The Burmese military junta has extended its ethnic radio programmes to one hour long in order to propagate its strategies and activities among the ethnic nationalities of Burma, says the independent Arakanese news agency Narinjara.
The ethnic radio programmes for seven major nationalities in Burma are aired by the Myanmar Broadcasting Service in Naypyidaw, and each nationality gets one hour on air per day in their respective languages. The seven major nationalities that are represented in the radio programme are Arakanese, Mon, Kachin, Shan, Karen, Kayah, and Chin.
A listener told the news agency: “The Arakanese programme is aired every day from 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm. Most of the time is used for Arakanese national songs. But the radio airs the policies of the military junta between the songs, one after one, using up nearly 30 minutes.”
The Burmese military authorities did not allow the airing of Arakanese nationalist songs in the past, but is now attempting to draw Arakanese to listen to the radio programme. According to a local source, even though the Arakanese radio programme airs Arakanese songs through the Myanmar Broadcasting Service, the programme is less popular than the BBC, VOA, and Radio Free Asia (RFA). The majority of people are still listening to those stations to get accurate and unbiased news stories about Burma.
The military junta recently set up a FM radio station in Sittwe . The junta had already set up a printing house in Sittwe to publish its newspapers - Kaymon and New Light of Myanmar - for local distribution to Arakanese. However, these attempts to target people with media have apparently failed to gain the support of Arakanese.
(Source: Narinjara)
