The cardinal principle of Abiy Ahmed’s fragile grip on power is simple: exploit all fault lines, set the country’s peoples and opposition forces against each other, and reign over the ruins. Wrapped in the beguiling languages of love, peace and Medemer, this machinery of division has been running at full tilt over the last eight years.

Just in the past week: Abiy helicoptered into Wollega, masquerading as the defender of Oromia, to announce to Oromos that “northerners are coming with knives to steal Oromo’s opportunity”—very rich coming from a man who just recently bragged of “destroying Wollega even more than Tigray.”

Abiy then yanked electoral districts in Wolkait and Raya back and forth like rope in a tug-of-war, first “gifting” them to Tigray to bait the Amhara, then snatching them away to bait the Tigrayans, then scrambling through the courts to undo his own mischief when it threatened to unite rather than divide.

And in these past days, his mercenaries have been moving through Arsi in Oromia, murdering innocent Orthodox Christians— to fracture any attempt at collective resolve against his rule by igniting inter-religious and inter-ethnic conflict. It is only because tolerance runs deep that the society still holds. Otherwise, the attempt was to pit Amhara against Oromo, Christian against Muslim, neighbour against neighbour.

Whether in uniform or without, whether carrying a gun or a pen, whether they target Oromos or Amharas, anyone who weaponizes innocent civilians for political ends is our enemy. Not a rival. Not an opponent. An enemy. And we will fight them to the end.

OLF-OLA High Command
March 2, 2026

Oromia #Ethiopia