In 2018, after a two-year conflict, two historically warring nations — Ethiopia and Eritrea — at last signed a peace agreement. The following year, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who brokered the peace, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In the two years since, Abiy joins the ranks of controversial Peace Prize recipients and nominees, as his record now includes overseeing what may amount to war crimes. Myanmar’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, for example, was awarded the prize in 1991 “for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights;” shortly thereafter, her government was accused of genocide against the Rohingya minority. Joseph Stalin, head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was twice nominated for the prize.
When Abiy received his Nobel Prize, he faced two clear paths: the path of democracy that could reconcile deep-rooted internal ethnic divisions and bring lasting peace to Ethiopia, or that of authoritarianism and renewed ethnic grievances.
