Ethiopia: Nobel committee calls on Abiy Ahmed to end the conflict in Tigray
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (R) is honored by Nobel Committee Chairman Berit Reiss-Andersen at Oslo City Hall in Norway, December 10, 2019. NTB Scanpix/Hakon Mosvold Larsen via REUTERS
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1 min
The Ethiopian Prime Minister has a "
special responsibility
" to end the conflict ravaging the Tigray region.
Statement this Wednesday, January 12 from the Nobel committee which awarded him the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.
The decision was motivated at the time in particular by its reconciliation with Eritrea, which would become its ally in the war with Tigray.
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With our correspondent in Nairobi,
Florence Morice
The declaration of the Nobel Committee sounds like a call to order. Its president Reiss Anderson refers the Ethiopian Prime Minister to his "
particular responsibility
" as a laureate for "
ending the conflict
" in progress in his country and "
helping to establish peace
".
Abyi Ahmed's spokeswoman, Billene Seyoum reacted, faithful to the rhetoric deployed for a year by Addis Ababa.
She argues that the Prime Minister has precisely "
assumed
" this "
particular responsibility
" by launching his offensive in November 2020 against the Tigray People's Liberation Front, to "
end the conflict launched against the State by the TPFL
" considered by Parliament as a terrorist organization.
The Norwegian committee does not go so far as to disavow itself for having awarded a Nobel Peace Prize to a man who became a warlord and emphasizes in justification that this prize was awarded to the Prime Minister for "
his legitimate efforts and expectations which existed in 2019
”.
►
To read also: Nobel Peace Prize to Abiy Ahmed: a widely hailed award
From that time on, however, voices, notably from researchers, had been raised to criticize this decision… Voices which already pointed to the absence of a space for dialogue in the country and an “
increasingly exacerbated ethnic polarization
”.
Note that the statutes of the Nobel Committee do not provide for a prize to be withdrawn after it has been awarded, as it has sometimes been asked to do.
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Ethiopia
Abiy Ahmed
Nobel prize