With Ethiopian TV Network, ex-pats find voice

2/17/2007

From THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ALEXANDRIA
--After three decades as a prominent reporter in Ethiopia, the arrests and jailings--punishment for articles deemed critical of the government--became too much for Mulugeta Lule. He fled his country and now works for a District parking company.

Tamagne Beyene was a famed entertainer who toured Ethiopia's stages and arenas. But he gave up that life for refuge in Alexandria after his public jokes about the government led to jail time and police beatings.

Nebiyu Eyassu published articles in his Addis Ababa magazine censuring government policies and was rewarded with criminal charges of incitement. Today, he oversees airport buses in Northern Virginia, where his closest tie to the profession he abandoned a decade ago is through the fictional journalist in a novel he is writing.

Until recently.

Now these men and other political exiles whose words were stifled in Ethiopia are reclaiming their voices here. In an unmarked warehouse off a gritty Alexandria street, they are creating a medium to reach out to their homeland: a 24-hour, independent TV network about Ethiopia and its people.

By March 1, they hope to speak again to the more than 100,000 Ethiopian expatriates living in North America--via satellite broadcasts of news and political analysis, educational programs and entertainment recorded mostly in Amharic. Eventually, they say, the Ethiopian Television Network, produced from the safety of a studio half a world away, will extend into Ethiopian homes.

"Land of opportunity," Beyene, 42, said of America while standing in the studio's production room, where he has recorded several episodes of a Jay Leno-style talk show for ETN. "You can say what you want to say and no prison."

For ETN reporters and hosts, many of whom have been granted political asylum, the network represents a professional renaissance and the chance to report freely on Ethiopian issues, even if from afar.

Success or failure, the station will be a milestone for U.S.-based Ethiopians, who had to turn to the Internet, radio or government-run satellite television for Amharic-language news about their country's recent invasion of Somalia. And it is a sign of the vitality of the Washington region's Ethiopian population, the nation's largest.

Under the bright lights of the production studio, Beyene described a satirical 2005 DVD he made. In it, he pretended to interview Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, then spliced in comments Zenawi had made in real interviews. In one of his favorite parts, Beyene asks Meles how he rules his country. Meles' response: By instinct.

Beyene said he read on the Internet that because of the DVD, which had been distributed in Ethiopia, he was charged in absentia with treason and genocide.

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