Ethiopia's Abiy gives a warning with his Nobel Prize

(SOUNDBITE) (English) ETHIOPIAN PRIME MINISTER, ABIY AHMED, SAYING:

"We do not want the Horn to be a battleground for superpowers, nor a hideout for the merchants of terror and brokers of despair and misery."

Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed received his Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday (December 6) at a ceremony in Norway.

But although Abiy won his award for efforts at ending decades of hostility with his country's neighbor Eritrea, he parted the ceremony with a warning about a different threat: militant groups and what he called the "global military superpowers" expanding in the region.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) ETHIOPIAN PRIME MINISTER, ABIY AHMED, SAYING:

"I was a young soldier when war broke out between Ethiopia and Eritrea. I witnessed first hand ugliness of war in frontline battles. There are those who have never seen war but glorify and romanticise it. They have not seen the fear. (...) They have not seen the destruction or heartbreak, nor have they have felt the mournful emptiness of war after the carnage."

Progressive reforms by Abiy's administration have won him praise on the international stage. He's Africa's youngest leader.

But his attempts to unify the country - including the formation of a single national political party - have also laid bare tensions between Ethiopia's many ethnic groups, which have boiled over into mass violence. read more...