Angolan radio station faults limits on range

LUANDA, Angola -- The newsroom at Radio Ecclesia was buzzing with the report. Angola's finance minister, according to a magazine story, had deposited $2 million from a Brazilian contact with the Angolan government into his personal Cayman Islands bank account.

''Something seems very wrong," said João Manuel Osvaldo Pinto, 33, a popular radio talk show host and journalist, as he leaned back on a couch at the station, as the news was broadcast over small loudspeakers in the room. ''We're hearing speculation that some of this money will be used to finance next year's elections."

The report from Brazil -- which Radio Ecclesia carried and which Finance Minister José Pedro de Morais later strongly denied -- was the talk of the capital city, from embassies to nongovernmental groups to oil companies.

But there was no talk beyond Luanda.

That is because the government allows Radio Ecclesia to broadcast only in the capital. Officials have turned down several attempts by the station, owned by the Roman Catholic Church, to expand into rural areas. Critics say the refusals are the government's way to curtail free press.

Around Africa, the work of a journalist is often complicated, dangerous, and full of limitations. Ethiopia, Gambia, and Uganda, among others, have jailed journalists in recent months for writing articles or broadcasting reports that criticized the ruling powers.

Zimbabwe has effectively closed down almost all independent publications. And reporters everywhere in Africa, including South Africa, say they are paid poorly, not given enough resources to do their work properly, and need more job training.

Several US Agency for International Development programs have sponsored seminars for African journalists over the years. The State Department frequently criticizes governments that imprison reporters for doing their jobs.

But journalists around the continent still have little protection from arrest when leaders do not like their reports.

In Angola, which is bursting with new developments from the end of the war in 2002, which lasted a quarter of a century, and new discoveries of oil in deep waters offshore, the media are dominated by a government-owned television station, a radio station, and a daily newspaper.

Radio Ecclesia, one Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity, ''has been very aggressive -- that's why the government won't allow them to broadcast outside of Luanda." At the station, several journalists said that they feared reprisals after the report last month on de Morais. So far, there has been none.

''We hear talk about cracking down on corruption all the time," Pinto said. ''But the ruling officials have not changed. And they won't give any interviews to us. They say they are doing something with the oil money that will help the people, but the impact seems to be very little, and we can't get any information from them."

Pinto and another Angolan journalist, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, said that government officials frequently approach independent journalists in Luanda who publish critical reports and offer them jobs in government media.

Pinto, who is paid about $1,000 a month, said an official had recently offered him a job at the national radio station for triple his salary, along with a free car and free rent.

Asked why he said no, Pinto said, ''I have my own convictions."

The Roman Catholic Church, several radio journalists said, only rarely weighs in on editorial decisions. This gives the reporters largely a free hand in their decisions on what to report. One notable exception was in 2001 when the government threatened to close down Radio Ecclesia -- the state-owned daily then called it an ''instruction of subversion" -- and church authorities played a role in temporarily suspending the station's news programs.

Instead, the station broadcast only religious music and calls to prayer for a few days before resuming normal programs.

In 2003, one year after the end of the war, the government accused the station of practicing ''radio terrorism" over a series of reports on corruption allegedly involving government officials.

And then there was last month's airing of the Brazilian report.

At the Finance Ministry one day later, de Morais was fuming.

''There is no link whatsoever between the Brazilian enterprises and the money in my account," he said. ''It's a coincidence that I have one account in this bank."

De Morais declined to specify the companies involved, or to say why the money went into his account. He said: ''My financial trajectory . . . is not the same of most people in this country. . . . If you ask me, 'Did you get funds in your job and did that break the rules?' My answer is, 'No, I did not break the rules to get the funds.' "

De Morais said the station should not have broadcast the report without doing its own reporting, as well as making sure it had his side of the story. ''But," he said of the station, ''they have an editorial line there to try to prove the government is not working on behalf of the people."

Pinto said journalists at the station did try to get comment from the Finance Ministry and de Morais, but it took a ministry spokesman several hours to respond.

He said the flap over de Morais might seem tame compared with issues involving an election next year, which would be the first national vote since 1992.

''I'm more afraid of the elections than anything else," Pinto said. ''We have no personal security."

John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com.