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And on the payroll of the US government? |
| By Tsahma The days of last week have joined the list of dark days in the history of our country. We all mourn the deaths of innocent civilians and members of the police force in those tragic days. Why should the life of a single Ethiopian be lost for nothing? Why shouldn’t rule and order prevail so that we can all enjoy peace and all its upshots? Why should hate and violence be preached rather than love and peace? Why is it that we cannot live in peace and harmony as we have been doing so for millennia? Why should we allow the wonderful social fabric that has kept us together so for long to be eroded? Why is it that leaders of the opposition went too far to transgress the rule of the land? Why shouldn’t they have pursued their demands peacefully, and parliamentary as they once said and as some of the far-sighted members of the opposition political parties have, opted to choose? Why did they have such a highly inflated self-esteem when it comes to opposing the government and practice servant–master relation when it comes to entertaining the demand of few irresponsible hardliners in the US and Europe? To what extent should they bow down to the commands given to them by these few insane extremists who distance themselves from the wild fire and instead urge for more violence and bloodshed keeping the opposition hostage of their monetary support? Why? These are some of the questions that have been puzzling me in recent weeks if not months? While our fellow Ethiopian brothers and sisters are losing their lives, irresponsible ruffians in the US and in Europe are preaching for more violence in our country instead of asking both the government and the rioters for calm and restraint as some mature members of the opposition have done so. They are leading comfortable lives, while they ask our poor compatriots for more violence and for subsequent bloodshed. There should be a limit to everything. It is high time that they started thinking about the repercussions of your actions (if they really care – but they don’t have the mind set for this). What I found extremely perplexing in particular is the current stance of the Amharic Service of the Voice of America. They are doing disservice to the Ethiopian people and to their profession being on the payroll of the US government. I don’t think the US government is paying them to do what they are doing these recent days and weeks. They have erased candid reporting from their lexicon for quite some time now. They have become asymmetrical and lop-sided in their coverage. What is much more outrageous is that they are spreading seeds of violence and adding fuel to the fire that is ravaging our country and our people. How would they be different from the hate mongering and irresponsible websites and radios that have become too pessimistic to envisage any objectivity and are notorious for ‘making a mountain out of a molehill’? What the opposition web sites and radios are doing is hardly surprising since the CUD hardliners have unequivocally opted for violence as a last resort to change the legitimate government and these mouthpieces can only try their best to delegitimize and defame the good deeds of the government and the ruling party on the one hand and to instigate violence and use this as a short-cut to assume political power on the other. The current gesture of some of the journalists of the Amharic Service of the VOA is not any different. In fact, the newly appointed Minister of Information was right when he categorized the VOA and the German radios as agents of the opposition. He was not wrong. In fact, this was corroborated by CUD leadership in their press release to the Ethiopian people to incite violence in the name of a series of peaceful demonstrations when they gave orders to their supporters not to listen to government and government affiliated media and resort to the unripe local private press and to the VOA and German radios instead. This was not a secret. The journalists of the Amharic Service of the VOA (some of them veteran journalists with many years of experience whom we used to value a lot) have to be told that they are compromising their noble journalistic profession. They are going out of their way and are being tools and mouthpieces of the opposition in inciting violence and exacerbating it as far as it goes. At times, they are going to great lengths in their reporting so as to contribute to the danger that is engulfing our motherland and our people. At other times they forget that they are journalists and challenge some of the people they interview if they do not speak what they want to hear. They need to be reminded that what they are doing would never be of any value to the Ethiopian people and to the country of their birth (if they really care) and they need to get back to their previous moral stance and do service to their profession and to their listeners, the Ethiopian people. We have heard time and again the Ethiopian government and the ruling party, along with their supporters from previously downgraded nations and nationalities and peoples, expressing in the strongest terms possible their commitment and resolve to safeguard the constitution and the emergent democratic system. They have reiterated that there is no way the constitution can be compromised and the government deposed through street violence no matter how costly it may be. The orange and rose revolutions are totally unacceptable and utterly impractical in the Ethiopian context. The Ethiopian government and the various nations and nationalities, which have started enjoying self-governance, will never overlook any potential threat to the constitution, the supreme law of the land, and the democratic system that is evolving throughout the country. It is placed on solid rock irreversibly. Prescriptive Ethiopianism will have no place in the present day Ethiopia. The option to assume power and to amend the constitution can only and only be done through peaceful means no matter how long it takes. This requires joint effort of strong and responsible opposition political parties, accommodating government (and the government has gone to great lengths and with too much patience to do so), well informed populace and the media which can play a significant role in informing the general public maintaining their credibility and sticking to treasured journalistic ethics rather than being foolishly agents of violence and adding fuel to fire irresponsibly. ======== END ======= |
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