Indigenous broadcasters in Peru: The right to Communication

Written on 12 January 2016. Posted in Peru

In a country with more than 50 different ethnic groups, the native peoples have no means of communication of their own and only restricted access to the public and private media.

Rosa Palomino, an Aymara communicator, learnt Spanish the hard way. At 15 years of age, she left her native community of Camacani, in Platería department, Peru, to go to Puno to study. “People would say to me: you, peasant girl, you don’t know anything, you don’t speak Spanish. My mother told me: deal with it. They hit you? Hit them back. They pull your hair? Pull theirs back.” At 64 years of age, Rosa Palomino is now a member of the Board of the Indigenous Communicators Network of Peru (REDCIP). She runs the Wiñay Pankara (Forever Thriving) programme on the daily life, needs and demands of the Aymara population in the Andean region of Peru.

Her case is exceptional, however. In Peru, with more than 50 different ethnic groups, the indigenous peoples do not have their own means of communication and their access to the public and private media is restricted.  The communications sector is very heavily concentrated: the Comercio group holds a virtual monopoly and this hinders information diversity as the group controls some 78% of the national press. “The vast majority of communicators have to pay for small marginal slots in the large commercial media out of their own pockets,” explains Jorge Agurto, director of Servindi, a news agency with 10 years’ experience of publishing news about, or of interest to, the communities.

Radio is one of the most accessible platforms for indigenous peoples and, in some countries, this has resulted in an active community radio movement. Legislation in most Latin American countries recognises three methods of radio broadcasting: public, commercial and community. In Peru, however, powerful radio broadcasting companies hold licences for frequencies that they do not even use and which they often sublease or sell to the highest bidder.

Article 16 of the UN Declaration recognises communication as a fundamental human right of indigenous peoples. It calls on the world’s States to endeavour to guarantee indigenous peoples’ right to establish their own media and to have access to public and private media in order to protect their cultural diversity.