Zimbabwe government jams radio stations

By Violet Gonda
27 June 2006

The Zimbabwean government is at it again. This time interfering with our medium wave broadcasts and, from a news report yesterday, of Voice of America’s Studio 7 station.

SWRA has no official confirmation yet but reports on the ground clearly indicate the jamming of our medium wave signal. One report said: “I checked for your programming this morning Monday 27 June at 5am local and exactly on the frequency of 1197 kHz there is an extremely strong 'buzzing' signal, which is intentional jamming.” Additional reports say the jamming signal is very strong, indicating that the jamming station is nearby or within Harare.

The Website Zimonline reported Monday that the Zimbabwe government is using technology acquired from China to partially jam the signal from the VOA Studio 7 radio station. VOA have not officially confirmed this.

China is well known for jamming radio signals into its own country and also into a country it claims to own, Tibet. And the Zimbabwe government is no stranger to jamming. Last year they acquired Chinese equipment and expertise and used this to completely jam the SWRA shortwave signal.

Over the last 6 years the Mugabe regime has rapidly destroyed or taken over control of virtually all news outlets.

There is only one broadcaster and it is 100% state controlled. That is the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings formerly known as the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC). As for the print media, the only independent daily newspaper the Daily News was bombed and forced to shut down in 2003. After that there were 4 independent weekly newspapers left, but of these it’s alleged that 2 are now under the control of the state.

In addition foreign media like the BBC are banned from reporting from and within the territory of Zimbabwe.

The result of this sustained assault on press freedoms is that nearly all Zimbabwe's free media now operates outside the country's borders.
The Zimbabwean newspaper and SW Radio Africa are two media outlets that have decamped to Britain. There are various internet based Zimbabwean news sites in the UK and South Africa.

Voice of America's Studio 7 station, based in Washington, employs Zimbabweans for it’s broadcasts into the country.

These latest jamming attempts are not all bad news. It does show that the government is feeling seriously pressured. Good news for those trying to create a democratic society in Zimbabwe.

We encourage our listeners to keep trying to find us on the radio dial. In various parts of the country we can still be clearly heard and we will obviously be doing our best to counteract the jamming.