Community Radio

Colombians, it seems, are used to fighting for what they want. From the man on the street struggling to sell his wares to the more prosaic armed conflicts that seem to engulf the country in the eyes of the outside world. Last night we met a woman who has been fighting for a long time to gain what she wants.
Patricia is a member of 'Suba al aire' (raise in the air), a community project in the barrio of Suba to the north of Bogota. Like Ciudad Bolivar it is a vast area of more than a million people and is one of the major catchment areas for people fleeing poverty and conflict in other areas of the country. Last night Patricia was celebrating, although not counting her chickens before they are hatched. Suba al aire have just been awarded a license for a frequency for their comminity radio project.
Apparantly this has been a long and drawn out struggle that began 15 years ago when they were a pirate radio station. Patricia herself has been fighting the legal battle for 9 years and now, hopefully, they have won.
The problems initially arose when they applied to become a legal radio station serving the community in which they live. A radio station serving the community needs is exactly what Suba is crying out for, and has been for years. The government, however, didnt exactly see things the same way. It just so happens that the five men who control the majority of the communication media, including the commercial radio stations, are also memebers of congress; the same congress that prevented Suba from obtaining its own radio station.
Since then Suba has joined together with other community groups and fought tooth and nail to get the law changed. Along the way they have won several victories but have always been left disapointed by some clause or another. A couple of years ago after one victory a subclause was added that stated that anyone who had broadcast illegally could not have rights to a frequency. This obviously included Suba al aire and the other radio stations that had already been broadcasting. And so the battle continued.
Personally I don't understand the reason for the government trying to prevent community radio programs from being aired. They are not trying to compete with the commercial stations, they are merely trying to provide a service to their local area. I have been informed that this simplistic view is not one shared by the many officials that want to make a cut off everything that happens in the country.
I truly hope that Suba have won their monumental battle with the governmental corruption that has fought to prevent them from producing community radio programs. For now Patricia is not holding her breath, lets hope that Suba has its own air waves soon.