As UN marks 30 years of Press Freedom Day, a Windhoek conference participant’s story

This year’s World Press Freedom Day is a momentous celebration because WPFD 2023 is the 30th anniversary of the 1993 proclamation by the UN General Assembly of a day to honour freedom of the press worldwide.

On Tuesday, May 2, 2023, the UN Headquarters in New York, USA, will kick off the global WPFD with commemorative events ahead of the actual observance on May 3 which has the theme: Shaping a Future of Rights: Freedom of expression as a driver for all other human rights.

For me, this milestone, and indeed every WPFD, has great significance because I participated in the 1991 conference organised by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation that later gave birth to WPFD.

The ‘Seminar on Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African Press’ took place in Windhoek, Namibia, from April 29 to May 3 1991. When it ended on May 3, its outcomes were formulated into a document titled the ‘Windhoek Declaration’.

Thus, May 3 was chosen by the UN General Assembly as the day set aside globally to celebrate press freedom, following a proposal by UNESCO, “the UN organization responsible for defending, and promoting freedom of expression, media independence and pluralism”.

I was one of three guests from Ghana invited by UNESCO to Windhoek. The other two were Prof Paul Ansah, Director of the School of Communication Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, and Mr. John Nyankumah, Editor-in-Chief of the Ghana of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, representing the Ghana Journalists Association. Sadly, both are deceased.

My invitation to that landmark meeting, held at the Hotel Safari, in Windhoek, the Namibian capital, was a complete surprise, because I wasn’t invited as a nominee of the Ghana Government. I was invited in my capacity as the co-founder and editor of a pacesetting but short- lived independent newspaper, The Monitor.

Colleague Mr. Ken Bediako, a leading sportswriter and former Sports Editor of the Daily Graphic, and I had joined forces to launch the Monitor and the first issue came out on September 1, 1989. It was the first independent paper to publish eight pages, and a broadsheet, as opposed to the then norm of four pages and mostly sports or lotto/lottery forecasting sheets.

As I stated on another platform years ago, “We hoped to help fill the vacuum … to produce a paper that would build a reputation for truth, accuracy and fairness. We did not aim to be a political opposition paper, but we did aim to oppose and expose wrongdoing on all fronts. We wanted the Monitor to be everybody’s platform but nobody’s preserve ideologically or otherwise.”

But the paper fell victim to the anti-independent media climate of the time: notably lack of funding, lack of adverts, high newsprint prices and difficulty in collecting our money from vendors. But the last straw was a malicious action against me apparently by the government of FL-Lt Jerry John Rawlings.

I was then a freelance journalist, reporting mainly for the BBC’s ‘Focus on Africa’ programme. The spiteful action concerned a report I had filed for the BBC about an alleged coup d’état and the arrests of some military personnel. My report was actually a copy of a Ghana News Agency report, with the understanding of the BBC, as by the time they rang to request that report, it was too late for me to do my own investigation.

When the story was broadcast on Friday, October 6, 1989, in his introduction, the BBC presenter said “several” senior army officers had been arrested. The Government objected to the “several’ because “only three military officers of the rank of Major and below” were named.

Instead of inviting me by telephone, or other regular means, to provide an explanation, strangely, the authorities chose to invite me, together with another BBC correspondent, by hourly radio announcements over that whole weekend, to report at Burma Camp, Army Headquarters, at 8 a.m. on Monday, October 9, 1989. As can be imagined, this spiteful action caused great anxiety
among family, friends and well-wishers.

Moreover, this was at a time when the very mention of “Burma Camp’ was enough to give someone the shivers! And it was obvious that I was the main target. When we reported at Burma Camp, I explained to the top military officer who received us that the presenter in London must have used “several” in the dictionary sense, “more than two but not many”, whereas in Ghana ‘several’ is generally understood as ‘many’.

Fortunately, I had my copy of the original story sent to the BBC, so I was able to prove that the ‘several’ had not come from me. The evidently vindictive flood of announcements on radio, and also in print, had been totally unjustified.

Despite the alarming ‘invitation’, the meeting was surprisingly cordial and I concluded that the announcements had been ordered by a high ranking government official hiding behind the military.

But although the explanation was understood and accepted, the incident caused us the loss of the typesetters and printers for the Monitor. They were clearly afraid that they would have problems with the Government if they continued working with us.

Ironically, the negative intent of those in government who had planned the intimidation via the announcements, obviously backfired. I believe that it was that cynical ‘invitation’ to Burma Camp that highlighted my name to the international community and media watchers, hence the invitation from UNESCO.

Our paper had long vanished from the newsstands when the April 10, 1991 invitation came from Alain Modoux, who was then Director, Office of Public Information at UNESCO, Paris, France.

Probably it was thought that I would have something meaningful to contribute to the discussions, in view of what had happened to the Monitor. In my view, Mr. Modoux, a Swiss national, deserves everlasting credit for the instrumental role
he played in initiating the idea of a WPFD.

As a source put it: “Alain Modoux is also the architect of the UNESCO proposal which led to the decision by the General Assembly of the United Nations to proclaim May 3 ‘World Press Freedom Day’.

When the final Windhoek conference report came out, I was thrilled to note that a short statement I had made at one of the plenary sessions was cited in it:
“An editor from Ghana appealed to UNESCO and the United Nations to take urgent concrete action to rescue the independent African newspapers from collapse.

"The difficulties encountered by those newspapers were so grave", she said, that if something was not done quickly, the efforts to promote the independent press would be fruitless and its determinant role in the continent’s democratization would be lost.”

Later, I found out that my plea had actually resulted in UNESCO assisting at least one independent paper in Ghana with some money. This was confirmed when in 2018 Ghana hosted the global WPFD. Speaking at the gala dinner on May 2, UNESCO Deputy Director-General, Mr. Getachew Engida, said funding had been provided to one independent paper in Ghana soon after the Windhoek Seminar.

Curiously, when Ghana hosted that event, although I was the only Ghanaian journalist around who had been part of the Windhoek Seminar, nobody invited me to be part of the Ghana event, or even mentioned it. Truly, ‘a prophet has no honour in his own country’.

As I wrote in a report on the 2018 WPFD: “It was interesting that various speakers made appreciative references to those present who had participated in the Namibia meeting in 1991.

However, strangely, the host country evidently had no interest in mentioning that Ghana, too, had one participant present who had been in Namibia, this writer, Ajoa Yeboah-Afari. Yet, the lead Ghana organisers were certainly aware of that fact!”

Nevertheless, even if my participation seemingly is not recognised in my country, a situation which persists, amazingly, others clearly have a different perspective.

In March, last year, I was astonished to receive, out of the blue, an email from the Editors Forum of Namibia which stated: “The Editors’ Forum of Namibia (EFN) has been commissioned by the government to publish a book entitled Tracing the footprints of the Windhoek Declaration and Charting the Windhoek + 30 Declaration.

“This email seeks to request that you kindly contribute to this important publication by tracing Ghana’s footprints to the epoch-making 1991 UNESCO Seminar held in Windhoek to which you were an active participant … and one of only three female journalists to the seminar.”

Not only that, they requested an interview with me and that video was among those shown to participants at their 2021 Windhoek + 30 WPFD. The book was launched in Windhoek in November, last year.

Even if Namibia doesn’t participate in the New York celebration, I believe that the book will be on display there, meaning that I, too, will be part of the historic anniversary, not only in spirit, but also through my chapter on that seminal 1991 meeting in Namibia.

I doubt that any of us had an inkling then that our deliberations would lead to something as momentous as the declaration of one day in the year set aside for the global community to assess and applaud the role of the media.

Certainly, the privilege of having been a Windhoek Seminar participant is one of my career high points. Thanks again, UNESCO; thank you, Mr. Modoux.