BBC, Reuters, AP, AFP Practice Yellow Journalism as Ethiopia Regime Intensfies Killing Oromos
Qeerransoo Biyyaa
April 07, 2010
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.
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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