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Ethiopia: Ginbot 7 radio program jammed

DebreTsion is in charge of the Ethiopian Information & Communicatiion Technology Development Agency, but his main job is to block most Ethiopians from having access to information.

The Meles dictatorship in Ethiopia has jammed a radio program that was being broadcast to Ethiopia from Europe by the Ginbot 7 Movement for Freedom and Democracy, according to Ethiopian Review sources in Addis Ababa.

Voice of Ginbot 7 was launched on September 11, 2008, and had been heard through out Ethiopia and most countries in eastern Africa.

Similar attempt by the {www:Woyanne} regime to jam the Voice of America (VOA) Amharic program had been successful only for a few days. The VOA countered by running its program on multiple frequencies, each with 500 kilowatt, making it too expensive to jam them. VOA’s transmission power can go up to 100 megawatt per frequency when supplemented with powerful antennas.

According to experts, it costs up to U.S. $10,000 per kilowatt to jam a radio program. To build and operate a facility that is capable of jamming multiple frequencies with 100s of kilowatt each, the Meles regime could be spending tens of millions of dollars. This is the money that could have been used to feed and cloth so many of Ethiopia’s starving children who are unable to attend school because they are too weak from hunger.

Sources inside ETC say that the facility that the Chinese built for the bloodsucking Woyanne regime can jam frequencies only up to 100 kilowatt.

The Meles dictatorship is also unable to jam Eritrean Radio’s Amharic Service, which uses both Short and Medium wave frequencies.

The jamming of radio programs and blocking access to web sites that are deemed critical of the dictatorship in Ethiopia is being carried out by Ato DebreTsion GebreMichael, a central committee member of the ruling Tigrean People Liberation Front (TPLF) and a protoge of Meles Zenawi.

Ato DebreTsion is chairman of the Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation (ETC) and Director General of the Information and Communication Technology Development Agency (EICTDA). His main assignment, however, is not the development of information technology in Ethiopia. His primary objective as Ethiopia’s chief IT officer is to restrict access of such technology to most Ethiopians. He has been good at it. Under his watch, out of 80 million Ethiopians, only 2 million use mobile phones. There are only 20,000 internet service subscribers in Ethiopia — the lowest in Africa.

10 thoughts on “Ethiopia: Ginbot 7 radio program jammed

  1. what do we expect from the meles dictatorship?? are we stupid to do things again and again but expect a different result?? Ginbot 7 has a good wish for ethiopia but the only thing it can do is transmit radio to ethiopia and that is at the mercy of woyane telecommunications.

    this is the only thing ginbot 7 has achieved the last many months.

  2. Elias,

    thanks for sharing us the news, as we all know that the weyane evil and anti human groups are always very busy to destroy ethiopia to find ways how to expand poverty through out the country.

    Moreover, weyane exactly knows that the ethiopian people will be destroying them if the people would get a reliable information source such as radio which is a strong one as the one with Ginbot 7, so the weyane no. 1 objective is to do whatever it takes to close all types of independent medias from reaching the people.

    Regrdless of weyane’s arrogant way to silent the people, the ethiopian people will find a way to destroy these destructive criminal groups of weyane by any means possible.

    there is not going to make weyane better just because weyane tries to close all means to stay in power, the weyanes have used all and every means to silent the people by expanding poverty and starvation, by killing many innocents and harassing and jailing in a daily basis, the weyane’s last option to stay in power would be using a neuclear weapon agaisnt the people that would might destroy the entire ethiopia at all,

    that day is coming and who ever would be left under the member, supporter or ordinary cadere will pay off. When the ethiopian poeple silent means not give up…

    the weyanes will get killed one by one for the crime that they have committed…

    death to all weyane members and supporters.

    ethiopia shall prevail

  3. Debre Tsion Gebre Michael was Head of the External Intelligence Service before he came to this Agency aimed at oppressing the people of Ethiopia.

    Meles Zenaw’s regime can’t learn from history or current reality.Time w’ll tell what will happen to them!People should continue their struggle to gain their all-round Democratic Rights.

  4. As an occasional “listener” out side of Ethiopia who review their archives, personally I have tried to find it meaningful and take it in as objectively as possible. Again and again, it is too much of the same thing, and skim through much of it losing patience. I don’t know how Ethiopians any where else find it.

    – Some times their news segment contains fresh news ( at least to me– may be because currently, I don’t listen to any other regularly programmed Ethiopian broadcast ( including VOA and German Radio) and have not listened since March 2008.

    (no disrespect to the staff broadcasters of G7, but half the time it is depressing. Well, they read whatever script they are given by politician writers, and its content is not that impressive, influential or befitting their very own confusing past. (at least Berhanu and Andargachew)

    -G7’s November 6 broadcast was may be the exception and the very first broadcast of Dr Berhanu’s opening speech (September 2008) can be taken for what it was in retrospect.

    -The latest depressing example is the November 20 broadcast (A call to the country and her people). Andargachew’s interview again and again was pushing their conclusion of what Woyane is and that they will take them up by any means. Fine, but he could have shared reasonable time to answer well articulated questions from the “paltalk audience”. He was evasive on the issues of cooperative work with others.

    -Dr. Berhanu has this gusto spirit that seems to flow from his guts and mind, but between actions he had taken in the past (constructive and destructive), some times I find his speeches contradict the steps he had taken, and thus some of it hypocritical.

    We don’t know what % of Ethiopians in the country listen to Ginbot7’s broadcast. By now at least, they would have a quarterly report or feed back. To be jammed and not too make a difference with the broadcast are just about the same, except that Woyane’s action might do the reverse psychology and draw more listeners into attention to Ginbt7.

  5. Why the G7 don’t use the Asmara radio for this purpose?
    The people has enough information about the dictatorship of Woyanne and the presence of many organizations against it but not effective. So, just call for riot and massive civil disobidience from Asmara or any other site. It seems up to the people to choose whether to continue being suppressed or stand up, pay the necessary sacrifice and get freed!

  6. The armed Opposition groups have access to Eritrean radio and Television services, they are transmitting their messages through raio and TV weekly from Asmara, what the G7 movement needs to do is allign themselves with the armed opposition groups who are doing the real fighting, organizing and arming the Ethiopian people. Woyanne has the Ethiopian state media monopoly, the best way to fight Woyanne propaganda with opposition propaganda is to join forces with the opposition groups and send a united message to the Ethiopian people to shorten the fascist Woyanne regime.

  7. threr are alotsof radios prodcasting to ethiopia by diferent organization wehave eretrian tv and radio todo it letus start the real strugle against hodam woyane we know and heared enogh about woyane

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