ON THE WORLD SCENE

THE POLITICS OF FAMINE Each day, the grim news coming to light from Africa gets worse. While the plight of Ethiopia gets top billing, thirty other countries in Africa are affected by drought and famine to one degree or another. The fact is there are two broad famine belts, one running just below the Sahara, spanning the continent from east to west, together with another band stretching along the East coast, from the Horn of Africa down almost to the tip of the continent.

The immediate cause of the multiple famines is, naturally, drought. But other more fundamental factors lie at the root of the crisis. First of all, there is widespread abuse of the land, such as deforestation, overgrazing and improper cultivation techniques. Then there are wayward governmental policies. Throughout Africa since independence agriculture has been sorely neglected. In addition, leaders coveting the political allegiance of the urban masses, have found it expedient to clamp price controls on the rural food-growers, discouraging production. It is no coincidence that "famines and pestilences " follow, in time sequence, after "for nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom" (Matt. 24:7, RAV). Here, first of all, is a summary of the cause-and-effect relationship, as published in the November 26 issue of NEWSWEEK:

It is the worst famine in African history.... Already, as many as 200,000 people may have died in Mozambique. In Ethiopia, the famine has helped kill at least 300,000 people, and an additional million may perish before the disaster is over....

Drought is, of course, a normal occurrence in Africa. But...some Africans agree that part of the damage is self-inflicted — that mismanagement, corruption and civil strife aggravate the natural disasters that have always beset their societies. It is no coincidence that some of the nations suffering most from the current famine — Ethiopia, Mozambique, Chad, Angola — have been embroiled in civil war for years. None of that will change quickly. Nor will the famine go away overnight; with the best of weather, the hunger is likely to last until this time next year....

Africa's dependence on relief aid will probably grow in the years ahead. A study issued last week by the Swedish Red Cross and by Earthscan, a London-based environmental news service, reports that "events called 'natural disasters' are killing more and more people every year. Yet there is no evidence that the climatological mechanisms associated with droughts, floods and cyclones are changing." Instead, the report says that the effects of natural disasters are worsened by poverty, environmental damage and rapid population growth.

Black Africa is the world's poorest area, and it is the only region in which the population is growing faster than the food supply. Agriculture never fully recovered from the devastating drought of a decade ago. In 1982, Ethiopia's per capita food production was only 81 percent of what it was in 1969-1971: in Mozambique, the figure was 68 percent. On average, African governments spend four times as much on armaments as they do on agriculture. Primitive farming, in turn, has devastated the environment.

Under increasing pressure for production, traditional fallow periods have been shortened, wearing out the soil. Most farmers have no chemical fertilizers, and the animal dung that they once used to enrich the soil is now being burned for fuel. That's because so many trees have been cut down. Only 20 years ago, 16 percent of Ethiopia's land area covered forest; today the figure is just 3.1 percent. "With deforestation, the soil loses much of its capacity to retain moisture and consequently its productivity and resistance to drought," says U.N. environmentalist Seifulaziz L. Milas.

There is reason to believe that relief shipments, though necessary, only aggravate the fundamental problems. "Food aid saves lives but can also undermine long-term local self-sufficiency," says the Earthscan report. The study concludes that "disaster assistance must go hand in hand with development assistance." There is much that could be done. Many African nations ought to raise their artificially low food prices, in order to encourage farmers. [But politicians fear this will cause disturbances in the cities, which could topple them from power.] Large areas need reforestation, perhaps with fast-growing species such as the eucalyptus tree. Many countries should strike a better balance between food crops and cash crops raised for export; Chad recently reaped a bumper cotton harvest, but its people are dying for want of homegrown food.

Above all, governments must spend money on agricultural development. "I believe Africa can become a granary for large part of the world, but there has not very major investment until now," William Clark, president of the International Institute for Environment and Development, said recently. Time is running out. Without the right investment of effort and money, Black Africa is more likely to become a charnel house than granary.

The only long-term solution is better policies, or perhaps more to the point, better governments. Reported staff writer David R. Francis, of the CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR (October 10 issue):

Over the long term, the goal of American aid to Africa is to increase the self-sufficiency in food production of African nations so they can better withstand years of drought. Agricultural production has been decreasing in Africa for the last 14 years. "This is basically because of lousy policies," noted an official. Often farmers have been inadequately paid for their products under state price controls, thus discouraging output.

Then too, there is unbelievable unconcern on the part of some governments — most notably Ethiopia — as to the plight of their own people. The LOS ANGELES TIMES carried a report in its November 11 issue entitled "Government Brings Famine to Ethiopia," written by their Nairobi correspondent, Charles T. Powers. In his dispatch Powers explained how the callous Marx­ist government in Addis Ababa has cleverly stage-managed the media reporting of this grim crisis:

The sad truth is that the famine struck first in rebellious Tigre and Eritrea, and that the central government apparently did not whether people there starved to death or not. It has only been since the famine spread southward, as people pushed out of their remote mountain villages in search of food and the famine has come close to the capital, that the government has been prompted to make a truly serious appeal for help.

So a British Broadcasting Corp. film crew was allowed into the area, under government supervision. The officials of the Ethiopian Relief and Rehabilitation Commission are well aware of the value of three minutes of television footage showing starving children. As it happened, the response probably exceeded their expectations....

Meanwhile, visa applications from a large number of journalists have not been acted upon in Addis Ababa. Most of the reporters hoping to enter the country represent the print media, and would be much more difficult for the Ethiopians to control than a single film crew. The inescapable conclusion is that the Ethiopians do not want any one around who will look too closely at what is going on, including what is happening to the relief supplies sent from countries of the developed world.

International relief agencies have been troubled with the same problem of access to Ethiopia. Representatives of such agencies have learned through experience that you just do not send tons of relief supplies to a disaster-stricken nation and expect the material to reach its intended target. There is too much corruption, too little organization and, worst of all, too little genuine concern.... Good will by foreigners counts for little when the Ethiopian government responds with near indifference to the tragedy building within its own borders.

Ethiopia is one of the world's poorest nations. Yet, on September 16, the government shelled out, it is now believed, $200-250 million to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the overthrow of the late Emperor Haile Selassie and to formally proclaim the establishment of Ethiopia's new Communist Party. Ethiopia's dictator, Lt. Col. Mengistu Haile Miriam, delivered a numbing seven-hour long speech — the usual "down with imperialism." But he did not mention the famine which was endangering the lives of one-fifth of the population.

Another nation gripped by famine is Chad. A civil war between two groups, one supported by Libya and the other (the incumbant government) by France, has greatly aggravated the situation. Here are excerpts from an article appearing in the November 10 DAILY TELEGRAPH:

A fragile ferry link, capable of carrying only one lorry at a time, is the only means of transporting food to five million people in Chad, where the famine is potentially even more catastrophic than in Ethiopia. "There are not so many people affected as in Ethiopia, but the potential for catastrophe is very much greater because of logistic and political problems, "said Mr. James Henry, 32, head of international operations for the British Red Cross.

Chad is landlocked, and for political reasons neighbouring countries have closed their borders, allowing only one entry through Cameroon. "The three-week journey by road is totally dependent on a ferry-crossing over the Chari River, where the only vessel takes one lorry at a time," said Mr. Henry, who returned yesterday after a month in Chad and Ethiopia. A fall in the level of the Chari River on the Chad-Cameroon border was making it too shallow for the ferry to operate, but still deep enough to be impassable to vehicles.

Relief agencies faced "a major logistic nightmare" in trying to meet Chad's estimated food deficit of 125,000-150,000 tons.... Mr. Henry said that an air lift would not be able to cope with the volume of food required, and the next harvest was not expected for many months. Moreover fighting between government troops and Libyan-backed rebels had hindered planting.

Naked politics and shameful name-calling hamper whatever role the United Nations could play in Africa's grim plight. This report appeared in the November 12 issue of the DAILY TELEGRAPH, entitled "Communists Block U.N. Moves to Aid Africa":

Russia and its East European allies are being blamed for the inability of the United Nations General Assembly to take effective action to tackle the economic woes of Africa and more importantly the drought in Ethiopia. According to diplomatic sources the assembly has been unable to approve proper language for a draft declaration or resolution because the Communists insist that any document places the blame for the trouble on colonialism.

Britain finds the situation particularly disturbing since Sir John Thomson, its chief delegate, urged members in a debate on Africa that others, besides the traditional donors, should look for ways to assist. "We should not find solutions if we indulge in the discredited device of blaming these problems on imperialism, neo-colonials, transnational corporations and the like," said Sir John. "Ideological flights of fantasy," he added, should be avoided, while concrete ways should be found to help those from dying all over Africa....

But the Soviet delegate, Mr. Vladimir Plechko was not impressed with either Britain's contribution or any other. He commented: "Many of those who have made enormous profits in Africa are now trying to present their aid as an act of outstanding charity."

International food relief agencies are often hamstrung by the very governments they seek to help. Ethiopia is again a case in point. The doctrinaire Marxist central government, for example, exerts a lot of pressure on aid organizations attempting to help drought victims living in the Red Sea province of Eritrea, home of secessionist groups fighting Add is Ababa. Some aid organizations themselves willingly submit to this pressure, being rather leftist themselves. Here is a disturbing report written by David Kline and published in the November 11 SAN DIEGO UNION, entitled "Famine: Food Help Stalled by Political Walls":

If Americans were shocked to see the horrible skeleton face of famine, they might also be shocked to learn that some of the charitable agencies working to relieve this suffering are using political rather than humanitarian criteria to deliver food relief — in effect, to decide who will live and who will die.

A number of private relief agencies in the United States, including groups much in the news of late, like Catholic Relief Services and World Vision, have chosen not to provide any assistance at all to approximately half of all the starving people in Ethiopia. That half lives in Eritrea, a province now in rebellion against the pro-Soviet central government of Ethiopia and therefore inaccessible to government aid channels. The Eritrean insurgents have proposed a ceasefire as a "precondition for the solution of famine," but government officials have not responded.

When first contacted about their inactivity in Eritrea, agency spokespeople insisted this was due entirely to "logistical problems" — lack of access to the Eritreans. But officials from Lutheran World Relief of the U.S. and Dutch Inter-Church Aid — two of the few groups active in Eritrean famine relief — report that while the conflict makes it difficult to move aid into troubled areas from government zones in Ethiopia, the Eritreans themselves have a highly efficient infrastructure ready to distribute emergency food transshipped through the Sudan. The only thing lacking is the food.

Dan Connell of the Boston-based aid group Grassroots International, one of the few agencies active in Eritrea relief work, offers another explanation for the refusal to aid Eritrean famine victims: "There's no doubt in my mind that the Eritreans are being abandoned for political expediency." As another aid official, who insisted on anonymity, put it: Eritrea’s famine is “politically sticky.”....

Until 1974, when emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown, the United States supported the Ethiopian ruler against leftist insurgents. Today it is the Soviet Union which supports the now­ Marxist Ethiopian regime against the Eritreans with $2 billion in arms aid and 1,500 Soviet military advisors.

When pressed, some agency spokespeople concede that their organizations have decided that the geopolitical high seas around Eritrea are simply too dangerous to be navigated safely. And despite Ethiopia's pro-Moscow tilt in recent years, many agencies still have a large investment in resources in Ethiopia, an investment which they are reluctant to jeopardize.

"We're concerned that the government (of Ethiopia) would be very upset if we worked directly with the Eritreans," concedes Jim DeHarport of the Africa Programs section of Catholic Relief Services. "That could jeopardize our on-going work in the rest of Ethiopia."...

There are also liberal agencies like the American Friends Service Committee and Oxfam who have so far refused to help the Eritreans for fear of joining in what they feel is Washington's cold war against the Soviet Union and its allies like Ethiopia....

To be sure, not all aid groups have allowed their political bias or organizational self-interest to stand in the way of aid to Eritrea. One organization that has opted for a strong Eritrea involvement is the Mennonite Central Committee, even though five members of an Ethiopian group associated with it languish in Ethiopian prisons....

Some agencies cite other reasons for refusing to work in Eritrea. The United Nations-sponsored World Food Program, for example, says it will work only with legally recognized governmental entities....

Humanitarianism, it seems, has had to learn to adapt to a highly political world. Indeed, nowadays the dollars and human resources of the international aid community trail after the storms of political conflict, picking up the human wreckage left behind, and in some cases also picking sides.

Nearly all experts believe that Africa's food crises will only get steadily worse, rains or no rains. Nothing substantial is being done to eliminate the root causes in the social and economic fields. And warfare threatens to undo what could be done anyway. Famines "in divers places" may just be with us from here on out.

— Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau