Along with the glaciers of the Arctic and the sand dunes of the Sahara, northern Somalia is one of the most isolated places I have ever visited as a foreign correspondent. You can wander its barren landscape for days without seeing another soul and when I was held hostage there in 2008, I could see why so many British troops posted in Somalia after the Second World War committed suicide through loneliness. That I did not succumb to the same urge is thanks to many factors — one being the good cheer of the photographer held captive alongside me, another being the Telegraph’s heroic efforts in securing our release. But during the six weeks we were held at gunpoint in a cave, one thing that stemmed the despair was the tiny, battery-operated radio that our kidnappers sometimes lent us.
On the shortwave channel, we could get a faint BBC World Service signal, and while it was often fuzzy as it bounced round the cave’s walls, it was better than yet another game on our chess-set made from cigarette foil. So I am pleased to hear that this lifeline is now being extended to inmates of another, much larger prison — the 25 million citizens of North Korea, who are denied access to any outside media by their leader, Kim Jong-un. The World Service is to plan a North Korea channel, giving the country’s brain-washed citizens a much-needed alternative to the relentless propaganda of the world’s last Stalinist regime. Given the enthusiasm of Pyongyang’s hermit regime for threatening nuclear war against its neighbours, the move is a fine example of the BBC’s motto of “Nation shall speak peace unto nation”.
It has, however, taken a while for the corporation to make its mind up. First came objections from Foreign Office mandarins, who fretted about the repercussions for HMG’s man in Pyongyang. Having seen how Kim hacked Sony Pictures after being lampooned in last year’s film The Interview, they feared he might be summoned in for more than just a formal dressing down. The other question, though, was whether, in an age of internet and ever-proliferating satellite television channels, a BBC radio service would really be justified. After all, neighbouring South Korea, which is now one of the most hi-tech societies on the planet, already broadcasts there, as does the US-funded Radio Free Asia.
Did North Korea really need a BBC as well? In my view, yes. Britain is seen by Pyongyang as more neutral than South Korea or America, so its voice may carry influence. More important, totalitarian North Korea is one of the few places left in the world where the internet is unlikely to be available any time soon. As of last year, the country had just 1,000 IP addresses, all registered to regime cronies. A Facebook revolution of the sort that toppled Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak is therefore unlikely. In the meantime, small, easily concealed radios are one of the few links to the outside world, just as they were in Communist-era Eastern Europe. True, in our multimedia age, listening to a crackly shortwave news broadcast may not be terribly appealing.
But take it from me, when it is all you have got, it feels as if the world is speaking to you direct. I will never forget one World Service broadcast during my stint in the cave in which Alan Johnston, the BBC reporter who was once kidnapped in Gaza, compared experiences with Ingrid Betancourt, the Colombian politician held hostage for six years by Farc rebels. My heart leapt with excitement as Johnston said to her: “It’s just possible that in a makeshift prison in Colombia or Iraq or Afghanistan right now, there may be a kidnap victim in a cell listening to us on the radio. What would your message to him or her be?”
As it turned out, Betancourt’s words of wisdom were that I shouldn’t be afraid to die. Frankly, it wasn’t the reassurance I’d hoped for. And while I remain a loyal listener to the World Service, there is a case for saying that some of its output could be improved. All too often, it sounds rather like the broadcast wing of Oxfam, with a great deal of earnest items on development and environmental issues, and its sense of Britishness somewhat underplayed. Even in my cave, I tended to hand the radio back to the pirates when I heard things along the lines of “Next — a look at the Ghanaian government’s effort to attract young people back into its cocoa industry”. The North Korea service will, of course, be in the Korean language, so it may not suffer from the same issues. But if it is to be a voice that stands out, then it should not rely on being listened to purely because there is little else on offer. Nor should it be ashamed to promote British values. After all, Kim Jong-un will denounce it as the voice of western imperialist running dogs anyway.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London, 2015
