Meles Zenawi

This created a delicate balancing act as Ethiopia's government strived to avoid alienating Tigrayans, while both Ethiopia and Eritrea continued to squabble over the border regions, and while both were under international arms embargoes pertaining to their border war.

From 1991 onwards, Ethiopia was governed by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, a former commander of the TPLF, who remained in power until his death in 2012.

He was succeeded by his deputy, Hailemariam Desalegn, who hailed from a different group.

Six years later, Desalegn resigned due to ongoing public unrest.

And then one day, you know, I, I...

Most of this was in what's called the Southern Region of the Philippines, Southern People's Region of the Philippines, and I had become friends with President Meles Zenawi, who later became the prime minister, and I used to go into his dump of an office, you know, 'cause the communist government had left all these offices.

[laughs] Um, bottom line is, is, uh- He was buttering me up with compliments, um, talking about what a great organizer, what a great fundraiser I was, and I'm exhausted 'cause I just flew in from LA, and, you know, blah, blah, blah.

And he...

And why are they fighting?

It goes back a long way because decades ago, Ethiopia was dominated by the Tigrayans under the Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

The TPLF had got rid of the old dictator in Ethiopia, but then from then on, they dominated Ethiopian politics.

And the problem is that it's a, a federation of lots of states with lots of different ethnic groups, like the Tigrayans and the Oromo and the Amhara.

And Ethiopia has never really resolved these internal power struggles between these different ethnic groups.

The new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, is from the Oromo people, and he sort of has always resented this historic power that the Tigrayans had.

And so there's been this power struggle that erupted in this terrible civil war, and the danger is that they're going back to that.

On top of that, the other complication is that there has been conflict between Ethiopia, the country, and Eritrea, its neighbor, and there's fears that that conflict could erupt again.