Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Friday said ethnic Amhara and Oromo Shane are danger to Ethiopia’s continuity.
Speaking during a visit in Southern Ethiopia region, the PM said Ethiopians should be careful and fight back against these two forces, which he said espouse extremist views, want to change Ethiopia’s current shape and map and are a danger to Ethiopia’s continuity.
“Oromo and Amhara Shane places might be different, but the two have zero-sum view of Ethiopia and don’t want to see Ethiopia based on equality and peace,” the PM said.
Abiy also claimed the two forces “want to exist in mutual antagonism to each other, believe power is acquired through mutual killings, like to magnify small agendas and don’t care about Ethiopia’s continuity.
The PM’s use of the obscure term “Shane” usually reserved by his government to refer to Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) rebels to also mean a segment of the Amhara population has perplexed and alarmed many Ethiopians online.
Over the past few years, various parts of the country’s largest region, Oromia have been the scenes of mass killings of ethnic minorities, which members of the PM’s ruling Prosperity Party (PP) have partly pinned on the actions of his government as well.
In addition, over the past few weeks, schools across Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital have witnessed a violent crackdown on students and teachers by security forces.
The security forces under the instruction of local and federal authorities are trying to impose Oromia national flag and anthem on schools in the multinational city.
All these combined has spurred speculation and instilled fear among many Ethiopians on what PM’s administration is “conspiring” in contrast to official statements from PM and other officials blaming various local and foreign forces for Ethiopia’s current instability.
