Berhanu and the Blind Shifta: the Coups that Never Was!

By Mekonnen Eyassu, 05/02/09

Ever since the news about the arrest of the terrorist plotters associated with the Ginbot 7 freaks was out, there has been a flurry of cyber chatter. The problem with most articles on Dr Berhanu is that they seem to take the buffoon way more seriously than he could ever possibly believe he is capable of: engaging in a serious campaign to overthrow a government.

Hearing Berhanu Nega strut his stuff on Diaspora radio, one could not help reflecting on the farcical odyssey of the buffoon from a street smart politician to a seemingly rubble raising—even if a fair weather one—fictional guerrilla leader. If one did not have any idea who was talking, Che Guevara would have paled in comparison. His would seem a case of bravery par excellence. A wimp by disposition, his efforts at putting up a Herculean face in every radio show he appears is quite entertaining, to say the least. But then again, this is no laughing matter.

In the face of it, the decision by Berhanu & co. to launch an armed struggle is an uncanny reminder of the proverbial blind man who became a shifta (bandit) in his own backyard, insisting to everyone he met if the powers that be are panicking as a result. This is more interesting coming as it does from a guy who twice soiled his pants upon being arrested by officers—giving cowardice a very bad name.

Websites sympathetic to the freaks have been particularly abuzz at the rather morale-raising news that may be; after all, Berhanu Nega was not bluffing when he said he was staging an armed rebellion to remove woyanne. Interestingly, despite the fact that the news was one of a failed plot to carry out desperate terrorist activities, the mood among the ERs and the Ethiomedias has largely been euphoric. It is even startling to see that people who are very good at making up stories of successful operations by the imaginary EPPF and the like are now gloating over the arrest of some lunatics as part of Berhanu’s harebrained campaign to prove—even if for a second—he could make his presence felt where he is least expected—leading a successful campaign involving the use of arms. The focus of ER and EM has been—interestingly—on a fictitious coup attempt, not the harebrained assassination plot that the campaign actually was.

Why are they therefore euphoric about the so-called ‘coups attempt’ when in fact there was nothing on the ground that would plausibly suggest that there was one?

The explanation lies in the very raison d’être for the Ginbot 7 movement itself. Berhanu & Andargachew’s motivation for launching the ‘Ginbot 7 Movement’ was not their declared intention ‘to remove Woyanne from power through any means including through violence.’ Not that they would not have wished they could; but simply because they never have the stuff required for that kind of job even if they were the last two people to survive a nuclear holocaust. Impertinent as this disclosure may sound, these are people who gave cowardice a very bad name. Nor were they trying to concoct some kind of rallying point behind which forces that otherwise would lay dormant can rally. They both know for a long time that only few people in the Diaspora—much less inside Ethiopia—would have illusions about taking the ridiculous duo any more seriously than they did the apocryphal ‘Kefagn’ Liberation army led by Haile Meles or Mengistu Haile Mariam’s Tikur Anbessa army. Ginbot 7 was Berhanu and Andargachew’s weird equivalent of conscientious objector-ing: a convenient excuse to explain away their Absence Without Leave (AWOL) from field action. Both went AWOL not so much out of principle as for lack of an iota of determination to contribute something concrete for the cause they would have you believe they would gladly give their lives. That Berhanu and Andargachew did time and again proved they have a lose sphincter in the face of even the slightest of physical challenges is, of course, common knowledge particularly among their former comrades of the CUD. That the ready tendency to soil one’s pants at the mere sight of a passing-by security officer and the exigencies of leading an armed rebellion would make for the least productive combination is never lost on many of the people familiar with the duet’s indignities either. Balls, balls….

So, Ginbot 7 offered a near perfect excuse for both fellas;

a) to avoid the exacting tasks involved in nurturing an effective, peaceful opposition movement which would have meant going back home and playing according to the law books anyway;

b) to pretend like they are working round the clock in order to generate the perfect storm that would see the Woyannes being broken into smithereens, and;

c) to see if they can achieve their secret hope that, may be who knows if, one dictum of Murphy’s law—that if anything can go wrong, it will—somehow works in their favor.

As a bonus, they might also thrive—as luck would have it—by making some money, or fame or both out of it.

Ginbot 7 was a non-entity from the very outset; dead on arrival was what it was really.

But this does not mean the leaders of this freak show remained laid back, only pretending they were doing things. They indeed were and only God knows if they will ever stop. Just any incident—even if a very insignificant one—would go a long way to give them a semblance of practicality that—enter Ethiopian Review and Ethiomedia—would take on mythically exaggerated significance thereby elevating them suddenly into the most modern equivalent of Carlos the Jackal. Needless to say, the jackals of the world used terror for making far from clear political statements at best. But all too often, terror was just an end. What they had in mind when they recruited some desperados over the last year or so was unleashing terror even if it does not achieve any meaningful result than just pure terror. ER’s decision to promote the half-baked plot at attempting desperate terrorist activities into a serious coup plot was part of Berhanu & Andargachew’s anti-Woyanne weaponry. If by some stroke of luck this self serving claim morphs into some kind of political gain to be capitalized on, that would be the icing on the cake. If it does not, Berhanu and Andargachew would still feel equally comfortable since, after all, their central objective—that their supporters (or their jailors) will realize that they have at least tried—will have been achieved anyway. I can bet my eyes this is what will be on Berhanu’s talking point for his May 3 meeting in Washington.

That is why Berhanu’s interviews this past week were particularly on message. Too inept to control his message, he was not able to altogether deny involvement in the plot the government claimed to have foiled. Obviously, he desperately needs to take some, if not all, the credit for that—that being what they are after, primarily, anyway. To assume responsibility would clearly amount to incriminating his cash-strapped recruits that have been caught on their tracks even before a single grenade came off. So, naturally, he had to settle for a rather ridiculous position, farcically claiming that “the arrested are indeed our heroes if they in fact did what Woyanne claimed they did.” If that does not make sense to you, it is simply because they do not really mean to make sense in the first place.

[The double bind Berhanu was caught in: flat out denial is, of course, the order; but that would make his movement look weak. And that he can’t take because that will stand in the way of his new-found image as the Ho Chi Minh of the Ginbot 7 freaks. So came the moment of obfuscation: “if they really did it, if there are really people who stick it to ‘Meles and Bereket’s’ government—we are squarely behind them, their families, they are our heroes”].

Unlike the hoopla by the likes of Berhanu and the spin nurses of the ER, there was no coup attempt whatsoever.

But then again, a coup could not after all have taken place under the circumstances; and so for a number of reasons. Following are some of these.

a) Coups, even if botched ones, by definition, must/should involve seriousness on the part of the plotters. The one thing that is conspicuously missing in this particular incident, ironically, is the element of seriousness. That Berhanu and Andargachew were never serious (at least never as serious as they pretend to be) is very clear. One would think he would be surprised if something even remotely meaningful were to come out of the duo’s idiotic movement. What about the general, his is even more bereft of seriousness. He is an officer who has seen his star fading thanks to his lack of character and discipline. It has now been more than two years since he was relieved of his status as the deputy commander of the Northern Command for lack of THIS. It was only natural that a mediocre economist in Philadelphia and a demoted Brigadier General with not a single platoon under his command could ever organize a coup, much less lead one into fruition. ER’s coup reference was an equivocation at best.

Tefera Mamo? What do we know from the radio appearances? Practically Berhanu’s was an admission, despite the verbal acrobatics. Why? Because it is not about winning, they both know this is beyond the pale. Why pick Tefera Mamo then? They know the general has long had his wings clipped thanks to the army’s self-correcting internal dynamics. This is rather about themselves, about placating their impotence that is all too obvious for supporters and opponents alike. They sound relieved at the very mention of their movement as that by itself vindicates—though in a rather funny way—their claim that they are up to something.

b) Coups plotters often try to enlist the support of a significant portion, if not the majority, of the military, or at least its top brass. A cash-hungry rogue general and half a dozen junior officers of less than reassuring track record are not enough to stage a poorly written drama about coup d’état, let alone carry out one that causes ‘panic’ on a government as Dr Berhanu was repeatedly saying. Actually, the three dozen plus individuals that Berhanu & Andargachew bankrolled into forming the nucleus—as it were—of their much-commercialized ‘Anti-Woyanne’ Struggle were caught in the midst of rehearsing, albeit gingerly—for the role of hired assassins. As it turned out, even that role was to prove—as it did—far too distant a dream to realize.

c) We are talking about the Ethiopian Defense Forces and, needless to say, this is an institution which is off limits to the very notion of coups d’état. As simple as that!

This is not however to suggest that the foiled plot was far from dangerous; it was. For a people and government who have locked horns with poverty as their arch enemy, even one slight violent incident is one incident one too many. And the fact that the attempt was foiled in time bears witness to the seriousness and vigilance with which the peoples of Ethiopia and the security forces are standing guard against every destructive move by anti-peace elements.

But there are also a few things that the recent incident helps amply demonstrate. One, the extent to which people calling themselves Ethiopians could go merely to even old scores with ‘Meles & Bereket’, as it were, in the process endangering the very stability and peace of the nation itself. Equally important, people who are wrapped in the kind of chronic cowardice that the Ginbot 7 duo suffer can be indiscriminate in their choice of means to achieve their petty goals. After all, what matters to them is not what will actually transpire on the ground but what their ‘jailors’ in the Diaspora will come to appreciate, i.e. that even Berhanu & Andargachew are capable of something like this. As we say in Ethiopia, ke fari dula yadinih (May God spare you from the coward’s attack!). Unprincipled rubble-raising could sometimes have unexpected momentum because cowards’ demands may not know limits.

Finally, that you insist the whole nation should burn in Hell on your account as these two chaps do does not necessarily make you a dedicated fighter against tyranny even when there is one, it just means you are an ass.

The writer can be reached at: mekonneneyasu@fastmail.fm