A former Red Terror accomplice (Shawl) tells Sacker: Ethiopians can not be trusted

__________________________________

Paulos Yrgaw(07/06/05)

I am astounded. In fact, I am flabbergasted. I could add more, if I was able to express my otherwise wretched emotions. In Western philosophical niche, they call it, "Cretan Paradox". If a Cretan says, "all Cretans are liars", the Cretan is a liar as well, and by the same token, it implies that, all Cretans do not lie. Hence, it is a paradox. Shawl is paradoxical or he is in a paradox. Either way you vantage it, he is contradicting himself. The sad thing is, he doesn’t know it. The whole thing started when the astonished Sacker (a host of HardTalk) asked the nervous and fast-blinking Shawl, if it is alright for the donor nations to help Ethiopia with aid money. Shawl responded by saying that, the aid should be channeled to a specific project. Fair enough. Shawl went on to say that, the donor countries shouldn’t give the money to Meles and his government for they can not be trusted. And Sacker with a more astounded look, asked Shawl if Meles has been duping the Western leaders, a man who has been hailed and praised by them invariably as a man who is doing a modest job for his country. Here is where the bomb went off. Shawl told Sacker that, the Western leaders are not cognizant of our culture (read deceptive culture, according to Shawl that is), if they had known, they wouldn’t have given money to Meles which is meant to be for the betterment of the poor people. Here, there are two important noteworthy points. First, Shawil, the man who is not endowed with Weberian charisma, is insulting the intelligence of Western leaders. Maybe, the Western leaders were born at mid-night but surely, it was not last night. Second, the feeble minded Shawl is telling the Western leaders that, if I ever become Prime Minster (God forbid), and if I ever stand at your door steps asking for money, please do not trust me for I am the product of my deceiving culture.

I should say that, my nightmare has come to reality. Finally, I have heard it from the horse’s mouth. As the fading eyes are looking for justice through the caskets, the executioner in a guise of democracy is again in a full swing to slide Ethiopia back into the banality of evil, if I can use Hannah Arendt’s notable _expression. What is more worse is, the roar and commotion of the followers. The short memory span of the followers reflects the betrayal of the fallen heroes whose blood is still echoing through out the land when the executioner with an utter audacity is telling us that, it is fine to be implicated in the infamous Red Terror and sleep on power of a green pasture. Admittedly, Shawl worked for the Red Terror regime for two full years. In an attempt to cover his behind, he also said that, he had to keep his tail between his legs in order to raise his children. Let us roll the clock backward into the 1970s. As the Red Terror bullets penetrated the hearts of fathers, brothers, sisters, blue-collars, white collars, the whole spectrum, the fathers could have dodged the bullets in different ways. They could have fled the country; they could have joined the colonel; they could have made a permanent residence in the mountains. But they didn’t. Simply because, they had integrity, passion, principle and most of all love of the Patria. The coward shawl does not have any of these. What he has is a weak heart, a feeble mind and un-Ethiopian spirit, hence he belongs to the dungeons of justice. Doing otherwise is a travesty and a disservice to our heroes whose sacrifice gave the riff-raffs of history the likes of Shawl and his replicas a scent of democracy who are now determined to turn it into a foul scenery.

Paulos Yrgaw

Ottawa, Canada.

home