A radio broadcaster from Uganda spoke at Carleton about the role a radio station played in building peace in a region marked by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
David Okidi was former station manager at Mega FM, a radio station in Gulu in northern Uganda, and Farm Radio International’s first African board member.
Farm Radio International is an international organization that aims to provide and exchange useful information to serve small-scale farmers and their communities by working through broadcast, according to their website.
Okidi’s presentation focused on the role of media in peace building, and pointed to Mega FM as an example.
The political conflict and war between the 1980s to the mid-2000s led to the formation of rebel groups which committed violent acts such as mass destruction, rape, amputation, murder, and the formation of child soldier armies, among other atrocities. The most notorious of these groups was the LRA, led by Joseph Kony.
Mega FM, funded by the British government, was formed to help pacify and be a source of news to the war-torn regions of Uganda.
“Through our broadcasts, awareness was made about the amnesty law enacted by [Ugandan government] in 2000,” Okidi said. “NGOs, government officials, Amnesty Commission officials, political and cultural leaders would come on the radio to explain the concept of the amnesty.”
Mega FM also became an important centre of news about the war, as it was the only station that the LRA chose to communicate with. Okidi said that Kony himself once came on the radio, saying the LRA wasn’t responsible for forming child soldier armies.
In 2003, Mega FM started the Dwog Paco (“come back home”) program. It was aired three times a week from 10-11:30 p.m., as the show was targeted at rebels and militia alike, who were believed to be stationary and listening to the radio around those hours.
The message of the program was to tell them to abandon the rebellion and return home, as the amnesty law in place would protect them from prosecution, according to Okidi.
Okidi said the program was very well received by all, and triggered a mass abandonment of rebels from their groups.
Since 2008, the situation has been normalized.
“[Internally displaced peoples’] camps have been disbanded and people have returned back to their original land. There is no more reliance on food aid . . . livelihoods such as farming and hunting and culture is slowly being restored,” Okidi said with a smile.
“The media still needs to continue to disseminate reconciliatory messages to the people of Northern Uganda to prevent revenge and relapse to conflict.”
Okidi said he believes media can show the world a silver lining, that it has the power to give people hope in times of war and despair.
For now Okidi will continue to visit cities in Canada to pass on his message.
“For a person like me, Canada is too cold,” he said.
“But, I am also a journalist, and I am honoured to be here, to pass my message on to future journalists.”
