Ivorian journalists discuss crisis

10/1/11

Story: Musah Yahaya Jafaru
IVORIAN journalists loyal to Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara are meeting in Accra to come up with an action plan that will streamline their reportage in a bid to calm the tension and promote peace in that country.
The journalists will also create a forum where Ivorian journalists will meet periodically to discuss the challenges they face in the performance of their work and how to overcome them.
Issues being discussed at the two-day meeting include the international intervention, especially by ECOWAS, in the Ivorian crisis, an assessment of the national and international media’s role in the elections and post-election developments and challenges of media rights and freedom in Cote d’Ivoire.
The participants, including representatives of journalism organisations in Cote d’Ivoire, are also considering how the media and media regulatory bodies can be strengthened to contribute more effectively to the processes of peace-building and how to support media regulatory bodies.
The meeting was organised by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) and International Media Support (IMS) and attended by representatives of the international community.
In the initial stages of the meeting, the journalists, mainly managing editors and editors, who confidently identified themselves being either pro-Gbagbo or pro-Ouattara, appeared to have taken entrenched positions on the legalities of the election.
The journalists from the Ouattara camp argued that since the Ivorian Electoral Commission had declared Ouattara the winner of the election, it was wrong for the Constitutional Council to annul the results of some areas in the North and turn round to declare Gbagbo the winner of the disputed election.
In the same vein, journalists loyal to Gbagbo said it was within the right of the Constitutional Council to verify the authenticity of the election and declare the winner accordingly, since the EC had even declared the election in a state of fear as earlier attempt to declare the results was disrupted by supporters from both camps.
On the media front, it came out that state-owned television and radio stations were available to only the people from the Gbagbo camp and not accessible to those of Ouattara’s.
The UN Radio was also virtually accessible only to supporters of Ouattara, since he is the one recognised as President by the UN.
The Executive Secretary of the MFWA, Prof Kwame Karikari, who co-chaired the meeting, said it was through a common platform of Ivorian journalists that peace and security could be achieved in Cote d’Ivoire.
He said despite their political differences, the journalists could have a way of “calming the nerves of society” and dousing the “madness of politicians”.
Prof Karikaria said the politicians would go to any length to protect their selfish interests even if it meant losing several lives.
Therefore, he said, the media were supposed to “minimise tension” among the people and ensure that the political crisis “does not take them down the drain”.