The best-selling author in the world, Australian Thomas Keneally, the author of ‘Schindler’s List’ -- the novel that would later become film maker Steven Spielberg's Epic Masterpiece, he also authored another book titled "To Asmara," where he said the following in the book:
“Do you know what the emergency really is? You want to hear about the really big emergency? The emergency is that if you Eritreans succeed, you’ll be an embarrassment to Africa. Who wants a setup like yours? There aren’t many governments on this continent that do. There aren’t many governments in Europe. Colored folk who can look after themselves? It isn’t viable. It upsets the world picture. Don’t you know the West has to believe famine’s an act of God? If they believe that, they only have to make a donation. But if they believe it’s an act of bloody politics, they have to really do something, and that’s too, too complicated. So what is the story? The story is you Eritreans will fall on your own fuking swords, because you’ve got this crazy idea that the world will allow you to be perfect!”
“You know what I think? Eritreans are brave to the point of folly and they’re clever to the point of being dumb. No one absolutely no one, from Washington to Moscow, wants them to succeed. No one. … God’s even taken the rain away from them, for Christ’s sake. Even he thinks they’re wrong-headed. The sin of pride … the sin of being sharp when no one wants them to be. Their presumption, that their EPLF organization can save them. That … that won’t easily be forgiven.”
“(During the late 70's and early 80's) Saudi agents and even the CIA were said to hang round Kassala, the Sudanese border oasis and city, encouraging the ELF to attack the EPLF. For it was a matter of surprise… that no one seemed to want the Eritreans to win. Neither the Americans nor the Saudis … nor the Russians, who supplied military advice and arms to Ethiopia. No one wanted an independent Eritrea republic along the stretch of Red Sea shore.”
“Eritrea was not the present. It was the future in terms of theories – military and revolutionary – which hung in its fiery air.”
“These Eritreans are astounding! Running all this. And you know what? The world hates ‘em for it! The world hooked into the idea of ‘the helpless Africans!’”
