Strasbourg

A friend enticed him to an apartment where a mutual friend lives. There, the black shirts, the Wahyo hooligans were waiting for him. He sensed the peril once he had came in but could not retreat. �deHan metsa�ka, Addi kemey gadifkayu!� and if he had enjoyed his leave in Eritrea. After some uneasy silence, a fat man with an Amhara last name, the appointed foreman for the Wahyos, asked him if he has some family members in Eritrea, if he has some property there and if he really wants to receive the promised piece of land in exchange for the bonds he had bought. He told him he had always been a good citizen who transferred money to his family through the embassy, paid the 2% obligation, bought bonds, loved his president and listened to the instructions of the Wahyo in town.

 However, this was the calm that precedes the storm. A younger man with jeans and a T-shirt began the real interrogation. Leaning forward from the leather sofa towards our poor citizen, told him that since his return from his last trip to Eritrea, �akaydakha dess ay ybln - he has been spreading lies, defaming and revealing secrets of the state endangering the national security of the country. He told him that they know that he has nothing to do with the fifth columnists and the jihadists since he is a good Christian, good Shabia and therefore �Haqenga Ertrawi�. Nevertheless, �We suspect that you have fallen prey to the lies and smearing activities of some defeatists and traitors, people like Hebret, Adhanom and the other defectors and Weyane secret agents�.

With a pounding heart, bulging eyes and dropped lower jaw, our poor friend started to scream �aykonkun, nab deqey aymlseni, aykonkun, nay boletika seb eykonkun bejakhum!� He pleaded to know what has he done that makes them believe that he has been influenced by the traitors and defeatists. He told them he never attended their meetings and has never seen Mesfin Hagos in his whole life. �Hbret zebelkumma� he confessed, he has only seen her once in a public meeting when she served as ambassador. �Had I known she would defect�, he pleaded, �I wouldn�t have had attended her meeting�. But �Adhanom, kabza bouta Haff ayebeleni, ayfelton, ayre`akhwoun, ayqrebkwon!�

Known that the man has been broken and his self esteem had been defeated and destroyed, a third man started to talk in a reconciliatory tune. �Anta seba`y, haven�t you said that there is an acute shortage of sugar and flour in Eritrea� he accused him. The poor creature started to sweat. In a deliberately calm voice the speaker made it clear to his client that If he want to remedy his crime of defaming his country and spreading lies about it, he has to sign the � we support our government- petition and has to travel to Strasbourg to demonstrate against the neocolonialist EU. Comforted by the anticipated conciliation the victim mumbled, �If you say so, I will travel to Johannesburg and demonstrate, of course I will�. He was corrected that he has to demonstrate in Strasbourg in Germany and not Johannesburg in South Africa. His head covered with, and his nostrils full of flour and sugar he rushed downstairs. He made his way home repeating to himself, �OunqaE berbre yeloun aybelku, OunqaE berbre yeloun aybelku�.

In Strasbourg he loudly chanted: �Heji win wetro awet neHafash and down with Europeans, traitors, defeatists and fifth columnists�.

Notice: Let it be recorded in black files: �Wahyo is intimidating our people�. Take their fingerprints, soon the people�s court will be in session.  

FINGERPRINTS (2)

By Mansour Kerrar, March 29, 2002

The satire and theme of this piece, I have borrowed, without authorization (apologies to the author and publisher) from Arabic article by Abdulgadir Gelboub, posted in messelna.com (02/03/18).

Eritrean Monkeys and G15

G1 was in rage when Mr. T (Tebelatsi=opportunist) entered his office. Mr. T.  has been the jack of all traits in PFDJ. He is DIA`s spoiled boy. Since his uncalculated comments in the last so called Baito theatrical show concerning the fate of the 11 purportedly traitors, defeatists and Weyane secret agents in captivity. Mr. T has been very apprehensive about his Demigod�s confidence on him.

Aware that his boss has been so furious about the Joint ACP-EU Parliamentary Assembly resolution on Eritrea Mr. T. wanted to use this opportunity to make up for his mistake and win the confidence of his master again. He stood in front of him with both his hands supporting his big bulging belly. �I have learned that the President of the Joint ACP-EU Parliamentary Assembly is very fond of African wildlife, especially monkeys. I thought it would be beneficial to win him on our side. We have to show him Eritrean monkeys and baboons are the happiest in Africa. We have to prepare an album where all monkeys and baboons lead a luxurious life in Eritrea under the PFDJ regime, enjoying all monkey rights as it is stated in the UN charter of basic monkey rights�. 

DIA`s face brightened. �It is a good idea, it is actually my idea, I was just thinking about it�. Recollecting that he was softer than what he should, DIA changed his tune �already I  know what the EU parliament president likes or does not like, it is not you or any body else to educate me about it. How did you come to attribute my ideas to yourself�? He asked the poor Mr. T.  �No, no, no it is not mine. Yes of course yes, it is yours, what else, it is true you did not expressed it explicitly but I understood it, as I always do, from your last TV interview about exporting our banana to Colombia and akat to Somalia. I always understand your great thoughts before you express them in words and I always strive to put them in practice, that is why you intrusted me with all the positions and tasks�. By the last words Mr.T wanted to make sure he has not been frizzed (diskilu) from his multiple positions. DIA ended the conversation and ordered Mr.T. to prepare the album and bring a monkey to be sent with Adebrehan Woldegiorgis as present to the president of the Joint ACP-EU Parliamentary Assembly.

Mr. T. sent some security agents and photographers to accomplish the task. They toured all the country but no monkey was located. The security agents come to a conclusion that the people might have done something that made the monkeys disappear. They have decided to start from the nearest village. The peasants must admit it. All physical and mental intimidation failed to make the inhabitants of the village admit responsibility. The agents decided to try the next village. The next village that was aware of what had happened to the first village was more cunning. �Yes we know� they admitted, �All baboons were members of Jebha and had left to the Sudan as early as 1991�.  However, �During the last war we noticed some relations between the monkeys and people like Mesfin Hagos, Petros Solomon and Haile DuruE, but we did not know its nature. Now we know, the monkeys collected information about our defense force and under the instructions of G15 they passed it to the Weyane. The monkeys were members of G15, they are traitors and agents of Weyane and they too left the country after the arrests of the eleven traitors. In a matter of fact it was we who chased them out to prove our loyalty to our government and president �. An elderly women among them who has survived the reigns of Haile Sellasie, Mengistu, Jebha and Shabia, added �we know, all the Eritrean monkeys had their origins in Akele Guzai, it is in their blood, they are regionalists and traitors. When I was young, I remember how that Ras Tesema was conspiring with Moslems and Bdews against the will of our people and church�. Another middle-aged man who has some ambitions to be promoted to the local Baito membership started shouting, �aywa, wellahi kulloum jewassis, wa Keman the monkeys wear bushy beards like the Jihadists and so were Hamid Hmid and Sherifou, kulloum Jihad wa jewassis haget Etobia�. The poor peasants started chanting, �Down with G15, down with the monkeys, down with the traitors and long live our infallible president�. It was the coping mechanism and the art of survival our people have learned through time. They were saved and the agents left happily.

This result did not please Mr.T, he ordered the agents to find means and ways and bring an animal that could be taken for a monkey or a baboon. The bewildered agents found a mule in the outskirts of Asmara. They started torturing it to confess that it was a monkey. The mule stubbornly refused to confess; it insisted it was a mule. The agents continued beating it to death. However, before it dies it said something. The Eritrean people are divided about what the mule had said. Some people say the mule, like the national Baito members, confessed it was a monkey, others say no, it said, �PFDJ is fascist, take their finger prints�.

Recently PFDJ is intimidating community dignitaries to condemn the G15 as traitors and agents. Both, those who said � la abedan ma mumkin, ayfaloum aygebrwon�, and those more cautious who said �We know nothing about them� have been arrested as acomplicies to the G15.