Belarus: Hot New Broadcast Market

Michael Hedges September 12, 2005

Nothing attracts broadcasters attention like a hot new market. Even though Belarus is home to Europe’s last major dictator, broadcasters are lined up to get their share of the audience.

The European Commission granted German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) €138,000 to target Belarus with radio and internet programs. It was reported that the programs would be primarily in Russian but might also be in Belarussian.

The Commission is “extremely worried about the lack of freedom of expression in Belarus,” said External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner. “This initiative will bring independent international radio to the Belarusian population.” The idea for an EC backed radio broadcast for Belarus was first floated at a Konrad Adenauer Foundation conference in Warsaw in November 2004.

DW will direct a 15 minute program Monday through Friday to Belarus featuring news and information provided by correspondents inside the country. The broadcast is set to launch November 1st. The one-year EC grant to DW’s Russian Service was announced August 24th.

“We think this project is pointless. We are not afraid of it,” replied Belarus Foreign Ministry spokesman Ruslan Yesin, quoted by Reuters.

Two days after the EC announcement Minsk city authorities ordered a newspaper published by Denpress closed. Last year the publisher was stripped of its legal address in Belarus and forced to print in Russia. Ordering the closure authorities said the publisher failed to provide information to tax officials. The newspaper Den (Day) had frequently published “verses deemed by the authorities to have insulted Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko,” according to MosNews.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), which already broadcasts in Belarusian to Belarus, reported dissention among Belarusian pro-democracy activists for the use of Russian language rather than Belarusian. RFE/RL quoted an EC spokesperson saying the decision on the broadcast language was made because Russian is a “dominant language” and listeners in Russia and Ukraine might also hear the program.  Russian, according to RFE/RL, has replaced Belarusian in official communication and state media.

The Belarusian language is incorrectly referred to as a Russian dialect. It’s as separate from Russian as Ukrainian, however; the vocabulary has roots in Lithuanian and Polish. Roughly 80% of the 10 million Belarus population are ethnic Belarusians, just over 10% Russian and the rest divided among Polish and Ukrainian.

The Commission also issued a tender for a €2 million broadcast project to raise “awareness of democracy in Belarus.” That raised the ire of Polish MEPs (September 9) who complained that tender specifications prevented Polish broadcasters from bidding, effectively limited to DW, the BBC and Radio France International (RFI).

“This broadcast should be from Poland,” said Polish MEP Barbara Kudrycka. “We know the culture and the mindset of the Belarusian people.” 

If the project originates in Poland, €240,000 has been pledged. Meanwhile, Poland is in talks with Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine about establishing a different broadcast project. Radio Polonia, the international service of Polish public broadcasting, has been offering a Belarusian service since 1992. Radio Sweden introduced a Belarusian program in 2004.

Tensions between Poland and Belarus have grown over allegations of discrimination against ethnic Poles in Belarus. It’s a very old story, dating to the 13th century: Poles and Russians arguing over Belarusian territory. Polish and Belarusian authorities began tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats in July.

Radio Baltic Waves broadcasts to Belarus on medium wave from Lithuania and Poland offering a mix of programs from several international broadcasters.

Inside Belarus state-run and private broadcasters offer the typical mix of music, news, weather, gossip and traffic reports. Human Rights Watch reports that all television and most radio are under government control, the few independent radio stations offering “non-political music and advertising.”

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