This is the chair of the Nobel Committee.
And she's talking about this man:
"Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed."
...who's about to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Ethiopia's new leader had ended a decades-long war
with a neighboring country, Eritrea.
But, less than a year later, Ethiopia was attacking one of its own regions,
the regional state of Tigray,
and had called on Eritrea, its new ally, to attack from the north.
In just a few months, the country’s leader had gone from this:
...to this:
Ethiopia is now at war with itself.
The conflict there has already killed thousands of fighters and civilians,
and forced more than 60,000 Ethiopians to seek refuge over the border, in Sudan.
Ethiopia seemed like it was on the brink of peace.
How did it fall into a civil war so quickly?
The Ethiopian Empire was one of the few places in Africa
that escaped European colonization.
It did that in part by invading and absorbing neighboring countries,
to protect the central empire from European forces.
The result was a very diverse country, with dozens of ethnicities.
But it was ruled by the empire’s Amhara people.
All other ethnic groups were treated like second-class citizens.
After World War II, the Ethiopian empire absorbed the former European colony of Eritrea,
and treated the people there the same way.
One result of that was the formation of a militia, whose goal was independence from Ethiopia:
The Eritrean People's Liberation Front, or EPLF.
Then, in 1977, a communist dictator took control of Ethiopia.
Colonel Mengistu rose to leadership in part by having his rivals killed.
Once in power, he began cracking down on dissenting groups immediately.
Mengistu launched a bloody military campaign called the "Red Terror,"
killing thousands that opposed him.
By this time, other militias had formed.
One of them was the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF.
The militias began to work together, especially in the north.
"The TPLF and EPLF are political movements representing societies
that are culturally very proximate."
This alliance made these regions strong enough to resist Mengistu’s army,
but he doubled down on his crackdown across the rest of the country.
Other militias and dissidents began to look to the north for protection.
Mengistu responded by killing civilians in Tigray and Eritrea,
and even preventing international famine aid from reaching the region.
Over one million Ethiopians died during his regime.
But by the late 1980s, the TPLF and EPLF had built up militias with thousands of fighters.
And in 1991, both groups formed a coalition with other militias,
and successfully overthrew Mengistu’s regime.
Only a few days later, Eritrea declared independence from Ethiopia.
It left the TPLF as the most powerful force in the country.
The leader of the TPLF, Meles Zenawi, became the first prime minister
of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.
In an attempt to balance power among its ethnic groups,
Zenawi remade the country's political system into a kind of democracy,
in which many of the militias who had overthrown the previous regime became political parties.
Including the TPLF.
And he divided Ethiopia into ten ethnic-based regional states.
The TPLF only represented about 5% of Ethiopia’s population.
But in Zenawi’s new government, it formed a coalition with allies
representing the most populous regions.
It guaranteed that elections would always come out in the TPLF’s favor.
But just a few years after Zenawi took power,
he went to war with Eritrea along its border with Tigray.
It severed the relationship between the two countries for decades.
Zenawi's political system also did nothing to stop violence
between ethnic groups throughout the country.
Zenawi died in 2012, but the TPLF remained in power.
In 2015, they held an election that many saw as rigged,
and won by a landslide.
It led to massive protests across the country.
More and more saw the TPLF-led government as corrupt and illegitimate.
And finally, in 2018, the government selected a new prime minister,
from one of Ethiopia’s historically oppressed groups,
who had advocated for peace and unity for the country.
To many in Ethiopia and around the world, it felt like a new beginning
“Dr. Abiy Ahmed”
“Young and outspoken”
“...60% of the votes. The first prime minister of Oromo descent.”
"The prime minister repeatedly spoke about values of love, and reconciliation,
building consensus, promoting peace... not just in Ethiopia,
but also at the regional level. So we were very hopeful."
But almost immediately, Abiy’s agenda put him in conflict with the TPLF.
One of Abiy’s first major acts as prime minister
was to repair relations with Eritrea, which was now an enemy of the TPLF.
He also began to remove corrupt TPLF officials from power.
Then, Abiy started a new coalition that eventually became a single party:
the Prosperity Party.
Abiy extended an invitation to the TPLF to join the new party.
But they rejected it, and instead joined the opposition.
Tigray’s regional elections in August 2020 were an opportunity for the TPLF
to start rebuilding their power.
Then, Abiy postponed those elections -- according to him, because of the pandemic.
In defiance, the TPLF decided they would no longer recognize Abiy’s government,
and held regional elections anyway.
They said the prime minister is proposing to postpone the election
because his Prosperity Party could not win an election, and therefore,
the prime minister is using the pandemic as an excuse.
Abiy responded by restricting federal funding to Tigray.
The TPLF retaliated by taking over a federal military base.
They were now at war.
As of today, Ethiopian forces have taken over much of Tigray's territory.
In addition, Eritrean forces have also invaded and taken over territory.
Thousands have been displaced or killed.
"We left everything and fled."
"There was heavy fighting and many people died."
"These people are coming with knives and sticks, wanting to attack citizens.
And behind them is the Ethiopian army with tanks."
Abiy Ahmed is not the first leader to bring Ethiopia to war.
What sets him apart is that he promised peace.
The problem is that Abiy's vision of a unified Ethiopia didn’t include everyone.
And that’s one way he’s not so different from his predecessors.
"The country today is extremely polarized.
Social divisions are particularly deep and intense.
It's difficult to see how Ethiopians can persuade Tigrayans
to continue to pledge allegiance to the Ethiopian state."