💭 አርመኔው ግራኝ አብዮት አህመድ አሊ፤ “በዓለም ላይ በጣም መጥፎው የሀገር መሪ ነው” ተባለ
From the Nobel Peace Prize to the front lines
In competition with among others Jair Bolsonaro and Boris Johnson, Abiy Ahmed has been named the worst head of state in 2021 by a panel of professors and researchers, on behalf of the Norwegian newspaper Morgenbladet.
2021 hasn’t just been affected by a pandemic, but also bad and dangerous leadership in many countries, writes Norwegian weekly newspaper Morgenbladet.
An expert panel was put together by the newspaper to discuss and conclude: Who was the worst head of state in 2021?
👉 The final verdict: Abiy Ahmed. 😈
In 2019 he came to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, for his “efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation.” Two years later, Ethiopia is marred by civil war.
The New York times recently described the situation as “a year of conflict in Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country and a linchpin of regional security, has left thousands dead, forced more than two million people from their homes and pushed parts of the country into famine.”
A wasted opportunity
While dictactors in general, like North-Koreas Kim Jong-un, suppress their people as a natural part of their leadership, 2021 has been a very active year for Prime Minister Ahmed, Morgenbladet writes.
“Abiy has done nothing to downscale the ongoing civil war in his country, because he wants to secure his own alliances and his own position. He is perhaps the most disappointing head of state of the year,” professor Carl Henrik Knutsen says to the newspaper.
Knutsen served in the newspaper’s expert panel on the topic.
“With the Nobel Prize in his pocket and the recognition that comes with it from international alliances, a lot was in place for Abiy to develop his country in a positive direction. He wasted that opportunity and seems to have put his own concerns over that of his citizens,” he says.
The worst of the bad
The expert panel consisted of Carl Henrik Knutsen, professor of political science at the University of Oslo, Lise Rakner, professor of political science at the University of Bergen, Helle Malmvig, senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies and Dan Smith, Director at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
“A truly bad head of state is an authoritarian and oppressive leader who undermines the political institutions in the country and concentrates all power in his own hands, at any cost,” according to Knutsen.
Discussions that included Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and the king of Saudi-Arabia, Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, finally narrowed down to a list of six nominees:
- Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the UK
- Alexander Lukashenko, President of Belarus
- Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India
- Jair Bolsonaro, President of Brasil
- Michel Aoun, President of Lebanon
- Abiy Ahmed, Prime Minister of Ethiopia
Watching people die during a pandemic
Questions that were discussed were whether the head of state has contributed to financial decline in their own country, supported or started a civil war and suppressed civil or political rights. Handling of the pandemic was also an important criterion.
“Leaders who are in denial, who with open eyes watch a large number of people dying during the pandemic and call information about this mortality “fake news” – I believe this is a form of genocide,” said Professor Lise Rakner.
On the more unusual suspect on the list, Boris Johson, Rakner has the following to say:
“The United Kingdom still have a free press, a stable legal system and an independent central bank, which means that Johnson cannot control things in any way he would like to. But if you had given Brasil to Johnson, a lot of things would have gone very wrong. What a clown.”
The violent solution
According to Dan Smith from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the most important criterion in deciding on the worst head of state in 2021 was starting an irresponsible war and using systematic violence. This is why Abiy ends up top, he says to Morgenbladet.
“Since the outbreak of the war, there have been obvious alternative ways of acting, but all of them have been rejected. Both sides have blocked a politically negotiated solution. Instead, Abiy has chosen the most violent solution,” he says.
Nobel Body Criticizes Peace Prize Winner Abiy Ahmed Ali Over Tigray
💭 የኖርዌይ ኖቤል ኮሚቴ በትግራይ ላይ በሚፈጽመው ወንጀል የሰላም ሽልማት አሸናፊውን አብይ አህመድ አሊን ኮነነው
The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the Nobel Peace Prize, said Thursday that Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who won the honour in 2019, bore special responsibility for ending the bloodshed in Tigray.
“As Prime Minister and winner of the Peace Prize, Abiy Ahmed has a special responsibility to end the conflict and contribute to peace,” Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the committee, said in a statement to AFP.
Northern Ethiopia has been beset by conflict since November 2020 when Abiy sent troops into Tigray after accusing the region’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), of attacks on federal army camps.
The fighting between forces loyal to Abiy and the TPLF and their allies has killed thousands of people and forced several million from their homes.
Spokeswoman Billene Seyoum responded to the committee’s comments, saying Abiy had already shouldered his responsibilities.
“The Prime Minister has indeed taken up this ‘special responsibility’ of ending the conflict waged on the state by TPLF and has been engaged in putting an end not only to the past year’s conflict but the destabilising activities of the TPLF, designated a terrorist organisation by parliament,” Billen told AFP.
Tigray is under what the United Nations calls a de facto blockade that is preventing life-saving medicine and food from reaching millions, including hundreds of thousands in famine-like conditions.
Millions of people have fled their homes since the conflict in Tigray erupted in November 2020
“The humanitarian situation is very serious and it is not acceptable that humanitarian aid does not get through sufficiently,” Reiss-Andersen said.
Speaking at a press conference, Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth appealed for countries to press Abiy to allow aid to get through.
“The big threat there is the Ethiopian government’s blockade of humanitarian assistance that is desperately needed by millions of people in the region,” Roth told reporters.
“This is a classic case of collective punishment. This is not punishing Tigrayan military forces. It is punishing the people… in Tigray,” he added.
The conflict in Tigray has sparked calls to strip Abiy of the Nobel, but this is not possible under the award’s statutes.
The Norwegian committee said it could not comment on what factors were emphasised when the prize was awarded to Abiy beyond “the reasons given in connection with the award,” as the panel’s discussions are confidential.
In November 2020, Abiy’s government allowed Eritrean forces into Tigray as they together pursued the Tigray leaders after political tensions erupted into war. Some tens of thousands of people have been killed, and hundreds of thousands now face famine as Ethiopia’s government has kept almost all food and medical aid from Tigray since late June.
“Since the autumn of 2020, developments in Ethiopia have escalated to a comprehensive armed conflict,” the statement said. “The humanitarian situation is very serious, and it is not acceptable that humanitarian aid does not emerge to a sufficient degree.”
The conflict entered a new phase in late December when Tigray forces retreated into their region amid a new military offensive and Ethiopian forces said they would not advance further there.
_________
________
_________
Addis Ethiopia Weblog 