Ethiopian ambassador criticizes BBC documentary on his country

LONDON, Dec 12, 2004 (AP) — Ethiopia’s ambassador to Britain says a British Broadcasting Corp. documentary about his country is misleading and has damaged tourism, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Ambassador Fisseha Adugna said the film, broadcast in January, gave the impression nothing had changed in Ethiopia since it suffered a devastating famine 20 years ago and that many Ethiopians were still “starving to death,” The Sunday Times reported.

The documentary was made by BBC journalist Michael Buerk, who was among the first to report on the 1984 famine and returned to Ethiopia to mark the 20th anniversary of the tragedy.

“I believe Buerk’s film has done more to harm than to help Ethiopia,” Adugna was quoted as telling The Sunday Times.

“I am concerned about the damage that is being done to my country at a time when it has done so much to leave the past behind.”

The BBC defended Buerk’s documentary.

“We spent weeks researching our film and made two trips to Ethiopia,” a spokesman for the BBC said. “We visited a wide variety of projects and spoke to numerous people in the country, including the prime minister.”

Adugna also said Western tourists had canceled trips to Ethiopia because of distorted images of the country. He told the paper he had complained to the BBC about Buerk’s film because it overlooked the progress Ethiopia had made since 1984.

“In fact, despite a recent three-year drought as severe as that of 1984, Ethiopians did not die because early warning systems were there, grain stores had been established and the roads necessary for delivering aid had been built,” Adugna said.

No one was immediately available at the Ethiopian Embassy on Sunday to comment on the newspaper report.