Hailu Shawul

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Hailu Shawul (also spelled Shawel; Shawil) (born 1936) is an Ethiopian engineer and the chairman of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD). He was born in Northern Shewa.

Hailu Shawul was the chairman of Kinijit and succeeded Professor Asrat Woldeyes as the head of the All-Amhara People's Organization (AAPO). However some sources dispute his presidency and show that the division inside AAPO to two factions - AEUP and EUDP - was due to Hailu Shawel not gaining presidency and thus creating his own party. ^[1] He contributed to the transformation of the AAPO into the multi-ethnic All Ethiopian Unity Party (AEUP), which was one of several that united October 2004 in the CUD, with the goal of fielding candidates in the May 15, 2005 general elections.

As a result of the protests that followed the general elections, the government placed Hailu Shawul under house arrest for a period. When the CUD led a peaceful protest that killed four Police officers in October 2005, he and 23 other CUD leaders were arrested and imprisoned on charges of treason and genocide.^[2] Still imprisoned in December, Hailu Shawul joined with other CUD prisoners on a hunger strike, which has aggravated his diabetes and threatens his vision. Although the hunger strike appears to have ended, Hailu Shawul has lost much of his sight,^[3] gaining access to medical care only after being visited by foreign diplomats.^[4] But on December 2007 the Ethiopian Federal Supreme Court pardoned all twenty-four of the CUD members after they played guilty and apologized to the Ethiopian Public. After being freed from prison, Hailu Shawul traveled to America in January 2008 to get medical care for his diabetes.