By Mohamed Keita/Africa Research Associate
Last week, the Ethiopian government tried to force private Kenyan broadcaster Nation Television (NTV) to drop a four-part exclusive report on separatist rebels in southern Ethiopia. NTV aired the first two parts of “Inside Rebel Territory: Rag-Tag Fighters of the Oromo Liberation Front,” which led Ethiopia’s ambassador to Kenya to accuse the Nation Media Group of giving a platform to a terrorist organization, the daily Nation reported. The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), whose Web site is among several authorities block in Ethiopia, is fighting for greater autonomy for the Oromos, the largest ethnic group in the south of the vast Horn of Africa nation.
“Clearly, officials at the Ethiopian Embassy did not want NTV to air this program. We repeatedly explained to them that this is not possible,” Linus Kaikai, NTV’s managing editor of broadcast news told me today. The Kenyan Foreign Affairs Ministry was also involved in attempting to get the station to drop the story, he said. “No demands have been agreed to,” Kaikai added, saying that the final two parts will air tonight and Tuesday.
The Ethiopian administration, whose leaders were once guerilla fighters allied with the OLF, has sought to censor international media outlets’ coverage of rebel groups. In 2008, authorities accused Qatar-based satellite network Al-Jazeera of “direct and indirect assistance to terrorist organizations” after the station aired an exclusive report on the separatist Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), in southeastern Ethiopia. Al-Jazeera continued to air the program. In 2007, Ethiopian authorities detained three New York Times journalists for five days for reporting on the ONLF.
Local independent journalists who have reported on rebel groups have landed in prison on various criminal charges, including publication or distribution of “false news likely to incite violence” or “membership in a terrorist organization.” In one case, three journalists, Garuma Bekele, Tesfaye Deressa, and Solomon Nemera of the defunct Oromo-language weekly Urji, spent four years in prison over an article challenging official claims about the killing of three alleged OLF members by government forces. Numerous state-employed journalists perceived to have sympathies for the OLF have also been thrown into prison on spurious accusations, including former Ethiopian Television News Director Dhabessa Wakjira.
On top of all that, Ethiopia recently enacted draconian anti-terror legislation, which criminalizes any reporting the government deems favorable to groups and causes it labels as “terrorist.” In other words, reporting the activities or statements of such groups could be interpreted as glorifying or aiding their causes. An Ethiopian reporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisal, told me there was no public government reaction to the NTV controversy, and most local media did not report it. Another one said independent coverage of such stories was difficult without a public statement from the government. “You cannot initiate [such] stories if there’s no government reaction, else you run the risk of being labeled as someone who’s promoting their movement,” he said.
Kenya’s ‘Nation’ Media Group Tells IPI It Will Resist Government Pressure Over Investigative Documentary about Ethiopian Rebel Fighters
IPI Calls on Governments of Ethiopia and Kenya to Stop Pressuring Broadcaster
VIENNA, 11 August 2009 – Kenya’s Nation Media Group will resist pressure from both the Ethiopian and Kenyan Governments, and complete the broadcast of a four-part Nation Television (NTV) investigative documentary on rebel fighters in Ethiopia, sources inside the news organisation have told the International Press Institute (IPI).
“Inside Rebel Territory: Rag-Tag Fighters of the Oromo Liberation Front,” a four-part series following separatist ‘Oromo Liberation Front’ (OLF) rebels in Ethiopia’s southern bush land, first sparked diplomatic reactions from the Ethiopian government while the documentary was still being promoted.
Pressure began when the Ethiopian ambassador sent a protest letter on 30 July to the Nation Media Group stating that it was not in Ethiopia’s national security interest for the programme to be aired, and calling for the broadcasts to be stopped.
Ethiopia has been fighting OLF rebels in the region for close to 30 years, but denies the existence of the organisation, claiming that it has long been defeated.
“For two weeks [the Ethiopian government] tried all they could, including talking to the Kenyan government, to persuade us to stop the broadcast,” one source who worked on the documentary told IPI.
The Ethiopian Foreign Ministry even summoned the Kenyan ambassador to Ethiopia, while the Kenyan Information Ministry held a meeting with representatives of the Nation Media Group.
“To be fair to the Ministry of Information, they were not seeking to stop us, they simply wanted to tell us formally as a government that the Ethiopians were unhappy, and ask that we take their feelings into account in the programme,” Joe Odindo, Group Managing Editor of the Nation Media Group, noted to IPI.
The Nation Media Group agreed to this by offering the Ethiopian ambassador a long interview in the programme, but the Ethiopian government refused an interview unless NTV pulled the broadcast, Odindo said. The Ethiopian ambassador to Kenya and NTV editors held another meeting on 7 August, following the broadcast of the first episode, at which the Ethiopians reiterated their calls for the programme to be stopped.
In the face of this pressure, the Nation Media Group decided to delay the broadcast while it reviewed the remaining material for balance and accuracy, and removed the previous episodes from YouTube.
However, the media group’s board decided to continue with the remaining broadcasts, the last of which airs tonight, and which attempts to portray the rebel issue from the Ethiopian government’s perspective, while highlighting the difficulties NTV have experienced getting the programme broadcast.
“The Nation Media Group, as a responsible media group, listens to reactions from everyone about their programming, especially if they come from a government we are reporting on,” said Odindo. “We weigh the complaints we get, and we respond to them responsibly without undermining our right to cover issues of importance to Kenyans.”
“When dealing with the complaints from the Ethiopian government, we were all along conscious of our commitments to our viewers and our mission to inform Kenyans, and at the same time, to consider the interests of the Kenyan nation in its relations with other countries. Balancing these two was a challenge we faced throughout, and even when we held the programme for two days, it was out of the conviction that our right to inform others doesn’t exist to the exclusion of other people’s interests in being covered fairly.”
“We are ultimately satisfied that the programme is balanced, complete, and that we have done everything possible to include the point of view of the Ethiopian government, even thought the ambassador refused to participate in it,” said Odindo.
“IPI is concerned at the pressure exerted on the Nation Media Group by the Ethiopian government,” said IPI Deputy Director Michael Kudlak, “particularly given Ethiopia’s poor record on press freedom. It is equally regrettable that the Kenyan government should back Ethiopia in these repressive efforts against a Kenyan broadcaster. We ask that both governments desist from exerting any further pressure.”
Ethiopia recently passed “anti-terrorist” legislation giving the government broad powers to imprison for as long as 20 years “whosoever writes, edits, prints, publishes, publicizes, disseminates” statements deemed “encouraging, supporting, or advancing” terrorist acts.
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Related Stories from Gadaa dot com:
– Ethiopia’s Rogue Regime Forces Kenya’s NTV to Alter OLF Documentary
– Ethiopian Regime Silences Kenya’s NTV over OLF Documentary
– Inside rebel territory: Rag-tag fighters of the Oromo Liberation Front (NTV)
