By Lance Guma
06 September 2010
Since Wednesday there has been intermittent jamming by Robert Mugabe’s regime of short wave broadcasts from SW Radio Africa. Using a heavy noise like a slow playing record, some of our programming and news bulletins have been drowned out.
Experts say jamming radio broadcasts is expensive to do and you need a lot of power. Last week our sources said the Central Intelligence Organisation, which falls under the President’s Office, is running the operation.
The Zimbabwe National Students Union criticized the jamming describing it as ‘an attempt to subvert a people’s right to receive and impart information as prescribed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which Zimbabwe is a signatory.’ The union said it had hoped the inclusion of the MDC in government ‘was a buffer against such authoritarian tendencies’ but it seemed ‘politicians are of the same make, no matter which political organization.’
As yet no government official has issued a statement on the jamming. This has been the trend over the years where they choose not to say anything. It was only in March 2007, after jamming had begun in 2005, that the then Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga admitted they were jamming our broadcasts. Speaking in parliament at the time Matonga boasted the government was generating electronic interference to block the broadcasts.
But what is different this time is that we now have a government of national unity, made up of two formations of the MDC who have clearly stated a commitment to freeing the media. This is the perfect opportunity for them to prove their commitment. And if they can’t put a stop to the jamming, it is then made absolutely clear to everyone that the unity government is nothing more than a sham.
Newsreel tracked down the controversially appointed Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe chairman, Tafataona Mahoso, and asked him if they were taking applications for independent radio stations. “I can’t answer that question’ he told us before referring us to ‘the media centre at the Harare Sheraton.’ He said the Chief Executive of BAZ, a Mr. Muganyuka, would answer our question. Mahoso then launched into a vitriolic attack against SW Radio Africa, describing it as a ‘pirate radio.’
Reminded that we were Zimbabweans broadcasting from exile because of repressive media legislation, Mahoso hung up his phone.
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