U.S.-paid broadcasts called pro-Tailban (Voice of America )

Voice of America broadcasts to Afghanistan in the Pashto language have consistently presented an "appalling" pro-Taliban slant, says a former ambassador now teaching at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

"What the Afghans called it was the voice of the Taliban," said Peter Tomsen, who was special envoy to the Afghan resistance during the first Bush administration.

Tomsen's allegation, spelled out in an e-mail and a letter in July, prompted an investigation by the International Broadcasting Bureau's Office of Program Review. In a report dated Sept. 10, the agency said it "found no statistical or qualitative evidence of pro-Taliban bias, or support for Osama bin Laden, on the part of VOA Pashto."

The agency said Taliban views were presented as part of the balanced coverage required by the VOA Charter.

Tish King, speaking for Voice of America, said the service regularly hears from Afghans and foreign correspondents that VOA and BBC "are the only trusted sources of news in Afghanistan."

Tomsen, a career diplomat, responded to the broadcasting bureau's report with a Sept. 21 letter saying that VOA Pashto "reminds me of Soviet propaganda when I was in Moscow."

He said about one-third of the Pashto Service coverage of Afghan topics was interviews with Taliban officials or Taliban sympathizers, without balancing the programs by interviewing Taliban opponents.

"Under the current circumstances, it just does not make sense - for so much of the VOA Pashto Service time - to give the microphone to the Taliban enemy as we employ our military forces against him," wrote Tomsen, also a former U.S. ambassador to Armenia.

U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., cited Tomsen's letter in calling the broadcasting bureau report a "whitewash of the Voice of America's treatment of the Taliban government for the last five years."

"You can take a look at the number of stories and interviews with Taliban leaders - it's a disgrace," Rohrabacher said in an Oct. 10 meeting of the House International Relations Committee.

The committee unanimously approved a bill Thursday to form a new broadcasting service, Radio Free Afghanistan, under the existing Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty service. Like VOA, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty broadcasts straight news, but it is viewed as more of a propaganda service. One of its purposes is to "promote democratic values and institutions."

VOA added 30 minutes daily to its Afghan broadcasts after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, for a total of an hour and 45 minutes. The Radio Free Afghanistan legislation would pay for 12 hours of broadcasting a day.

Tomsen's initial criticism came before the Sept. 11 attack. Later in September, VOA came under fire from the State Department for broadcasting part of an interview with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

The State Department wanted the interview withheld, but VOA delayed the broadcast several days before broadcasting excerpts as part of a broader report. That move was criticized by staff members who said the delay compromised their journalistic integrity and their credibility in Afghanistan.

On the other hand, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher criticized the decision to air Omar's remarks at all: "We don't think that the head of the Taliban belongs on this radio station."

Tomsen said he wasn't seeking to censor the news service but was asking it to meet its journalistic standards of balance. "I'm a very strong supporter of the media and the First Amendment."

The 1976 VOA Charter says the taxpayer-funded news service "will be accurate, objective and comprehensive." Its journalistic code calls for balanced reporting of controversial issues.

Tomsen said he and colleagues at UNO's Center for Afghanistan Studies studied the broadcasts after hearing complaints. "Afghans would go through the roof," he said. "They'd hear the broadcasts, and they'd call and complain."

The UNO program's staff recorded the broadcasts, and Tomsen asked an outside source to analyze them. He compiled a log of more than 100 interviews, talk shows and news stories featuring the views of Taliban leaders or sympathizers. "Interviews with members of the anti-Taliban opposition inside Afghanistan are as rare as hen's teeth," he wrote.

Tomsen did not fault the VOA broadcasts in Dari, the other major Afghan language. Pashto is spoken primarily in southern Afghanistan by the nation's largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns. The Taliban leaders are Pashtun.

The broadcasting bureau asked two Pashto-speaking professors to analyze tapes of selected broadcasts for possible bias. The evaluators criticized the balance and journalistic quality of some reports but said they generally were balanced.

The professors' names are removed from the report, but another document identifies them as Anwar ul-Haq Ahady of Providence College and Alam Payind of Ohio State University.

Tomsen faulted their selection, particularly Ahady, who heads an Afghan party whose members Tomsen said "almost always support the Taliban."

WHO ALLOWS THIS? WHO ALLOWED ATTA TO LEAVE THE PLANE ON A RUNWAY?

Why are we never told who these incompetant OR treasonous individuals are?

Could it be because they are Clinton holdovers?

Is it because they have FBI files on those who might investigate?

Major bumpskis. Brilliant post! It could also mean a number of things: 1)VoA was pro-Taliban, 2)it is just propaganda to make VoA a 'respected' station whilst we all know that it was, is and will be a propaganda station, 3) it's a slight against Clinton's terrorist hot-date policies... I plump for no.2 please Silla because it is a government owned and run station whose history is propaganda. Governments aren't in the business of (supposedly) running real news services.

Tish King, speaking for Voice of America, said the service regularly hears from Afghans and foreign correspondents that VOA and BBC "are the only trusted sources of news in Afghanistan."

I can't stop laughing!

VRN

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