Mengistu Musie
ARUSI KILLING BY OPP
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The ethnonationalist faction within the Oromo Prosperity Party (OPP) has increasingly waged an open and systematic campaign of violence against Orthodox Christians in particular, and other religious and ethnic groups more broadly. This wave of persecution and killings has intensified since Abiy Ahmed and his circle consolidated power after the fall of the TPLF-led EPRDF coalition—a transition that effectively transferred authority from one faction of the same political establishment to another.
The massacres witnessed in Arsi and the surrounding areas are not isolated incidents. These are part of a long-standing pattern of human rights abuses that trace back to 1991, when the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) jointly seized power following the collapse of the Derg regime. Soon after their ascent to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia witnessed horrifying atrocities such as the Bedeno and Arbagugu massacres, which marked the beginning of systematic attacks on Orthodox Christians and other minority communities.
What distinguishes the current phase of violence is the degree of official complicity and organization. The massacres are now being carried out with the direct involvement—or at least the tacit approval—of the Oromo regional government and its armed forces. Over the past two years, killings, displacement, and the destruction of churches have become alarmingly routine. Orthodox believers, particularly in rural Oromia, continue to be targeted in what many view as an attempt to erode one of the country’s oldest spiritual and cultural foundations.
We urge international human rights institutions to take decisive action; Ethiopia risks sliding further into sectarian fragmentation, where religion and ethnicity become tools of political dominance rather than coexistence.
The narrative of “Ethiopianism” promoted by Abiy Ahmed and his government is largely a political façade—a propaganda tool designed to project unity while concealing the deep fractures within the country. Behind this carefully crafted rhetoric, widespread ethnic cleansing and targeted violence continue unabated in his own backyard.
Abiy’s government presents itself as a champion of national reconciliation and reform, yet in practice, it has presided over some of the most divisive and brutal episodes in Ethiopia’s modern history. The regime’s selective silence toward atrocities committed in Oromia and parts of the Amhara region exposes the hypocrisy of its message. While preaching about national unity and “Medemer,” Abiy’s administration has tolerated, and in some cases facilitated, campaigns of displacement, killings, and the destruction of religious and cultural institutions.
The government’s propaganda of PORT thus serves a dual purpose: to distract both domestic and international observers with symbolic gestures of peace, and to obscure the systemic violence unfolding across the country. The contradiction between Abiy’s message of Ethiopian unity and the grim reality of ethnic persecution under his watch reveals the emptiness of his so-called “Ethiopianism.”
