The former president of Ethiopia’s western region of Benishangul-Gumuz, Ato Yaregal Aysheshum, has changed his story about defecting and now he claims that he is in Canada for medical treatment. Click here to listen:
[podcast]http://www.ethiopianreview.info/audio/yaregal_ayshesum_jan2009b.mp3[/podcast]
On January 17, Ethiopian Review had reported that Ato Yaregal defected and has joined the opposition camp. The same day the story was published, an internet discussion forum that is run by the Woyanne propaganda chief Bereket Simon, brought Yaregal for interview from where he was hiding. Apparently, he still keeps with him a mobile phone that the Woyanne regime assigns to all its puppet regional officials to keep tabs on them.
In the interview with the Woyanne internet forum, Yaregal denied that he has defected and that he has received permission from Meles Zenawi to get medical treatment abroad.
First of all, this fool further exposed himself what kind of puppet he is by saying that he asks permission from Meles Zenawi to get medical treatment abroad, although he was president of a bantustanized region. Imagine the governor of Texas or California asking permission from the U.S. president to to travel abroad.
Secondly, why did he have to travel through Uganda, stay there for several days, fill out political asylum forms with the local UNHCR office, before traveling to Canada?
The truth of the matter is that when Meles sacked him in November 2008 from his position as president of Beninshangul-Gumuz and appointed him to some commission, Yaregal was angry and started contacting Ginbot 7 officials, telling them that he wants to defect and join the opposition. He wanted to use his membership in Ginbot 7 for his political asylum case. Ginbot 7 officials facilitated his trip to Uganda where they took him the office of the UNHCR’s director.
But once he arrived in Canada safely, he refused to speak out against the regime’s atrocities and corruption in the Benishangul region, which he had told about to the UNHCR office in Uganda. He told those who assisted him to come to Canada that that he has hotels and other properties in Ethiopia and that the Meles regime will confiscate them if he speaks up. He also expressed concern about the safety of his children who are still in Ethiopia.
It was at this point that Ethiopian Review decided to publish the story him. It seems that Yaregal wants to be in a safe country and live a life of luxury with the money he looted without taking accountability for his part in the Woyanne crimes in Ethiopia. At the same time, he is too greedy in that he wants to save his ill-gotten properties in Ethiopia.
Yaregal Ayshesum had played a major part in all the atrocities and massive corruption that were being committed by the Meles regime in Ethiopia for the past several years. The Government of Canada should thus deny his asylum request.
When Yaregal contacted Ginbot 7 officials, he told them that he could not continue to see the crimes being committed by his boss Meles Zenawi and that he wants out. Thinking that this man perhaps has a sliver of human conscience and that he may want to do the right thing from now on, they helped him escape to Uganda and then to Canada.
Even while in exile, Yaregal continues to prostitute himself for the Woyanne brutal dictatorship.