Since October 1993, when Tutsi soldiers killed the democratically elected Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye, successive regimes have used physical and bureaucratic coercion to stifle independent journalism in Burundi. That includes the incumbent strongman Major Pierre Buyoya, who seized power in 1996. Six years into Burundi’s civil war, Hutu guerrillas continue to fight the Tutsi-dominated government…
Cambodia in 1999 was as peaceful as it has been in decades. The Khmer Rouge insurgency was defeated, and most of its leaders were either dead or in custody, awaiting the possibility that a tribunal would be formed to judge their complicity in the genocidal Pol Pot regime. No elections, or coups d’état, divided the…
Freedom of expression remains elusive in Cameroon. An October 1999 United Nations report on the country’s implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights deplored the wide variety of abuses suffered by local journalists as well as arbitrary state controls over press, radio, and television. Broadcast media remained the monopoly of President Paul…
Over the past two decades, journalism has made tremendous strides in the oil-rich monarchies of the Arabian peninsula. Benefiting from generous budgets and advanced technology, private newspapers have flourished. Some are now counted among the most influential papers in the Arab world. But for the most part, journalism in the member states of the Gulf…
In 1996, President Idriss Deby shed his military dictator’s uniform to become the country’s first democratically elected ruler. However, his government’s treatment of local independent media has remained heavy-handed. This year, Chadian officials were particularly sensitive to press coverage of the ongoing fight between government troops and the armed Movement for Democracy and Justice (MDJT)…
Many observers labeled the 1999 presidential election, in which socialist candidate Ricardo Lagos defeated conservative hopeful Joaquín Lavín, a watershed event. The election was run on the issues and was largely devoid of the ideological polarization that had characterized Chilean politics for decades. But the press has played a minor role in this emerging political…
Conditions for the heavily-controlled Chinese press worsened dramatically in 1999 as a broad clampdown on dissent and free expression led to fresh arrests of journalists, massive propaganda campaigns and systematic efforts by the secret police to monitor and control the Internet. Eleven journalists were arrested in 1999, bringing the total number of journalists in prison…
In a year that saw both an escalation of Colombia’s armed conflict and a tentative beginning of peace negotiations, the press found itself in the crosshairs of nearly every party to the increasingly complicated civil war. Five journalists were killed in the line of duty, while scores of others were threatened, attacked, or kidnapped. Colombian…
Despite efforts to resolve secessionist tensions that have long beset the three Indian Ocean islands of Comoros, ongoing political conflict has done little to foster a free press. On the island of Anjouan, the employees of Radio Ushababi, established in June 1999 by journalists opposing the local separatist movement, were repeatedly harassed and interrogated by…
President Denis Sassou-Nguesso’s Mbochi ethnic group dominates the government, including the subservient state-owned media. As in past years, journalists from the Kongo group of ousted President Pascal Lissouba and those from the Lari group of exiled former prime minister Bernard Kolelas suffered particular discrimination. In the capital, Brazzaville, street battles raged all year between various…