The ruling Woyanne junta’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ethiopia has posted on its web site an article that attacks Jason McClure, a correspondent for Bloomberg and Newsweek. Jason has been targeted by the genocidal regime because he dared to expose the truth about conditions in Ethiopia. It is to be remembered that a few months ago, Woyanne propaganda chief Bereket Simon warned him with expulsion if he writes any more critical news about the regime. What triggered the latest attack against Jason McClure is his recent report about Africa drifting toward a new age of authoritarianism. Below is the Ministry of Information’s article:
Jason McClure’ Cold-War mentality
By Ministry of Information
The successful completion of the May 2010 elections in Ethiopia has certainly been received with a high level of enthusiasm by the great majority of the Ethiopian population. The widespread rallies that millions of people in different parts of the country made in the aftermath of the peaceful conduct of the election were clear indications of the amount of enthusiasm the results had generated. But then again, this was not entirely surprising after all; it was in large measure a reflection of the extent to which the peoples of Ethiopia take the process seriously and the manifestation of the unflinching resolve of Ethiopians to own the process. There also appears to be a near unanimous agreement among various stakeholders in the political process to view the results of the election in a favorable light irrespective of the relative performance of the contending parties.
Even the staunchest of the government’s detractors within the opposition seem to have come to terms with the assessment that the results are as much reflections of the incumbent’s track record in development as they are the result of peoples’ disenchantment with the zero-sum politics of the opposition. To the extent that the rather wide margin by which the incumbent won the election is relevant, it is in the unequivocal message it sends to both the winners and losers alike that the mandate of the peoples of Ethiopia can be won only by a proven commitment to improving their lots through hard work than by mere sloganeering and propagation of hate.
The reason why most gloomy predictions by too many western pundits of a post-election Armageddon rang abysmally hollow has everything to do with the commitment and vigilance of the peoples of Ethiopia to see their will respected. Those who might doubt the sincerity of the peoples’ resolve for democracy and good governance are certainly in for disappointment. Jason McClure of Bloomberg news—along with the coterie of interest groups he represents, of course—is one such people. He has long since crossed swords with sworn detractors of the whole economic and political developments in the country and has seldom missed an opportunity to paint the government of Ethiopia in the ugliest of light possible. His almost daily doodles on the web have always been selectively negative.
In a recent report he wrote to the Newsweek (June 18, 2010), presumptuously entitled “why Democracy Isn’t Working”, he has once again engaged in yet another mud-slinging campaign against the Ethiopian government. In a style typical of his previous reports, he draws pervasive conclusions on the basis of one or two observations colored by his own bias. While his latest article is supposedly meant to show the trend throughout Africa towards what he calls ‘a new age of authoritarianism’, its main thrust, however, is an unmitigated campaign to discredit the recent political developments in Ethiopia particularly the results of the election. Mr. McClure’s penchant for hyperbole and downright fabrication is quite phenomenal. His visceral hostility to the government of Ethiopia coupled with his proclivity to offer his services to anyone out to get the government has rendered his judgment all too skewed apparently beyond repair.
His explanation as to why hundreds of thousands of people in the capital went out on a rally in support of the EPRDF, for example, was an outright lie that would put even the most ardent of the government’s detractors to shame. People, he tells us, “were paid the equivalent of a day’s wage for a few hours of shouting against Human Rights Watch”. What this shows of course is the extent to which he is willing to go to tarnish the government’s image even if he has to fabricate the most outrageous of lies. But more importantly, such remarks also betray his deep-seated contempt for the people who took it upon themselves to go out in droves to express their desires to have their will respected by the likes of Mr. McClure. It is not for the first time that Mr. McClure got involved in an out and out smear campaign
against Ethiopia. He has in several occasions colluded with the most rejectionist elements of the opposition in trying to create—even succeeding to do so—a media circus contrived to muddy the waters of the electoral process long before campaign had been properly begun. In his latest report too, he cites dubious sources to make his mendacious claims plausible. It is difficult—even unnecessary—to respond to every mendacious allegation that Mr. McClure makes in his recent article.
That would be a tall order. But one inescapable conclusion is that his is a mentality that belongs in the cold-war era, putting as it does higher premium on using any leverage that comes with aid to effect changes in the political structures of recipients for the sake of serving narrow ideological interests. His view of democracy for instance leaves no room whatsoever for the natives to manage their own affairs. It has to be consonant with some pre-packaged matrix to be dictated by the ideological high priests of the orthodoxy Mr. McClure’s handlers preach. Clearly, Mr. McClure has been frustrated by the generous outpouring of public support to the incumbent as displayed in the rallies by millions of people throughout Ethiopia and more particularly in the capital. These developments certainly run counter with the kind of Armageddon scenario the likes of HRW would have us believe the country would be unless the opposition won. His involvement in reporting about the state of democracy in Ethiopia is apparently informed by his fancying himself as having the central role to play. If that sounds too much of an overreach a foreign correspondent can ill afford, Mr. McClure would accept none of it.
His zeal to denigrate every development—however positive, borders on the messianic. But his frustration is likely to continue to mount—and along with it his hysterical postings—with each passing day as Ethiopia marches triumphantly along in its fight against poverty. One final statement is in order. McClure is a disgrace for journalism. Though he insinuates in his article that there is no free press in Ethiopia, he probably has never enjoyed as much freedom to write as he wished as those reporters in Ethiopia writing for Fortune, the Reporter and the Capital.