Why Did Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia Win the Nobel Peace Prize?
Successful trans-border conflict resolution has historically been an extremely common catalyst to win the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1998, John Hume of Ireland and David Trimble of the United Kingdom were awarded the Peace Prize for working to end a war. The same can be said of the 1994 cooperation between Palestinian Yasser Arafat and Israelis Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. Muhmmad Anwar al-Sadat of Egypt and Menachem Begin of Israel were awarded the Peace Prize in 1978, as were Lê Đức Thọ of North Vietnam and Henry Kissinger of the United States in 1973. It is not shocking, then, that after quelling the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed. Interestingly, the Nobel committee unilaterally awarded the Peace Prize to Ahmed, excluding Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki.
What Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s accomplished in a mere year and half is awe-inspiring. Eritrea and Ethiopia had been marred in a border conflict from 1998 until the signing of the “Joint Declaration of Peace and Friendship between Ethiopia and Eritrea” on September 17th, 2018. This twenty-year war claimed 100,000 lives and resulted in the suspension of all air-service between the two countries, the disconnection of phone lines, as well as the separation of many families between the two nations. The Joint Declaration restarted air service, re-opened the phone lines, and reunited families. Prime Minister Ahmed even unconditionally returned the town of Badme to Eritrea after sixteen years ignoring the Hague’s decision that Eritrea’s claim to the disputed border region was stronger.
On the domestic front, Prime Minister Ahmed offered pardons and amnesty to thousands of political opponents that had been branded as terrorists. Media organizations were granted broader freedom in reporting and reform councils were started to review laws that had been used for repressing political and civil rights. Ahmed lifted a state of emergency and promoted gender reform by selecting women to hold positions in a historically male-dominanted cabinet.
Unfortunately, the Prime Minister’s reforms have also reignited ethnic violence across the country. With this rapid liberalization, Ethiopia appears to be on a crash course to become the world’s next Yugoslavia. Ethiopia is home to 110 million people, 80 ethnic groups, and 86 actively spoken languages; in short, it is a diverse giant. Ethiopia's nine federal states were drawn to offer territorial autonomy to large ethnic groups. Yet Ethnic rivalries have caused 2.9 million Ethiopians to be internally displaced, the highest number of internally displaced people in the world. The divisiveness of Ethiopian politics was clearly displayed in June of 2019 when an attempted coup occurred in the Northern Amhara Region.
Ahmed, the leader who has been internationally lauded for his improvements in the arena of free speech and political rights, suddenly reverted the country back to its old habits. The internet was completely shut off for six days and carried out mass arrests throughout the country. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time the Prime Minister hit the kill-switch on the country’s internet. Within the month following the restoration of internet connection after the coup, the internet was inexplicably shut down several times, and full access to Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram had not been returned. When the internet kill-switch is employed, the populace is effectively rendered dependent on state media for updates about the coup.
Since the peace deal, there has been tangible backtrack on the Prime Minister’s record. Large border crossings, such as Zalambessa, were opened with grand celebrations following the Peace Deal. They were quickly shut down again. The Eritrean Embassy that was promised to be reopened remains closed, with no progress thus far. One day before the Nobel Prize was awarded, Ahmed held an event called “Medemer,” meaning inclusivity and togetherness in Amharic, with neighboring nations. Uganda, Somalia, and Sudan all sent representatives for the talks. But there was a notable absence of Eritrean President Afewerki and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al Sisi.
While hopeful talks with Eritrea have completely stagnated, a new trans-border conflict involving Ethiopia is brewing. Ethiopia plans to build a massive dam named the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, near the border with Ethiopia. This dam would further deplete Egypt’s access to the Nile River Waters that it so desperately needs. There has been a dramatic rise in bellicose rhetoric, with Prime Minister Ahmed threatening that he “could muster an army of a million men to defend the dam.” Ahmed’s statements led to a quick rebuke from Egyptian officials. The head of Egypt’s Parliament Defense and Security Committee told journalists that he would “authorize President Abdel Fattah al Sisi to declare war on Addis Ababa.”
Domestically, Prime Minister Ahmed is facing even more challenges. On October 25, 2019, just weeks after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, the rapidly worsening Balkanization came to a head. 67 people died in anti-Ahmed protests and 200 were injured after a vocal critic of the Prime Minister, Jawar Mohammed, accused Ahmed of plotting an assassination attempt against him. Bloody protests erupted in the cities of Addis Ababa, Harar, and Ambo. There has been sharp criticism from domestic sources about Ahmed’s handling of the crisis: the Prime Minister decided to stay in Russia and said nothing to calm domestic anxiety surrounding the event.
Critics from around the globe have protested Ahmed’s selection for the Nobel Peace Prize, claiming the presentation is premature in light of the absence of much tangible progress since his ascension to power in 2018. The Nobel Committee’s press release even said, “No doubt some people will think this year’s prize is being awarded too early.” And a nominator of Ahmed for the Peace Prize, Awol K Allo, commented that he “nominated him partly because I view the Nobel Peace Prize as a call to action - a prestigious award that would give Abiy the moral authority to redouble his effort.” These claims appear to go against the will of Alfred Nobel, as outlined by the criterion for the Prize: it should be awarded “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” Nowhere does it, even remotely, imply that the Prize and its associated one million dollars should be used as an incentive to do further work.
There is worry that the Nobel Committee is attempting to tip the scales in Ethiopia’s hotly-contested upcoming elections. Ahmed was first made head of the governing coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, when Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn stepped down from office and has still yet to win a national popular vote. The premature awarding of the Nobel Prize could be seen as the broader international community attempting to sway domestic Ethiopian politics rather than permitting them to reflect the will of the Ethiopian people.
While Prime Minister Ahmed’s domestic strides are impressive and deserve recognition, he does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize at this point. This year, the Nobel Peace Prize was given prematurely because there have yet to be true results from his efforts with Eritrea. In addition, Ahmed has reverted, in some ways, back to a style of leadership he previously condemned--he repeatedly used the internet kill-switch when convenient and quelled protests by authorizing violence perpetrated by his security forces. The Nobel Prize, by definition, should not be used to incentivize a leader to do something that the larger international committee hopes will be accomplished in the leader’s country, nor should it be used to sway upcoming elections by taking away the self-determination of the country’s populace.