Viet Nam Human Rights
RFA - A propaganda tool
5/12/16
Radio Free Asia (RFA) is a private, nonprofit international broadcasting agency of the United States government that broadcasts and publishes online news, information, and commentary to listeners in East Asia while "advancing the goals of U.S. foreign policy." RFA is funded by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an independent agency of the United States government responsible for all non-military, international broadcasting sponsored by the U.S government (such as Radio Free Europe), which appoints the board of RFA. RFA broadcasts in nine languages, via shortwave, satellite transmissions, medium-wave (AM and FM radio), and through the Internet. The first transmission was in Mandarin Chinese and it is RFA's most broadcast language at twelve hours per day. RFA also broadcasts in Cantonese, Tibetan (Kham, Amdo,and Uke dialects), Uyghur, Burmese, Vietnamese, Lao, Khmer (to Cambodia) and Korean (to North Korea). The Korean service launched in 1997 with Jaehoon Ahn as its founding director.
Radio Free Asia was originally founded and funded in the 1950s by an organization called "Committee for Free Asia" as an anti-communist propaganda operation, backed by the U.S. and its allies through CIA, broadcasting from RCA facilities in Manila, Philippines, and Dacca and Karachi, Pakistan (there may be other sites).
After the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 American interest in starting a government broadcasting organization grew. The International Broadcasting Act was passed by the Congress of the United States in 1994.
RFA’s self-stated mission is directed by the 1994 International Broadcasting Act. RFA claim their intent is "Acting as a substitute for indigenous free media, RFA concentrates its coverage on events occurring in and/or affecting the countries to which it broadcasts."
However, the International Broadcasting Act of 1994 (Title III of Pub.L. 103–236) is more explicit about the political mission of RFA: “the continuation of existing U.S. international broadcasting, and the creation of a new broadcasting service to people of the People's Republic of China and other countries of Asia, which lack adequate sources of free information and ideas, would enhance the promotion of information and ideas, while advancing the goals of U.S. foreign policy.” It proves that RFA is just a state propaganda tool of the U.S. government to interfere with other states’ affairs. The current Radio Free Asia is a US-funded organization, incorporated in March 1996, and began broadcasting in September 1996.
In 1999, Catharin Dalpino of the Brookings Institution, who served in the Clinton State Department as a deputy assistant secretary deputy for human rights, called Radio Free Asia "a waste of money." "Wherever we feel there is an ideological enemy, we're going to have a Radio Free Something," she says. Dalpino said she has reviewed scripts of Radio Free Asia's broadcasts and views the station's reporting as unbalanced. "They lean very heavily on reports by and about dissidents in exile. It doesn't sound like reporting about what's going on in a country. Often, it reads like a textbook on democracy, which is fine, but even to an American it's rather propagandistic."
Since broadcasting began in 1996, for its’ intervention and biased propaganda, Chinese authorities have consistently jammed RFA broadcasts. Official state-controlled newspapers in China have run editorials claiming Radio Free Asia is a CIA broadcast operation, as was the case with the first Radio Free Asia.
For same reasons, the Vietnamese-language broadcast signal was also jammed by the Vietnamese government since the beginning. However, with financial supports from the U.S. administration, human rights legislation has been proposed in Congress that would allocate money to counter the jamming.
RFA has many times published articles that based on false and distorted information. These propaganda have hurt Vietnam’s image and national interests worldwide. They also hired anti-Vietnam’s government individuals as journalists or reporters who are eager to take every chances to slander the Party and State of Vietnam. There are many examples to count as the HD981 oil-rig related to Vietnam’s sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea, land clearance for national developments, the recent mass fish death in central provinces, etc. They manipulated these sensitive issues to distort Vietnamese government’s policies and competence.
More dangerous, RFA also has secret links with Viet Tan, a terrorist group operating in Vietnam and abroad. A letter of Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tu whose father was killed by the Front, precursor of Viet Tan, has revealed RFA’s connection with this dangerous terrorist group. According to the letter, the Vietnamese RFA has had close connections and long-term support for Viet Tan. And RFA’s public support for Viet Tan, which allows them to use RFA as an outlet for their propaganda, and its agent(s) as a mouthpiece to legitimize their criminal enterprise to the people in Vietnam and some among the Vietnamese diaspora that they are well connected politically. This may also discourage potential witnesses to come forth as they wrongly believed that Viet Tan is protected by RFA and the U.S. Government therefore enjoys immunity.
Three weeks after “Terror in Little Saigon” was aired in October 2015, RFA interviewed Ly Thai Hung of Viet Tan, touting it as a “major political party” in the Vietnamese diaspora. Why interviewing a leader of Viet Tan and not any other political party or the victims’ families? This is clearly a vehicle for RFA/Vietnamese to elevate the credibility of Viet Tan and thereby counter the impacts of “Terror in Little Saigon” in the eyes Vietnamese in Vietnam and overseas.
Nguyen Van Khanh, Director of RFA Vietnamese Program, is the linkage between RFA and Viet Tan. Under his directorship as evidenced, RFA has officially partnered with Viet Tan. It’s very unusual that a surrogate radio program, mandated by the U.S. Congress and funded with U.S. tax dollars, aligns itself with a particular political party, let alone one that is implicated in terrorist activities and murders of reporters. It raises serious questions about split loyalty, conflict of interest, impropriety and unethical conduct. RFA should and must look into the RFA Vietnamese Program whether or not he/she is a Viet Tan member or sympathizer, or whether or not he/she is receiving financial compensation for his/her deeds directly or indirectly. Financially influencing a federally funded radio program through insiders and affiliated organizations (comparable to laundering) or likelihood of RFA’s participation of racketeering actions/inactions would fit right in the RICO statue.
For a true media station, even funded by the U.S. government, RFA should perform the duties of impartially and diligently. In order to abide by this, it is imperative that RFA not abandon its neutral role and assume the role of an advocate or be the mouthpiece for a political party. RFA is not at liberty to disregard the rules simply because they do not meet the approval of individuals with self serving agenda(s)./.
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All comments [ 1 ]
People should have a warning view on those media stations like RFA. I do not see what they represent beside undermining. RFA is just a fool propaganda tool!
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