#7
Moscow Times
April 1, 2002
Radio Liberty to Begin Broadcasting in Chechen
After a monthlong delay, Radio Liberty on Wednesday will begin its controversial broadcasts in Chechen and two other North Caucasus languages, Avar and Circassian.
"We will produce 20-minute releases in each language, which will be broadcast from Prague every day," Sonya Winter, a spokeswoman for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, said by telephone Sunday from Prague. The total broadcast time in all three languages combined will be two hours a day.
She said that some 10 days ago the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an official body in Washington that oversees U.S. foreign broadcasts, gave the go-ahead for broadcasting in the three North Caucasus languages.
The U.S.-funded radio broadcasts had been scheduled to begin in late February, but BBG delayed the launch at the request of the U.S. State Department.
The BBG said the Congress and White House wanted a chance to review the planned broadcasts, which had drawn stern criticism from the Kremlin.
Winter said she could offer no explanation for the decision to proceed with the broadcasts.
The Kremlin, while still unhappy about the planned broadcasts, was less harsh in its comments over the weekend.
The decision to start broadcasting in Chechen "contains in it a certain risk," Sergei Yastrzhembsky, the Kremlin's chief spokesman on Chechnya, said Saturday.
He said Russia would not at the moment make any pessimistic forecasts. "We will monitor the broadcasts' content and selection of newsmakers with exceptional attention, and only after doing so will we make any conclusions," he was quoted by Interfax as saying.
In January, Yastrzhembsky warned Radio Liberty that the government would revoke its license in Russia if the Chechen programming was pro-separatist.
The choice of Avar and Circassian also has been questioned by some in Russia, who say the broadcasts could be a destabilizing force.
Although Avar is the second most popular language in the region after Chechen, it is only one of several dominant languages in Dagestan, where there is an internal struggle for power among ethnic groups.
Circassian is one of two main languages in Karachayevo-Cherkessia, where ethnic tensions also are easily stirred.
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