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Rep. Mike Coffman broadcasts from D.C. at Denver campaign rally for Ethiopian supporters

By JOEY BUNCH 01/24/2018 | updated 8 years ago

Rep. Mike Coffman’s office is touting the Republican congressman’s support from Ethiopian constituents in his diverse district.

Last weekend, while he was in Washington during the government shutdown, Coffman did a live Q&A via Google Hangout, appearing on a projector for about 500 Ethiopian immigrants at an event Saturday night at the Radisson Hotel in Aurora.

Afterward, he gave an interview to the Oromia Media Network, which broadcasts internationally. He was introduced as “one of the most visible advocates for congressional action to call the Ethiopian government to account for its human rights violations and encourage inclusive governance in Ethiopia.”

You can watch that interview by clicking here.

This month Coffman spoke out in support of political prisoners being held in Ethiopia.

Coffman said in the OMN interview that he has a wide diversity of people in his east metro Denver Congressional District 6. The metro area is said to be home to about 40,000 first- and second-generation Ethiopians and other East African immigrants, partly because of refugee resettlement programs.

When Coffman was running for re-election in 2016, he opposed Syrian refugee resettlement in Colorado. He beat former Democratic state Sen. Morgan Carroll by about 9 points. Last year Coffman called President Trump’s travel ban on refugees from 11 predominantly Muslim countries an “embarrassment” to American values.

“Each one has its issues,” Coffman said in the interview about immigrant groups in the district. “And oftentimes those issues are around American foreign policy and our relationship with the country they came from.”

Coffman said his involvement in the Ethiopian strife began when he heard concerns shared by immigrants in his district. He visited with Ethiopian ambassador in Washington, D.C., and heard reassurances, but he saw no progress.

“As I looked farther and farther into it, the government pushed back more and more, and I really found over time there are internal abuses by the government of Ethiopia to its own people,” Coffman said.

“And then I got resistance from my own government, because the government of Ethiopia was always threatening the United States saying, ‘If you speak out against our government, we won’t cooperate with you on the war against terrorism, security issues of the United States in the region around Ethiopia,’ so it’s been a struggle.”

 
Jim Anderson
JOEY BUNCH

Reporter

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