Ethiopia's culture leader claims that rebels are after him.

According to the BBC, a powerful traditional ruler of Ethiopia's Oromo people has been targeted by Oromia area rebels for asking them to put down their arms.

Fighters from the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) attacked Jiloo Mandho's home in the isolated village of Guji in southern Oromia, he said.

"I don't know how many they were, but they arrived on four motorcycles and started a fire on one of my rural homes." He told the BBC, "I survived because I was elsewhere."

The incident did not result in any injuries, but it did destroy property, according to him.

Mr. Jiloo has the title of "abbaa gadaa," an elected office that administers local communities as part of the Gadaa system, a cultural Oromo style of administration.

In Oromia, there are numerous of these traditional rulers, each of whom serves for eight years.

Mr. Jiloo is the current president of the Obama gadaas union, which gives him a lot of clout in Oromia, where he is well-liked.

Following rebel crimes, he said that the OLA was an adversary of the Oromo people, Ethiopia's biggest ethnic group, and began receiving death threats in September.

He said he had rented a house in a small town because he was afraid for his life and had even skipped his son's wedding because of the threats.

However, an OLA representative told the BBC that the organization respects the Gadaa system and that it had no role in the attack on Mr. Jiloo's rural home.