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Why I write about Ethiopia from Minnesota – Douglas McGill

Posted on , Updated on by Elias Kifle

By Douglas McGill , TC Daily Planet

ROCHESTER, MN—“Why the hell are you messing with my country’s political affairs?” goes a typical e-mail from the dozens I’ve received this summer from readers living in Ethiopia, from immigrants living in Minnesota, and from throughout the Ethiopian diaspora.

And this was among the milder messages to ping my inbox.

To a degree I’ve never before experienced as a journalist, articles I’m publishing about human rights abuses in Ethiopia—based on interviews with Ethiopian immigrants living here in Minnesota—have triggered profusely grateful e-mails, and yet also a torrent of messages scorching me with bitter denunciations, extremely pungent abuse and amorphous threats.

“You are only spreading hate,” an Ethiopian reader snapped after reading an article about the Ethiopian army wiping out entire villages in the country’s Ogaden region. On Ethiopian web sites around the Internet, my articles are bashed as often as they’re lauded.

To admirers, my writings make me a “hero,” a “journalist of integrity” and “a voice for the voiceless.” But to others I’m a “very sad,” “naïve” and “mediocre” journalist who is “fed by propaganda” churned out by bitter Ethiopian refugees. To detractors my pieces are “nonsense,” “rubbish” and “eye-gouging lies.”

Sometimes, it’s scary to scan my inbox.

“I was shocked when I read your article,” one e-mailer wrote. “You will be held accountable for your lies.” And I’ve read Web site comments in which readers from various Ethiopian ethnic groups, responding to my articles, attack each other using language so violent that I won’t repeat it here.

How to respond to all this? On the one hand, I completely reject the notes that use language simply to slash, bash or stab another person as if with machetes, clubs and spears. These aren’t conversations, but armed assaults.

On the other hand, behind the frustrated tone in many of the notes, I discern eminently sensible and fair questions. These come from people who’ve grown cynical after decades of manipulation by their governments and by both the U.S. and Ethiopian media, and they deserve sincere answers.

Answers to questions such as: All right, why the hell do I mess with Ethiopia’s domestic affairs, anyway?

After all, I am not Ethiopian. I don’t speak any of Ethiopia’s six or seven major languages, or its several dozen smaller ones. I’m fascinated by the country’s complex history, politics and culture, but I’ve only travelled there once, in 2004, on a reporting trip, and stayed for less than a week.

Plus, as my aggrieved readers take pains to tell me, my own country is hardly a shining paragon when it comes to human rights.

So what gives me—a citizen of the nation that brought us the Iraq war, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Haditha and other atrocities—the slightest right to parade Ethiopia’s human rights crimes before the world?

To those who’ve written to me in the spirit of a mutually respectful conversation, as opposed to a broken-bottle brawl, I’ll try to explain.

All right, why the hell do I mess with Ethiopia’s domestic affairs, anyway?

Basically, I believe that writing about human rights in Ethiopia, even while I remain living in Minnesota, is potentially useful and journalistically defensible for three main reasons.

First, Minnesota and Ethiopia are intricately linked by our cultures, histories, economics and politics. I don’t accept that they are distant or unrelated in any significant way. For example, take the simple fact that for the past several decades, Ethiopians have been immigrating to Minnesota to escape persecution by their own government. What is that if not a profound relationship?

Some 20,000 Ethiopian immigrants now live in the state, which has one of the largest and most politically active Ethiopian diasporas in the world.

So my articles, in a sense, simply report on what I see and hear right here in my home state of Minnesota. I talk to Ethiopian immigrants about what they are hearing from their friends and loved ones back home. Honestly, I not only hear stories about human rights abuses in Ethiopia in these interviews, but I feel the deep trauma that has followed immigrants all the way to Minnesota, as they rebuild their lives.

As for accounts of Ethiopian government oppression that I gather, I try to verify them through multiple interviews, through global e-mails and telephone calls, Internet research, and so on.

At the national level, too, America and Ethiopia are profoundly linked. For example, many of the same emailers who lecture me to “mind my own country’s business,” also take pains to remind me, correctly, that America is a major foreign aid donor to Ethiopia—including military aid to help build, support and train an army that enforces violent policies against Ethiopian citizens. This implicates every American citizen, I would argue, very directly in Ethiopian government policies that increase suffering.

Our two countries are also closely connected economically. Many U.S. corporations—including Mobil, Starbucks, Boeing, Pratt & Whitney, Hilton Hotels, Eveready Batteries, and Ernst & Young—do business in Ethiopia. Ethiopian tourism benefits from American visitors, and the country’s main export, coffee, rests largely on sales to the gigantic U.S. coffee market.

I am a human rights journalist. By this I simply mean that I subscribe to the idea of human rights, that all human beings have the right to live free from abuse, cruelty and oppression.

With our two countries interdependent in so many ways, how could anyone sustain the argument for journalistic quarantine to my home state?

Second, I am a human rights journalist. By this I simply mean that I subscribe to the idea of human rights, that all human beings have the right to live free from abuse, cruelty and oppression. I try to create journalism that contributes to the support and expansion of global human rights.

I believe the development of human rights is one of the rare bright spots in recent human history. It offers precious evidence of mankind’s moral progress, against a great deal of evidence supporting the opposite view.

One way that journalists can help sustain human rights progress, I believe, is by morally engaging with people who live in countries at great distances from their own. Theoretically, this should be more possible than ever today, with so many new technological means to communicate across borders.

To a large degree, I view my journalism about Ethiopia as an effort to define, develop and refine the skills of global moral engagement.

But all that sounds very abstract.

The most important reason that I write stories about human rights abuses in Ethiopia isn’t about theories of interdependence or human rights.

As a journalist, I just feel it’s my job.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Douglas McGill has reported for the New York Times and Bloomberg News—and now the Daily Planet. To reach Douglas McGill: [email protected]

29 thoughts on “Why I write about Ethiopia from Minnesota – Douglas McGill”

  3. What a man with integrity!!!

    Trust me, those idiots who send him abusive emails are the TPLF/EPRDF cadres who are sent to the USA and EUROPE to sow confusion, hatred, quarell amongst Ethiopians …..and also do a side job like abusing journalists like Mr McGill.

  4. Doug: You don’t have to justify why you write about Ethiopia to anyone. You are an American born and raised under the First Amendment. That makes you a free man. As a journalist, you have your own journalistic ethics. If you allow the roaches to get under your skin by reading abusive email, you are just encouraging them to do more of the same. don’t waste your time with their garbage. Just do your job. Keep writing. You have hundreds of thousands of readers. Jarso Abraham

  5. TPLF weyane covers its criminal act in many ways:

    1-By absolute lies.2-by closing all ass medias,radio,TV,
    newspapers magazine including E-mail and internet.3-By beating,torchering,mass killing 8o,ooo thousand citizens in the region where people ignored with no sympathy and help.
    O,Mr.Douglas McGill,we thank you for your genuine effort.
    to reveal the worst condition our people suffering under the tyranic dictator Memels Zenawi,the tribalist.
    God save our mather land Thiopia!!

  6. You are doing a great job as journalist. A true Journalist is never afraid to go to places that other journalist decide not to intervene. Please keep on supporting equal right for Ethiopian people. Ethiopian people are in critical situation and the rest of world are keeping blind eyes to the suffering of Ethiopian people especially Ogaden Region. The TPlf regime are committing genocide in Ogaden and other parts of Ethiopa so please be the voice for those voiceless people. We cannot thank you enough for your dedication to bring out the truth about Melez regime.

  8. What a good piece of writinng. The guy must’ve got flooded with letters and emails from TPLF stooges and their beneficiaries of this brutal regime.
    Well done for exposing them, Douglas!

  9. hello, Mr Douglass MacGille

    God Bless your soul.
    Of course you are a voice for the 70+ millions
    of Ethiopians. We need few more of your kind
    of people in the world to make the world a little
    better; especially a country like Ethiopia. We,
    Ethiopians have not only a dictator like other
    third world dictators ; but anti Ethiopia the very country they rule. I am very sure Ethiopians in Minnesota will tell you what I mean by that.

    I love the very articulated principle you are based upon.

    Thanks. an
    d keep fight for the voiceless until a voice is come out from the mouth it is shut down.
    wey gud

  10. dear Mcgil i liked and appreciated your article and your human concern which most of ethiopians who commented on your article doesn’tshare with u for only one reason.the ruling party namely tplf and the former regime{derg] belongs to two ethnig groups the amara and the tigrai people whom r roughly 20% of the population and according 2 them the rest doesn’t have the same rights or subjugated and oppressed ,to them that is their natural rights and keep in mind ethiopia was the last nation that used to practice slavery as late as early 70s ,and to the high landers they never blieved on practised equality,I wish if they go back to their abbysinain land.

  11. Well said, don’t bother to respond for those government agents here in the USA, we know the facts the Ethiopian government is the worst human right abuser ever exist in Ethiopian history, even worse than the Ethiopian military regime, the Military governments never imposed on us an apartheid law in our country like the current government of Ethiopia, You are one of those great journalist who did not ignore the Ethiopian peoples cry.. Thank you

  12. Thank you, Mr. McGill for remembering the Ethiopian people and reporting their harsh living conditions to the world, ignoring the many insults you have suffered from some irresponsible Ethiopians who care nothing about their country as far as they are connected to the Meles political gangs. Your relentless efforts to help the Ethiopian people in your creative writings will be remembered by many Ethiopian historians when Ethiopia that you cared for becomes a free country from its oppressive and corrupt government. The Ethiopian people are very lucky to have a good friend like you, and may the Rock of Ages – Jesus Christ – be with you and protect you from the evil ones!

  13. Dear Mr. McGill,
    I just finished reading your article. Though we Ethiopians have lived many years in the Western world, it just became impossible to forget those God fearing people’s misery, which I’m aware of for the last 40 years. In the last 40 years, the dream of some modern political parties who have been trying to make it as democratic as in the civilized world, where human beings’ dignity is respected through a system of justice is still not materialized. The right to have good standard of life by pulling the country’s human and material resources through cementing it with love, common sense, and fair competition is already becoming remote. Atrocities are being multiplied, mistrust is on the rise; citizens’ security is non-existent; common interest is nullified; sovereignty is compromised; those with the biggest arms are raping, looting and taking the biggest share unilaterally. Corruption is to the max. No one knows what is going in and going out. I don’t know if it is governable any more. I really admire the patience of the Ethiopians, be it at home or in the West; it seems the people are left with no choice except face the reality as there is no place to hide. To show your concern for those people is great, and what can I say to you except God help you with your endeavors.

  14. Mr. McGill,
    Every time the Ethiopian people try to tame the beast, it grows much more fierce full. Love, gentle words and kindness did not alleviate the misery from their shoulders. It has been almost 40 years ever since one atrocity is followed by another—continually. Perversion of justice is frequented; sovereignty is non-existent; human dignity is becoming unknown; people who perished in underground caves are innumerable; corruption is rampant; no one knows what is coming in and going out of the country; basic rights are non-existent. The marvelous love we used to see across ethnicities is changed to ethnic hatred. The one with the biggest gun takes it all seems the current motto. People who want to change without breaking are considered treasonous. I admire the Ethiopian people’s patience so long without forgetting its limits. They will face the reality as there is no escape from it. I admire your responsibility of bringing to light the human right abuses in Ethiopia. What noble job is there more than that? You need to feel that you have made enormous accomplishment in life.

  15. Douglas,

    It was a pleasure meeting you at the OACC conference on July 31st, 2008. You were very polite in asking for interviews and individuals who like to speak to you.

    Your primary coverage of human right abuses is excellent and please keep it up. You were reporting the facts, interviews, and personal stories and nothing was baised. Please ignore the hateful and spiteful comments as they are baseless.

    Great job.

  16. Even if this respectful journalist did not write about weyane crimes, in IT era no one can hide anything like the old times,I believe he has a right to write whatever he feels, and would like to remind the woyanne cadres that he is not an employee of ENA or radio fana, where journalists are used as electronic reading machine for the brutal regime.

  17. I fully agree to your explanation. I agree for the follwoing reasons:
    1. There is no reason that poeple fear a civilized way of communicating ones points, what eevr that is. Why do we have to object of poeple writing, while we support poeple using gun on others to impose their ideologies. Wrting is a civilized way of communicating ones views.
    2. I find it funny when we believe that we have global responsibilities in many arenas of life and we violate the same when ever we wish. When our country is affected by drough, as is the case now, our gov’t accuses the west for not respodning enough. When it violates the human rights of its citizens and some one speaks about it, it happens to be an issue of soverignity? How come. It is human rights issue, it is about poeple who are dying either with bullets or with hunger, and there is no body whom we can tell should not be concerned.
    3. after all we live in one glob the effect of the mess we make we all share. as you mentioned immigration is one and only the smaller aspect of it. we all will be concered. I ma an Ethiopian who ahs never been in US, but I know every decision that the US`makes affects my life and my future; so I am really concerned and can share my view to teh world with what ever happens there, that I like and dislike. The point is about me doing it in a principle centered and civilized manner.

    To summarize, it is only stupid politicians for me who got angry when some one is genuienly concerned about the righteous or the right thing, and use stupid languages. I have read the ugliest kinds of things posted in the web about my country, the way to change that is not by insulting those who produce it, it is by changing the reality and make my country a respectable one. For that the way is to accpet the reality and not to deny it and make fancy thoughts and propagandas.
    thanks

  18. Douglas,
    It is my first time to read your article. I found you convincing. It does not take a genius to work out what I have not read would be like.
    If a human being with a conscience and professionalism like you cannot write about human right abuses in Ethiopia, who would?

    Keep up the good work.

    Ewnetu

  20. What a great person this man is.god bless you.
    Keep up the good work.This people who wrote you a bad e-mail are paid EPRDF agents.No other independent minded ethiopian will opose you because you put the reality.
    Thanks

  21. Only Woyane criminals and bandits oppose the writing of the intelligent journalist. Woyane bandits do not like when some one touches their sensitive area. They think they can rule forever by looting, killing and raping our country.

  22. Dear Mr. McGill,
    We Ethiopians appreciate what your are doing and are honored to have a dedicated human rights reporter like yourself on our side – on the side of those abused and oppressed by our unelected government. Ethiopians and others have long tried to draw the attention of the most powerful nation in the world to their plight in the hope that perhaps one day the powers that be would take action. You may remember that during his second inaugural address, George Bush made a statement which went like ‘All who live in tyranny and hopelessness…’ etc., etc. We eventually learned that that did not apply to the Ethiopian people and that the US Administration is stuck in the pages of the old school of ‘cold war’ strategy.
    Sorry, I get carried away sometimes. Let me go back to what your readers have written on your ‘messing with the internal affairs of Ethiopia’. These degenerates obviously do not understand that in a free country (where they now happen to live), one can write on any subject one wishes to write about. Besides as a tax payer you have every right to have a say in matters concerning Ethiopia, since you contribute to the billions of dollars the US government gives to Ethiopia to buy arms, ammunition, humvees, training the military and special security forces, who are free to use the arms to kill innocent Ethiopians and opposition party members who refuse to be intimidated.
    After the 2005 election, the rulers in Ethiopia were concerned about their image and decided to send Ethiopians (from a particular ethnic minority) to the US and other European countries and also recruited some already in the diaspora who would aggressively defend the TPLF rulers. Those people have not become cynical nor have they been manipulated by anyone. They are paid by the Ethiopian government specifically for this purpose – to attack anyone who says or writes anything which is critical of the rulers. They are a sort of PR but without the sophistication, and that’s why they behave like attack dogs. We learned about these activities and the large amount of funds allocated to it from documents sent to the Ethiopian Embassy in DC by the Ethiopian government and were sneaked out and made public in various Ethiopian websites at that time.

    I am really sorry by the way you have been treated by these attack dogs. Ethiopians abroad are aware of intimidation by the Ethiopian government of foreign media, aid donors and NGOs critical of the economic or social policies. They are often rebuked and made to water down their reports. It will not be long before you see these attack dogs coming after me for what I have exposed above. I know you will keep on writing because you can’t tolerate injustice.

  24. well done doug…..i fully supprt ur dedication to human right. it is the only thing we have left. the internet is here to stay so we got to make the most out of it. it is taking a while for people to use this powerfull tool but with time i can gurantee u there will be millions like u.

    this corrupted government we have will be defeated. even the so called hitler and other dictators were over thrown.

  26. Meles and his Woyanne supporters are at loss that some good-hearted Westerners such as Doug McGill would care about their mistreatment and savagery towards Ogadenis,Oromas,Anuaks,Afars,Sidamas and other Ethiopians.They(TPLF) demand to have money from the West and a freehand to do as they see it fit.So far,it works for them.Look at what they are doing in Somalia?.That project seems to be a nightmare for them though.

  27. As you might have guessed, all the hate messages you received came from no where but the government’s hired guns. In 2005 TPLF recruited and spread hundreds of PR personnel in and out of Ethiopia for the sole purpose of damage control. Their main job is to respond to any article that exposes the government in any way and form. You were bombarded by professionals in various disguised ways from every angle possible. Do not believe for a minute those are the responses of individuals. Most Ethiopians do not resort to cheap under the belt shots using vulgar languages. Those are disguised damage control work by professionals. I am glad to see your commitment to human right. As the member of the human race, it is every human being’s, including yours, business to expose injustice and gross violation of human right everywhere, including Ethiopia. Those who question your interest are those who purposely violate the sacred right of others arrogantly and get irritated when asked or their hired guns.

    Would you please make the case of the popular Ethiopian singer’s, “Teddros Kassahun” AKA “Teddy Afro”, tribulation your next assignment? You will learn and expose the magnitude of the government’s arrogance, and gross violation of human right. If this government can send rich, popular and visible individual like him to solitary confinement just because they have different political view imagine what it is doing to millions of poor, less known, voiceless individual who oppose the government.

    Keep up the good work … It is your human duty.

  28. Dear Douglas McGill,

    Thanks so much for being too considerate towards human rights violation very particularly in Ethiopia, against the deliberate silence of your country.

    May God Bless You and Your Family.
    Long live to you and people who are fair and considerate for others in a state of obvilion.

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