Ethiopia: NY Times ridiculed for ‘disseminating’ narratives that facilitate foreign takeover

ADDIS ABABA – A close aide to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has lamented and ridiculed popular American newspaper, The New York Times, for trying – since outbreak of conflict in Tigray last year – to disseminate narratives that the official says facilitate an international intervention in the Ethiopian conflict.

The Ethiopian government has been opposed to the way Western media has been reporting on its conflict with the rebellious Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) whose attack on a federal army base in the north of the country triggered a government law enforcement operation that has thrown the northern part of the country to a conflict.

At one point, US-based Cable News Network (CNN) published a story in which it said rebel forces of the TPLF were just outside the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. But the rebel forces were in remote towns of Afar and Amhara regions, some 300 miles from the Ethiopian capital.

The Ethiopian government has recently demanded an apology from the CNN for publication of such stories.

In a tweet yesterday, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s spokesperson, Billene Seyoum Woldeyes, said the New York Times has been involved in the dissemination of narratives that she said facilitates foreign intervention in the Ethiopian conflict.

“Over the past year, [The New York Times] has been greatly obsessed with Prime Minister’s Nobel Peace Prize in as much as they are obsessed with crafting and disseminating a narrative to facilitate international intervention,” she said.

“I guess some unhealthy obsessions are hard to die,” she ridiculed.