La Lutta Evil Continua

Pinch yourself, boy and girls, it seems like the AU is… what do you call it… what’s that thing… growing a mini-spine. Ahh. And just when we were getting comfortable with its meteoric impotency.

An African human rights commission is challenging the continent's worst rights offenders, including Sudan and Zimbabwe, in a move analysts say is a "coming of age" for the organisation.

Yes, of course, it should be technically sad that we are celebrating an organization that finally came around to ‘challenging’ peculiarly los loco governments such as Zimbabwe, but y’know, you go to war with the army you have not the one you want.

The AU's human rights commission issued rare and critical reviews of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Those countries said they wanted a chance to reply before the report became public, ensuring it remained confidential.

Aww. It’s like the first time your kid tries to poop in the commode, misses, and soils the bathroom floor. You just kneel down and clap your hands… “Yayyyy! Next time, darling, in the bowl… you see the bowl… can you say bowl? Yayyy.”

Happy to report that there is yet another coup from the Wonqville On-Crack Research Team. Apparently Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was able to interrupt a top-level donor nation meeting in Washington DC by high jacking the remote video conferencing thingy. Hm. No good can come out of that. Anyway, presented here exclusively, the transcript of the conversation.

Meles: Is this.. hello… is this thing on? Helllooo. Someone, please. Is this…

Jendayi Frazer: Prime Minister Meles! This is highly inappropriate. We are in the middle of…

Meles: Can someone please check the connection. I… stop tinkering with the microphone, Bereket! Why am I surrounded by frickin’ incompetence. Mic check… 1..2…3… 3…2…1… Y’ello? Yisemal?

Hilary Benn: We can hear you, Mr. Prime Minister.

Meles: Oh. Okay. Hellllo. Welcome to my underground lair. Well, my palace. But I made it look like an underground lair. Nice, uh?

Anna Gomes: This is outrageous!

Meles: Hmm. I see we have the fembot colonial viceroy amongst us.

Condi Rice: This is a serious breech of…

Meles: Condi. Yes, hello Condi. Hmm. Most shagable Secretary of State since George Shultz. You haven’t been returning my calls, Condoleezzaaaa Rice.

Condi Rice: To what do we owe this intrusion?

Meles: I see we have dispensed with the pleasantries. Very well. As you know, I possess powers way beyond even my comprehension. I’ve shown you I am capable of shooting into crowds yet you still doubt my evilness. This has distressed me. Look at me. Look at my face. I’m all pimply with distress.

Tim Clarke: He is looking a bit ashy.

Meles: Silence! Why do you interrupt me? I hate that. So even though I keep telling you people I will hold on to power, you still think I am not evil enough. You think I am semi-evil. Quasi-evil. The Diet Coke of evil. The zeit shiro of evil.

Jendayi Frazer: The what?

Meles: I am inconsolably mocked. You designate me a pedant evil. You hurt me. I am the Nano of evil yet I am treated like an extraordinarily ordinary iPod of evil. Can’t you see that I have, as the French say, that certain “I don’t know what” when it comes to evil?

Hilary Benn: You do?

Meles: Well, not really. I can’t back that up right now but that’s not the point.

Ana Gomes: No. I believe you are evil.

Meles: Huh? Do I hear something? I thought I heard something, a frightful mumbling of a scorned woman, but maybe I didn’t? Huh? It should put lotion on itself…

Condi: Alright, let’s calm down.

Meles: Mmm. I’d like to tap me some of that. I’m honing the bezzie in the hiz-haws, youknowm’saying? Badunkadunk! You better not go there, girlfriend! …

Condi: What?!

Meles: No? Doesn’t work for you? I’ve been watching BET.

Jendayi: Is there a point to all this?

Meles: I sense malaise and sarcasm. An unfortunate amalgamation of ill-fitted emotions. Yes, there is a point. The point is, what do I have to frickin’ do to prove to you people the awesomeness of my evility? Is that a word? Evility?

Bereket: It is now, your Excellency.

Meles: Shut up.

Tim Clarke: We were in the middle of something, Prime Minister Meles.

Meles: So was I. How long have you people known me? Yet it is as if you don’t know me at all. You want me to share power and have a viable opposition… like f’schizzle? You don’t know me at all. Although I had deemed the details of my life inconsequential, maybe you should know me better before you think sanctions will bring me down. … Bereket, stop humping the laser. Geezuz. As I was saying, my life has been a series of compounded evil and… here, watch this video of my childhood. Bereket, hit the play button…Hit it. … Annnny day now… ta-la-frinckin’ la…. It’ll just be a minute, ladies and gentlemen. We are trying to find Bereket. Bereket? Bereket? For God's sake would someone put a frickin’ bell on him or something.

Ana Gomes: This is outrageous!

Meles: It is. He just wonders away without telling me. Anyway, about my life.I was born in Adowa, in a manger-- perhaps a divination of the persecution I was to be burdened with. My father was an unforgiving haberdasher with low-grade imperial revanchist tendencies and a penchant for buggery. My mother dropped me on my head more times than she could count on her abacus because she hated the way my eyebrows arched. I was an outcast even from birth. Ex-communicated, vilified and shunned because people thought I made outrageous claims such as I invented democracy. No one understood my position on land ownership or why I thought our village cat was a prostitute. I was blessed with the sort of ethereal wisdom that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Aksum, bomb-making camp. In the spring we'd make anti-peace elements disappear. When I was insolent I was tied up and made to recite the august work of Enver Hoxha in a timbre that reminded my torturers of 14 virgin carolers- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first poster of Marx. At the age of fourteen I ran away from home and joined a group of liberators who ritualistically shaved my testicles. It was a difficult life. Try bombing a village with shorn scrotums... it's debilitating. I highly suggest you don’t try it.

Condi Rice: Oooookaaayyyy… this is not productive.

Meles: Wait. I haven’t told you about the time we went to Addis Abeba to tweeze out the fingernails of males whose name ended with an ‘A’…

Hilary Benn: I don’t think those are pertinent details.

Meles: You don’t seem to comprehend, Mr. Benn. When I get angry, the ghost of Mr. Lenin gets upset. And when the ghost of Mr. Lenin gets upset... people die!

Hilary Benn: How can we prevent you from killing your own people, because now we are getting reports that outside of Addis Ababa numerous people are being rounded up and killed. This, as you might know, does not bode well for democracy.

Meles: Democracy, my dear Mr. Hilary Benn… isn’t Hilary a girl’s name? Democracy is relative. And it is not related to me.

Ana Gomes: Do you think it is ironic that we have to ask you not to kill people?

Meles: Is someone talking? I don’t hear anything. Anyone here speak fembot-ian.

Donald Yamamotto: What are you trying to tell us, Mr. Prime Minister? We have been in talks about helping establish peace in Ethiopia?

Meles: An evil peace?

Donald Yamamotto: No. Just the kind of peace you see in paradise.

Meles: An evil paradise?

Condi Rice: I assume you barged in for a good reason, Mr. Zenawi. It seems to me that you hate the Ethiopian people and you just want to kill them.

Jeffrey Sachs: I have to interject here. Actually, the love that the Prime Minister has for Ethiopians is quite overwhelming. He has dedicated his life to ending poverty and he has proven himself one of the most brilliant leaders in the world. He loves the Ethiopian people, and from what I saw they love him…

Meles: Jeffy, actually Condi is right. I hate them. And I want to kill all of them. But they are quite a wily bunch.

Jendayi Frazer: This is going nowhere. Did you have something specific you wanted to talk about Mr…?

Meles: I want everyone to start calling me Dr. Meles from now on. I didn’t spend six years in 12^th grade to be called “mister.”

Tim Clarke: This is blasphemous.

Meles: Blasphemy, Mr. Clarke, is that I have to beg you people to understand the depth of my power. Blasphemy is that I have to drag myself up and put on this quasi-futuristic suit which I had to design myself and degrade myself into begging you to take my evilness seriously. Blasphemy is that I had one simple request, and that is to rig one lousy election and have ballots with frickin' laser beams attached! Blasphemy is that now, evidently, my cycloptic colleague informs me that that can't be done. Can you remind me what I pay you people for? Honestly, throw me a bone here!

Condi Rice: Mr. Zenawi! For God’s sake! We are busy people!

Meles: I am intriguingly aroused by your silent fury, Madam Secretary. Alas, the satellite feed is about to fade so I have to make this quick. I want you people to stop telling me what to do. I want you to stop filling up these Ethiopian people with gobbledygook notions of freedom and liberty. Everything was fine until you came along. And most of all, I will continue killing people unless you give me… one… million dollars!

Bereket: Er… your Excellency… we..

Meles: Shh!

Bereket: But one million…

Meles: Shh-

Bereket: ...dollars is…

Meles: Knock, knock?

Bereket: Who’s there?

Meles: Shh-

Bereket: They already give us…

Meles: www.shh.com

Bereket: But sir, they…

Meles: What’s shh! minus shh!?

Bereket: What I am saying is…

Meles: Control, Alt… Shh!

Bereket: A million dollars is…

Meles: Sh-uh, schoo, shee, scha, schE, … shh!

Bereket: Really, Sir…

Meles: My favorite Teddy Afro song… Shhhhhhhemindefer.

Hilary Benn: I believe what your advisor is trying to tell you is that we already give you 1.9 billion dollars in aid.

Meles: Yes. But why give me billion when you can give me… one m-m-million!

Ana Gomes: This is bizarre.

Meles: Did… did… someone say something or was that the macabre sound of a mosquito sucking blood?

Condi Rice: You want us to pay you not to kill your people?

Meles: Oh, you can pay me to kill them too.

Donald Yamamotto: This does not compute.

Meles: I’ll tell you what does not compute, Mr. Hello Motto. Get it? Hello? Motto? Or hallow motto? It’s… a…. not quite a homonym, not quite alliteration. Never mind. What does not compute is me begging permission from you people to kill my own people. That, now, does not compute! You have been warned. Either you pay me… one… m-m-million dollars…

Bereket: One million is lower than one billion.

Meles: Oh. Okay. You see these are the kind of things I need to know in advance. You pay me, one… ca-jillion dollars or I will start shooting at people while they celebrate some religious holiday.

Bereket: We, um, already did that, Sir.

Meles: You see…? No one tells me anything. Have you people heard of top-down communication? It’s a … really? We did that? Okay. You give me… one… maxtrillion dollars or I will shoot people while they… take a nap? Have we done that yet?

Bereket: No. Not in the strictest sense, Sir.

Meles: Okay. You have 72 hours. Tick-tock, tick-tock. Call me. Okay, people, let’s cue in the music and end transmission. Are we still on? No? Okay then. I think that scared them, huh?

Bereket: You did very well, your Excellency. I know they were quivering under your commanding presence. They are, after all, cowards who can’t face a few killings.

Meles: How much money is maxtrillion dollars?

Bereket: A lot.

Meles: Enough to buy me a laser-guided toothbrush?

Bereket: Indeed. Perhaps even enough for two. Your mastership is…

Meles: Shut up!

Bereket: Oh, sir. I wish I knew how to quit you.

Condi Rice: Um… you know we can still hear you, right?

Meles: Goddamit, Bereket! I will…… [inaudible] you, you mother [expletive]. You incompetent…

Audio fades.

____________________________

Special thanks to Arada Lij via EP. Sorry for terrible re-photoshopping.