Text of report by Bolivian newspaper La Razon website on 25 January
To stamp out illiteracy over a three-year period. This is the main goal of a network of radio stations - some 109 stations - that the government plans to set up in all of the country’s provinces, with the help of the Venezuelan government. Strategically speaking, however, the network has an even greater goal: that of making this future giant network of radio, and possibly television, stations an option that will allow a “democratization” of the communications system and a way to keep control of the media from remaining concentrated in “a few hands”.
This information was provided by the Government Palace’s brand new Communications and Press Director Alex Contreras, who was sworn in last night. While explaining that the project is going to “receive support” from the Hugo Chavez administration, Contreras said: “We have a project that in reality already has been approved. Technicians from the Bolivarian government of Venezuela are going to arrive over the next few days to provide us with support for this project.”
He added that “in three years, by means of both radio and audiovisual communications, (we hope) to eradicate illiteracy. This has to be one of the goals of the community media.” Contreras explained: “We are talking about community media. Throughout the electoral campaign the president committed the Bolivian people to this project, which deals with installing community radios in all of the country’s provinces.”
Asked about the network’s characteristics, Contreras said that the project took the country’s 109 provinces into account and that “in all provinces the goal is to have one radio station in the network”. He claimed that, in addition, this system of dissemination and communication will allow us to “democratize what is being said. In order to democratize communications one cannot allow communications to remain in just a few hands.” This project is being announced after Evo Morales recently came out against a media terrorism of sorts.
(Source: La Razon website, La Paz, in Spanish 25 Jan 06 via BBC Monitoring)
