America will be something like this in a few years, after the next
"spectacular" terrorist attack comes and Bush abolishes the Constitution
and institutes rule by executive order. No more internet feeds, no more
BBC on satellite radio, nothing but Fox News like broadcasts all the
time. If you want real news, you'll have to turn to SW.


Mike Terry wrote:

By Stephanie Nolen
Saturday, March 26, 2005
Johannesburg

Violet Gonda has minor celebrity status in some parts of Zimbabwe, as an
articulate, eloquent and honey-voiced presenter on a hugely popular radio
show. But she won't be signing autographs any time soon: Because of her work
for SW Radio Africa, Ms. Gonda has been banned from returning to Zimbabwe
(she broadcasts from London).

Now her parents back home in Butare can't even hear her voice. For the past
few weeks, the Zimbabwean government has been jamming the station's signal,
determined to stifle access to independent radio in the run-up to the
parliamentary election on Thursday.

The past few years have not been good ones for independent media in
Zimbabwe: The government shut down four newspapers and a radio station, then
outlawed private broadcasting, leaving only the state-owned broadcaster and
newspaper, plus a handful of pro-government publications.

In this environment, radio broadcasts from outside the country have taken on
a new importance: Zimbabweans seeking more than the rabidly pro-government
coverage have turned to SW Radio Africa, broadcast on short and medium wave,
and to the popular Studio 7 program of Voice of America.

With no broadband in Zimbabwe, with Internet access available only on a
pay-for-use basis in urban areas, and with most of the country still reliant
on transistors for their news, the old-fashioned radio is still a key tool
for opponents of President Robert Mugabe.

Recognizing that, a number of international organizations trying to support
democracy in Zimbabwe have been distributing radios around the country in
the lead-up to the election -- although none wanted to discuss their
projects, since the government could interpret supplying access to media as
a subversive act in today's Zimbabwe.

Studio 7, launched in 2003, is the Zimbabwe program of Voice of America,
which is funded by the United States. The program is broadcast in Shona,
Ndebele and English, and is beamed into Zimbabwe from a transmitter in
Botswana on the AM signal and by shortwave.

SW Radio Africa has its roots in a station Gerry Jackson tried to start in
Harare in 2000, as once-stable Zimbabwe began its descent into chaos with
Mr. Mugabe's highly politicized land-reform program, which devastated the
economy.

A former DJ on the state-run Zimbabwe Broadcast Corporation, Ms. Jackson was
fired after she put callers on air who were critical of the government. So
she took the government to court over their monopoly on broadcasting, and in
2000, the Supreme Court ruled that private radio was legal.

Ms. Jackson hastily imported a transmitter from South Africa and set up
shop: a station called Capital FM in Harare. "Six days after we started, the
government shut us down at gunpoint," she recalled in an interview from
London this week.

Ms. Jackson decided the only way to get independent radio into Zimbabwe was
to do it from outside the country; she left for London and took advantage of
improving technology to broadcast back on shortwave radio.
She got funding from international pro-democracy groups, hired six other
Zimbabwean journalists and they went to air in December, 2001.

The government lost no time labelling them enemies; they were declared
"banned" and the Justice Minister said in Parliament that if they return
they will be jailed.

"I can't even describe the feeling, when someone decides from nowhere that
you can't go home," Ms. Gonda, 30, said. She had just graduated with a
master's degree in journalism when Ms. Jackson, 50, offered her the job. "I
jumped at it, but I never imagined it would mean that I can't go home."

SW Radio's five hours of daily programming is recorded in London, beamed by
a satellite to a transmitter and broadcast into Zimbabwe. Ms. Jackson
declines to say where that transmitter is, but notes that it could be almost
anywhere in the world.

But short wave, as SW Radio Africa recently learned, can be easily jammed: A
few weeks ago, they found their broadcasts suddenly rendered into crackle
inside Zimbabwe.

"Clearly, the government sees us as a threat," Ms. Jackson said.

The Zimbabwe Media Monitoring Project, citing information from the
Washington-based federal International Broadcasting Bureau, says the jamming
signal is originating from an air base in central Zimbabwe. The government
denies jamming the station.

Within the past few days, a neighbouring country -- again Ms. Jackson won't
say which -- agreed to let SW Radio Africa put up a transmitter, so they
have added medium-wave programming in the morning, which is not being
jammed. Since the jamming started, Ms. Jackson said, they have a new
understanding of how important the broadcast was to people in Zimbabwe, who
flip madly between frequencies to try to stay with the show.

" People are desperate for information in a country collapsing, where
rumours make it worse," she said. "It's a lifeline."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...nal/TopStories




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