Addis Abeba – The National Security Council, led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and comprised of senior army, police and intelligence officials, as well as regional state presidents, among others, met and discussed yesterday about the current security situation in the country. Subsequently, the Council announced that it will begin taking measures against “groups and individuals” who it classified into three and accused of being illegally armed and are engaged in disrupting the peace and security of the country, and pitting different national groups against one another, as well as depriving the country peace by disseminating false information.
The Council also said that measures will be taken against those that it blamed were “serving as messengers” of Ethiopia’s “historical enemies” and disrupting transport and public’s freedom of movement, investment activities, those engaged in land grabbing, theft, deception and illegal trading, as well as those engaged in hoarding activities in order to increase the cost of commodities, and those who are engaged in smuggling fuel and other products out of the country into neighboring countries.
The Council’s statement came in the midst of increased militarized violence rocking several parts of the country, most notably in Amhara and Oromia regional states. It also comes in the backdrop of an increased war of words between the governments of the two states, trading blames and counter blames for the deteriorating security problems affecting the two regions.
The Council did not mention anyone group or individuals by name, but said that they were “those who do not live up to their words, who speak in public every day about love and national unity, but conspire with the enemy at night, betray their countrymen, and dig holes to destroy the country.”
The Council classified Ethiopia’s “enemies” into three. Accordingly, it said that the first were Ethiopia’s ever-present “historical enemies” who “will only stop their hostility when this country called Ethiopia is erased from the face of the earth,” the statement said. “They do not work alone to achieve this goal,” instead, they have “messengers” and these messengers “are the second enemies,” it said. It called this category of groups and individuals “Judas” who sell “their own people for money and personal gain” and “stateless strangers” who trade off their country for “a fraction of a dime.”
