In conflict areas, you get many stories to whatever happens to who-what-where-when and why.
Radio and TV station YNTYMAC, located in Ferghana Valley, brings together a wide range of views from many places in and around Ferghana Valley. Until today, most people in Tadjikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have to rely on their personal networks to get news or real information about what is happening in the area. The new broadcaster is changing that.
In Osh, in the center of ethnic conflicts, YNTYMAC TV and radio station broadcasts in several languages: 60 percent in Kyrgyz, and 40 percent in Uzbek and Tajik. The staff is as multi ethnic as is the program. Broadcastings started only one year ago, initiated by the Kyrgyz government and supported by international funds. Critics assume the program wants to spread Kyrgyz language and thinking. But then, it also could help to ease conflicts and to create understanding for all in the region. Since the end of the Sovjet Union, people of neighboring countries cannot cross borders without special permissions.
“It is so good to know more about your neighbor”, local people said about the new broadcaster.
Maybe, one day borders will be open again, but until today the three neighboring countries closely linked in Sovjet times, cannot cross borders to neighboring countries. Their local rulers prefer to keep up fences instead of cooperating and getting the economies going.
Voices from people in the region: https://www.birgitwetzel.de/yntymac-ferghana-valley/
Map: Languages and neighbors in Central Asia http:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/08/12/40-maps-that-explain-the-world/?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=bufferc4b87&utm_medium=twitter
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan’s Roads of Separation | http://EurasiaNet.org http://www.eurasianet.org/node/67974
BBC News – Kyrgyzstan troops in deadly gunfight near China border, Jan.24, 2014 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25872528
