A Sharp Eye On Ethiopia

" That is the funny part!" said Beyene, an animated man with graying hair and glinting eyes.

The Ethiopian Embassy did not respond to several requests for comment.

Beyene moved to the United States in 1996. Bitter that his work as a comedian and emcee brought him trouble, he cast it aside and studied computers. Eventually, he took to the stage again and now performs for Ethiopian expatriates in the United States and abroad. But those are weekend gigs, and Beyene said he has sometimes felt depressed during off hours, when his thoughts turn to the stars who have taken his place in his homeland.

"I have just an opinion," he said. "So why [is] anybody mad at me?"

In a bare-walled office down the hall sat Lule, 65, who wears an Ethiopian flag pin on his lapel and is ETN's new chief executive. He worked his way up through several media outlets before becoming founder and editor of the popular newspaper Tobia in the 1990s. Eventually, he said, state harassment -- 16 criminal charges and three imprisonments, he said -- chased him away. He left in 1996.

Here, he has continued to write occasionallyfor Ethiopian papers. His livelihood, though, has come from a job in operations for a parking company.

"I miss it," he said of his journalism career.

While Ethiopia, a staunch U.S. ally, allows private media, international human rights organizations say independent journalists face state intrusion and intimidation. Hundreds of opposition leaders, social activists and journalists have been jailed. Newspapers have been shut down. That repression has sent many journalists and performers abroad -- several to the Washington area. Census data say 22,000 Ethiopian immigrants live in the region, but some community leaders believe it is home to more than 100,000. And so Sosinna Tesfa looked no further to build the ETN roster.

Tesfa, an Alexandria tech company owner who immigrated as a child, hatched the idea for ETN early last year with two friends. They recruited other investors, Ethiopians and Ethiopian Americans who mortgaged their homes and took loans to raise $500,000 in startup funds. And to give the network a slick and professional feel, they decided seasoned journalists and artists would run the show.

Tesfa first approached Lule, whom she calls "our Walter Cronkite."

Initially, he was skeptical. But when he learned that they had a space and equipment, he signed on.

"I shared their dream," Lule said.