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NAMIBIA
State of the media in Southern Africa 2002
ber. The bill also does not deal with the public broadcaster. The bill will establish
a new regulatory body, the Communications Authority of Namibia (CAN),
which will only regulate commercial and community broadcasters. It is also
necessary for the bill to establish clearly the independence of the CAN as the
telecommunications regulator.
The Namibian media industry saw a few newcomers during the year 2002,
including the emergence of new community publications. The Southern Sun,
a monthly newsletter for the Karas region, started publishing in January in
Keetmanshoop. During the yearThe Southern Sun gained popularity and trust
among its readers in the south of Namibia as a watchdog over local and
regional governing bodies, which had grown accustomed to operating with
no checks and balances. The Caprivi Vision, which provides news from the
Caprivi region, was launched in May.
Two new commercial radio stations were licensed to broadcast from February.
One is the Omulunga Radio station based in Oshakati in the north of the
country, which is also the most populated area of Namibia. The station broadcasts
in the Oshiwambo language and planned to expand to other parts of the
country during the year. The other station, Live FM, started broadcasting in
Rehoboth, a town about 80 kilometres to the south of the capital, Windhoek.
The country’s first community radio station Katutura Community Radio
(KCR), which went off air in February 2001 and lost its licence in November
of the same year, changed its board and applied for a new licence which was
granted to them in November.
A Christian television network, Trinity Broadcasting, was awarded a community
broadcasting licence to operate in the coastal towns of Swakopmund
and Walvis Bay. Of the two private television stations, which went on air in
2001, Desert TV experienced difficulties with its partners and was off air for
long periods in 2002. TV Africa Namibia continued to broadcast foreign
programming.
The Government of Namibia continued to enforce its advertising ban against
The Namibian. A cartoon published in The Namibian newspaper on September
6, in which Namibian President Sam Nujoma was depicted as an attack
dog of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe stirred up a strong reaction in
sections of the ruling party.
The cartoon was a comment on Nujoma’s speech at the World Summit in
Johannesburg where he condemned Britain and other Western nations for interfering
in the African countries. In response to the cartoon the SWAPO Youth
League demanded insult laws to protect the President and called on SWAPOdominated
local authorities and parastatals not to advertise in The Namibian.
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