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From: amarcho@web.apc.org

The following project description was sent to AMARC from
Jose Gutierrez, Radio Farabundo Marti's Australian representative.
To make donations or for further information, contact Jose at the
address and email id at the end of the message.

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PROJECT : TRANSMISSION EQUIPMENT FOR MAIN STATION AND REPEATER

RESPONSIBLE OF THE PROJECT: RADIO FARABUNDO MARTI

COST:         29,000.00 USD

LOCATION:     EL SALVADOR


1. JUSTIFICATION

Radio Farabundo Marti was born in 1981 with the following purposes:

A. To contribute towards disrupting the campaign of disinformation
implemented by the military government of the time, paving the way for the
people to know an alternative vision of the most important events taking
place in El Salvador, where by this time an open war between the two armies
was taking place.

B. To disseminate nationally and internationally the repressive actions
implemented in the countryside and in the cities by the Armed Forces of El
Salvador, who by this time was heavily committing itself to a massive
counterinsurgency war with the assistance and the funding of the U.S.
government.

C. To disseminate the views and analysis of the FMLN concerning national
problems and its proposals to solve the terrible crisis that the people
were suffering.

D. To give consistency to the idea to promote a new style of journalism
directly from the war scene, forming a small but important contingent of
social communicators, brought from the cities or taken from the guerrilla
units themselves.

With this concept in mind RFM begins a search for its own style, trains its
staff and defines the main profiles of the huge task of building up a radio
under war conditions.

This is the statement that, as the RFM, we made in 1981.

During the course of the war the compatriots that have worked in RFM, and
the views of the same, have experienced the necessary changes and
adjustments to be in agreement with the times. Each change has involved a
great amount of theoretical and technical effort, and has also meant a
great personal sacrifice, including the death of some companions.

With the signing of the peace agreements, which coincide with the tenth
anniversary of our foundation, our Radio makes a new effort to adapt itself
to the new situation that has arisen.

For our Radio this "new situation" implies the legalisation of our
frequency, the possibility of working with national coverage, and a
professional effort, from the mass media, in the real democratisation of
the country.

At the moment we define our direction thus:

A. To contribute to the national democratisation, building a radio of
national expression for the popular and democratic sectors.

B. To develop a radio with an integrating profile;  with programs of
entertainment, information, debate and opinion, such as educational and
cultural programs.

C. To develop programs of education that support the project of
reunification of society, that explain the contents of the peace agreements
and people's civil rights so that we can in this way contribute to the
struggle for the fulfilment of the same. To support productive and social
assistance projects that the popular movement is implementing, as well as
the projects of reconstruction and development.

D. To develop our entrepreneurial capacity, implementing a radio project
that is self-sufficient, self-managed, and that offers space for the
expression of the broad popular movement. We want to stress that we do not
pretend to be the official voice of particular groups, we want to represent
the free expression of the popular movement and as such all democratic
voices that are in favour of the achievements and objectives of the
Democratic Revolution.


2. DESCRIPTION OF THE RADIO

We aspire to a radio station of informative character, that without
forgetting all types of entertainment, becomes a medium of social and
cultural service toward the popular movement, that promotes and supports
contemplation by listeners of the country's problems, and the search for
solutions.

To become self-sufficient we intend to sell spaces and ads in this radio
station, so that in the short term its becomes self-financed. These ads
should be in accordance with people's human rights, and the social vision
of the popular movement.

We aspire to have national coverage, and to have empathy with the social
and communal leaders in all the country, as well as with the unions,
gremial sectors and with any form of popular organisation.

Our Radio and its programs identify themselves with the popular and
democratic sectors, based on the concept of objectivity and informative
pluralism;  that is, open to all currents of opinion and political
tendencies, so that our listeners can make a broad and objective sense of
the national events. This would be a contribution to the national
democratisation.

3. APPLICATION

RFM has a reasonable amount of equipment, the fruit of 10 years of work in
the mountains. However, this equipment will be insufficient to achieve our
new aims of national coverage, increase of staff and infrastructure, and
amplification of the broadcasting time and variation of programs, since on
the one hand is not of sufficient power, and on the other, a fair part of
the material has deteriorated because of war conditions, due to the storage
or transport in less than good conditions.

This project is to solicit the funding of the necessary equipment to mount
a transmission setup for the main station and the repeater.

The budget required is:

Central Transmitter       20,000.00
Transmitter for repeater   5,000.00
Link receptor              2,000.00
Link transmitter           2,000.00
TOTAL                     29,000.00 USD

4. Responsible for the project.

Radio Farabundo Marti (RFM) would produce the necessary written and
accounting reports, as well as facilitating the work of any auditor that
the donator wished to send, for the proper control of the project's
execution.

5. CHANNEL

For donators in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region the immediate channel
is Jose Gutierrez, Radio Farabundo Marti representative in Australia, on
03-349 1290. P.O.Box 251, Fitzroy, Victoria 3065. e-mail:
jgutierrez.peg.apc.org