Suspension of RTP, RDP-África 'shows regime in death throes'

A former presidential candidate in Guinea-Bissau said on Wednesday that the current government's decision to suspend broadcasts in the country of Portugal's public television and radio channels represents "the end of the regime" that is currently in power.

Nuno Nabian, the leader of the Assembly of the United People - Social Democratic Party of Guiné-Bissau (APU-PDGB) made the comment after the government announced that it would from 30 July suspend broadcasts by RTP and RDP-África in the country.

The move is in reaction to an alleged lack of a response from the authorities in Lisbon on the renegotiation of the contract under which the broadcasters operate in Guinea-Bissau.

Nabian said that nothing can justify stopping the broadcasts "but, as someone has said, closing these news channels is the end of this regime". He added that "as the end nears all notion of the reality of the facts is lost".

The APU leader recalled that as a student in the US he had relied on RTP-África to receive news on his country - as remains the case today, he added, "with many Bissau-Guineans in the diaspora".

There was, he argued, only one real explanation for the decision: "The truth [as broadcast by RTP and RDP] hasn't gone done well with the powers-that-be" in Guinea-Bissau.

MB/ARO // ARO.

Lusa