(Re-enters Messenger)
Carlos: I thought you went to wait for others who might be coming in here at the gate. What are you doing here?
Messenger: (very calmly) I’m here to clear any doubts you may have incase you start feeling that you are here unjustly.
Carlos: There I think you are right… I’m here unjustly. I asked you to open that gate so that I could go back to a palace which cost me billions to build and you refused. In it, I have the same furniture that was made in the days of Louis XIV and my bed alone is the world’s best. It is now empty while I’m here crawling on a bare floor which is very dusty.
Messenger: Who tells you that it is still empty? The person who has been fighting for decades to save the people from you now occupies it. The people really love him and see him as a savior. He has started doing what you couldn’t do for the people by respecting their wishes.
Carlos: (weeps) how can that bastard occupy my palace? He does not even know how much I spent in it.
Messenger: It is not his place to know. He equally paid taxes which you used in building it. Anyway that is not what is important now. Tell me, why did you steal the poor tax payer’s money and transferred into foreign banks?
Carlos: (Tears dry up) I don’t like that word steal. Don’t you have any sense of diplomacy? That word is too degrading and only people who are suffering from chronic diplomatic illiteracy use it the way it is, especially with important people like me. Please, I did not steal the money as you put it. I took some which was at my disposal. I cannot steal what is at my disposal. As for why I had to put it in foreign banks, you know that politics is a very uncertain game. You can never tell which wind would blow you off at any given time. If a criminal like the one you say now occupies my palace were to come after you and you succeed in running out of the country only to find yourself in a strange one without money, tell me what would happen to you.
Messenger: Is that why you had to keep it in so many accounts in many different countries?
Carlos: Yes of course. When you are running for your dear life, do you choose where to run to?
Messenger: Why didn’t you invest that money in the country you governed whereas you claimed to be its number one citizen? Why didn’t you build hospitals, open up roads, generate power, create state owned corporations in which youths could find jobs or open school where they could go in and acquire skills to become self employed? Don’t you think that would have been a better way of spending that money rather than going to donate it to countries that were already rich? I’m asking because if you were doing the right things, no one would want to threaten you and you wouldn’t be feeling insecure.
Carlos: How can you say that I donated my money to those rich countries? I merely gave them to keep and to give it back to me in due time.
Messenger: I’ve used the word ‘donated’ because you shall never go back there to collect it. If they do not feel sorry for your people and feel that there is no moral ground to send back the money, it will remain with them. They are not compelled to send the money back to your people. Anyway that is not the issue now. Do you know the consequences of stealing that money and hiding in foreign banks and not investing in the well being of your people?
Carlos: (Bends his head looking at the ground and says nothing) Messenger: I will tell you. Thousands of young girls especially those that left school were not opportuned to be employed and so, turned to prostitution with some as young as 12. Their male counterparts became armed robbers and many others were forced to date women old enough to be their mothers. Many people died in hospitals because they were ill equipped and lacked even essential drugs. Thousands of women died on their way to the hospital to give birth because of the very bad nature of roads. Those that struggled and made it to the hospital ended up dieing in labor rooms because those in charge were ill qualified. Why? Because they were the children of your brothers, sisters, friends and relatives who had to get into the training schools though my master did not destine them for those functions. Thousands died in their attempts to find a better life else where through deserts. Many drowned in water bodies in their attempt to escape the poverty you created for them by stealing their money and hiding in foreign banks. Thousands still take their lives even at this moment because they have lost hope in the future. You pushed millions to live in crime.
Carlos: I’ve told you that I did not steal but took. Your sermon is very touching. (Pointing to Sandi) I think if you continue like that he will soon start crying. From the way you are talking, anybody can understand that you know nothing about politics. You sound as if you wanted me or my government to employ everybody. That is not possible. In fact it is impossible even in those countries you referred to as ‘richer than mine’.
Messenger: Is it because you couldn’t employ everybody that you had to steal the tax payer’s money and go and store in foreign banks? I know that it is impossible for any government to employ everybody. But all I’m saying is that you would have created or opened schools where your youths go and acquire skills with which they could survive on their own. With such skills they could either create jobs for themselves or move to an area or another country where their skills were needed. If you used or managed the tax payer’s money only in educating your children of school going age and they acquired skills even if you couldn’t employ them, nobody would have been reproaching you of anything. That would have been better than pushing them to foreign lands without the intellectual or technical know-how.
Carlos: I don’t like the way you are sounding. You are sounding as though I didn’t do anything at all for my people. I opened a hospital in every major town and city in my country…
Messenger: Which were ill equipped and the staff was not qualified. Do you know why they were not qualified? It was because they were mostly the children of your friends, relatives and party members. Do you know why being the children of your friends, relatives and party members made them unqualified? It was because while in the medical professional school, their parents prescribed the marks they wanted to see on the score sheets of their children. So the children knew that whether they worked or not, studied or not, their futures were guaranteed. You were aware of it. If you want to contest what I’ve just said, tell me how many times you went to any of those hospitals only for consultation when you were sick.
Carlos: Well, I admit that I had never gone to any of them for treatment or consultation. But I did not open them for myself.
Messenger: You really sound like a politician. You went to hospitals abroad which were well equipped and those who treated there you were very welcoming and very dedicated. You liked the way you were treated out in another country. Yet, you denied that same opportunity to your people. You did not want to offend your relatives, friends and party members by being hard on their children who worked in the hospitals. So, you let them to do what they liked. Consequently, the hospitals were turned into money-making institutions and poor patients who could not afford the high consultation fees were assisted to their graves. That is what happens when people find themselves in places or posts they are not supposed to be in… they do the wrong things.
Carlos: But I opened one in the capital of my country where I built my magnificent palace and equipped it with the type of instruments I saw abroad. I got well trained workers and staffed the hospital with. It served my people.
Messenger: You have left out so many things. You’ve forgotten to say that the hospital you are referring to was your private hospital which you didn’t even go there for consultation. It served mostly your ministers and their families, friends, relatives, party members and big business men. The poor could not come close to it. In addition, you have forgotten to say that those well trained staff you talked about were not paid by the huge amounts the hospital generated but by the poor tax payer’s money. Have I said anything which is out of place?
Carlos: (Does not say anything)
Me
ssenger: The next thing you will say is that you opened professional schools to train youths who were to serve in different sectors of the economy. Well yes, you did open the schools but they were filled only by the children of those in high places.
Carlos: What was wrong with the schools I opened? Was it that I opened them or that they were occupied by the children of those I loved?
Messenger: There was no reason why competitive entrance exams into the professional schools you opened were organized and only the children of those in high places always made it. Those who scored very high marks had to be sidelined because they were children of poor parents or their parents belonged to the opposition or they did not belong to this or that social class. You knew there were irregularities through the protests and demonstrations that went on. You did something about it and it was to unleash the army on the protesters. That was not the right thing to do. You have to create a level-plain field for everybody. That was what you were supposed to do.
Carlos: (Mockingly) And if I did that, it would have cleared All the problems you have just enumerated, I suppose?
Messenger: I did not say that all problems would have been solved. But they would have been greatly reduced.
Carlos: You are not different from that fool who called himself an opposition leader. He never saw anything good in what I did or in my government. He criticized everything and turned a good number of the people against me. Most of them started following him and did only what he said. I felt I was loosing control and had to take drastic measures. You are doing exactly the same thing. You disobeyed me and they (pointing to Sandi, William and stone) have followed your example. I have no authority here. If my military chiefs were here, you would have suffered the fate of that opposition fool. (Stone, William and Sandi burst into laughter)
Messenger: I believe that opposition leader you are referring to was Khan Hill. Tell us what happened to him.
Carlos: (Mockingly) you seem to know everything. Don’t you know that one?
Messenger: If I ask you to tell me something yourself, it is not that I don’t know but I want to point out your mistakes from what you say. You are given the chance here to say something but you didn’t give that same chance to your victims. You decided what their crime was and the punishment that was meted out to them. They had no say. Can you tell us what happened to khan?
Carlos: That fool had the guts to eye my throne…my birth right. He wanted to replace me by inciting the population against me. I asked everybody to dream and aspire to any post except that one. It was mine alone but he disobeyed me.
Messenger: Your country was not a monarchy but a republic. As a republic, there were rules which all republics came together and laid down. One of them was the organization of elections after a determined number of years. That means that the post of head of state had to be open to contest. If you wanted to be a ruler for life, why didn’t you change the republic into a monarchy? That way, you would have been claiming birth right unopposed.
Carlos: I couldn’t do that. The reason was that times were changing too fast and if I wanted to be a monarch, I wouldn’t have had absolute powers. The term ‘Constitutional monarchy’ became too fashionable everywhere around the world. Turning my republic into a monarchy and not dancing to the same rhythm would have been out of place. It would have attracted criticisms and that was what I hated most. Besides, if I turned my country into a monarchy, I wouldn’t have been the one in public in front of cameras and taking the major decisions. All constitutional monarchies gave that job to a prime minister who became the sole actor while the monarch was locked up in a palace feeling bored. That was not the life I wanted. I wanted to be in charge and to be noticed.
Messenger: Then maintaining the country as a republic meant you had to open the post of president to competition. You ratified the conventions which were laid down to that effect.
Carlos: In politics and international relations, accepting to do something is one thing and actually doing it is quite another. I was good at ratifying the conventions but my post was not to be opened to competition. I created a parliament which was there to do what I told them. Any motion which was tabled by individuals or opposition leaders had to be rejected especially if the motion was going to disfavor me in anyway. I put it in place because I didn’t want to be brandished a dictator. I made all the decisions and the parliament was just there to endorse them.
Messenger: You were good at ratifying conventions and making promises which you hardly honored. One of such conventions was the protection of refugees, mentally impaired people and underprivileged people. You left the refugees at the mercy of your uniform officers who exploited them in anyway they wanted. Whenever you had to receive a very important personality from abroad, you asked your uniform men to arrest all the mentally impaired people, beggars as well as all the young girls and women who were forced to sell their bodies for money in order to survive and lock them up somewhere. You considered them as dirt, dirtying the streets. Those were the people you were supposed to get closer to. Those were the people your way of doing things rendered in that state. You never asked yourself what role you plaid in their plight. You did not see them as human beings but rejected objects of the earth through which you could assert your importance. Tell me, how did you want people to know that you were that way and at the same time wanted them to continue entrusting their destinies into your hands?
Carlos: I never asked anybody to entrust his or her destiny into my hands.
Messenger: Any aspirant to the highest office does just that. Anyway, that is not the issue now. You still have not told us what happened to Khan.
Carlos: He violated a fundamental law by having his eyes on my birth right throne. By doing that he had to face the full weight of the law and I had to make sure that it was well applied. He was arrested and handed to the judges who found him guilty of treason which carried a death penalty. Justice was done.
Messenger: Did I just hear you mention the word justice? When you were down there, how much did you know about justice? Did you really mean justice or injustice? You saw Khan as an enemy. You asked your men to arrest him. You called your judges and instructed them to hand down nothing less than capital punishment. They took charge of organizing and acting out a piece of drama in the name of a trial, which was even behind closed doors. Those who tried him never knew him. They neither knew the neighborhood he grew up in nor came from. Those who tried him were total strangers. Is that what you call justice? There were some actors too there and the name you called them was ‘members of the jury’. When they could not be unanimous on a decision, they opened it to a vote as if somebody’s life is something they can gamble with. Is that what you call justice? What was justice was what favored you. Once anything was not in your favor, it was injustice. The courts were never there to render justice in the real sense of the term but to help you put away those you saw as enemies. The courts existed just as a window dressing for the international community.
Carlos: I thought there was some knowledge in that your head. How do you expect me to be the head of the Judiciary and then the courts pass a judgment which disfavors me? How did you expect the judges whom I personally appointed to disfavor me? I appointed them to serve me. I had the right to fire any of them at any time when I had the impression that they were not doing their job.
Messenger: Let’s leave out Khan, what happened to Wang Mills?
Carlos: That was the biggest fool who ever lived. He was an important committee member of my party and had many followers who were of his tribe. His tribes’ men numbered over a million and that was an important figure to me when it was elections time though elections were just a formality. I made him minister and he used his position to open many businesses of his own. As a good tool, I exempted him from all taxes and gave him exclusive rights to supply certain goods. His people loved me just for the simple fact that I made one of theirs minister though they were not benefitin
g much from him. That made Mills to think that he was indispensable and grew horns. He dared to challenge me when I asked him to resign from his post of minister so that I could bring in someone else. The intention was not to offend his tribes’ men who might have hated me for firing their son. He was too greedy and did not want to do it. I asked one of my servants to prepare a resignation letter on his behalf and he was forced to sign. The reason for his resignation was read on national television. As punishment for challenging me, I decided to have the amount of money he had to pay as taxes for the number of years he was exempted calculated. He was given a deadline to pay. He couldn’t and I decided to seize all his businesses. In one of his business premises, there was resistance. There was exchange of fire between my men and his guards which resulted in the death of three of my men. He had no right to kill and I decreed that anybody who killed had to die.
Messenger: Did you investigate to find out if Mills was the one who killed your men?
Carlos: It was not necessary. If his guards opened fire, he certainly gave the order. Even if he didn’t, give the order, the deaths occurred on his property and he had to go in for. Besides he had a lot of money which was enough to sponsor a rebellion against me. I had to keep him away by all means.
Messenger: Let’s say he actually killed your three men and by law he had to face the death penalty. “Anybody who killed another had to die” that is what you’ve said. But you killed thousands. Why didn’t you hand in yourself for execution because that was equally a violation of the law?
Carlos: Are you crazy? How do you want me to set a trap only to turn around and fall in it? Do you sometimes reason before asking those your questions? I ordered people to be executed. I didn’t go out cutting people’s heads or putting bullets in their heads myself. So, I can still say that I didn’t do anything and be logically correct.
Within the Walls of Hell Page 6