From: falsafi@rtunix.mro4.dec.com (Aram Falsafi)
Subject: Radio Venceremos - Boston area event.
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Distribution: ma
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 19:55:04 GMT

                               Radio Venceremos
				     and
                  The Somerville-Perquin Sister City Project

invite you to a dinner and discussion of the new role of media in El Salvador.
Come hear about the world's most famous clandestine radio station and the state
of popular media in El Salvador today.


Time: Saturday October 10, 1992, 6:30-10:00 pm
Location: Schroeder's restaurant, 8 High St., Boston (South Station T stop).
Speaker: Gustavo Acosta, US representative of Radio Venceremos.

Semi-formal dress.  A full dinner will be served.  Cash bar. 
$25 per person.  Proceeds to benefit the 1993 Caravan to El Salvador.


A brief history of Radio Venceremos (summarized from a Peacenet article):


By the early 1980s, all independent newspapers and radio stations in El Salvador
had been shut down.  The general climate of terror, combined with a high level
of illiteracy in the nation made distribution of printed informative material
impossible.  The resulting reign of terror was the veil of silence behind which
the military junta could commit the crimes contemplated in its counterinsurgency
plan.  This convinced the FMLN of the need for a revolutionary station as an
alternative source of information.  On January 22, 1980, "People's Revolutionary
Radio" accompanied a gigantic march of popular organizations, broadcasting
directly from the demonstration in the heart of San Salvador.

On January 10, 1981, accompanying the FMLN general offensive, Radio Venceremos
was born.  From the start it assumed the role of permanent denouncement,
supplying testimonies and concrete evidence about human rights violations. 
International human rights organizations began to take note and act upon this
information.  In December 1981, during a 15-day period in which the radio had
been silenced, the army committed the El Mozote massacre, killing over a
thousand civilians.  Radio Venceremos broadcast details of this atrocity, a
denouncement which then-president Duarte dismissed as an FMLN invention.

The army's first attempt at destroying the radio had been in March 1981 when it
surrounded the village of La Guacamaya.  The FMLN, deciding that it is important
for the radio to survive, defended the terrain in a 22-day war of positions. The
FMLN broke the siege and later initiated a series of offensives, taking Villa
del Rosario, Perquin, and other population centers throughout the country.  In
an over-populated country lacking extensive mountains it is not possible to keep
the position of a radio transmitter a secret.  The army made additional attempts
at silencing Radio Venceremos, including an infiltration by CIA-trained agents
who were captured by the FMLN; the concept of the popular masses as a cover for
their alternative instrument of communication had been established.

In June 1982, during the battle of Moscarron, Radio Venceremos broadcast live
from the lines of fire, including an interview with vice minister of defense,
Col. Francisco Adolfo Castillo who had been taken prisoner.  Also broadcast were
successive events where the FMLN handed over to the International Red Cross
hundreds of prisoners of war.  This shattered the government myth of guerrilla
brutality towards prisoners.  Also in 1982, Radio Venceremos installed four FM
transmitters to cover the main population centers, overcoming electronic
interference from USS Caron based in the Gulf of Fonseca; the government and the
Raegan administration had found it easier to interfere with signals emitting
from Radio Venceremos than to confront its ideas with arguments.

During the literacy campaign in the war fronts special programs were broadcast
to maintain the interest of companeros that were learning to read and write.
Increased technical experience permitted covering events through FM link-up,
making it possible to cover combats, infant vaccination campaigns organized by
UNICEF, visits by delegations from the U.S., press conferences of the FMLN
general command live from Perquin in Morazan, or interviews with personalities
such as Archbishop of San Salvador Arturo Rivera y Damas.

Radio Venceremos had started off with a "Valiant Viking" transmitter, a dipole
antenna, a motor that refused to function, a pocket tape recorder, a single
cassette of revolutionary music, and a microphone.  It was originally staffed by
youths, workers, and students who needed training in equipment maintenance and
news preparation.  This was the epoch of mobile units, carrying out reports from
revolutionary military schools, guerrilla sugar refineries, explosives
workshops, etc.  From these beginnings has evolved a media project that consists
of two radio stations (Radio Venceremos, based in Morazan, and Radio Farabundo
Marti, based in Chalatenango), a film and television collective, magazines and
newspapers with national and international circulation, and offices abroad that
distribute the latest news to the world.  These are part of a campaign to revive
the nation's cultural values as another form of popular rebellion against the
ideological invasion from abroad.  Legalized as part of the recent peace
accords, Radio Venceremos is currently based in Perquin, Morazan.


Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive