Ethiopian government press release on Jeffery Gettleman and the New York Times

[Jabhad]

Press Release

 

On Jeffery Gettleman and the New York Times 19.6.2007

 

 

 

In May, Jeffery Gettleman, a journalist from the New York Times with two colleagues, was expelled from Ethiopia. The group had specifically asked to visit Ethiopia as tourists, not as journalists, and had requested assistance from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to obtain tourist visas. It was given. Mr. Gettleman also contacted the Ministry for assistance when there was a query over his camera equipment at the airport. Again, it was given. His subsequent behavior then mimicked that of an intelligence officer, or even a secret agent, rather than that of a reporter. He even crossed the international border into Somalia and then returned to Ethiopia clandestinely. Indeed, as his report makes it clear he had an agenda, not the aim of producing the sort of balanced and fair report that readers of the New York Times might expect. Mr. Gettleman is clearly angry that he was arrested and detained by security forces even though he was hardly behaving in a way that New York Times journalists normally behave outside Africa. His writing reflects this.

 

The most offensive, and unacceptable, element in Mr. Gettleman’s reporting is the way in which he embellishes claims of terrorists. Indeed, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs finds it intolerable that Mr. Gettleman is prepared to try to make terrorists appear to look like rebels with a cause, to make heroes out of a terrorist group whose latest exploit in April was to slaughter indiscriminately dozens of civilian workers at the Adole oil exploration site. Most of the 65 Ethiopians and 9 Chinese technicians massacred there were killed while they slept. This was a straightforward terrorist atrocity. For the ****** National Liberation Front (ONLF) to justify this with a claim that warnings had been given against oil exploration in the region is simply unacceptable. There can be no justification for the deliberate and indiscriminate killing of civilian workers; the dead included a three year old child. Such comments are particularly outrageous when families of those murdered are still in mourning.

 

The Ethiopian government refers to members of the ONLF as terrorists because that is exactly what they are. Their activity cannot be justified as Mr. Gettleman tries to do, by quoting ONLF claims of government atrocities, real or imagined. The ONLF have, over several years, been responsible for a succession of bombings, assassinations, and the laying of land-mines, frequently aimed at civilians and targeting members of rival clans. Traditional leaders and clan elders critical of the ONLF have been particular targets. This cannot, by any stretch of imagination be identified as a liberation struggle. It is terrorism, pure and simple.

 

Mr. Gettleman’s article makes no effort to provide any understanding of the political situation in the self-administering Somali Regional State of Ethiopia. He totally ignores government’s efforts to talk to the ONLF, and makes no reference to the delegation of ****** clan elders who unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate with the ONLF leadership abroad last year, in the UK, Sweden and Denmark – in fact, the ONLF has never been interested in participating in the political process. Mr. Gettleman fails to comment on the ONLF’s membership of the opposition "Alliance for Freedom and Democracy", set up under the auspices of Eritrea last year. It was then the ONLF leadership removed itself from London to Eritrea. Hundreds of ONLF fighters were trained and armed in Eritrea before being sent to the ****** via the Islamic Courts Union in Mogadishu in October and November last year. Mr. Gettleman shows no interest in Eritrean involvement with, and support for, the ONLF, or in what the Eritrean government is trying to do in its attempts to destabilize Ethiopia. All this is surely relevant to his supposed story. Instead, Mr. Gettleman quotes US Congressman Donald Payne whose recent pronouncements about Ethiopia and Somalia have demonstrated a serious lack of up-to-date information about Ethiopia. Indeed, it is far from clear that facts matter much for Congressman Payne. He knows very well that to describe Ethiopia as a country which has no respect for democracy is completely fallacious. Ethiopia has gradually moved through various stages of democracy in the last 16 years, culminating in the first real competitive multi-party elections in 2005. Despite some controversial elements, including the deeply regretted riots and deaths in June and November 2005, these were largely successful. We now have a functional, indeed, lively, opposition in parliament, and a parliamentary body to which the administration is now answerable.

 

In his continuing efforts to defame Ethiopia, Mr. Gettleman quotes ONLF fighters on the situation of the region through which he was traveling. He repeats their claims there is no education, no development in the Somali Regional State, and talks of “huddles of bubble-shaped huts” passing for towns. We would certainly accept the level of development in the Somali state remains low, but even Mr. Gettleman’s brief visits to Jigjiga and Deghabur, should have given the lie to such nonsense. Towns in the region like Jigjiga, Deghabur, Kebridar, Gode and others are certainly not collections of huts. They have substantially built schools, mosques, health centers, administrative buildings. There is a university in Jigjiga which currently has nearly 1000 students; as of 2005 there were 23 secondary schools in the region, and some 700 primary schools.

 

Ethiopian troops have not been gang-raping women, burning down huts or killing civilians at will. Indeed, given the ONLF’s recent actions at Adole, the latter is a particularly outrageous claim. The Ethiopian army takes very seriously any such claims and investigates any and all accusations that are made against its troops.

 

Mr. Gettleman’s failure even to attempt to produce a balanced picture of recent events in the Somali regional state, and the clandestine nature of his visit, makes clear he remains angry that he was arrested and detained. He should not be. He was not on any legitimate news-gathering assignment. He had requested a visa to visit tourist sites in the north of the country, and gave no indication he wished to travel into the Somali regional state. His sudden appearance in Deghabur, close to the site of the terrorist massacre at Adole a few weeks earlier, was a surprise to local authorities, all the more so as Mr. Gettleman had left Ethiopia, crossing into Somalia, and then re-entered Ethiopia illegally. Given the state of alert following the atrocity at Adole, the arrival of three journalists pretending to be tourists, inevitably led to suspicion. Since Mr. Gettleman and his group were planning to make contact with the terrorists responsible for those killings, it is hardly surprising that the group were arrested.

 

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is always ready to welcome journalists on legitimate news gathering assignments, journalists who are prepared to display the responsibility, integrity and truthfulness we would expect from employees of a newspaper with the reputation of the New York Times, though this has had to admit to a number of serious errors on occasions. Four years ago, one journalist was forced to resign following the discovery that he had committed a whole series of journalistic frauds. Mr. Gettleman’s reporting has seriously tarnished the reputation of himself and of the New York Times. It will certainly make it harder for Ethiopia to believe in the integrity of western news outlets. It leads to suspicion that the New York Times, like others, has double standards with regard to reporting about Africa, and the way their reporters behave in Africa.

 

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the

 

Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia

 

Addis Ababa

 

19 June 2007

 

 

 

http://www.mfa.gov.et/Press_Section//PressRelease.htm

[Jabhad]

Excerpts from a letter sent to Jeffery Gettleman of The New York Times

 

Dear JEFFREY GETTLEMAN,

 

Greetings!

 

I read your report and video with amazement for the exceptional courage it took you in telling the truth as it is: “In Ethiopia fears and cries of Army Brutality.”

As you have observed it is not an isolated incidence but rather a daily criminal act of the regime all over the country.

 

It is my first time to read a true, vivid revelation of the horrendous human rights abuses from a Western journalist who, I feel miraculously escaped the government’s self censure imposed on journalists as a whole on their reporting.

Your exposure of the heinous crimes being committed by the one man State of Meles Zenawi is a selfless commitment to promoting freedom, democracy and the right to live.

Living in Ethiopia as you have noted for many Ethiopians is an every day road to perdition.

 

 

It won’t be long before they [Meles and his cronies] start giving you a hard time for telling the truth nor would you get assistance from the US ambassador Yammamoto who is benign treated like a child by Meles Zenawi. We all know what happened to your guy’s for five days recently in ******.

They know no domestic or international laws nor do they abide by them.

Don’t be disarmed by the oratorical skills, subterfuges and shenanigans of Meles.

 

I can tell you Ethiopia will remember you for the courage you had in telling the truth.

And Ethiopia will definitely be free from the jaws of a blood thirsty, rotting despot, whatever he relies on America to commit his crimes against humanity.

You are the maverick US journalist I have been waiting to see in telling the truth as it is. But believe me; the regime will accuse you of anything under the sun. And convincing Americans working with Meles is also going to be a though job. In Ethiopia truth is bitter.

 

Be watchful and keep yourself safe!

 

Best regards of the day,

 

Aklilu Demissie

 

A concerned Ethiopian.

[Abwaan]

Here is Jeffery's short documentary on the ONLF heroes:

 

http://video.on.nytimes.com/index.jsp?fr_story=bc02d861ff39cd67d51cfeb3b8ea36350b43cd35

[Castro]

By issuing an official rebuttal press release, this foreign ministry is unwittingly giving Gettleman and his article the very credibility they claim he lacks.

 

This knee jerk reaction is a pathetic attempt at distorting the truth, something the Tigray government has been doing for years. Now we know what school of public relations TFG'ers have graduated from: The Seyoum Mesfin School of (Disastrous) Public Relations.