Why is Ethiopia’s Nobel Peace Prize winner bombing his own country?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 3 December 2020
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Ethiopia, a political battle has sparked a bloody conflict.
Federal Forces have engaged in combat with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front - or TPLF.
Hundreds have reportedly been killed and tens of thousands displaced.
Just last year, Abiy Ahmed, the Ethiopian Prime Minister, won a Nobel Prize for his part in brokering peace with neighbouring Eritrea.
So, Charmaine Cozier asks why Ethiopia’s Nobel Peace Prize winner is bombing his own country?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the inquiry. I'm Charmiancozier. Each week, one question, four experts and an answer. |
| 0:07.0 | December 2019, a man wearing a smart black suit stands on the stage at Oslo City Hall in Norway. |
| 0:17.5 | He's there to collect his Nobel Peace Prize Medal and deliver a lecture. |
| 0:22.0 | I also accept this award on behalf of Africans and citizens of the world for whom the dream of peace has |
| 0:29.7 | often turned into a nightmare of war. and that same |
| 0:35.0 | fast forward nearly a year later and that same peace prize winner is giving another |
| 0:39.0 | speech to millions of people in a special morning broadcast on national TV. |
| 0:45.0 | Abbey Ahmed announces he's ordered a military operation against regional forces in the |
| 0:50.1 | to gray region of the same country where he's also the Prime Minister, Ethiopia. |
| 0:56.0 | Since that early November broadcast, hundreds of people are thought to have been killed in the conflict. |
| 1:02.0 | So this week we're asking, why is... thought to have been killed in the conflict. |
| 1:03.0 | So this week we're asking, why is Ethiopia's Nobel Peace Prize winner |
| 1:07.7 | bombing his own country? Part 1, seeds of war. |
| 1:17.0 | Seeds of War. Happy I made the Zeus. Abbe Ahmed is a surprise leader. |
| 1:27.0 | Alex Duval is an Ethiopia analyst and executive director of the World Peace Foundation |
| 1:31.8 | at Tufts University in Boston. |
| 1:33.7 | He says few would have predicted Ahmed's rise in 2018 |
| 1:38.1 | when the previous Prime Minister Hallimarian Desilane |
| 1:41.1 | suddenly resigned following years of anti-government protests. |
| 1:45.0 | He was a middle-ranking politician, a former army officer who sprang almost from nowhere to become Prime Minister of the country in early 2018. |
| 1:58.0 | Abiyak med's early life was spent with his Muslim father and Christian mother in the |
| 2:03.0 | Oromia region in Western Ethiopia. It's home to the country's largest |
... |
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