricted, it is completely out of the reach of much of the population due to cost or infrastructure limitations. Zimbabwe therefore is another nation to which broadcasters like SW Radio Africa and VOA's Studio 7 specifically beam programmes, much to the annoyance of the Mugabe government. To counteract what the Zimbabwean government sees as a "bombardment" of hostile foreign-based broadcasts, it has itself recently said it will open a station on shortwave to broadcast its own version of Zimbabwean and African news to what it describes as a "world audience".
Last chance for shortwave?
A digital transmission format may give shortwave broadcasting a new lease of life in the developed nations.
The Digital Radio Mondial (DRM) consortium was formed in March 1998, when a group of broadcasters and manufacturers joined forces to create digital system for the broadcasting bands below 30 MHz. The BBC and other major broadcasters have been running test transmissions for some years and the long-term aim is to replace AM broadcasting on the long-, medium- and shortwave bands. The system is designed to carry audio content and it integrates text and data.
Once the listener has purchased a DRM receiver, the main advantage is the improved audio quality ease of tuning.
There was optimism around these digital radios at Berlin's 2005 IFA consumer electronics exhibition, but they have not reached the market as quickly as hoped. The head of broadcast services at VT Communications, Richard Hurd, who is closely involved with DRM, says in an interview in this year's WRTH that the system is still being developed, but also says the main blow had been the lack of receivers. But manufacturers are now addressing this situation. At least two DRM-capable receivers have recently reached the market-place, although fairly specialist PC-controlled DRM equipment has been available for some time.
The controller of business development for the BBC World Service, Ruxandra Obreja, says that DRM is likely to expand as a platform for international broadcasting once countries start using it nationally and listeners discover that overseas stations are also audible with good sound quality.
Source: BBC Monitoring research in 31 Jul 07.
Reprinted by permission/ NASB August News)
2007年7月9日月曜日
Zimbabwe jamming equipment backfires, gags new state radio - newspaper report
Zimbabwe jamming equipment backfires, gags new state radio - newspaper report
Text of report by Zimbabwean newspaper Zimbabwe Independent website on 6 July
[OSC Transcribed Text] [Report by Itai Mushekwe: “Govt gets a taste of own medicine”]
Government radio jamming equipment reportedly purchased in China has backfired, gagging its own new short-wave project, Voice of Zimbabwe (VOZ), sources at the station revealed to the Zimbabwe Independent this week.
The ambitious station, set up to counter Western broadcasts, is said to be battling to recruit qualified personnel to run its operations while its few employees are still in Harare instead of moving to Gweru where it was due to be housed. Sources said the equipment was believed to be made up of three jammers installed at Thornhill, a military airbase and government communications centre in the Midlands.
The plan was to block a perceived negative publicity campaign from outside radio stations such as Voice of America (VOA) funded by the US State Department, SW Radio which beams from London and Dutch-funded Voice of the People (VOP), among others. The jamming equipment has prevented VOZ from starting regular operations due to the self-signal interception going on at the station.
Zimbabweans have been forced to listen to state radio programming owing to punitive broadcasting laws enacted by government. The country has four state-controlled radio stations operating under the frequency modulation (FM) radio wave band and one short-wave, VOZ, which appears to be suffering a stillbirth.
Government clamped down on Capital Radio, Zimbabwe’s first independent radio station in 2000 setting the police on the station’s offices in Harare where its equipment was confiscated. Radio Dialogue, a community radio station housed in Bulawayo, has also been forcibly shut down.
“Ever since the station was launched on May 25, it is yet to start regular operations,” a source said. “There are no news broadcast nor a set programming timetable. To make things worse there are no announcers, liberation war music occasionally plays but fades away at different times.”
Government announced two months ago that the station would run trial broadcasts for three weeks on 5975 kHz and 4828 kHz, but the trials were a major flop owing to the jamming machinery from China.
In a bid to cover the broadcasting setback both Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH) and Information minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu have remained tight-lipped on the issue and have failed to give any explanation as to why the touted panacea to counter Western “pirate” radio stations is failing to broadcast.
VOZ boss, Happison Muchechetere who is also a war veteran yesterday denied that the station was experiencing technical problems. He said government had purchased state-of-the-art equipment for the propaganda project. Muchechetere said government is at war on the airwaves with imperialists. He said the “imperialists” will not win.
“It’s a war of the airwaves and we’re not afraid,” said Muchechetere. “We know we’re at war with imperialists and they are not going to win. You people forget that you’re doing propaganda for the white man. I’m not ashamed that I’m doing propaganda for Zimbabweans and for someone who liberated this country. Hapana chirikujammer apa (There is no jamming here). We are not experiencing any technical problems,” he said.
(Source: Zimbabwe Independent website, Harare, in English 6 Jul 07 via BBC Monitoring)
2007年5月24日木曜日
対北放送妨害電波拡大
| 対北放送妨害電波拡大…政府の支援が切実 [寄稿] 北の住民 '精神的糧'の提供は放送が第一 | |||
| |||
妨害電波が北朝鮮から来ていることは、'東北亜放送研究会'の分析の結果、確かである。 これは民間対北放送が、北朝鮮の住民には有益な情報を提供する放送だが、政権にとっては極めて負担になる存在だからだろう。このため、北朝鮮の住民の‘秘密の’チャンネルの選択権は、一つ二つと減っており、対策が急がれる。 現在、韓国から北朝鮮に向けて送り出される対北放送には、公営のKBSの社会教育放送と、民間の自由北朝鮮放送、開かれた北朝鮮放送、北朝鮮宣教放送などがある。 社会教育放送を除いた民間対北放送は、外部の支援や一般の後援金だけでなんとか運営され、1日数時間放送している。しかし、受信状態は遠い所から送り出さ れるため、あまりよくない。それでもよくとらえられる方である自由北朝鮮放送も、これからは妨害電波によって到底聞き分けることができないようになってし まった。どうしてこのようになったのだろうか。 その原因の一つは、公営放送のKBSにもある。国内唯一の国際短波放送であるKBS国際放送は、去年10月末に経営の合理化政策によって、1日の送出時間と使用周波数を大幅に縮小した。社会教育放送も今年の1月から短波送出を廃止して、中波だけ放送している。 実は、北朝鮮は今年初めに廃止されたKBS短波放送に対して、この間持続的に妨害電波を放って来たが、KBSの短波送出の中断は、意図しなかったものであ り、北朝鮮政権としては妨害電波の送信機に大きな余裕が生じ、これにより民間対北放送に対する妨害電波の送出も有利になった。 もちろん、KBSも公企業として経営上問題を考慮しなければならないのは当たり前のことだが、国家的なレベルから見る時、こうした処置は、国家の基幹媒体としての本分をつくすことができないという批判を受ける可能性がある。 '心の糧を満たすために、今日も妨害電波がかかった微かな声に耳を傾ける北朝鮮の住民たちを思ったら、KBS国際放送と社会教育放送は、送出時間と周波数を再び増やすか、または他の方案を積極的に模索しなければならない。 もし、KBSがさまざまな内外的事情から、これを遂行することができなければ、対北放送の機能を外部に移転する方案も積極的に検討しなければならないだろう。 北朝鮮の住民に'心の糧'を与えねば 原因は他にもある。韓国政府の対北政策である ‘太陽政策’は、北朝鮮に対する経済的支援や交流協力事業に偏った、言い換えれば‘心の糧’ではない‘体の糧’を提供するのにとどまっている。現在行われ ている宥和政策は、北朝鮮の住民に対する情報の流入及び、人権改善などの政策が併行されていないため、国内の民間対北放送が韓国から電波を送ることができ ないのだ。 日本政府の場合、総務省が拉致被害者問題の解決のための民間対北放送‘しおかぜ’を国内から送り出せるように気配りし、この放送に対する北朝鮮の妨害電波 に直接抗議の声を出すことは勿論、政府内の拉致問題対策本部では、直接国営の対北放送を開局するための準備作業を行っている。我々の現実とあまりにも比較 されることである。 誰よりも北朝鮮をよく理解して抱擁することができる国が同じ民族である大韓民国であるならば、その社会の問題を改善して、住民の意識を改善させなければな らないという義務も、大韓民国政府にある。今すぐにでも韓国政府は、国内のすべての民間対北放送に、国内送信施設を通じた電波送出を許可して、北朝鮮人権 問題の改善努力と持続的な情報伝達を条件にした、放送発展基金などの支援方案の準備に取り掛からなければならない。 大韓民国に対北放送は確かに存在する。しかし 、‘あってもない’という状況になりつつある。北朝鮮の住民たちに希望のメッセージを伝える民間対北放送を、強力な電波にのせて安定して伝達することがで きるためには、KBSなど関係機関の協力と、政府の支援策が切実である。こうした動きが共に実現する時、対北放送は初めてその存在の意味と役割が明確にな るだろう。 |
