On December 21, 1987, Time Magazine on its cover page featured a downcast and crestfallen young Ethiopian mother as a symbol of famine victims in that country. Time asked two timeless questions: “Why are Ethiopians starving again? What should the world do and not do?”
In its analysis, Time wrote something that should strikes us all as déjà vu today.
Three years ago [1984], a famine began to strike Ethiopia with apocalyptic force. Westerners watched in horror as the images of death filled their TV screens: the rows of fly-haunted corpses, the skeletal orphans crouched in pain… Today Ethiopia is in the midst of another drought… Ethiopia, which has earned the unhappy honor of being rated the globe’s poorest country by the World Bank (average annual per capita income: + $110; infant mortality rate: 16.8%), is on the brink of disaster again. At least 6 million of its 46 million people face starvation, and only a relief effort on the scale of the one launched three years ago will save them… As the cry [for aid] goes out once more for food and money, the sympathetic cannot be faulted for wondering why this is happening all over again. Is the latest famine wholly the result of cruel nature, or are other, man-made forces at work that worsen the catastrophe?…
In 2011, Ethiopia is the second poorest country in the world despite fanciful claims of 15 a percent annual economic growth and fantasies of building the largest hydroelectric dams in all of Africa by dictator Meles Zenawi. According to official statements of the Zenawi regime, 4.5 million of the estimated 90 million Ethiopians need 380 metric tons of food at a cost of USD$400 million. Jason Frasier, mission director of USAID in Ethiopia recently cautioned that Zenawi’s regime “may be underestimating the country’s needs in its drought crisis, even as the government announced that 4.5 million Ethiopians need food aid, 40 percent more than last year. We are concerned that we are underestimating the situation, especially in the southern provinces.” We are back to the future in 1984!
On August 17, 2011, Wolfgang Fengler, a lead economist for the World Bank, weighed in with a definitive answer to Time’s question: “The [famine] crisis is man made. Droughts have occurred over and again, but you need bad policymaking for that to lead to a famine.” In other words, it is bad governance that is at the core of the famine problem in Ethiopia, not drought. This is a rare and refreshing departure from the all-too-common bureaucratic mumbo jumbo about the causes of famine often spouted by international aid agencies and multilateral organizations.
TEN REASONS WHY ETHIOPIANS ARE STARVING AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN…
Reason #1: Famine is not merely a humanitarian catastrophe in Ethiopia; it is a powerful political and military weapon.
There is a long and ignoble history of political and military weaponization of famine in Ethiopia. In the mid-1980s, the military junta government of Mengistu Hailemariam used famine to punish civilian populations perceived to support rebels in the northern part of the country. The junta prevented delivery of food aid in rebel-held areas (as did the rebels themselves) and implemented a cruel policy of forced migration of civilians in an effort to drain recruits and deny support to the rebels. Zenawi’s regime pursued the same policy to defeat alleged rebels in the Ogaden region and has further used humanitarian aid to consolidate power and starve out his opposition as documented recently in a BIA/BIJ report. Mao Zedong taught that “Guerrillas are like fish, and the people are the water in which fish swim.” Both Zenawi and Megistu understood that by militarily and politically weaponizing famine, they can poison and drain the water in the lake. No water! No fish! No problem!
Reason # 2: Famine is a recurrent fact in Ethiopia because that country has been in an endless cycle of dictatorship for decades.
Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen argues that “there has never been a famine in a functioning multi-party democracy.” In a competitive political process with a functioning free press, there is a much higher degree of political accountability. No freely elected government could afford to ignore famine or abstain from doing all it can to prevent it. Opposition politicians will make famine a major political issue to win elections. A free press will mobilize public opinion to hold those in power accountable for letting “famine occur on their watch.” In Ethiopia, opposition political parties are non-existent. In 2005, Zenawi jailed the entire leadership of the opposition for nearly two years. He even jailed the first woman political party leader in Ethiopian history, Birtukan Midekssa, and with sadistic indifference declared, “there will never be an agreement with anybody to release Birtukan. Ever. Full stop. That’s a dead issue.” No opposition, no multiparty democracy, no free press, no accountability equals recurrent famines.
Reason # 3: Famine in Ethiopia is an annual crisis because dictators do not give a damn if the people die one by one or by the millions.
The current rulers of Ethiopia, like their junta predecessor, continue to derive spiritual guidance from their patron saints: Stalin and Mao (Chinese financial support today is one of the cornerstones of Zenawi’s regime). Stalin was blasé and arrogantly dismissive of the Ukraine famine of the early 1930s. He said, “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” In 1959 during China’s Great Famine, Mao was equally matter-of-fact: “When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.” Mengistu said there was no famine when millions of Ethiopians dropped like flies from starvation in 1984-85. But Zenawi is more cunning and pretty slick when it comes to public relations. He said there are emergencies, but no famines. “Famine has wreaked havoc in Ethiopia for so long, it would be stupid not to be sensitive to the risk of such things occurring. But there has not been a famine on our watch – emergencies, but no famines.”
Reason #4. Famine is a structural part of the Ethiopian economy because the “government” owns all the land.
It is said of the golden rule that he who controls the gold makes the rules. The same can be said of land in Ethiopia. Those who own the land makes the rules for those who till the land. Article 40 (1) of the Ethiopian Constitution provides that “the right to ownership of rural and urban land, as well as of all natural resources, is exclusively vested in the State and in the peoples of Ethiopia.” For all intents and purposes, that means the ruling regime and its supporters own the land. The regime controls who gets what plot of urban or farm land. The regime sells, leases or otherwise traffics in land without any accountability. Recently, the regime sold a large chunk of the country’s most fertile land to Indian companies for pennies: “For £150 a week (USD$245), you can lease more than 2,500 square kilometres of virgin, fertile [Ethiopian] land – an area the size of Dorset, England – for 50 years, plus generous tax breaks.” The bottom line is that those who own the land are more interested in meeting the needs of other people in other places than the Ethiopian people. Zenawi has condemned Ethiopian developers who were transferring their leaseholds in urban land in Addis Ababa as “land grabbers” and “speculators” who should be “locked up”. The old feudal landlords are today replaced by new landlords in designer suits.
Reason # 5: Famine persists in Ethiopia because massive human rights abuses persist.
The Zenawi regime is well-known for trashing the human and constitutional rights of Ethiopian citizens. Perhaps unknown to many is the regime’s flagrant violation of its affirmative legal duty to provide a “standard of living adequate for the health and well-being… including food for its citizens.” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights 25(1); The International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) Article 11(2) [“fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger”]; Ethiopian Constitution, Article 90 of the Constitution, [“provide all Ethiopians with access to public health and education, clean water, housing, food and social insurance”]. Weaponizing hunger to decimate one’s opposition is a crime against humanity. But hunger is the new weapon of choice in human rights violations in Ethiopia. Those who oppose the regime are not only denied humanitarian food and relief aid, they are also victimized through a system of evictions, denial of land or reduction in plot size as well as denial of access to loans, fertilizers, seeds, etc. In the case of the people of Gambella, entire communities are forced off the land to make way for Indian investors in violation of conventions that protect the rights of indigenous peoples. Zenawi’s regime believes that the most effective way of crushing the hearts and minds of the people is by keeping their stomachs empty.
Reason #6: Famine persists in Ethiopia because Zenawi has succeeded in keeping the famine hidden.
Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974 pretended there was no famine until the documentary “the Hidden Famine” by Jonathan Dimbleby was aired to a shocked and angry Ethiopian public. Former junta leader Mengistu was arrogantly dismissive during the 1984-85 famine. He asked, “What famine?” Zenawi is far more cunning. His solution is to clampdown on the press and shut the country down to all foreign journalists and media representatives. If any foreign journalists should somehow manage to get through, jail them. That is exactly what he did recently to two Swedish journalists, photojournalist Johan Persson and reporter Martin Schibbye, who were arrested in the Ogaden region where the regime has committed massive human rights violations for years. Regime representative Dina Mufti explained that the two journalists “will be tried according to the national law … for the terrorist activities they were planning to undertake.” Woubshet Taye, deputy editor of Awramba Times (a struggling weekly paper) and one of the few female journalists in the country, Reyot Alemu of Feteh (another struggling weekly paper) newspapers were recently jailed on bogus charges that they were “organizing a terrorist network.” Since there is no independent press in the country and those trying to offer an alternative voice are subject to intimidation, arrest and detention, the famine remains hidden not unlike the days of Emperor Haile Selassie.
Reason #7: Famine persist in Ethiopia because there is a “conspiracy of silence” by Western aid agencies and timid NGOs.
Zenawi has made it clear that anyone who disputes his claim of 15 percent annual economic growth and rosy picture of the country will be thrown out of the country, vilified or not allowed to operate. Recently, when Ken Ohashi, the World Bank Country Director for Ethiopia said Zenawi’s economic plan (“Growth and Transformation Plan”) is unsustainable, Zenawi unleashed his legendary vitriol on him: “The World Bank [country] director is used to having other developing nations simply listen to his orders and is not used to nations refusing implement policy based on their wishes. He left here after we refused to let him tell us what to do and wrote this article to get back at us.” In other words, attack the man’s integrity savagely to divert attention from the man’s message.
But all NGOs and international aid agencies know never to use the “F” word, unless of course they use it to deny there is no famine. That is precisely what USAID Deputy Administrator Gregory Gottlieb did last week on a VOA broadcast. He said, “There is no famine in Ethiopia.” The strange thing is that it does not seem Gottlieb had spoken about the “situation” to Jason Fraser, mission director of USAID in Ethiopia, before making his glib declaration. Fraser said, “We are concerned that we are underestimating the situation, especially in the southern provinces [in Ethiopia].” So the conspiracy of silence goes on to keep the famine hidden by using euphemisms. It is not FAMINE, it is the “situation”, severe malnutrition, food insecurity, food crisis [when Zenawi recently visited China, Premier Wen Jiabao called the famine “crisis”], green drought and so on. The “crisis” is not the result of lack of preventive or long-range planning, official incompetence, corruption, criminal negligence, etc., but the effect of “erratic rains damaged or delayed crops, deforestation overgrazing” and other ecological, environmental, and climatic disasters.
The international poverty mongers are so slick that they have even invented a “scientific” classification system for famine: “Acute Food Insecurity, Stressed, Crisis, Emergency and Catastrophe.” They want us to believe that famine is some sort of neatly-staged transitional process. For a mother and child who have not eaten for days or scrimp on ten kilograms of grain a month, the famine taxanomy is meaningless. It would be interesting to hear what famine victims would say when they are told that they will not be in a famine state until they drop dead! The fact of the matter is that a famine by any other name is still famine and just as deadly!
On the other hand, the international agencies and NGOs have a manifest conflcit of interest because by revealing the truth aboout the famine, they are likely to run the risk of a severe tongue-lashing (See Ohashi above), exoposure that their programs are a waste, or if an NGO, deceritifcation and expedited removal from the country. They would rather turn a blind eye and remain silent than use the “F” word.
Reason # 8: Famine persist in Ethiopia because the regime in power for 20 years has failed to devise and implement an effective family planning policy.
In 1993, Zenawi’s “Transitional Government of Ethiopia” in its “National Population Policy of Ethiopia” (NPPE) declared that “its major goal [was] the harmonization of the rate of population growth and the capacity of the country for the development and rational utilization of natural resources thereby creating conditions conductive to the improvement of the level of welfare of the population.” It aimed to reduce “total fertility rate of 7.7 children per woman to approximately 4.0 by the year 2015 by mounting an effective country wide population information and education programme, expanding clinical and community based contraceptive distribution services, raising the minimum age at marriage for girls and removal of unnecessary restrictions pertaining to the advertisement, propagation and popularization of diverse conception control methods.” In 1993 Ethiopia’s population was estimated at 53 million. In 2011, the population is estimated at 91 million. The numbers speak for themselves!
Reason # 9: Famine in Ethiopia is good business.
There are many who profit from economic emergences created by famines. There is much money to be made from trafficking in famine relief aid. According to FAO’s Global Food Monitor for August 2011, in Ethiopia and other Horn countries “prices of cereals have reached record levels… well above their levels a year earlier, substantially reducing access to food by large numbers of population and aggravating the food insecurity in the subregion.” Who benefits from the high prices? Regime-allied middlemen buy massive amounts of grains from farmers at low prices (by offering what appears to be a generous price at the time) and eliminate legitimate small businesses that deal in grain. The same middlemen have an absolute monopoly on the acquisition, sale and distribution of agricultural commodities, and it is not hard to imagine how profitable famines could be. It makes perfect economic sense from the perspective of famine profiteering to place low policy priority on famine prevention and control. It’s the old supply and demand curve. High demand for food and less supply and a chokehold monopoly on the market, and complete control on the distribution of international food aid equals to “mo’ money, mo’ money, and mo’ money” for those in power. Grotesque as it may sound, famine is good for business.
Reason # 10: It is true “a hungry man/woman is an angry man/woman.” Is it not?
The great Bob Marley sang:
Them belly full, but we hungry;
A hungry mob is a angry mob.
…
Cost of livin’ gets so high,
Rich and poor they start to cry:
Now the weak must get strong;
…
Now the weak must get strong.
Previous commentaries by the author are available at: www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ and http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/
Americans fed up with uncontrolled deficit government spending are often heard invoking a familiar battle cry: “Starve the Beast!” In other words, no more taxpayer dollars for wasteful government spending.
I say we stand up to the to Western donors and loaners who continue to support the criminal regime of Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia and declare: “Starve the Beast, Feed the People!” No more aid to a regime that clings to power by digging its fingers into the ribs of starving children. No more aid to torturers and human rights violators. No aid to election thieves. No aid to those who roll out a feast to feed their supporters and watch their opponents starve to death. Let’s shout in a collective voice to the West — America, England, Germany, the European Union, the IMF, World Bank and the rest of them–: “Starve the bloated beast feeding on the Ethiopian body politics, and help feed the starving people.”
The Nature, Care and Feeding of the Beast
For two decades, the West has been feeding Zenawi’s regime with billions of dollars of development and humanitarian aid while filling the stomachs of starving Ethiopians with empty words and emptier promises. Western donors continue to lay out an all-you-can-eat aid buffet for Zenawi’s regime while turning a blind eye, a deaf ear and muted lips to the misuse, abuse and disuse of their taxpayers’ dollars. Despite billions of dollars in Western aid and Zenawi’s nonstop hype of a 15 percent annual economic growth, the Oxford University Multidimensional Poverty Index last year ranked Ethiopia as the world’s second poorest country, after Niger. But Zenawi brazenly insists Ethiopia will fully ensure its food security and cut extreme poverty and hunger (“severe malnutrition”) by 50 percent in 2015.
The evidence is {www:incontrovertible} that the West has adopted a “hear, see, say no evil” policy towards the Zenawi regime. Recently leaked confidential emails of Timothy Clarke, the European Union’s (EU) former ambassador in Ethiopia, show that following the May 2005 Ethiopian elections Clarke made an urgent request to the European Union for some action to restrain Zenawi: “Basic human rights abuses are being committed by the [Ethiopian] government on a daily basis – the EU must respond firmly and resolutely.” The EU and other Western donors “responded firmly” by rewarding Zenawi with billions of dollars of new aid money.
The evidence further shows that Western donors and loaners could not care less what Zenawi does with the humanitarian and development aid they give him. For instance, an audit report by the Office of the Inspector General of US AID in March 2010 came to the horrifyingly astounding and mind-bogglingly incredible conclusion that the US AID has no idea what is happening to its agricultural programs in Ethiopia. The Report stated (at p. 1):
The audit was unable to determine whether the results reported in USAID/Ethiopia’s Performance Plan and Report were valid because agricultural program staff could neither explain how the results were derived nor provide support for those results. Indeed, when the audit team attempted to {www:validate} the reported results by tracing from the summary amounts to the supporting detail, it was unable to do so at either the mission or its implementing partners… In the absence of a complete and current performance management plan, USAID/Ethiopia is lacking an important tool for monitoring and managing the implementation of its agricultural program.
In other words, the Inspector General has no confidence in the report of the program staff. Is somebody cooking the books and pulling out statistics out of their back pockets?
But lack of proper auditing to determine what has happened to the aid money is only part of the problem. Equally shocking is the fact that Western donors have ignored time and again credible evidence and warnings that their development and humanitarian aid is being misused, abused and disused to oppress and deny human rights to Ethiopians. In September 2008, Channel 4 News in Britain, the award-winning news program noted for its extensive coverage of international news, reported extensively on how Zenawi’s regime has been using famine as a weapon against civilians in suspected rebels areas.
In December 2010, Human Rights Watch called on the Development Assistance Group (DAG), a coordinating body of 26 foreign donor institutions for Ethiopia to “independently investigate allegations that the Ethiopian government is using development aid for state repression.” In July 2010, aDAG-commissioned study issued a whitewash which concluded that its Productive Safety Nets Programs (alleged to provide “basic services in education, health, agriculture, water supply, sanitation, and rural roads”) and Protection of Basic Services Programs (alleged to “protect and promote the delivery of basic services by sub-national governments while deepening transparency and local accountability in service delivery”) “are supported by relatively robust accountability systems.” In other words, none of the aid money was misused for political or other improper purposes.
In August 2011, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the BBC reported the “Ethiopian government is using millions of pounds of international aid to punish their political opponents.” The report presented compelling evidence of how “aid is being used as a weapon of oppression propping up the government of Meles Zenawi.” Despite numerous documented reports of aid abuse and misuse, Western leaders continue to hide behind a policy of plausible deniability and do nothing pointing to the massaged and embellished reports of the faceless swarms of international bureaucratic poverty-mongers creeping invisibly in Ethiopia.
Starve the Beast!
The best way of preventing famine and massive human rights violations in Ethiopia is simply by denying all aid and loans to Zenawi’s regime. In March 2011, I discussed the grave moral hazard in U.S. policy in Ethiopia and Africa in general, but the logic of my argument applies to all Western donors:
By shifting the risk of economic mismanagement, incompetence and corruption to Western donors, and because these donors impose no penalty or disincentive for poor governance, inefficiency, corruption and repression, African regimes are able to cling to power for decades abusing the human rights of their citizens and stealing elections. Western donors continue to bail out failed African states for two reasons…. Recent Wikileaks cablegrams have documented that the most important objective for Western policy makers in Africa is to support a strongman who can guarantee them stability so that they can continue to do business as usual. Basically, they want a “guy they can do business with.” Second, Western donors believe that the few billions of aid dollars given every year to guarantee “stability” in African countries is more cost effective than helping to nurture genuinely democratic societies in Africa. The moral hazard in Western policy comes not just from the fact that they provide fail-safe insurance to repressive regimes but also from the rewards of increasing amounts of aid and loans to buffer them from a tsunami of democratic popular uprising.
As long as the U.S., U.K. and the rest of them continue to bankroll Zenawi’s regime, Ethiopia will be in a permanent state of famine and starvation of not only food but also democracy and human rights. But the West is not fooling Ethiopians, and they should not believe that because Ethiopians are poor they are also gullible . Ethiopians can clearly see the evidence of Western {www:hypocrisy} about democracy, human rights and accountability in their country.
The U.S. talks a good talk about accountability and prevention of corruptionbut will not walk the talk and put the brakes on aid-related corruption in Ethiopia. The height of U.S. hypocrisy in aid to African countries is evident in the recent rhetoric of the top U.S. aid official. This past May, Rajiv Shah, the head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) {www:harangue}d the leaders of the yet-to-be 54th African state of South Sudan that “President Barrack Obama is ready to invest millions in South Sudan” but “it remains the mandate of the government of South Sudan to ensure that all funds directed towards improving agricultural productivity are not diverted for other purposes. We need accountability.”
South Sudan was not even a formal sovereign state in May 2011 when Shah got on his high horse to scare the dickens out of the heroic leaders of that long-suffering nation. But South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir Mayardit has anti-corruption on the top of his agenda: Last week, he told lawmakers at the opening session of the South Sudan’s new parliament that “The people of South Sudan will not sit idly and allow corruption and abuses of public resources to continue unabated. We need to abide with the principles of accountability.”
But accountability is not a word that will slip past Shah lips even accidentally when it comes to Zenawi. Despite the accumulated evidence of misuse and abuse of U.S. aid in Zenawi’s regime over the years, Shah’s lips remain zipped. What a hypocrite!
The U.S. needs to make a fundamental choice of policy in Ethiopia: continue to unreservedly support Zenawi and his repressive regime in the name of promoting American military and security policy in the Horn of Africa by providing him billions in aid and risk a sudden popular upheaval, or take measured steps to strike a balance between its security interests and support for the human rights and welfare of the Ethiopia people. Current U.S. policy is out of kilter and skewed towards blindly supporting Zenawi so long as he is seen to be a guarantor of “stability” and a proxy warfighter in the region. U.S. policy needs to change!
The U.S. should learn from recent events in North Africa and the Middle East. Ethiopians are no different from other oppressed peoples in their demands for dignity, respect for their human rights and insistence in having a voice in their governance. Like all oppressed people, they want to be free from persecution, brutality and dictatorship. They want to be free to elect their own representatives, to speak their minds and to hold their leaders accountable. They want what Jefferson and the founders of the American Republic wanted when they declared their independence 1776: “That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends [life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
Feed the People!
The current famine in Ethiopia requires use of new rules of engagement for the West. It should be no longer acceptable for the West to hand over billions of dollars in humanitarian and development aid to Zenawi and look the other way wishing no one will seek accountability on how the aid is used. Western donors and loaners must attach and stringently apply transparency requirements on Zenawi’s regime and insist on maintaining effective independent oversight in the storage, transportation, and distribution of humanitarian aid in the Ethiopia. Rigorous and sustained oversight is also needed for the administration of development aid. Ultimately, the West needs to come to terms with a larger moral issue. Ought they give aid to a regime which uses that aid to systematically engage in repression and persecution of its opponents and massive human rights abuses with impunity?
For well over four decades, U.S. humanitarian aid policy in Ethiopia has been driven by rescue or crisis intervention. Recently, describing the situation in Ethiopia and the Horn region as the “most severe humanitarian emergency” and the “worst that East Africa has seen in several decades”, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced $17 million in new U.S. aid. As of August 15, 2011, total Western humanitarian pledges, commitments and contributions to Ethiopia amount to USD$574 million. The U.N. estimates some 12 million people in Ethiopia and the region are in danger of starvation and at least USD$2.5 billion is needed to avert a humanitarian catastrophe this year. Everyone knows a lot more money than $2.5 billion is needed to deal with the expanding famine.
The fact of the matter is that the famine in Ethiopia and the Horn region in 2011 is occurring under the least favorable international famine relief environment in history. There are clear signs of donor fatigue (people tired of giving to famine relief) in countries where relief has been forthcoming in the past. Americans are experiencing severe economic problems of their own with overstretched budgets, two wars, a rising debt problem and a possible “double-dip” recession. They are most likely give to their churches, favorite charities and organizations and local community groups before stretching a helping hand to famine victims in Africa.
European countries are experiencing severe economic problems also. If the recent riots in poor communities in the U.K. are any indication, those residents may insist on getting the billions in aid earmarked to Ethiopia by Howard Taylor, head of the British aid program to Ethiopia. Most of the other Western donor countries are preoccupied with their own financial woes, high unemployment, debt crises and general economic downturn. There are no celebrities to raise money for Ethiopia. The great Michael Jackson has fallen silent and will not sing “We Are the World” to save Ethiopia’s famine victims. Bob Geldof is nowhere in sight to assemble another Band Aid; and he will not be singing “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” again after he was roundly criticized last year following revelations of misused relief aid in 1984 by Zenawi’s rebel group.
The famine of 2011 will be like no other and the toll it will take will be heartbreaking and gut-wrenching.
A Blast From the Past
Last week Mengistu Hailemariam, the junta leader and father of the infamous “Red Terror” campaign in Ethiopia in the late 1970s and the man who flat out denied there was any famine in 1984-85 when a million people died like flies from starvation, crawled from under his rock in Zimbabawe and gave an interview. He blasted the “woyane” regime waiving the flag of Ethiopian nationalism. In his “message” to the Ethiopian people Mengistu said, “Everyone knows the current situation in Ethiopia. All Ethiopians have a duty to free Ethiopia from woyane. If they fail to do that, generations to come will condemn them and we will all wear a blanket of shame.” The history books are full of anecdotes in which Stalin and Hitler condemned each other. Mengistu can wrap himself in the Ethiopian flag from head to toe but it will not blanket his monstrous crimes nor his long train of abuses while he was in power. He cannot conceal his blood-drenched hands by wrapping it in the Ethiopian flag. Remarkably, Mengistu’s memory has faded over the years. He should be reminded that the “woyane” he now wants the Ethiopian people to kick out are the same “woyane” he allowed to march into town unopposed 20 years ago as he sneaked out to his hideout in Zimbabwe in the dead of night. Mengistu should know the difference between himself and Meles to Ethiopians is the exact same difference between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.
How To Save Ethiopia from a Famine of Food and Democracy
President Obama said, “This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands.” The “moment” to “save” Ethiopia is now! But is there anything President Obama and the world can do to save Ethiopia?
Oxymorons (figures of speech that combine contradictory terms) can sometimes provide unique insights into the cognitive process. Consider, for instance, the phrase “honest politician”. Is there such a thing? It sounds so comical to talk about “efficient government”? How about an “emerging democracy”? That’s like saying a “little bit pregnant.” If there is such a thing as a “benevolent despot/dictator”, then there are hyenas that do not eat carrion. How about “dictator with conscience”?
Recently, dictator Meles Zenawi responding to an interviwer’s question made a public confession of shame and regret over the fact that the Oxford Dictionary uses Ethiopia as a prime example of famine.
Interviewer: In the mid-1960s something was revealed in our country. Many people were waging struggles. You were in the struggle. In the Oxford dictionary, for the word famine, the example given is Ethiopia. How does that make you feel as an Ethiopian?
Zenawi: It is a mixed up situation. On the one hand, like any citizen, I am very sad. I am ashamed. It is degrading. A society that built the Lalibela churches some thousand years ago is unable to cultivate the land and feed itself. A society that built the Axum obelisks some 2-3 thousand years ago is unable to cultivate the land and feed itself. That is very sad. It is very shameful. Of all the things, to go out begging for one’s daily bread, to be a beggar nation is dehumanizing. Therefore, I feel great shame. In the end though these things are not the mistakes of a single individual. They have their own long history, and cannot be eliminated through anger or regrets. In a similar way, it requires a long struggle and determination and defiance of not just one but 3 or 4 generations. I understand that is what it takes. Until that is removed and eliminated, until I finish playing my role in it, all I can do is say Amen and accept this shame and degradation. This is the kind of feeling it creates in me.
In 1995, Zenawi was self-effacing but cocky about his vision of a nation that is well-fed and -clothed in a decade or two with people dancing in the streets, at least living not too far from paved streets. Responding to a question from what appears to be an audience of friends and supporters, Zenawi envisioned:
Questioner: In 10 or 15 years from now, is there a vision that you see that would make you happy. Can you tell us two or three things about that?
Zenawi: Ten years from now (laughter). Let me start with ten years from now. One big thing I think will happen and dream about is that all Ethiopians will get three meals a day (applause). After that may be, if everything works out well, my hope is that Ethiopians will have two or three changes of clothes. If everything works out, all Ethiopians will live within two hours of a paved road. If we do this, we would have done a miracle (laughter). If we go to twenty years, we would have clinics, schools, access to roads of less than two hours, not just eat three times a day. We may even have a choice of foods and selection of clothes. I hope in twenty years, we will have good outcomes (applause).
Sixteen years later in 2011, the Black Horseman is standing at the gate. Zenawi stands alongside with folded arms feigning shame for the fact that Ethiopia is perceived to be synonymous with famine. Recently, the U.N. predicted the “worst drought in the last 60 years” for Ethiopia and neighboring countries. UNICEF warned “millions of children and women are at risk from death and disease unless a rapid and speedy response is put into action.”
The world dreads to see once again the haunting skeletal figures of Ethiopian famine victims splattered across the television screen reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s. Blame history Zenawi bleated philosophically: “In the end though these things are not the mistakes of a single individual. They have their own long history….”
Shame Without Guilt
Zenawi’s declaration of shame and regret for famine and chronic food shortages in Ethiopia is reminiscent of those American televangelists who publicly confess their sins when caught in a shameful scandal but take no responsibility for their transgressions. The devil did it or made them do it. For Zenawi, the blame should be placed on history, drought, climate change, heartless donors and divine retribution. Famine is not something he could have anticipated or planned to prevent. Famine just happens. No one is responsible.
Shame and guilt are often trivialized in the modern world. After the fall of the Third Reich, few came forward to express shame for their callous indifference to the acts of inhumanity committed in their name, and even fewer felt or admitted guilt for their own criminal acts. They conveniently dissociated themselves from the inhuman acts by adopting a shockingly matter-of-fact attitude: “It was what it was.” Nothing more. Of course, they had their regrets. The super-state that was to last a thousand years lasted only twelve.
During the Truth and Reconciliation hearings in South Africa, many of the officials who perpetrated atrocities “felt” ashamed for torturing and mistreating black South Africans, but few openly admitted guilt and took full responsibility for their actions. They said they were acting in the name of the government or simply following official orders. They were not personally responsible.
The street criminal also feels shame for robbing or assaulting his victim, but rarely admits legal guilt, and even more rarely moral guilt and take responsibility. He too feels regrets, for getting caught.
It is common for dictators to acknowledge the fact of their wrongdoing without feeling shame or guilt. Stalin unapologetically declared, “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” In 1959 during China’s Great Famine Mao casually remarked in a speech: “When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.” After the massacre of hundreds of unarmed demonstrators following the 2005 elections in Ethiopia, Zenawi feigned pangs of conscience: “I regret the deaths but these were not normal demonstrations. You don’t see hand grenades thrown at normal demonstrations.” When his own handpicked Inquiry Commission determined after a meticulous investigation that the demonstrators were unarmed and carried no weapons of any kind, Zenawi ignored the report and did nothing. Today, 237 killers still roam the streets free.
In the final analysis, when famine consumes hundreds of thousands of people or untold numbers of people die for simple lack of food, it is the responsibility of the man at the helm, the guy in the driver’s seat. But never in Ethiopia. Emperor Haile Selassie said he did not know about the famine in 1974 until it was too late. He was not responsible. Junta leader Mengistu Hailemariam said he was not responsible for the famine in 1984 because there was no famine. Over a million people died in that famine. Zenawi says the famine in Ethiopia today is not the responsibility of any one individual. No one in leadership position has ever taken responsibility for the recurrent famines in Ethiopia.
One must have a conscience to feel shame, admit guilt and take responsibility. To say dictators have conscience is like saying snakes have legs. Dictators are the quintessential narcissists who care about and love only themselves. They are incapable of feeling shame, guilt, compassion or appreciation. Their raison d’etre (reason for existence) is the pursuit of power at any cost to dominate and control others.
Our conscience is that “inner voice” or “inner light” that helps us distinguish right from wrong, good from evil, guilt from innocence, love from hate and virtue from vice. Guilt is the flip side of shame. The bifurcation of shame from guilt is the clearest manifestation of the lack of conscience. But if one feels shame and admits guilt (moral or legal) for the actions (or omissions) producing the shame, he experiences an inner transformation which compels him to make amends. The painful feeling of dishonor, disgrace, humiliation and self-criticism transforms the shameful act into an honorable act or at least produces genuine atonement. Real admission of guilt is always followed by moral self-redemption and salvation.
Eastern philosophy teaches that “when the mind is face to face with the Truth, a self-luminous spark of thought is revealed at the inner core of ourselves and, by analogy, all of reality.” When we come face to face with the truth of our shameful act and our conscience is awakened, we naturally and effortlessly make efforts to make amends.
Confession Time?
While we are on the subject of shame, regrets, guilt and all that, I have my own confession to make. I am ashamed Ethiopia is a country
that has become the butt of famine jokes (not just an entry in the Oxford Dictionary).
known primarily for its poverty.
where elections are stolen in broad daylight.
where the rule of law and human rights are trampled every day with impunity.
where 237 security thugs walk free after killing 193 unarmed demonstrators and wounding nearly 800.
with the worst prison system in the world.
classified as the world’s worst backslider on press freedom.
with lowest internet penetration in the world after Sierra Leone.
I am ashamed Ethiopia is classified together with the worst countries in the world on the
Corruption Index (most corrupt countries).
Failed States Index (most failed states).
Index of Economic Freedom (economically most repressive countries).
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development Investment Climate Assessment (most unfriendly to business).
Ibrahim Index of African Governance (most poorly governed African countries).
Bertelsmann Political and Economic Transformation Index (most in need of reform).
Environmental Performance Index (poorest environmental and public health indicators).
But I am also proud, mighty proud. I am proud of the unity of the Ethiopian people despite the efforts of those who toil day and night to divide them by ethnicity, region, religion, language and whatever else. I am proud of Ethiopia’s culture of respect, compassion and tolerance. Most of all, I am super proud of Ethiopia’s young people. They are the only lifeline to the survival of that nation.
I wear a badge of shame on the left and a badge of pride on the right. But between my pride and shame lies my overwhelming sense of gnawing guilt. It is guilt that manifests itself in a moral quandary about what I could have done, can do now and in the future, particularly for the young people of Ethiopia to reclaim their destiny. The solutions to Ethiopia’s famine, poverty, disease, illiteracy and the rest of it will not come from self-adulating, forked-tongue dictators who cling to power like ticks on a milk cow, but from Ethiopia’s young men and women.
Zenawi says he is ashamed of the recurrent famine in Ethiopia and is resigned to accepting it with an “Amen.” The crocodile also sheds tears. But a dictator professing shame without admitting guilt is, to paraphrase Shakespeare, “an evil soul producing holy witness, a villain with a smiling cheek, a goodly apple rotten at the heart.”
But can you hear the silent screams of the starving Ethiopians? Can you see their quiet riots against tyranny? If you can’t, what a crying shame!
Previous commentaries by the author are available at: www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ and http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/
It is hard to talk about Ethiopia these days in non-apocalyptic terms. Millions of Ethiopians are facing their old enemy again for the third time in nearly forty years. The Black Horseman of famine is stalking that ancient land. A year ago, Meles Zenawi’s regime denied there was any famine. Only ‘minor problems’ of spot shortages of food which will ‘be soon brought under control,’ it said dismissively. The regime boldly predicted a 7-10 percent increase in the annual harvest over 2007. Simon Mechale, head of the country’s Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency, proudly declared: ‘Ethiopia will soon fully ensure its food security.’… Zenawi’s regime has been downplaying and double-talking the famine situation. It is too embarrassed to admit the astronomical number of people facing starvation in a country which, by the regime’s own accounts, is bursting at the seams from runaway economic development.
I concluded with a rhetorical question:
Images of the human wreckage of Ethiopia’s rampaging famine will soon begin to make dramatic appearances on television in Western living rooms. The Ethiopian government will be out in full force panhandling the international community for food aid. Compassion fatigued donors may or may not come to the rescue. Ethiopians, squeezed between the Black Horseman [Scriptural metaphor for famine] and the Noisome Beast [Scriptural metaphor for evil beasts that terrify the land], will once again cry out to the heavens in pain and humiliation as they await for handouts from a charitable world. Isn’t that a low down dirty shame for a proud people to bear?
In January 2010, I followed up with another commentary titled Ethiopia’s “Silently” Creeping Famine challenging the “famine deniers.” At the time, Mitiku Kassa, a top official of Zenawi’s regime had declared: ‘In the Ethiopian context, there is no hunger, no famine… It is baseless [to claim hunger or famine], it is contrary to the situation on the ground. It is not evidence-based. The government is taking action to mitigate the problems.’ Kassa issued assurances that his regime had launched a food security program to ‘enable chronic food insecure households attain sufficient assets and income level to get out of food insecurity and improve their resilience to shocks…and halve extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.’ Zenawi was entirely dismissive: “Famine has wreaked havoc in Ethiopia for so long, it would be stupid not to be sensitive to the risk of such things occurring. But there has not been a famine on our watch — emergencies, but no famines.”
It is now July 2011 and the Black Horseman is standing at the gate. No more “emergencies”, just plain old-fashioned famine. This time it is the international aid agencies that are frantically sounding the 5-alarm famine. They warn that if donors do not provide substantial emergency food aid to 12 million people now, there will be famine of Biblical-proportions in Ethiopia and other neighboring countries unseen in the last 60 years. UNICEF warns that “millions of children and women are at risk from death and disease unless a rapid and speedy response is put into action.”
The silently creeping famine was visible to anyone who bothered to study the periodic reports of the aid agencies (and read between the lines) and regularly monitored the “famine early warning systems” over the past few years. But until now, no aid agency or donor country could force itself to use the “F” word. Political correctness had trumped the truth and the welfare of millions. The very aid agencies that are now frothing at the mouth sounding the alarm of a doomsday famine were describing the problem for the last few years in terms of “severe malnutrition”, “food shortages”, “acute food security phases” “food insecurity, scarcity, insufficiency and deprivation”, “chronic dietary deficiency”, “endemic malnutrition” and other clever phrases. They simply could not call a spade a spade. But famine by any other name is still famine. The “severe malnutrition” of yesterday has become today’s famine silently spreading to consume 12 million people.
Apocalypse in 40 Years?
Lately, everybody has been talking about facts and figures. It’s been all about percentages. Meles Zenawi says between now and 2015 Ethiopia’s economy will be growing at 12-15 percent a year. Recently, he told his party members: “We have devised a plan which will enable us to produce surplus and be able to feed ourselves by 2015 without the need for food aid.” That plan is anchored in what Zenawi calls “agricultural development–led industrialization” (ADLI), which purports to focus intensively on agriculture by technologically boosting the low level of productivity of small scale farmers and commercially linking them to the non-agricultural (industrial) sector. Zenawi says by 2015 extreme poverty in Ethiopia will be cut by 50 percent along with hunger (“severe malnutrition”) consistent with the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. The Ethiopian currency has been devalued by 20 percent over the past year. The annual inflation rate is galloping at 34.7 percent according to official reports (likely much higher). The International Monetary Fund predicts Ethiopia will likely have economic growth of 7.5 percent in 2011. On the political side, Zenawi said he won the May 2010 election by 99.6 percent. But lost in the stacks of fantasy percentages is a little big 3 percent that will ultimately determine the survivability of the Ethiopia people.
Last week, the U.S. Census Bureau had frightening predictions for Ethiopia, Nigeria and India. By 2050, India will be the most populous nation in the world, bypassing China sometime in the mid-2020s. Nigeria’s current population of 166 million will explode to 402 million. In just four decades, Ethiopia’s population will more than triple to 278 million, placing that country in the top 10 most populous countries in the world.
Ethiopia’s population growth has been spiraling upwards for decades. In 1967, the population was 23.5 million. It increased to 51 million in 1990 and by 2003, it had reached 68 million. In 2008, that number increased to 80 million. The Census Bureau estimates Ethiopia’s population today at 91 million. Since 1995, the average annual rate of population growth has remained at over 3 percent.
Every government and regime in Ethiopia over the past one-half century has blamed famine on “acts of God.” For the last two decades, the current regime has blamed “food shortages”, “chronic or severe malnutrition”, “food insecurity”, etc., on “poor and erratic rains,” “drought conditions,” “deforestation and soil erosion,” “overgrazing,” and other “natural factors”. Zenawi’s regime even had the brazen audacity to blame “Western indifference” and “apathy” in not providing timely food aid for the suffering of starving Ethiopians. There is not a single instance in which any Ethiopian government or regime has ever taken even partial responsibility for food shortages, extreme malnutriion or failure to act and prevent starvation and famine.
The issue of “food security” aside, the central question is: Does Zenawi have a policy to deal with the little big 3 percent problem?
In 1993, Zenawi’s “Transitional Government of Ethiopia” in its “National Population Policy of Ethiopia” (NPPE) declared that “its major goal [was] the harmonization of the rate of population growth and the capacity of the country for the development and rational utilization of natural resources thereby creating conditions conductive to the improvement of the level of welfare of the population.”
Among the major objectives of the NPPE included “closing the gap between high population growth and low economic productivity through planned reduction of population growth…, reducing the rate to urban migration, reducing the current total fertility rate of 7.7 children per woman to approximately 4.0 by the year 2015… mounting an effective country wide population information and education programme addressing issues pertaining to small family size and its relationship with human welfare and environmental security.”
Among the strategies to be used in achieving these objectives included “expanding clinical and community based contraceptive distribution services, raising the minimum age at marriage for girls from the current lower age limit of 15 to, at least, 18 years, making population and family life related education and information widely available via formal and informal media”, facilitating delivery of population and family planning related services by non-governmental organizations and changing the law “to remove unnecessary restrictions pertaining to the advertisement, propagation and popularization of diverse conception control methods.”
Given the fact that the average annual rate of population growth in Ethiopia has remained at over 3 percent since 1995,commenting on the NPPE is belaboring the obvious.
Will There Be Ethiopia in 2050?
Whether Ethiopia survives as a viable nation in 2050 free of war, disease, pestilence and famine will not depend on an imaginary 15 percent economic growth or a ludicrous 99.6 percent election victory. It will depend on what is done to deal with the little big 3 percent problem. In other words, overpopulation poses the single most critical problem and decisve issue in Ethiopia today and the years to come.
Thomas Malthus, the 18th Century British economist argued that human population, if unchecked, tends to grow much faster than the capacity of the land to produce food. He explained that population can be controlled through “preventive checks” (such as family planning, wide use of contraceptives to slow growth, marriage at later age) or “positive checks” (mortality caused by war, disease, plague, disaster). The bottom line is that if Ethiopia cannot adequately feed, clothe and shelter 90 million of its people today, there is no way on earth she can do so for 278 million in just 40 years. If the “Malthusian catastrophe” is what is looming on the Ethiopian horizon, the outcome is predictable and certain: massive starvation and famine, extreme overcrowding, endemic poverty, total depletion of natural resources and massive environmental degradation. Widespread and extreme civil strife, conflict over scarce resources and epidemics will complete the grim picture.
What needs to be done is pretty clear. As the Indian economics Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has convincingly argued, the best way to avert famines (and simultaneously deal with the underlying problem of overpopulation) is by institutionalizing multiparty democracy and strengthening human rights: “No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy” because democratic governments “have to win elections and face public criticism, and have strong incentive to undertake measures to avert famines and other catastrophes.”
Ethiopia’s famine today is a famine borne of “food scarcity” as much as it is a famine borne of a scarcity of democracy and good governance. Ethiopians are famished for democracy, starved of human rights, thirst for the rule of law, ache for accountability of those in power and yearn to breathe free from the chokehold of dictatorship. But after two decades of one-man, one-party rule, we do not even see the ghost of democracy on Ethiopia’s parched landscape. We can only see a malignant and entrenched dictatorship that continues to cling to power like ticks on a milk cow; and in the dark and gloomy 40-year Ethiopian horizon, we see the specter of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse aiming their swords, spears and arrows against a defenseless population of 278 million. Our only shield is a genuine multiparty democracy that functions under the rule of law!
Previous commentaries by the author are available at: www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ and http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/
“Oh! What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” said Sir Walter Scott, the novelist and poet. Is there “famine” in Ethiopia, or not? Are large numbers of people “starving” there, or not? Is convulsive hunger a daily reality for the majority of Ethiopians, or not?
Ethiopian famine map
No one wants to use the “F” word to describe the millions of starving Ethiopians. In August 2008, the head of the dictatorship in Ethiopia flatly denied the existence of famine in a Time Magazine interview. Meles Zenawi explained, “Famine has wreaked havoc in Ethiopia for so long, it would be stupid not to be sensitive to the risk of such things occurring. But there has not been a famine on our watch – emergencies, but no famines.” Last week, the dictatorship’s “Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development”, Mitiku Kassa, reacting defensively to the latest Famine Early Warning System (FEWSNET) projections, was equally adamant: “In the Ethiopian context, there is no hunger, no famine… It is baseless [to claim famine], it is contrary to the situation on the ground. It is not evidence-based. The government is taking action to mitigate the problems.” This past October, Kassa claimed everything was under control because his government has launched a food security program to “enable chronic food insecure households attain sufficient assets and income level to get out of food insecurity and improve their resilience to shocks… and halve extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.”
But there is manifestly a “silent” famine and a “quiet” hunger haunting the land under Zenawi’s “watch.” In April, 2009, Zenawi gave an interview to David Frost of Al Jazeera in which he openly admitted that famine is rearing its ugly head once again in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa. Frost asked: “Is there any danger that as a result of this [current] crises there could be famine like there was famine in 1984?” Zenawi responded:
Well, the famine of 1984 was precipitated by drought in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa in general. The famine that could emerge as a result of this [current] crises is likely to be silent across the continent in terms of not swaths of territory that are drought affected but people suffering hunger quietly across the continent. That is the most likely scenario as I see it.
So, if the famine Horseman of the Apocalypse is haunting Ethiopia and the continent, “silently” and “quietly”, why are we not sounding the alarm, ringing the bells and hollering for bloody help? Why are we quiet about the “quiet” hunger and silent about the “silent” famine enveloping Ethiopia today? Why?
It is mind-boggling that no one is making a big deal about the fact that famine and hunger are back in the saddle once more in Ethiopia. Ethiopians need help, and they need a lot of it fast and now. Of course, nothing more depressing than the sight, smell and experience of famine and hunger. For the second part of the 20th Century, much of the world believed the words “Ethiopia” and “famine” were synonymous. But it is unconscionable and criminal for officials to avoid using the “F” word to describe the forebodingly bleak food situation in Ethiopia today because they are concerned it would cast a “negative image” on them. Even the international experts have joined the local officials in boycotting the use of the “F” word. Just last week, the U.S.-funded FEWSNET declared that the majority of Ethiopians will be facing “food insecurity” (not hunger, not starvation, not famine) in the next six months. According to FEWSNET, because of poor harvests from the summer rains in 2009
as well as poor water availability and pasture regeneration in northern pastoral zones” [and coupled]with two consecutive poor belg cropping seasons… high staple food prices, poor livestock production, and reduced agricultural wages, [there will be an] elevated food insecurity over the coming six months [particularly in the] eastern marginal cropping areas in Tigray, Amhara, and Oromia, pastoral areas of Afar and northern and southeastern Somali region, Gambella region, and most low-lying areas of southern and central SNNPR…. In most areas of the country, food insecurity during the first half of 2010 is projected to be significantly worse than during the same period in 2009… Food security in eastern marginal cropping areas will likely deteriorate even further between July and September 2010. Overall, humanitarian assistance needs are expected to be very high.
Is it not a low-down dirty shame for international organizations, political leaders, officials and bureaucrats to use euphemisms to hide the ugly truth about famines and mass-scale hunger? These heartless crooks have invented a lexicography, a complete dictionary of mumbo-jumbo words and phrases to conceal the public fact that large numbers of people in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa are dying simply because they have nothing or very little food to eat. They talk about “food insecurity ”, “food scarcity”, “food insufficiency”, “food deprivation”, “severe food shortages”, “chronic dietary deficiency”, “endemic malnutrition” and so on just to avoid using the “F” word. FEWSNET has invented a ridiculous system of neologism (new words) to describe hungry people. Accordingly, there are people who are generally food secure, moderately food insecure, highly food insecure, extremely food insecure and those facing famine (see map above). Translated into ordinary language, these nonsensical categories seem to equate those who eat once a day as generally food secure, followed by the moderately secure who eat one meal every other day, the highly insecure who eat once every three days, the extremely insecure who eat once a week, and those in famine who never eat and therefore die from lack of food.
For crying out loud, what is wrong with calling a spade a spade!? Why do officials and experts beat around the bush when it comes to talking about hunger as hunger, starvation as starvation and famine as famine? Do they think they can sugarcoat the piercing pangs of hunger, the relentless pain of starvation and the total devastation of famine with sweet bureaucratic words and phrases?
As officials and bureaucrats quibble over which fancy words and phrases best describe the dismal food situation, hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians are dying from plain, old fashioned hunger, starvation and famine. The point is there is famine in Ethiopia. One could disagree whether there are pockets of famine or large swaths of famine-stricken areas. One could argue whether 4.9, 6, 16 or 26 million people are affected by it. But there is no argument that there is famine; and this is not a matter for speculation, conjecture or exaggeration. It can be verified instantly. Let the international press go freely into the “drought affected” and “food insecure” areas and report what they find. For at least the past two years, they have been banned from entering these areas. Is there any doubt that they would reveal irrefutable evidence of famine on the scale of 1984-85 if they were allowed free access to these areas?
Obviously, it is embarrassing for a regime wafting on the euphoria of an “11 percent economic growth over the past 6 years” to admit famine. It is bad publicity for those claiming runaway economic growth to admit millions of their citizens are in the iron grip of a runaway famine. If the “F” word is used, then the donors would start asking questions, relief agencies would be scurrying to set up feeding stations, the international press would be demanding accountability and all hell could break loose. That is why the dictatorship in Ethiopia reacts reflexively and defensively whenever the “F” word is mentioned. They froth at the mouth condemning the international press for making “baseless” claims of famine, and castigate them for perpetuating “negative images” of the country merely because the international press insists on finding out verifiable facts about the food situation in the country. The fact of the matter is that unless action is not taken soon to openly and fully admit that large swaths of the Ethiopian countryside are in a state of famine, we should soon expect to see splattered across the globe’s newspapers pictures of Ethiopian infants with distended bellies, the skeletal figures of their nursing mothers and the sun-baked remains of the aged and the feeble on the parched land.
Denial of famine by totalitarian and dictatorial regimes is nothing new. During 1959-61, nearly 30 million Chinese starved to death in Mao’s Great Leap Forward program which uprooted millions of Chinese from the countryside for industrial production. Mao never acknowledged the existence of famine, nor did he make a serious effort to secure foreign food aid. Ironically, the Chinese Revolution had promised the peasants an end to famine. The Soviet Famines of 1921 and 1932-3 are classic case studies in official failure to prevent famine.
Why is it so difficult for dictatorships and other non-democratic systems to admit famine, make it part of the public discussion and debate and unabashedly seek help? Part of it has to do with image maintenance. Official admission of famine is the ultimate proof of governmental ineptitude and depraved indifference to the suffering of the people. But there is a more compelling explanation for dictators not to admit famine conditions in their countries. It has to do with a fundamental disconnect between the dictators and their subjects. As Nobel laureate Amartya Sen argued,
The direct penalties of a famine are borne by one group of people and political decisions are taken by another. The rulers never starve. But when a government is accountable to the local populace it too has good reasons to do its best to eradicate famines. Democracy, via electoral politics, passes on the price of famines to the rulers as well.
An examination of the history of famine in Ethiopia lends support to Sen’s theory. Emperor Haile Selassie lost his crown and life over famine in the early 1970s. He said he was just not aware of it. The military junta’s (Derg) denied there was famine in 1984/85 while it waged war and experimented with the long-discredited practice of collectivized agriculture. That famine accelerated the downfall of the Derg. The current dictators have opted to remain willfully blind, deaf and mute to the “silent” famine and “quiet” hunger that are destroying the people.
The official response to famines in Ethiopia over the past four decades has followed a predictable pattern: Step 1: Never plan to prevent famine. Step 2: Deny there is famine when there is famine. Step 3: Condemn and vilify anyone who sounds the early alarm warning on famine. Step 4: Admit “severe food shortages” (not famine) and blame the weather, and God for not sending rain. Step 5: Make frantic international emergency calls and announce that hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians are dying from famine. Step 6: Guilt-trip Western donors into providing food aid. Step 7: Accuse and vilify Western donors for not providing sufficient food aid and blame them for a runaway famine. Step 8: Tell the world they knew nothing about a creeping famine until it suddenly hit them like a thunderbolt. Step 9: Put on an elaborate dog-and-pony show about their famine relief efforts. Step 10: Go back to step 1. This has been the recurrent pattern of famine response in Ethiopia: Always too little, too late.
The fact of the matter is that famines are entirely avoidable as Sen has argued with substantial empirical evidence.
Famines are easy to prevent if there is a serious effort to do so, and a democratic government, facing elections and criticisms from opposition parties and independent newspapers, cannot help but make such an effort. Not surprisingly, while India continued to have famines under British rule right up to independence … they disappeared suddenly with the establishment of a multiparty democracy and … a free press and an active political opposition constitute the best early-warning system a country threaten by famines can have.
There is another question that needs to be answered in connection with the “severe food shortages” in Ethiopia. Why are millions of fertile hectares of land under “lease” or sold outright to foreigners to feed millions continents away when millions of Ethiopians are starving? To paraphrase Sen, such a thing would be unthinkable in a functioning multiparty democracy!
With no pun intended, the “breadcrumbs” of famine (or as they euphemistically call it the “early warning signs”) are plain to see. There have been successive crop failures and poor rainfall; water availability is limited and staple food prices are soaring; livestock production is poor as is pasture regeneration. Deforestation, land degradation, overpopulation, pestilence and disease are widespread in the land. If it quacks like a duck, swims like a duck and walks like a duck, it is famine!
If those whose duty is to sound the alarm and get help are not willing to do their part, it is the moral responsibility and duty of every Ethiopian and compassionate human being anywhere to create public awareness of Ethiopia’s creeping famine and call for HELP! HELP! HELP!
“There has never been a famine in a functioning multiparty democracy.” Amartya Sen
(Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. He writes a regular blog on The Huffington Post, and his commentaries appear regularly on Pambazuka News and New American Media.)
I say we stand up to the to Western donors and loaners who continue to support the criminal regime of Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia and declare: “Starve the Beast, Feed the People!” No more aid to a regime that clings to power by digging its fingers into the ribs of starving children. No more aid to torturers and human rights violators. No aid to election thieves. No aid to those who roll out a feast to feed their supporters and watch their opponents starve to death. Let’s shout in a collective voice to the West — America, England, Germany, the European Union, the IMF, World Bank and the rest of them–: “Starve the bloated beast feeding on the Ethiopian body politics, and help feed the starving people.”