Transcripts For ALJAZ Inside Story 20240711

Ever received by any president ial ticket and history Election Officials say that is yet to be any evidence of voting irregularities Donald Trumps Republican Party says legal teams have been sent to 4 states to investigate we have seen some discrepancies in michigan and some irregularities that deserve investigation democrats and the media spent for years and millions of taxpayer dollars talking about a russian hoax on the grounds of Election Integrity now with just over 48 hours after polls have closed in an actual election for president they want to ignore clear regularities russia call states as one and the selection we will not stand for that the president is continuing to make on substantiated claims about voter fraud costing doubts over the integrity of the election hes been very critical of pennsylvania philadelphias mayor Jim Ken Kenny has hit back at those attacks. No i think what the president needs to do is frankly put his big boy pants on he needs to acknowledge the fact that he lost and he needs to congratulate the winner just as jimmy carter did just as george h. W. Bush did and frankly just as al gore did and stop this and let us move forward as a country in other news lets take a look at the latest on the corona virus a pandemic theres been another new record rise and infections and from the 2nd straight day that almost 60500 new coronavirus cases on friday and 828 deaths and 400 of those fatalities when hospitals the rest were recorded by Retirement Homes over the last few days and theyve been arrested in london out of protest by people who have pose a new doc down across in the u. K. Recorded 23000 new cases on friday and sad story coming up next day with us. Hes reshaped ethiopia and want to Nobel Peace Prize now are they often that is facing a leadership test as he starts an offensive against the taking a region so just what are the causes of tension there and is ethiopia heading for civil war this is inside story. Hello and welcome to the program im homage to grays leaders have dominated ethiopias Ruling Coalition of ethnically based parties for decades but after all they admit became Prime Minister in 2018 they refused to join his single Party Alliance theyve also resisted his sweeping reforms and in september they went ahead with local elections defying obvious decision to suspend polls because of coronavirus he now says his patience has run out with a great hes ordered a military operation in the region after accusing the t p l f of attacking federal troops an accusation denied by the groups its feared the feud could lead to the breakup of ethiopia and the un is calling for deescalation of tensions in elise you reports. It was business as usual in the ethiopian capital but many here are on alert as an Armed Conflict simmers in the north of the country but to conduct and i say even yes i love me but were not people who fight and kill each other therefore i personally feel that the 2 great and federal governments should solve their differences through dialogue and negotiations and prioritize the interests of our nation. On a good cause creates a perfect opportunity for robbery our country needs peace im now sick of this in a very disgusting time im telling you the truth the Prime Minister met launched a military offensive in the northern Tigray Regional accusing the opposition led local government of attacking federal troops and looting their assets in the regions ruled by the to great Peoples Liberation front or t p l f yes the ghats today the apostate ethiopian has stabbed ethiopia what makes this attack one of the most shocking attacks is that the p. L. F. Is viewing the Ethiopian National Defense Forces as a foreign army i declare that we will do all we can to shame and destroy this force. Be declared a 6 month state of emergency integrate and shut down electricity phone and Internet Services there in a statement aired on to great t. V. A Regional Government spokesman accuses the Nobel Prize Winning Prime Minister of cowering the people of to grey into submission by force tensions between the 2 sides escalated in september when 2 gray went ahead with Regional Elections despite a ban from the federal government. Postpone the polls citing the coronavirus pandemic but the t. P. O. Of says he delayed them to stay in power. The t. P. L. F. Dominated if the opium politics were more than 3 decades and says abby squeezed him out of the federal government when he came to power in 2018. Analysts warn the conflict into gray could turn into a civil war. The stabilization and the furniture ring of egypt is military to green offices based integrate they may not be loyal to the federal government in terms of its efforts to the. Leadership so this could lead to a. Crisis. And it could also spread to the all of. The un has called on both sides to deescalate tensions and find a peaceful solution to the dispute the secretary general underlined the importance of stability for. The horn of africa a region with a long history of border conflicts and political unrest and they sue out to 0. All right lets bring in our guests from london our wall allo a senior lecturer at Keele University and a horn of africa analyst from addis ababa is. The ethiopian minister in charge of democratization and also from london is martin clout a Senior Research fellow at the institute of commonwealth studies thank you all for joining us on the let me start with you today Prime Minister said that the federal military operations in the north have quote Clear Limited and achievable objectives where do things stand there now and what are those objectives zob loud and clear. Do you mean to be aware of our Northern Command base has been very good about. 30 has been looted and i dont. Which is any clearer breakaways of all of that with the rather always a lot of the latter so were out of there to make sure that the roar of lorries are pondered. And. Law of the land which is of course is respected so the measure is me and then our us our 2nd objective is to make sure that our citizens living 0. Living there freely without the interference of that ability to military do so this is objectively and as a premise that has conceivably stipulated the military operation of us air is meant to achieve this 2 major objectives are all just how close is ethiopia to civil war right now. I think itd be easy in a state of signal are already. Well we have an ultimate confrontation between the federal Government Forces and forces that are loyal to the Regional Government the Regional Government that controls a lot of large swaths of territory a Regional Government that has sufficient resources and i missed to the kind of talk this is a civil war but just to address the points that it was making earlier that the government was forced into this this confrontation i mean to be quite honest we know that the right things are already on the wall d that what is coming in terms of the political confrontation between the 2 forces and the wanting to get out and now is basically an extension of the what other diaby government has been prosecuting in places like the only reason why we have here talking about are the confrontation is because people left which runs the tickler region has an army its contorted its already good it has resources that allows it to defend itself but that the evidence very clearly shows that there has already been provoked at the military deployment on the border so if t. P. L. F. As if your government claiming now tries to loot for example the resources of the Northern Command its probably because its so thats why its coming and thats what it is and thats because there have been threats of use of force against them martin so what are the reasons for the conflict and why has it escalated so much was the Tipping Point for all this the holding of the election. I think that was the immediate cause in a sense you cant hold an election in an area where the part of your country where the federal government says you cant hold that election that its illegitimate and if you go ahead with it its a direct challenge to the state but they perhaps even more directly when the federal government attempt to send a military commander to the north to take control of the army the grahams basically told him to go home that he wasnt going to be allowed out but if you go a little bit further back that you see really the disintegration of the system of government it was brought about in 1901 when the grains took control of the Central Government and they brought about a system of ethnic federalism which basically left them controlling through a series of proxies all the various regions and the peoples of ethiopia and that gradually fell away until you get the election of Prime Minister and once that happened it open a pandoras d box and all sorts of ethnic tensions exploded that again i you were eager to jump in and respond to some what are well it said please go ahead. The way i want to. Correct that as its ongoing operation in todays very long. If one is too important whats happening its even without a subpoena or a stick the sense of the term carries the museum the weight off and want to between 2 between people the Common People which is the case here this is a conflict between federal government that is trying to appoint or of not integrate in iraq i mean to do that is trying to to. Keep the good people of the great away from the rest of the country by way of massacring looting banks and so on so this is not any modicum of to civil war. This is not an extension of what is happening you know to me or somewhere else you know we are trying to make it here for democratic success against all odds as the reform has brought about a number of challenges and as a country that has been out there looking for a democratic a possible democratic government we know what this brings about so. Whats whats happening in iran me out in the south this is an enormous challenge and the way we are responding to the challenge is we believe the right way to do like there is no this kind of attack are going to start on our military bases. Or in. The south so this is not a close this is not an extension of whats happening in or me around the south and hes not a little in any way a civil war this is simply the diplomatic route again is this. Going to move by that by that appellate. Whenever our army makes its way in than a shower in some other part of the region now people are coming out in mass and then well coming out and it shows that the people of the are not behind this. Attack on out of Northern Command bid it would be interesting its really interesting to hear that the minister responsible for democratization what he was just said. The pike minister does all that the former governing e. P. Added if party educated in new party that theres a lot of reflect existing fault lies in the country that does not reflect existing social cleavage is or the kind of predominant more sort of organizing and mobilization that exists in the country he changes the party in a very rushed way in december of last year by in may he realized that there is no way that that party could we anything are example either competitive. So the Prime Minister uses the term because an emergency relation to corbett to postpone the election now after essentially eliminating every kind of. Powerful or for a middle political adversary within or without which is the most significant region that eliminating jailing everybody the Prime Minister is saying now we can go for elections in those and it has just the case in which is quite a bit has not been as well been dealt with in the numbers that are going up more people are dying so so you can see that the difference between these 2 forces is ultimately political is ideological its ideological in the sense that we have a Prime Minister that is determined to impose his own vision of the future on this european people he wants to make that youre going to create again an idea which is opposed by a significant majority in that country and you have on the other hand the people who are opposed to salvage it now in terms of keeping unless i have to say that the people left who was the architect of the kind of political settlement mismanaged the project that dishonored the project that it was a member of the party has been ideal for the party for a long period of time he knows the situation the question is not so much that he p. L. S. Is here some kind of. Say but the want itself is very much a reflection of the ideological difference between the 2 actors and it should not have morphed into im a confrontation of the sort in the reasons that the government is giving is really not the real reason behind the one and martin i want to take a step back here for a moment because the the to take im sorry i will get i will get back to you as soon as ive asked martin another question and ill give you a chance to respond i know you want to respond to martin and also to some what all is saying let me just ask martin this question 1st martin i want to take a step back as i was saying you know the to grants have held a great deal of power. Since 1991. Since Prime Minister abbay has come to power has he sidelined the t. P. I. Left or the to grand or has he just attempted to redistribute power among ethiopias various ethnic groups no i mean he has definitely sidelined the grains and they did they feel that i mean very much so but i mean you know there was a very good point made by one of my colleagues and he said that the governments argument this is a just war comes down to a very specific claim that ethnic conflict and Political Violence since april 2018 has occurred because the t. P. O. Left that he grans have planned and executed it to win this argument concrete evidence will have to be made public and that is really a part of what theyre having to show if they believe if the Prime Minister of be believes that there is direct evidence that the grounds have been behind every single one of the problems that they have been across the country let him show it one more challenge list let the ethiopians and the to grans allow reporters independent reporters both from the from ethiopia and from Leeds National community to go up to the front lines and witness whats going on for themselves and end the cutting off of telecommunications the to great let information flow then well begin to know whats really going on are exotic please go ahead i know you want to jump in before heres your chance to respond. Ok i want to 1st 2nd what i would have said you know if you had only if i were you saying that the Prosperity Party the new established party which is a continual practice in some sense is established by the Prime Minister that this is very wrong the Prime Minister is part and parcel of the effort to was there effort to change this into Prosperity Party so it is not only the Prime Ministers vision it is a shared vision among the rank and file of the Prosperity Party and i will said the difference between developed and Prosperity Party is that a radical difference thats very wrong is our starting our Northern Command is that starting our soldiers and i dont recall difference it can never be the case it is simply an attempt by the terrorist group to impose its will on the on the on our military base which ajax it is call it time and they can call to do it in a sort of this sense. And Prosperity Party is established in a way that allegations that the problems here the problems in the country its aware of the fault lines and and then did the way our program is designed is in a way the soles of our long standing problems if you cared if problem with men to solve our longstanding problems it would have solved what we are seeing is the point because if you had this didnt solve our problems it simply wasnt or postpone it some other time and. A little bit also said that there lection was the election was postponed. For the wrong reason thats thats been dont you know 50 plus countries have cost won the election due to copy 19. 00 indeed it was not our will we want to go out with their action and compete compete openly but it is up to the National Nationalist arrival to do saw the National Product board failed because it ethiopia is not ready for election so we were to follow suit we were part of the members of this past these who said. Who oppose the decision of the National Power war you know naturally what i want is chaired by but to them big and on a position figure and nobody can cost is their credibility and this is the more credible than any of us so. This is not our will this is the we of the National Electoral vote and we were mean to accept it and now you know cop it has become a way of life you dont have a proof that it will go away someday we will never nobody has approved will be able to get the vaccine anytime soon so we cannot post for it even if the g. O. P. If people realize i was for and for a limited number of time for an undetermined amount of time and even now this is not up to us the National Health of what came up with the solutions that since we have learned a lot since we have come to know how to live with the cockpit then we can go ahead with the election and make it happen in one months time so and we have something organized to the decision our national to put together with the parliament that they will i dont think what i want is i. Was founded and its not this is that is not this is again this is on the ground all right as i think i can see now i want to i want to talk about what martin said and i didnt talk about where you know were starting to run out of time let me let me get back to you with another question in a few minutes you can you can respond to what martin said but i want to go to our now because he only wanted to jump in and respond to some of what you were saying just now go ahead are well its astonishing that people like to go d to the Prime Minister would tell us what he saw with the t. P. 3 here but with the care of the free gift this people were an intel park or the e. P. A. Today every year that it was one of the ideologues the Prime Minister he was one of the people he was a minister he was responsible for one of the security agencies in that country now it is easy having the separate in that region now to say that there is even has a disorder the. Constitution was not committed to democratize vision what was the reason that we have to believe that the people who are now to leave the country are actually committed to democracy mission when we see on the ground taxes that are completely the opposite of what they say that it said the electoral vote is independent there is no evidence to show that they look for bodies d after the independent the Prime Minister is in control of the government and most of the things that are happening in the country out of happening precisely because he missed money to the transitional process in this month of the transitional process to say that while he was given a very specific mandate when he came to power i think its important to understand at this time that that was not elected that he was selected by the party after a popular protest by the or more use for citizen Prime Minister to resign when he was selected by his party was given a very specific very limited mandate which is to leave the country to democratize through transition to democracy while Building Political consensus and promoting national consolation that was the monies that he was given and still doing that the Prime Minister basically presented himself as somebody who called a fresh minded from the electorate and he started making interventions that public constitutional implications he wanted to recreate if youre going to stay if you wanted to push the political settlement in a different direction that is what is the core of the problem that we see now but in terms of this violence that is being blamed i guess the p. L. F. And other forces i think its important to highlight that while one cannot rule out that people left might have an interest in instigating violence at the same time there are reasons to believe that the government might be behind some of the violence that we see. When a family for example a significant number of people were killed Security Forces were simply standing there and watching they said we have not been instructed to intervene now as somebody who grew up in ethiopia i know that it is a country where the kind of law and order culture prensa did Security Forces would ask a lead one to enforce law and order even when they are not on duty so when you look at evil to such as that when you look at for example the way in which the recent violence in the world. Has been suspended by the government there are reasons to suspect that the government may be behind about this but im not saying that there is a clear evidence that when they are accused in 11 other forces they are expected to come forward with evidence so that people would be able to judge but theyre also resist to suspect that the government and maybe we had some our let me let me just start interrupt you but i i know is that its been trying to get in a point he wanted to respond to something martin said as arctic please go ahead but please be mindful we dont have much time left and id like to try to get martin start on what you have to say about his response earlier as well go ahead ok one thing well one thing i want to get a straight corrected is we havent we are not the ones that are interrupted the telecommunication connectivity in to correct it is it in the fridge in. Its apparent is that interrupted the telephone has connectivity and the government has no problem subscribing itself to an independent review and we have been billing. For that but i also want to respond to what our has been saying you know yes we are were part of the region but we the Prime Minister and other people other officials including myself asked for our people asking our people for an apology and we were given the chance to get our. Sled and the difference the difference between are saying that if we let it here dip. If taus not be part of a new political settlement not to subscribe to so far according to a fair share of power they got other that it be that the pyramid the soyuz the privilege that im sorry to interrupt is that were really almost out of time and i want to i want to ask martin here as well a last question i want to know from your perspective martin how likely it is it that we originally as a military gets pulled into this now i think that is a real danger we have seen some reports that people with air travel air trans are have been found on the battlefield. In uniform that cannot be. Corroborated yet there was some suggestions of mobilization inside eritrea as saves cannot be corroborated but let me just put one point to you which is that theres been a warning the United States institute of peace which includes people like chet crocker and Johnny Carson the a former assistant secretary of state for africa both of them warned of the danger of the collapse of the ethiopian state the largest state collapse in modern history thats what they say is is possible this is a really really dangerous position and you know the idea that it could reach across the region makes it even more more serious i think people have to be very very concerned about whats going on all right weve run out of time so were going to have to leave it there thanks so much to all our guests our alo. And martin clout. And thank you too for watching you can see the program again any time by visiting our website aljazeera dot com and for further discussion go to our Facebook Page thats facebook dot com forward slash a. J. Inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter our handle is at a. J. Inside story for me how much im doing the whole team here by for now. In part true of a special investigation one o one ace visits western australias only Youth Detention Center and travels to the remote outback towns where many of the indigenous inmates come from. 0 these men are survivors of cope with 1946 year old is a limousine driver is the only one here who needed to go to hospital when he became ill in early march with the. Order of. Some balance or do you know so deep it is a 34 year old driver to tarrie family and he tested positive my body is good it will be small but will you all be health Officials Say the rate of new infections has slowed the goal here is to conduct a broad serving to better understand transmission and asymptomatic cases which in turn could help paul see this issues in the future so it would be easy for us to inform the a Decision Making on what to do next the goal now is to increase testing and contact trees that. The government provides retesting a medical treatment for those who need it while campaigns to raise awareness continue. Counting the cost the end of austerity the ideology decimation of the weakest of society for the economic us not in front of the rich and powerful may be consigned to history and the russian german gas pipeline opposed by washington and european capitals. Cutting the cost on aljazeera. Talk to a motorist there are school realistically how can you do it institutionalize corruption and discount true we listen if this breaks up and real conflict between august on and india this has implications for the rest of the world we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories the back to 000. Confidence is building among joe biden supporters as he inches closer to the white house expanding his narrow lead over double trump. Money inside this is al jazeera line from doha also coming up. Georgia one of the states still too close to call is set for a recount and legal battles. Continues to make baseless allegations of widespread fraud in states like pennsylvania which officials