As He Was Receiving Nobel Peace Prize, Ethiopian Prime Minister Was Planning for War
Abiy Ahmed is fighting a brutal civil war less two years after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Now new revelations are casting further doubt on the decision to award him the prize.
Reports of a widespread famine spreading across northern Ethiopia has focused attention once again on embattled Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Thousands of civilians in the northern region of the country have been displaced, with refugees from Tigray streaming into the capital of Addis Ababa.
Now new reporting has revealed that Abiy Ahmed had been preparing for his war with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) since before his 2019 Nobel Prize had been awarded. Having formed a relationship with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki in the months and years before Ahmed’s Nobel, the two sought to instigate the conflict to pacify Northern Ethiopia.
Images of a Nobel Peace Prize winner commanding an army ‘from the battlefront’ have previously embarassed the Nobel Committee. These new revelations will only deeper the Committee’s growing crisis of legitimacy.
The Prime Minister received the 2019 Peace Prize for his role in facilitating the peace agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea, ending decades of conflict between the two nations.
The Nobel Prize is meant to be awarded to the individual who made “the most significant contribution to peace” in the past year, and to the person who “shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” There’s no doubt that Ahmed had met those criteria.
However, in its statement awarding him the price much of the praise the Nobel Committee offered for Ethiopian Prime Minister was centred around what he would do next, not what he had already done. “No doubt some people will think this year’s prize is being awarded too early” the Committee admitted at the time. But Ahmed’s efforts “deserve recognition and need encouragement.”
Why was Admed afforded such patience? In the words of Declan Walsh in the New York Times, “The West [was] eager for a glittering success story in Africa.” In the wake of receiving his prize, Abiy became a global celebrity, and was granted audience with a host of American politicians.
Other researchers believe that being a Novel Laureate also suggested to Ahmed that the West wouldn’t scrutinize his actions, giving him the confidence to carry out his war against the Tigrayans. “The glitter of the Nobel Prize, and a burning desire for a success story in Africa, blinded many Western countries to his evident faults” said Judd Devermont, a former intelligence officer who specializes in Africa. “We have to acknowledge that we helped to contribute to Abiy’s view of himself. We papered over these challenges very early. We gave him a blank check. When it went wrong, we initially turned a blind eye.”
This view is echoed by other Ethiopian politicians. In an interview with Kjetil Tronvoll, a Norwegian professor and observer of the Nobel Prize, an unnamed official stated that he “will always hold the Nobel committee responsible for destroying our country. After Abiy received the peace prize, he viewed this as a recognition of his politics and would no longer listen to objections or the dangers of recentralised power in Ethiopia.”
Even before being awarded the prize, the democratic reforms Ahmed was promising were backsliding. The borders and trade routes between Ethiopia and Eritrea, temporarily restored, were already being shut down again. When he arrived in Oslo to receive the prize, Ahmed had embroiled himself in further controversy by refusing to participate in the customary recipient press conference.
The day Ahmed was given the award, Eritrean political activist Vanessa Tsehaye published an op-ed in CNN explaining the collaboration between Abiy and Isaias Afwerki that would play out in the months to come. “This peace agreement was not about resolving the border dispute or bringing peace to Eritrea. Instead, it was a strategic political move by Ahmed that has benefited both leaders financially and diplomatically, whilst uniting them against their common political enemy” she said.
Tsehaye and Tronvoll both suggest that the Committee lacks the expertise needed to make informed decisions on its nominees. Tronvoll argues that it should explicitly include experts on war and peace, international law, and human rights, and expand its membership to international officials, not just Norwegian political elites. In Abiy’s case, a member who was more knowledgeable of the Ethiopian political situation and who wasn’t as susceptible to Western proclivities towards leaders in the global south, would have been beneficial.
As a body of five Norwegian politicians selected by the Norwegian Parliament, the Committee is exclusive by design. Yet by confining the members to Norwegian politicians, it is also able to display a degree of objectivity. According to Tronvoll, opening the doors to members outside this small club of relatively disinterested Norwegian politicians invites accusations of more overt political bias.
