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In Guatemala, where Mudslides Buried Towns and Cut Communications, Community Radio Provides Important LinksSpecial Report
In Guatemala, where Mudslides Buried Towns and Cut Communications, Community Radio Provides Important Links
By KNIGHT CENTER STAFF*
Guatemalan journalists, including a network of local radio broadcasters who collaborate with the Knight Center and its partner, GraciasVida Center for Media, are documenting the destruction of their communities and helping their audiences to obtain relief from Hurricane Stan.
Guatemala‘s leading Spanish-language newspapers and TV networks are investigating the national dimensions of Hurricane Stan’s legacy: more than 654 dead, 828 missing, and 120,000 homeless, according to recent official reports. Other estimates place the casualty numbers far higher.
But many of Guatemala’s 10 million people rely largely on local radio stations that broadcast in Spanish and also in indigenous Mayan languages. These stations address immediate local concerns, such as: where to get food, fresh water, and clothing?
“In places like Guatemala, where so much of the population lives in isolated rural communities, community radio stations provide a vital informational service each and every day,” says Maria Martin, founder of GraciasVida Center for Media, and a longtime public radio producer and trainer of journalists in the Americas.
“When disasters like the mudslides of Hurricane Stan strike, and when local government assistance may be slow in coming, this service is often the only lifeline that people have to communicate, provide help, and learn where more assistance is needed.”
Expanded Roles for Radio
In addition to their role as informers, community radio stations in Guatemala, as in other parts of Latin America, serve as centers for community education and assistance, especially during emergencies.
“There are radio stations in the affected areas that are helping directly, and at the same time they are providing news and information,“ says Sadi Car, media coordinator of the Guatemalan Federation of Radio Schools (FGER in Spanish). “The stations have helped bring aid to the evacuees and are serving as centers for dropping off donations.
The community radio stations operating around Lake Atitlán illustrate community radio stations’ varied roles.
When Hurricane Stan hit Mexico‘s Yucatán Peninsula on Oct. 4, it spawned separate storms that caused flooding, landslides, and fierce winds throughout eastern and Southern Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador. In Guatemala, the worst damage centered around Mayan communities near Lake Atitlán, in the department of Sololá. Mudslides in some villages were so severe that officials abandoned search efforts and declared some as graveyards.
Stations Coordinate Aid
In the city of Santiago Atitlán, the community radio station, La Voz de Atitlán, has broadcast from a hilltop neighborhood for more than two decades. Its neighbor to the east, the Mayan village of Panabaj, was engulfed in mud.
“After the storm passed, the lights were out. There was no telephone signal. We couldn’t broadcast,” said Francisco Cuá Tiney, of Radio La Voz de Atitlán. But Cuá and colleagues recorded interviews and commentaries about the destruction in their region. When the signal was restored, La Voz broadcast those reports and also coordinated a relief effort for evacuees from Panabaj.
Across Lake Atitlán, in the city of Sololá, the director of a radio station that is coordinating aid to the community accuses the government of harrassment.
“It‘s unfortunate, but the entire aid process is politicized,“ says Jaime Cáceres, director of Stereo Retro de Sololá, a radio station that converted into a collection center and coordinated the initial aid for the hundreds of evacuees left by Hurricane Stan near Sololá.
After storms cut energy and blocked highways on the western lake region, Stereo Retro collaborated with community radio stations in the nearby town of Panajachal to coordinate delivery of clothes, food, and medicine to affected communities. It also organized a group of boats that sailed to small towns to evacuate people with injuries.
“The government didn‘t know what was happening here until I emailed some photos to a TV station. Then they found out that there were also victims in the area of Sololá,” Cáceres explained.
Politics Interferes
But authorities quickly began harrassment, Cáceres said. “The people of Sololá brought clothes and food to the radio station, and they even showed up to volunteer. But the government and the local authorities began pressuring us to tell them everything we had.”
For that reason, he said, the radio stations had to stop sending help. “Now they‘re sending (aid workers) to the zones who are identified with political parties. It‘s unfortunate. There are also complaints that some of them are hoarding food supplies.“
During the first three days of the emergency, Stereo Retro pre-empted its regular broadcasts to transmit continuous coverage about the rescue efforts. It broadcast simultaneously in Spanish and in Cachiquel, the Maya dialect spoken in this region of Guatemala. However, listeners are tired of being bombarded with news about Stan, and the station has resumed its normal programming.
West of Lake Atitlán, in the city of San Marcos, landslides caused many deaths and have left an unknown number of people homeless, missing, and suffering from illness. Stan also caused extensive damage to rural agricultural lands, said Sister Rosa Arias González, directora of Radio la Voz de la Buena Nueva. The storm cut telephones and electricity for several days, cutting people from the media and forcing them to relay on word of mouth.
“We are on the air again, and we‘re serving as a primary source and link to information in the region,“ she said. The station‘s coverage of the local situation frequently contradicts newspaper coverage, she says, noting ”su cobertura de la situación es totalmente amarillista.”
Before Hurricane Stan, the station already served as a communication force, she said. But now, she says, the station is serving to motivate help, and to hold authorities accountable.
“We provide moral support and try to raise consciousness in the community and to motivate people to help themselves,” she said. ”We‘re a link and an information source for the community.”
Hurricane “Fatigue“
Hurricane Stan struck Central America just as hurricanes Katrina and Rita were disappearing into the center pages of U.S. newspapers. News of Hurricane Stan was quickly overshadowed by the Pakistan earthquake. Within days, Central America was reduced to blurbs in the news. The president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists called coverage of the Central American mudslides “shameful”. And The Washington Post suggested that “donor fatigue” had kept the Guatemalan floods and mudslides out of U.S. newspapers and TV broadcasts.
On July 29–30, 2005, The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas offered its first training workshops and seminar in Guatemala, for radio journalists from throughout the country. In addition to the training workshops, the event united journalists from the interior with colleagues in the capital for discussions on challenges facing Guatemalan journalists. The event was conceived by longtime public radio journalist Maria Emilia Martin, whose production and training company, GraciasVida Center for Media, recently produced a 26-part public radio series in English and Spanish: Después de las Guerras: Central America After the Wars.
Participants of that workshop formed a local e-mail discussion list, RadioGuate, which serves as a channel for discussion and organization of future training initiatives.
This week, the staff of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, which houses the RadioGuate list-serv, contacted several of its members to provide reports on their post-Stan experiences.
* * *
From: William Lopez
Subject: Re: stan en Guate
Date: October 10, 2005 5:42:24 PM CDT
It's regrettable the situation that Guatemala is experiencing. The country was already affected by political and social problems, and now we have this natural tragedy. The images transmitted through the news media speak for themselves. The sorrow of the people affected, the majority of whom are poor, reflect the intensity of the tragedy.
I congrulate Guatevisión for its role in raising the awareness of the people, giving priority to the needs of those who've been affected, broadcasting up to 12 continuous hours for a good cause.
I openly denounce those Guatemalans who are exploiting the situation to raise prices at their businesses. In some gas stations in Huehuetenango, a gallon of gasoline is selling for 50 quetzales, or approximately US$ 6.50 a gallon. Some political parties are exploting the tragedy by promising aid in exchange for votes in the next elections. It's a barbarity.
The only hope we have is for solidarity among Guatemalans and for international help for rebuilding our country.
* * *
From: José Luis
Subject: José Luis Huehue
Date: October 10, 2005 4:00:13 PM CDT
Many thanks for your concern about the well-being of all of us.
Thank God, all the members of the Network of Cerigua correspondents are well, facing only some setbacks and delays because of the electricity shortages that affected almost all regions of the country.
In some communities in Huehuetenango, there was no way to travel because of the bad weather, and the few phone calls we received told of us of great need and sought help.
The anguish was most severe in regions of Sololá, San Marcos, Quetzaltenango, Chimaltenango, Sacatepequez, Escuintla, Santa Rosa, among other places that sufffered damages of roads and crops.
Help begain to arrive thanks to the support of citizens, who united throughout the country to try to relieve some of the anguish felt by fellow Guatemalans, and thanks also to international support, which has began to bring most needed food, clothing, and shelter.
Fraternally,
José Luis
Cerigua/Huehuetenango.
* * *
From: Heidi Pineda
Subject: Re: Movilizando la lista Radioguate
Date: October 10, 2005 10:07:46 AM CDT
I can report on some of the journalists of Quetzaltenango. They are in the capital, and thank God, they are fine. They were lacking electricity and unable to communicate for several days, but they didn't suffer greater problems. But some of the nearby towns were seriously affected.
Blessings to all.
* * *
From: Gladys
Subject: RE: stan en Guate
Date: October 13, 2005 6:42:44 PM CDT
Hello friends, This is Gladys from Quetzaltenango. I'm sorry if I'm the last one to send information, but I've been working at a shelter since last Wednesday. I'd like to ask for your prayers for moving forward, after a week of seeing horrible cases from the hurricane. I cry over every new case. It's a pain that I can't explain.
The cases affect me, like the 45 families who arrived at the shelter in Quetzaltenango, after walking all the way from Champerico. Most of them barely spoke Spanish. It was about 8:00 at night, and it was still raining when they arrived. They were given dry clothes, and food. They ate as though they had never seen a plate of food.
More and more people are going to the shelters, and we're worried about the supply of food, medicine, and baby supplies.
I hope to contact you again on Monday and to send you photos from Quetzaltenango and Sololá.
May God bless you. May we all remember that he will help all who love him. And I know that God loves Guatemala.
*By Dean Graber, with Paul Alonso, John Lerma, Maíra Magro, Amy Schmitz Weiss, Sebastián Valenzuela, Nora Varela, and Jose Carlos Zamora
Added Oct 14, 20:00, 2005
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