A voice for Ethiopians

EVERETT – Abraha Belai commands a fair share of international attention for the Web site he runs in a small home office in south Everett.

Whenever there’s news to report about strife-riddled Ethiopia, Belai makes sure it’s up on Ethiomedia.com.

Elsewhere on the Internet, Belai is accused of having “sold his soul to the devil.” His site is called “a lie factory.”

Michael V. Martina / The Herald Abraha Belai (left) talks with fellow Ethiopian immigrants now living in the Puget Sound region, including Sulatan Alen (right) at a political activist meeting at the Yesler Center in Seattle held to raise money and show support for the Coalition for Unity and Democracy in their native country. Belai runs an Internet site about Ethiopia from his south Everett home.

Belai is used to waving away the accusations.

“That’s written by paid hirelings from the (Ethiopian) government,” he said.

The lanky 44-year-old, a former editor at the English-language Ethiopian Herald, left his country in 1995 to escape government censorship.

“My people told me to fight to the end for press freedom,” he said. “The people in my area said, ‘You are our voice.’ I took that responsibility.”

The site gets about 35,000 hits each day, about 12.8 million each year, and is his full-time job. Advertising on the site pays his bills, he said.

Belai was awarded a fellowship for a six-month term at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. When the term ended, he applied for a work visa and moved to Seattle, where he met and married his wife, Linda. The couple settled in Everett.

In 2002, Belai launched Ethiomedia.com, a Web site for news articles and a tool for political activism. When there is violence in Ethiopia, the site is saturated with articles from international correspondents and calls for action.

In June, dozens of men were killed during a protest against Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on charges that he rigged elections to keep his party in power, according to Associated Press reports. When the continent’s leaders gathered at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa on Nov. 1, thousands of protestors were detained and the city dissolved into chaos.

In moments of crisis, Web sites such as Belai’s are an essential tool for refugee communities, said Nancy Farwell, a professor at the University of Washington’s School of Social Work.

“What’s happening overall is connections through the Internet with communities back home,” she said. “There’s a lot of mobilizing and involvement and transnational connections.”

But in a deeply divided country such as Ethiopia, there are Web sites for every political slant, some local Ethiopians say.

“It’s a pretty sensitive issue in that some people really like (Ethiomedia), and some people really hate it,” said Haddis Tadesse, an Ethiopian American who works for the city of Seattle. “So I’m not sure if it serves the greater good.”

Gebru Tareka, an Ethiopian professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, N.Y., said the Web site is a solid news source.

“It does cover the news without distorting it,” he said. “I don’t think it hides the fact that it supports the opposition; it believes the incumbent regime is dictatorial, and there is some proof of that.”

When events in Ethiopia make worldwide news, sites such as Ethiomedia.com get more attention, said Seattle resident Ainalem Molla, an Ethiopian American. But many Ethiopian refugees and immigrants are too preoccupied with making it in the United States to be politically active.

“As far as political involvement is concerned, I wouldn’t say it’s widespread,” Molla said.

In the past few weeks, the site has been abuzz with advertisements for marches, meetings and even boycotts of products whose sale could benefit the Ethiopian government.

Like many refugees and immigrants, Belai’s Ethiopian education isn’t recognized in the U.S. He hopes to attend classes at Everett Community College one day, but not until there is peace in Ethiopia.

“When there is government oppression, my mind is pre-occupied,” he said.