From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Thu Apr 08 2010 - 06:07:18 EDT
BBC, Reuters, AP, AFP Practice Yellow Journalism as Ethiopia Regime
Intensfies Killing Oromos
Qeerransoo Biyyaa
Donnerstag, 8. April 2010 12:04:34
Ethiopia´s minority ruling Tigire People´s Liberation Front´s (TPLF)
kangaroo court meted out death sentences and life imprisonments to scores of
Oromo political prisoners on the eve of the Easter holiday, but some
Euro-American yellow journalists pretended that did not happen.
During Easter celebrations, the soldiers and security forces of the regime
also carried out nighttime extrajudicial killings of candidates of Oromo
opposition for the May ´10 legislative elections. For instance, the
opposition Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) reported that the TPLF soldiers
fired live ammunitions on its campaigning members, beat up, broke bones,
paralyzed and wounded scores, and shot to death OFC candidates in many
constituencies in Oromiya.
These extrajudicial killings, death sentences and life imprisonments
unleashed on Oromo opposition candidates, members, supporters and
politically uninvolved Oromo individuals are major events. They are
newsworthy events and could have made big headlines if they happened
elsewhere.
I ran a Google News search on this event to see if AP, AFP, Times, BBC and
Reuters reporters on the ground in Ethiopia reported on these tragic
government-sponsored mass slaughters. The search returned no result for the
listed Western media. As I already suspected the possible involvements of
the yellow journalists with the brutal minority Ethiopian regime, the search
returned no news article or video results.
This raises legitimate questions in the minds of the majority Oromo and
other Ethiopians. We know Western reporters gang up at press conferences,
parties thrown by the tyrant PM Meles Zenawi, and at some dam inaugural
events where the PM makes speeches to legitimize his government´s
illegitimacy. AP, AFP, Times, BBC and Reuters reporters would make big
stories out of such non-newsworthy activities in huge volumes and series for
days. Such trivial reports as opposed to ignoring the extrajudicial killings
and imprisonment of Oromo people based on their ethnic origin are clearly
non-events and not newsworthy at all—indeed, they are discriminatory and
biased. The oppressed Oromo and non-Oromo masses in Ethiopia have the right
to question the integrity of these Western reporters who rub shoulders with
the Ethiopian dictator.
Did the dictator pay the reporters off? Are they practicing yellow and
corrupt journalism? If they are not practicing partisan, corrupt and yellow
journalism, then why do they zip up and pretend nothing happened whenever
major events that can qualify for breaking news unfold in the vast region of
Oromiya? The reporters of the listed news organizations are severely
handicapped in that they are city and palace-bound in Addis Ababa/Finfinne.
They hardly travel out to killing fields and take photos nor do they call
opposition representatives and leaders to find out more if they are too
afraid for own lives. The only pictures we have seen them take are pictures
of the militant minority apartheid leader, Meles Zenawi.
It is perfectly fitting if one describes Western reporters in Ethiopia as
"Yellow Journalists". By definition yellow or corrupt journalism is a kind
of journalism that downplays legitimate news in favor of non-newsworthy
events, shallow activities such as reporting based on one-man´s interviews.
It is a known fact that Reuters, BBC, AP, AFP, Times and other Western media
have city-bound reporters on the ground in Ethiopia. The Oromo people and
other oppressed nations in Ethiopia have time and again observed reporters
from these famed media groups side with the military regime in Ethiopia.
They report on Ethiopia´s tyrant´s private birthday parties and on
politically motivated inaugural ceremonies of some events where he cuts
ribbons. The Ethiopian state-controlled TPLF/EPRDF media can do those kinds
of propaganda activities by itself, and the oppressed Oromo people do not
see the relevance of the presence of corrupt and timid Western reporters in
Ethiopia´s capital if they keep reporting on the same boring events that the
ruling military junta´s media are good at report on.
Shame on you AP, Times, AFP, Reuters, BBC and other Western media reporters
based in Ethiopia for being silent in the face of ethnic-cleansing against
Oromo and others. You reporters have tarnished your own professional
integrity and the reputations of the news organizations you represent in the
eyes of the marginalized and brutalized majority in Ethiopia.
The profile of Oromos targeted for eliminations and torture in Ethiopia
include Oromo capitalists, business persons, entrepreneurs, educators,
farmers, adolescent university students, political activists and opposition
party leaders. The TPLF/EPRDF regime views the whole Oromo people as threat
to its power that must be eliminated by any means. The minority Tigre regime
has been following apartheid policies against the Oromo people during its
last 20 years in power. The regime´s major allies, including the United
States have rarely firmly questioned the regime´s ethnic apartheid policies.
The Oromo, who make up nearly 50% of the 85 million Ethiopian population,
have long been colonized and oppressed by minority Abyssinian regimes in
Ethiopia. Censuses conducted by the TPLF minority regime excise at least 20%
from the total number of Oromo people in Ethiopia and report less figures of
Oromo to allow for more genocide against those that are not accounted for in
papers.
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