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From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Fri Jul 08 2011 - 08:26:07 EDT
http://www.abugidainfo.com/?p=18338
Horn of Africa chief suspended over critical comments By Abebe Gellaw
July 8th, 2011
The Voice of America (VOA) has been accused of censoring itself and
suspending its Horn of Africa Chief, David Arnold, over fallout with the
Ethiopian government. The suspension of Mr. Arnold was directly related to
his comments in a news report that was broadcast on VOA Amharic service on
June 23rd, informed sources told Addis Voice.
Mr. Arnold was part of a seven-member delegation headed by three Board of
Broadcasting Governors (BBG), Susan McCue, Dana Perino, and Michael Meehan,
who met officials in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Southern Sudan from June 21 to
June 28. BBG, an agency of the US government, oversees all of its civilian
international broadcasts in 59 languages to an estimated weekly audience of
165 million people across the world.
Arnold had revealed that the Ethiopian government demanded VOA to deny
platform to its vocal critics as a precondition to cooperate with VOA. The
blacklist, drawn up by the Government Communication Affairs Minister,
Bereket Simon, included Prof. Pawlos Milkeas, Prof. Beyene Petros, Dr.
Merera Gudina, Getachew Metaferia, Dr. Berhanu Nega, Girma Mogess, former
Minister of Defense Seye Abraha and the Eritrean Minister of Information,
Ali Abdou. “The list goes on,” Arnold told VOA Amharic.
He had said that the mission of the BBG delegation was “to make sure that
they address some of the issues in Ethiopia concerning free press because
for many years the government has objected to some of our broadcasts.” He
also pointed out that the BBG governors discussed with Ethiopian officials
the constant jamming of Voice of America transmissions in Amharic, Oromiffa
and Tigrigna.
In what appears to be an unprecedented move in VOA’s history, bosses ordered
the removal of the audio as well as text files of the news report in
question from VOA’s website and archive pages in less than 24 hours after
Ethiopian officials lodged complaints about the report on “confidential”
matters, it was learn.
It emerged that the meeting between the BBG delegation and Ethiopian
government officials was fraught with problems and tension as Mr. Simon and
his cohorts have reportedly launched a scathing attack against the media
organization in a 41-page long litany of complaints about VOA broadcasts.
Mr. Simon was said to have complained that the June 23rd report ruined
ongoing talks. He threatened to cancel further talks with the delegation and
cease any future cooperation. Before the VOA chief was suspended, he was
reportedly admonished for expressing critical views and airing sensitive
information without seeking clearance from the delegation.
In an email sent to Addis Voice, VOA’s Director of Public Relations, David
Borgida denied allegations of censorship. “VOA always strives to be accurate
in its reporting. That includes material on our websites. There was a
misinterpretation of what went on during a recent meeting between Ethiopian
government officials and visiting BBG Governors, and so the recent item you
cite, which appeared on the website of the VOA Amharic service, was taken
down.”
Asked to explain why VOA did not publicly issue corrections instead of
deleting the whole content, Mr. Borgida declined to comment.
Addis Voice also asked why the Horn of Africa chief was suspended. “”We do
not comment publicly on personnel matters,” he said.
When I pressed Borgida to explain if the “personal matter” included his
comments contained in the news report in question, Borgida said that VOA
would not give any further statements on this matter.
But Addis Voice has confirmed from two reliable sources that VOA bosses were
not pleased with Arnold’s comments on sensitive issues that they felt needed
clearance.
The renowned Ethiopian artiste Tamagne Beyene is one of first people to
notice the removal of all the contents of the June 23rd VOA Amharic
broadcast from the online archive page. He says that the measure taken by
VOA is unjustifiable and a pure act of censorship.
Tamagn asked VOA to come out of the closet and tell its listeners the truth
why the news was deleted and a highly experienced staff member was suspended
for reporting the truth.
“This is a classic case of censorship and shooting the messenger. If this is
not censorship, what else can VOA call it?” he asked.
“This case of suspension and censorship has shocked so many people at VOA.
Some people are wondering how a professional journalist like Arnold with
over three decades of experience can be suspended and censored to assuage
the anger of a dictatorial regime in Ethiopia,” said one of the sources who
spoke on condition of anonymity.
“Arnold only reported the truth accurately. I am personally confused to
witness politics overriding the First Amendment, which is as one of the
pillars of the Constitution of the United States,” the source added.
“The Minister [Bereket Simon] is willing to consider any new initiatives but
he is going to wait to see if we change the way we broadcast,” Arnold had
said.
Arnold had dismissed the demand as contrary to the mission of VOA and basic
principles of free press. According to him, Simon, not only complained about
the contents of VOA broadcasts but also pointed out that the Ethiopian
government had problems with some of the journalists working for VOA. During
the 2005 election turmoil in Ethiopia, the government charged five VOA
journalists, along with local journalists and opposition leaders, with high
treason. The charges were dropped in the course of the trial under pressure
from the U.S. government.
During their visit, the delegation posted pictures and brief accounts of
their experience on a dedicated blog, VOA on the Road Africa. In Ethiopia,
the delegation that included four VOA staffers including the English to
Africa Chief, Sonya Laurence Green, talked to senior Ethiopian government
officials on issues related to the persistent jamming of VOA its
transmissions and press freedom violations.
Alemayehu Gebremariam, a constitutional law attorney and professor of
political science at California State University, San Bernardino, says:
“Disclosure of a few names from an illegal list of names prepared by a
foreign government to be blacklisted by the VOA presents no basis for legal
or administrative action against him.
“Telling the truth in a news broadcast is not a crime. That is what Mr.
Arnold has done. Journalists are censured and punished for reporting the
truth in places like Iran and Ethiopia,” he noted.
Prof. Gebremariam further pointed out that the First Amendment guaranteed
American citizens and inhabitants of the U.S. the absolute right to publicly
criticize, denounce, condemn and berate any government institution or leader
with impunity.
He said: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or
of the press, which simply means that no government official or institution
has the power to restrict, censor, suppress, restrain, muzzle or blackball
any American citizen or inhabitant of the U.S. from exercising their right
to free speech or restrain the independent press from performing its
institutional functions.”
In March 2010, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi publicly threatened to jam VOA.
“We have been convinced for many years that in many respects, the VOA
Amharic Service has copied the worst practices of radio stations such as
Radio Mille Collines of Rwanda in its wanton disregard of minimum ethics of
journalism and engaging in destabilizing propaganda,” Zenawi told reporters
in Addis Ababa.
“We have to know before we make the decision to jam, whether we have the
capacity to do it. But I assure you if they assure me at some future date
that they have the capacity to jam it, I will give them the clear guideline
to jam it,” he added.
The government of Ethiopia has now developed a capacity to jam shortwave and
satellite TV broadcasts. A few weeks ago, the Ethiopian Satellite Television
issued a statement urging the government of China to stop providing
technology and technical support that has enabled the Meles regime to jam
its transmissions to Ethiopia.
In October 2010, Human Rights Watch released a special report, Development
Without Freedom: How Aid Underwrites Repressions in Ethiopia, that accused
western governments of complicity in repressions by turning a blind eye to
the fact that “development aid flows through, and directly supports, a
virtual one-party state with a deplorable human rights record.”
The Meles regime, which is a key U.S. ally in the Horn of Africa, receives
over 3 billion dollars in aid annually from Western donors. One-third of the
money comes from the coffers of the U.S. treasury in the form of relief and
development aid.
———–
Related links
Removed webpage
www.voanews.com/amharic/news/amh_voa_ethiopia_6_23_11-124452979.html
Deleted but cached on Google
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9KEkXuDtGoAJ:www.voanews.com/amharic/news/amh_voa_ethiopia_6_23_11-124452979.html+www.voanews.com/amharic/news/amh_voa_ethiopia_6_23_11-124452979.html&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=gmail&source=www.google.com
Cached webpage JPEG (attached)
http://addisvoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/VOA-deleted-page.jpg
Missing page: Where is June 23?
http://addisvoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/VOA-June-23-file-missing.pdf
Removed news report (Amharic audio)
http://addisvoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/VOA-removed-audio-file.mp3
VOA on the Road Africa
http://voaontheroadafrica.tumblr.com/
——
Abebe Gellaw can be reached for comment at editor@addisvoice.com
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