Officials say winner’s refusal to face public questioning is ‘highly problematic’
Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister of Ethiopia, has come under pressure to appear before the media in Oslo this week when he collects the Nobel peace prize on Tuesday.
Senior officials of the Norwegian Nobel Institute have said the 2019 winner’s refusal to attend any event where he could be asked questions publicly is “highly problematic”.
Continue reading...Literature laureate accused of supporting Slobodan Milošević gives inaugural lecture
The controversial 2019 Nobel literature laureate, Austrian author Peter Handke, gave his inaugural lecture on Saturday night in front of the Swedish Academy and in the face of intense criticism of his selection for the honour.
Handke, 77, who is perhaps best known for the novel Wings of Desire, is accused of supporting the genocidal Serbian regime led by Slobodan Milošević and of denying the extent of Serbian terror and killing during the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia.
Continue reading...Violent clashes leave at least 67 dead as activist compares Abiy Ahmed to a dictator
Violence in Ethiopia that began with protests against the prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, and quickly morphed into ethnic clashes has left 67 people dead in Oromia state, a police official said on Friday.
“The total number dead in Oromia is 67,” said Kefyalew Tefera, the regional police chief, adding that five of the dead were police officers.
Continue reading...Global acclaim for the peace he forged with Eritrea should buoy a leader facing the persecution of ethnic minorities at home
The Nobel prize awarded last week to Ethiopia’s prime minister, Dr Abiy Ahmed, honoured his achievements as a peacemaker. Most widely recognised was his success in thawing relations with Eritrea, the breakaway republic with which Ethiopia had remained on a war footing since the country gained independence in 1993.
No less significant, however, was his management of the internal conflict between the Ethiopian government and protesters in Oromia, the region surrounding Addis Ababa, the capital. Rather than attempting to shut down the protests by force, Abiy acknowledged their grievances, and opened up political space. He freed political prisoners jailed by previous administrations, and restored the legitimacy of parties formerly branded as terrorist organisations.
Continue reading...The decision to honour the Ethiopian prime minister recognises the astonishing changes he has pushed through. But the country’s progress remains precarious
The list of Nobel peace prize winners encompasses the good and great, but also a few more curious nominees. Some were controversial from the first. Barack Obama was honoured before he had a chance to do anything significant with his office. Henry Kissinger was given the prize when he had already done far too much; the award, said one observer, made political satire obsolete. In other cases, history has proved unkind. Aung San Suu Kyi was recognised in 1991, as a dissident who had long campaigned for democracy and freedom. But she became head of Myanmar’s government and, though she has no power over the military, her silence as it carried out mass killings of Rohingya Muslims led many to call – unsuccessfully – for her prize to be revoked.
So handing this year’s prize to a leader who has been in power for just 18 months, and was little known before that, is a bold move. Yet the Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, has an astonishing amount to show for his time in office. The award is primarily to recognise his work to secure peace and international cooperation, and in particular the deal he signed with Eritrea last summer, which ended a nearly 20-year military stalemate following a long border war. The domestic changes he has effected in a highly repressive country are equally impressive. Half his cabinet is female, as is his chief justice – and the head of the election board, a former exiled dissident. Bans on opposition parties have been lifted, thousands of political prisoners have been freed, and senior officials have been arrested for corruption and human rights abuses. It is all the more astonishing given that he was appointed by the instinctively autocratic Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front. His remarkable record, however brief, has turned scepticism about his promises into “Abiymania”.
Continue reading...With novels including Beloved and The Bluest Eye, the acclaimed author who dramatised the African American experience with fierce passion for five decades, has died aged 88