Sunday, September 4, 2016

Berhanu Nega's War in Ethiopia

The New York Times Magazine published on 31 August 2016 an article titled "Once a Bucknell Professor, Now the Commander of an Ethiopian Rebel Army" by Joshua Hammer.

This is the story of Berhanu Nega, a former university professor who is on indefinite leave of absence from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania and now spends most of his time in Eritrea leading an effort known as Ginbot 7 to topple the government in neighboring Ethiopia. He left Pennsylvania for Eritrea in July 2015. The author of the story met with Berhanu in both the United States and Eritrea. Berhanu says he overseas several hundred rebel fighters in Eritrea as well as an unknown number of armed members inside Ethiopia who carry out occasional attacks. His family continues to live in the United States to which he travels on an Eritrean passport as he does not have U.S. citizenship.

A couple readers (see comments) criticized my choice of title for this piece. I would note that the title of the article in the published version of The New York Times Magazine was "Professor Nega's War." My title was nothing more than a rewording of this title as some readers do not connect Berhanu Nega with Ethiopia. Most followers of this blog are not Ethiopian.