The Foreign Service Journal, January 2004

International Broadcasting Act of 1994. It enabled RFE/RL to streamline and redesign its opera- tions with new efficiency. The first broadcasts from RFE/RL’s new home in the former Czechoslovak Federal Parliament building took place on March 10, 1995. In 1999, Congress adopted legislation supporting the continuation of RFE/RL broadcasts until democracy and independent media have been firmly established and consolidated in a country. RFE/RL broadcasts emphasize local and regional developments — so-called “surrogate” radio — in places where local media remain under authoritarian control or where economic chaos, censorship and other threats to democracy remain. In some places these programs are complemented by Voice of America broadcasts, which in addition to news and analysis present a U.S. perspective on issues and provide information about American life. RFE/RL broadcasts more than 1,100 hours of pro- gramming a week in 34 languages from its Prague opera- tions center to listeners in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central and Southwestern Asia. RFE/RL’s location in the broadcast region facilitates the production of relevant, locally ori- ented programming in a cost-efficient manner. Its orga- nization includes the headquarters, 30 bureaus in its broadcast region, and more than 1,500 freelancers world- wide reporting local, regional and international news. Iraq, Iran and Beyond Well before the 9/11 attacks, RFE/RL was emphasiz- ing new information products for countries and regions that are now on the front line of the U.S.-led war against terrorism. In 1994, RFE/RL began broadcasts to the countries of the former Yugoslavia. In 1998, Congress mandated that RFE/RL begin a Persian language service beamed to Iran and establish Radio Free Iraq to broad- cast in Arabic. Since then, this trend has accelerated. Now 19 of RFE/RL’s language broadcasts — more than half the total — are to places where the majority populations are Muslim. This shift was underscored with the Nov. 28 announcement that RFE/RL would cease broad- casts in seven languages to coun- tries in Central and Southeastern Europe — countries preparing to join NATO and the E.U. — by the end of 2003. Given budgetary con- straints, it is important to now focus fully on the troubled areas of Eurasia and Southwest Asia where RFE/RL has rapidly expanded operations in the past six years. Before the Iraq conflict, RFE/RL had correspondents in northern Iraq reporting in Arabic; these reports were used as well by other RFE/RL language services. Once the war began, it naturally dominated RFE/RL’s news and analytical coverage in 2003. Its correspondents were embedded with U.S. forces in Iraq, and reported from the Kurdish-held North plus elsewhere in the region. Drawing on Radio Free Iraq resources, RFE/RL began to provide daily reports in Kurdish to the Voice of America for inclusion in its programming. After major hostilities ended, RFI quickly established an office in Baghdad and a network of more than a dozen correspondents through- out the country representing all of Iraq’s ethnic and regional groups. RFI is now on the air 17 hours daily, including on FM stations in Baghdad and Basra. Radio Farda, an around-the-clock service to Iran pro- duced jointly by RFE/RL and VOA, went on the air in 2002 and now offers news and information coverage an average of eight hours daily, plus music and features designed to attract young listeners (70 percent of Iran’s population is under age 30). First-year highlights includ- ed live, in-depth coverage of the war in Iraq, including exclusive coverage from inside Iraq; and extensive, live coverage from within Iran of student-led anti-regime protests during June 2003. In response to the early suc- cess of the station — and paying Radio Farda the highest of Cold War compliments — the Iranian government began jamming the broadcasts and blocking the station’s active, popular Internet site. Since January 2002 Radio Free Afghanistan has broadcast 12 hours daily in Pashto and Dari in a joint 24- hour program stream with VOA. It does live program- ming from its Kabul bureau, and has expanded its stable of correspondents to more than 30 to provide detailed, F O C U S J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 41 It is important to now focus fully on the troubled areas of Eurasia and Southwest Asia. Thomas A. Dine is the president of RFE/RL. Prior to his appointment in 1997, he served as assistant admin- istrator for Europe and the New Independent States at USAID. Earlier, he headed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.