While the kenyan elected leaders are battling it out over appointments to lucrative cabinet ministerial posts, Musa Radolo reports on the country’s journalists as they battle post election violence psychological trauma

A majority of the journalists in the country were either directly or indirectly hit by the problem while on duty as a result of being the first witnesses of violence victims and deadly personal encounters while covering the grisly post general elections violence which gave birth to the current jostling for cabinet ministerial posts.

The bickering over the posts that has since hit a stalemate comes in the wake of signing of a power sharing deal between the protagonists, Presdident Mwai Kibaki of Party of National Unity (PNU) and Raila Odinga of Orange Democratic Party (ODM) brokered by former UN secretary general Koffi Annan that saw the end of the violence resulting from the disputed 2007 general elections presidential results.

For the last three weeks, the badly psychologically traumatised journalists have been pouring out their extremely painful experiences during the violence that have remained to haunt them to date without getting relevant medical attention.

Post general elections violence trauma counselling sessions for media practitioners has so far revealed extremely disturbing varied traumatic experiences from the practitioners based across the country. Tearfully describing situations in which they invariably found themselves in as they discharged their duties for their respectful media houses. Making revelations of untold stories of their harrowing encounters at the mercy of marauding deadly merciless gangs or police.

Tear provoking experiences that in most cases threatened their very lives as they found themselves between hard rocks and steel. Simply because they had been identified as reporters or photographers of some mainstream media houses perceived by the violent gangs either as being pro-PNU or the ODM.

The media practitioners based in various regions of the country perceived to be ODM strongholds and working for media houses perceived to be pro-PNU were in danger just like their colleagues in a vice versa situation. The dangers were as real as those experienced by any ordinary Kenyan caught up in circumstances generated by the post election violence – perceived to be either an ODM supporter in a PNU stronghold or the other way round.

The worst experiences for the “messengers” were that despite being on duty just like the members of the disciplined forces – the police - became victims of police brutality – yet their only ammunition or tools of defence were – pens, note books and cameras. Their tools of trade.

The ministry of information and communications acknowledges the deadly risks involved saying that during the coverage of violent conflicts (post general elections), journalists and photographers often found themselves in the frontline of the events to get the best images and stories.

“This invariably exposes them to undesirable but necessary risks and experiences. Such as the gruesome images witnessed may haunt the journalists/photographers and cause them psychological illnesses that have far reaching ramifications including at work places and families,” says the permanent secretary Dr. Bitange Ndemo.

The critical question here being the serious health problems and complications they developed and experienced before during and after the last general elections. Many had never been exposed nor prepared for the gruesome scenes and risky personal experiences they encountered – especially in the post election violence.

Dr. Ndemo says that evidence gathered and symptoms reported so far range from anxiety and depression to emotional numbness and substance abuse. Post traumatic stress being another major cause for concern as it threatens the mental state of the affected media practitioners at the work place as reported by scores of media houses.

A round table meeting held in Nairobi immediately after the violence started slowing down of media stakeholders reported: “Journalists and media practitioners are traumatised but are lacking counselling to deal with the post violence trauma and the self denial.”

Another major challenge that was identified at the meeting was the urgent need to address serious issues of interpersonal relationships within the newsrooms of the different media houses occasioned by the partisanship and the huge chasm/divide the last general elections created between journalists in their places of work.

During one of the ongoing counselling sessions it emerged how a photographer with one of the mainstream media houses in the country was unable to take the harrowing and numbing gruesome pictures of the scenes he had witnessed and the deadly violence he and colleagues nearly became victims of.

The photojournalist had been assigned to cover the violence in Nairobi’s sprawling Kibera slums. What he saw and witnessed was extremely shocking and devastating beyond words. It completely paralysed him into a glaring zombie.

When he went back to the newsroom the News Editor asked: “How was the situation and Where are the pictures?”

He replied: “It was terrible. It was horrible. I have never seen anything like that. It is unbelievable. I have no pictures. I did not take any. I couldn’t. It was too much.”

It was only on further inquiry that the news editor came to establish the exact circumstances that made the photographer to be completely unable to un-sling his camera and fire away to capture the scenes. It was even later that the editor realised that he had been adversely affected psychologically and had to be taken for treatment and counselling.

This state of adverse psychological impact hit hundreds of journalists across the country who were deployed to cover the post general election violence by their various media houses. Two months after the end of the violence, they are still suffering from the post elections violence trauma.

None had been prepared nor had they ever been trained on how to handle and cope with such situations. None of the media houses had budgeted for dealing with the post general election psychological trauma for their editorial staff.

In recognition of the desperate situation in which the Kenyan journalists are still wallowing in – the post general elections violence trauma, the International Media Support (IMS) has swiftly swung into action to counsel those who are suffering. None of them had tried to seek treatment nor counselling. They had no resources or knowledge of where to go and what to do.

The initial phase of the programme targeting 150 journalists and photographers spread across the country is ironically being spearheaded by the Kenya Association of Photographers, Illustrators and Designers (KAPIDE) jointly with the Kenya Correspondents Association (KCA) and not the Media Owners Association nor the Media Council of Kenya. The target areas are those worst hit by the violence – Nairobi, Nakuru, Eldoret, Kisumu and Mombasa.

A research conducted last year by the African Women and Child Features (AWC) established that members of these two associations contribute more than 85 per cent of the news content that comes out of Kenya’s media outlets.

This percentage tends to go higher during the general electioneering years as media houses’ focus tends to shift from the city to the provinces or rural Kenya on political campaigns and elections. Members of these associations are also the worst paid and most ill equipped to carry out their duties.

Those affected say that as they found themselves in the thick of the deadly violence, unlike their colleagues reporting for the international media outlets – without bullet proof vests nor gas masks, sometimes without vehicles.

“We survived by the grace of God. Because we found ourselves taking cover as bullets from police guns whizzed all over. Some of our cars were lobbed with tear gas canisters inside. We were constantly in danger from police guns and tear gas as well as crude weapons wielded by marauding blood thirsty gangs,” said Joseph Cheruiyot.

He went on: “The situation got so bad in Kibera that if you were identified as a reporter or photographer for media houses perceived to be pro-PNU you were at risk of losing your life. Worse still people refused even to talk to the local media houses’ journalists because some colleagues covering the events for international media houses were paying out cash to get information.”

The provinces and the districts were the very areas which were hardest hit with the violence that saw more than 1200 people killed and 150, 000 displaced from their homes into the Internally Displaced People’s camps where many are still residing.  Journalists/photographers based in these areas were the worst affected. Yet the most ignored by their media houses.

“The media owners and employers in the media industry should also recognise the importance of emotional psychological and physical effects that are caused by their professional hazards,” says the permanent secretary.

He argues that besides the hazards the journalists/photographers experience in the field, many employers increase their stress levels because of the demands to meet targets within specific timeframes, whereas the staff were working under difficult circumstances and environments.

The situation was not made any better by virtue of the fact that many journalists found themselves in circumstances forcing them to offer help to critically injured victims of the violence at the risk of their own lives, yet they are not trained even in the rudimentaries of first aid.

A leading psychology doctor at University of Nairobi’s faculty of medicine, Dr. Sobbie Mulindi says the post election violence trauma can cause a lot of medical complications for the journalists/photographers who were affected unless counselled and treated immediately.

Dr. Mulindi who is spearheading counselling sessions of the affected journalists says that many of the media practicing victims risked developing deadly health problems like hypertension, general heart ailments, kidney complications, nervous breakdowns among others.

“Many journalists who were affected tended to resort to alcohol and substance abuse, abnormal behaviours which can lead to disastrous consequences. Psychological trauma has to be dealt with urgently. Apart from putting at risk the lives of the affected persons, it is possible that it can also be transmitted from one generation to another,” he said.

The doctor says that immediately the violence broke out with a team of other psychological trauma experts in Nairobi mobilised counsellors based in HIV/Aids VCT centres across the country for induction and deployed to IDP camps to counsel the victims of the post general election violence.

* Musa Radoli writes for the Royal Media Group in Kenya is the Secretary General of the Kenya Correspondents Association.

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

A court in the Egyptian capital Cairo on Wednesday sent the country's most erudite and vocal editor to six months in prison for writing a story on the health of President Hosni Mubarak. Ibrahim Eissa - Chief Editor of 'Al-Dustur' daily - was found guilty of spreading false information on the state of Mr Mubarak, which according to prosecutors, could threaten national stability as well as damaged the country's economy.

Malawi Information and Civic Education Minister Patricia Kaliati has said that the country will have a booming information and communication technology services after successfully piloting ICT telecentres in some districts of the country. To be regulated by the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA), the telecentres will be run by women as a way of involving them in ICT activities, the minister said.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/broadcasts/Arts_Azimuts.jpgBetween the 25th of January and the 2nd of Feb 2008, the town of Butare, Rwanda, hosted its first International Arts Festival organized by the University Centre for Arts. Entitled ‘Arts Azimuts’, this festival focused on theatre, music and dance, bringing together artists from Rwanda, Western Africa, Belgium and the United States
Du 25 janvier au 2 fevrier 2008,la ville de Butare au Rwanda a abrite son premier Festival International des Arts organise par le Centre Universitaire des arts. Intitule "Arts Azimuts", le festival incluait theatre,musique et dance et a rassemble des artistes du Rwanda, de l'afrique de l'ouest de laBelgique et des USA.

We, over 125 members of the global access to information community from 40 countries, representing governments, civil society organizations, international bodies and financial institutions, donor agencies and foundations, private sector companies, media outlets and scholars, gathered in Atlanta, Georgia from February 27-29, 2008, under the auspices of the Carter Center and hereby adopt the following Declaration and Plan of Action to advance the passage, implementation, enforcement, and exercise of the right of access to information:

The International Federation of Journalists has welcomed the formation of the Association of Journalists Unions in the North of Africa, which will act as the regional body of journalists’ trade unions in the media industry in the region.

The fate of Fatou Jaw Manneh, a US-based Gambian journalist accused of sedition, is not certain, as her case file has gone missing. On March 17, 2008, when the case was called, the trial magistrate, Buba Jawo, said there was no file before him pertaining to the case. Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) sources reported the case has since been adjourned indefinitely.

Christian Aid currently has an exciting opportunity in our Africa Division: As the Angola Programme Officer – Information and Documentation, you will be responsible for facilitating conditions for Angolan civil society to strengthen, through: promoting the access to information; developing documentation systems; and supporting relevant communication and media. You will link Christian Aid’s Information and Communication work in the UK and abroad, with the Angola partners and programme. Closing date for applications: 7 April 2008

The Network of African Freedom of Expression Organisations (NAFEO) has learned with dismay the adoption by the Transitional Parliament of Somalia of a new press bill which blatantly violates press freedom and freedom of expression. The new law contravenes international legal instruments which guarantee press freedom, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Atizar Mendes Pereira, journalist and director of Última Hora, a privately-owned Bissau-based newspaper was on March 11, 2008 arrested and detained by the Intelligence Service of the Ministry of Interior of Guinea Bissau. Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)’s correspondent reported that Pereira was interrogated for nearly six hours, before being released.

In January 2008, the Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of International PEN released a report on how criminal defamation legislation is used in Africa to silence print journalists who report on corruption, mismanagement and other abuses of power. The report looked at cases of defamation-related persecution in the 17 months to November 2007.

Demands by youths in Mazabuka for Government to increase the allocation of the youth empowerment fund has riled Mazabuka District Commissioner who has demanded the Mazabuka Community Radio Management to fire a Journalist Innocent Chinyemba.

If the Kenyan lawmakers had debated and approved the recent ICT Bill put before parliament, some of the communications issues raised by the recent political crisis in that country would have been more easily dealt with, argues KICTANeT's Alice Wanjira.

Hospitals in rural Tanzania have designed ways to communicate with doctors in referral hospitals using the Internet. The Bugando Referral Hospital in Mwanza has a telemedicine unit that connects Rubya and Kibondo hospitals. The remote hospitals are supplied with a computer, a scanner and a digital camera

A Moroccan who was jailed for creating a Facebook profile of a prince has been released from prison. Fouad Mourtada, a 26-year-old IT engineer, was freed on Tuesday after being pardoned by the king. Fouad Mourtada had been given a three-year prison term and fined 10,000 dirhams (US$1,320) in February for creating a profile of Morocco's Prince Moulay Rachid on Facebook. He was convicted after a trial in Casablanca.

On the eve of the March 29, 2008 presidential and parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe, with Robert Mugabe in power since 28 years and seeking another term as President, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), is publishing a report entitled ZIMBABWE: Run up to the March 29 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections - A Highly Repressive Environment for Human Rights Defenders.

John Samuel cautions Africa that technology should not come at the expense of Africa's "a shared sense of community, mutual support, trust and a culture of collective approach."

Growth and technological innovations are the two key drivers of change. Technology and economic growth feed in to each other. Access to economic growth and technology is supposed to make life more comfortable. But the key paradox of economic and technological growth is that both of them tend to increase comfort and decrease the level of happiness. While rapid economic growth can create access to income, it can also create the paradox of abundance - wherein quantity of money and comforts subvert and undermine the quality of time, life, living and environment.

When growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) does not produce a parallel growth in Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH), the purpose of economic growth and the use and misuse of technology are put into question. Economic growth is not a bad idea. But abundance can also create perpetual tension between the zest for freedoms and entrenched fears within and without. Such tensions can wake up the demons within the self and society - ceasing to trust each other, with increasing insecurity, paranoia and violence.

While embracing neo-liberal economic growth and new technologies, it is important for Africa to understand and appreciate the pros and cons of economic and technological growth. Africa's biggest resource, apart from its natural resources, is a shared sense of community, mutual support, trust and a culture of collective approach. However, bulldozing capitalism and economic growth of few elites superimposed on rather traditional societies can create new inequalities, individuation, paranoia and consequent violence. If only a minuscule minority get access to the fruits of economic growth and technology, it can indeed create an Economics of Violence. A shared sense of inequality and injustice become breeding grounds for alienation and reactionary violence. This is evident on the streets of Johannesburg to Nairobi.

Hence, it will be worthwhile to look at the experience of some of the fast growing economies in Asia. Most of the Asian countries too have a strong sense of community and collective ethics. But in the new flood of economic growth and technological invasion, new challenges are emerging.

Technology is both the beauty and the beast at the same time. Technology is a double edged sword. Every tool's validity depends on who uses it for what. Tool itself may not be political- but the use of tool is always an exercise of Power.

Technology has been the main protagonist in the drama of economic growth in the modern and post-modern times. Technology did make a difference to human condition, comforts and lives. Technology has almost acquired God-like- power to create, sustain and destruct; and at the same time a means for the search for perfection; conquering stars and cloning life. The ground zero in New York, the blazing guns and exploding young men on a busy street symbolize the frightening dance of technology.

It is the unequal and asymmetric access to technology that also propelled various kinds of dominations. In fact, technology, as means of domination- as means to travel great distance, communicate and as a means to confront an "enemy' with more "productive" killing power( weapons of mass destruction- played a very important role in all conquests. Those who had access to horse breeding, gun powder, steam energy, ship technology, missiles, space technology used all these to create muscle power to dominate. This power play and technology are still being played out across the world. The origin of this very technology- Internet- too is in the defense labs of the US.

There is a clear connection between patterns of conquests, colonialisation, technology and natural resources. Colony went where there was coal, timber, iron, and food. Hence, in the 18nth or 19th century the so called “middle east” did not exist in the imperialist scheme of things. Railway lines happened wherever there were some resources to be ripped off. The printing press created new politics of knowledge, and new rules for domination. Of course, printing press also unleashed a linguistic revolution- through hundreds of new grammar, new dictionaries, new Bibles and new books. Translations translated and transformed lives and times. Shipping technology helped us to cross the sea to hold hands as well as to capture lands. The moment technology shifted from Steam based mechanics to Oil one could see the shift in focus of imperialism. There is a direct connection between the discovery of oil in the early twentieth century and the shift of imperial interests to the so called “Middle East"(erstwhile Persia and Arabia).

In a metro-line in Tokyo, most of the young people are glued to their mobile, playing games, browsing Internet, chatting with someone on line and they hardly even notice the person sitting next. While people are connecting with some in the distance, they are alienated from the person sitting or living next door. The cyber world, social networking on the net etc creates different sort of virtual and imagined communities, while subverting and undermining human communities in real lives.

In counties like Japan, young people seem to be too busy to fall in or rise in love. Thirty thousand people commit suicide every year- one of the highest in the world. An aggressive economic growth and an invading technology seem to have created more people using Internet to find a "mate' to sleep with or to do "love- networking, and young people using technology to get a high kick to make "suicide- pact" on the net. When even love, passion and feeling get automated and orderly with sense of perfect routine, life becomes a boring burden: where life cease to give any excitement, people may search excitement in death! It has become a case of an economic society superimposed on a very traditional socio-cultural society , with pervading sense of new individuation and depoliticisation.

Everyone seems to be so pre-occupied with his or her own economic survival, at the cost of emotional security, resulting social/community disintegration. Every young person seems to be busy finding a job, proving his or her sense of self-worth as a "hardworking" professional with “sincerity" to the job. There is no time to hold hands, to walk in a park or to sing a song. When life is so automated and orderly without a possibility of anarchic thinking and life, creativity takes a back seat and productivity takes a front seat. Livelihood takes precedence over living and living takes precedence over life. Efficiency of our work goes up and the effectiveness of life gets discounted.

So when human beings cease to be social and creative and tend to be productive workforce, preoccupied with survival of the self, the seeds of alienation bloom in to a cancer of social disintegration and depolitisation. One ceases to be a part of a community but a loner in the midst of an anonymous crowd. This sense of erosion of aesthetics from human relations and society tend dehumanize the society and the world.

Sudden economic growth can induce more demands in some sectors, pushing up the cost of price and living. The increased income of a miniscule minority also propelled new consumerism with consequent increase in cost of living. In rapid growing economies of Asia, the sky rocketing real estate prices, smashed the housing dreams and rights of the majority of urban middle class. This in turn reduces the real purchasing capacity and increase the discontent of those who did not get much out of economic growth; making the recipe for an economics of violence.

Economic growth and technology may increase the access to comforts, but may also induce new individuation (transforming people from "social animal" to "economic animal" driven by economic compulsions), social disintegration, new paranoia and consequent loss of time or mindset for poetry, politics, love, companionship or community.

This paranoia, emotional insecurity and loss of community also create a new market for spiritualism and new adapted form of market-driven religious denominations. Brand new spiritual shops and “gurus” are thriving as a result of the market induced emotional and social insecurity among people who have becomes the villains and victims of the mega-markets!

*John Samuel is a social activist and the International Director of Actionaid.

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

The Tanzanian Government has arrested two online editors without charge. The two were detained and interrogated for 24 hours in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on February 18, in what observers of the case say was a politically motivated attempt to shut down the site. The two young editors, Maxence Mello and Mike Mushi, aged 21 and 18 respectively, host the extremely popular Jambo Forums, a public discussion site with more than 2,000 members and 6 million hits in February alone.

Tunisian journalist and press freedom advocate Sihem Bensedrine and husband Omar Mestiri were allegedly assaulted by police early this month when entering Tunisia from Europe. The government denies the claims, but human rights groups are persisting in their accusations.

Is the Uganda government set to become an efficient deliverer of services to the 28 million Ugandans out there? At least this is what the nationals are supposed to believe if the benefits that accrue from the completion of the first phase of the National Data Backbone is anything to go by.