By Tenzin Choephel
Phayul Correspondent
“We have been trying for many years to appoint a reporter in Tibet but Chinese Government strongly opposed it, we tried many times to send our outside reporters to Tibet to cover events but we never got permission, however, we have some regular contributors from China”.
Radio Free Asia’s (RFA) Tibetan Service with it’s dedicated Tibetan staff and versatile reporters is undisputedly the number one Tibetan radio service of the Tibetan Diaspora providing quality worldwide news. Tibetans news in particular and varieties of programmes to Tibetans all over the world including Tibetans inside Tibet via radio, satellite and the Internet. I had an opportunity to meet and interview one the founding members and director of RFA Tibetan Service Mr. Ngabö Jigme during his recent visit to Kathmandu. Following are the Excerpts of the interview:
Phayul: When did you join RFA?
Jigme La: I joined RFA on 1st June 1996. When I joined RFA, there were only about ten people in RFA, I have been working in RFA since then and now it is ten years, I was the first one who started the Tibetan service.
Phayul: Could you please give me a brief introduction of Radio Free Asia Tibetan Service?
Jigme La: We started our service on 1st December 1996 and this year in December we are completing 10 years. We have 36 staffs in Washington DC, we broadcast our service in three Tibetan language dialects of Uke, the biggest one that is broadcasted 6 hours a day, then Khamke and Amke for one hour respectively and in total it is 8 hours daily service. From January this year, we started broadcasting for 24 hours via Asia SAT 2 satellite; in Tibet people having satellite dish told us that they could listen to our service very clearly and many people in South India are also listening to our programmes. There is no video though and it is audio only.
Phayul: Do you give any preference to contents of the news broadcasted on your radio?
Jigme La: Yes, we broadcast mainly for our audience in Tibet, our most important news are about news of Tibet, when we first started, we started it as a radio service for Tibet, so our news are mainly about Tibet and also news concerning our Tibetan refugees and about many things concerning China also because it is directly related to Tibet. Other than that, we also broadcast important news of India, Nepal and other Asian countries and some important world news like the Afghan war. We have many news reporters outside Washington DC, like in Nepal, India, Switzerland, Germany etc.
Phayul: What is the number of listeners of your radio service?
Jigme La: We cannot say exactly how many people listen to our radio but during our first three years we had lot of listeners in Tibet because during those time there was no restriction on listening to radio in Tibet by China and the radio reception in Tibet was clear; then since about 1999 China started jamming radio signals and then it was difficult to listen to our radio in many parts of Tibet, particularly in big towns, many people informed us, we tried to change frequencies and add frequencies but the obstruction was also becoming bigger and so we were losing many listeners. However, in villages, many people still listen, we heard that some people even go outside their town to listen to our radio and then come back and talk about it. Initially, there was lots of obstruction in TAR but it was ok in Kham and Amdo Region and people listen to our radio. We received many letters from those regions also, we have phone in programmes where many people from Amdo Region call. However, that was also discovered by Chinese. Though, nowadays, technology is developing, we are broadcasting via satellite and it is probably very well received in Kham and Amdo Regions because many households have private satellite dish and nowadays in Tibet Internet usage is growing fast. People can listen via our website also, however, China is also blocking many website like ours and it is giving us a big problem but we are trying to use proxies and send it directly via emails to many people. I could say that people like and listen to our radio but I cannot exactly say how many people listen.
Phayul: Does your Tibetan Service provide important news to other language services of RFA?
Jigme La: Yes, we have very good relationship with other departments, they are also interested in Tibetan affairs, if it were a big news then they would always broadcast it, we also distribute news that are exclusively received by our department. The most important is the Chinese department and they broadcast many news of Tibet also.
Phayul: Is RFA funded by the Government of USA?
Jigme La: Yes, it is funded by the Government of USA but we are not a government department. It is a privately owned company and we are lucky that the US Government does not interfere in our work, there is no condition and it is extremely good.
Phayul: Is there any plan of RFA expanding to television in the future like VOA (Voice of America)?
Jigme La: We first had a plan to expand to TV but in the meantime there was budget restriction by the US Government due to launching of new TV channels in the Middle East. So, at present there is no definite plan but we are planning to start a web TV service. We are currently doing some preparation for that but I am not sure when we can start, we probably hope to launch it in 2007.
Phayul: Will you appoint new staff for that?
Jigme La: We would try to mobilize our current staff for that web TV but if we need technical experts then we might hire them that time.
Phayul: Is there any opportunity for interested young people to join RFA?
Jigme La: We always have requirement of reporters from outside but in Washington DC we don’t have any vacancy at present.
Phayul: Do you have anyone in Tibet reporting secretly?
Jigme La: We never do any secret job since it is a radio service. We have people in Tibet whom we could ask things, we have news sources and they provide information on what happens in the society and there is nothing secret about it and we don’t do any such secret things. We have been trying for many years to appoint a reporter in Tibet but Chinese Government strongly opposed it, we tried many times to send our outside reporters to Tibet to cover events but we never got permission, however, we have some regular contributors from China, we were the first one to have that, they send weekly reports and we are planning to expand that.
Phayul:Are they regular correspondents of RFA?
Jigme La: They are not exactly correspondents; there are two types, one is our regular reporter and the other is our weekly contributors, they usually send weekly reports related to Tibet. They go to Tibet and knows about Tibet very well and until now there was no problem. Generally, whatever we are doing is inside out and there is nothing secret.
Phayul: Is there any new developments in RFA?
Jigme La: We are currently developing a Unicode Tibetan font for our website that anyone could see our website without having to download any font and it would be out very soon. Our website is the first Tibetan language web portal providing Tibetan news on the Internet and we have been continuing that.
Phayul: How much has RFA Tibetan service grown since then?
Jigme La: At present there are about 300 people working for RFA. The Chinese language was the first and two months later our Tibetan service started, we are the second largest department in RFA.
