Word: shum
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Dusk is just settling over the paddies and poultry farms along the Shum Chun River as Captain David Thomas, 27, and his squad begin their daily rounds. Floodlights soon snap on and illuminate the terraces of barbed wire and cyclone fencing that lead down to the river. Thomas, a veteran of British service in Northern Ireland, suddenly spots movement through his "starlight scope...
...decades, the Emperor has maintained control by playing the game of shum-shir (up-down in Amharic), a technique of raising and lowering his subordinates' status so as to maintain their loyalty without letting them become overly powerful. In the same way he balances his security forces against each other. In Eritrea, for example, there are two ranking generals but only one division, a paramilitary force of 5,000 field police to balance the division and a smaller force of home guards to balance the police. The inescapable conclusion is that the Emperor's fear of an internal...