Ethiopian federal and state media outlets need strict control

Tigrai Online, Sept. 8, 2017

Recently we have witnessed Ethiopian government media outlets like EBC blundered perfect opportunities to elevate the country’s image greatly. A great example is the news about Tigrai State Policy on land restoration wining the Future Policy Gold Award. EBC turned this great news in to an ugly controversy by showing an illegal map of Ethiopia.

The people of Tigrai achieved the impossible by restoring their war and drought ravaged land in to enviable green fertile land.  The astonishing feat didn’t happen over night or by miracle, it took great deal of determination and dedication to become self reliance. The miraculous achievement of the Tigrai people should have applauded by all Ethiopians and it should have been seen as a good example, but due to ill-advised decision of some the positive was turned in to negative.

Not even a month has passed since the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation debacle, now the Amhara Mass Media Agency has nearly duplicated the same fiasco.

For the past few years some border districts of Tigrai and Amhara states have been causes of misunderstanding and conflict. It is not because the local people didn’t know what belongs to whom or they were not willing to live side by side peacefully, rather some extremists and their masters were working hard to create conflict among the brotherly people of the two states.  Finally in 2016 – 2017 they managed to achieve their goals by creating public unrest in Amhara region and over ten thousand Tigrians were deported from their houses and businesses from Amhara region.

This week the two leaders of the Tigrai and Amhara with the help the local people signed an agreement resolving the disputed border land issue.

The details of the agreement is still not public, but the overall idea of resolving the situation peacefully is something we all should support, however some elements are not allergic to peace and they are trying to prolong the conflict between the two people.

As soon as the news of the agreement between Tigrai and Amhara state was announced, the Amhara Mass Media Agency went on to spread an exaggerated false propaganda about the border agreement. The media agency made it look like that Amhara state won over Tigrai state by announcing on TV and social media all the fertile land, the airport, the bigger land suitable for investment was awarded by Amhara state.

As we indicated artier the details of the deal is very limited unless the Amhara Mass Media Agency have inside information to the contrary, each state was given two areas. Why all this hyper propaganda while the leaders and the people are working hard to settle the issue peacefully?

The appropriate government bodies need to pay attention to the public media outlets to protect the interest of the country and to bring about peace and harmony among the people of Ethiopia.