Côte d’Ivoire’s journalists and press barons were urged on Monday to put past quarrels aside and work for peace as a Press Week for National Reconciliation and Peace formally got under way in the commercial capital, Abidjan.
But despite a series of appeals for a better level of reporting from the print media and a more constructive contribution to the peace process, a specially convened Forum of Press Owners later revealed sharp differences between newspaper proprietors, notably on Côte d’Ivoire’s political crisis and the role the press should be playing.
Backed by the National Union of Journalists of Côte d’Ivoire (UNJCI), the United Nations’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Panos Institute and a string of Ivorian media organisations, including newspapers from different ends of the political spectrum, the peace week is the latest in a series of initiatives aimed at improving the Ivorian media.
The roundtable debates and presentations hope to make journalists more aware of their responsibilities, particularly with regard to promoting peace. The week will conclude with the award of a ”Golden Book” made up of articles and broadcasts put out during the peace period.
Ivorian newspapers have been strongly criticised, both inside and outside Côte d’Ivoire, for being excessively partisan in their coverage of events since the beginning of the crisis in September 2002. Press watchdogs have accused individual papers of fanning the flames of the conflict and preaching prejudice.
There has also been mounting concern about attempts to keep some newspapers off the streets, with news vendors and distribution outlets complaining of physical attacks.
Launching proceedings, the president of the UNJCI, Amos Béonaho, acknowledged the press faced ”accusations of poisoning the social climate”. Béonaho quoted former United States president Abraham Lincoln in urging that ”the country be informed of the reality of what is happening and its people will be sheltered from all dangers”.
The Minister of National Reconciliation, Sébastien Dano Djédjé, said that the week of peace should not be seen as a one-off truce, but as the start of a genuine move towards a gentler press climate. Djédjé said journalists had to ”give up the past for good and forgive each other so that Côte d’Ivoire can be reborn”.
Ambassador Ralph Uwechue, the special representative of the Economic Community of West African States in Côte d’Ivoire, said the Ivorian press had become something of a scapegoat and appealed to journalists to become ”the sentinels of democracy”.
But the tone adopted in the forum of newspaper owners that followed was markedly less conciliatory. The director general of Ivorian Radio and Television, Georges Aboké, talked of the state broadcaster being forced to abandon its operations in areas like Bouaké as its premises were ransacked.
Sindou Méitié, director general of Mayama Editions and former editor-in-chief of Le Patriote, talked of the need ”to pacify the political arena” before working on the media and warned against a dogmatic and sectarian approach to news reporting.
But other newspaper owners said there was no cause to stay neutral when the republic of Côte d’Ivoire was under attack and stressed the need for the media to play an openly patriotic role.
The once-prosperous West African country sunk into political turmoil in September 2002 following a failed coup attempt. Rebellious soldiers seized control of the northern and western areas and have since divided the country into two. — Irin