Alemayehu G Mariam
White House spokesman Jay Carney announced last week that President Obama has invited the presidents of Ghana, Tanzania, Benin and Meles Zenawi to attend the G8 Summit (the forum for the governments of eight of the world’s largest economies) for a discussion of food security on May 19 at Camp David (Presidential retreat) in Maryland. The U.S. has been handing out food aid to the African continent for decades. Now President Obama says there is another looming “food crises” in Africa. Oxfam says, “All signs point to a drought becoming a catastrophe if nothing is done soon.” The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has issued appeals for an extra $70 million to aid some 800,000 households in the drought-hit Sahel region in West Africa. Ethiopia and Somalia are expected to be ground zero for the anticipated famine. According to the April 25, 2012 report of the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), southern Ethiopia will most likely experience famine: “The anticipated below-average rains will have significant negative impact on crop production, pasture regeneration, and the replenishment of water resources throughout the region, with the most severe and immediate impactin belg-dependent areas of southern Ethiopia.” Over the past couple or so years, I have written over one-half dozen commentaries on famine and food shortages in Ethiopia. (See links below.)
The Hunger Word Games in Ethiopia
Ethiopian governments over the past four decades have blamed food shortages and famines on everything except their own indifference, incompetence and negligence. Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974 pretended there was no famine until “The Hidden Famine” by Jonathan Dimbleby was aired to a shocked and angry Ethiopian public. Former socialist junta leader Mengistu was arrogantly dismissive of the 1984-85 famine in which an estimated one million people perished. Mengistu would contemptuously respond to reporters by challenging them, “What famine?”
Zenawi is more clever than his predecessors. He plays public relations and semantic games with famine in the country. He will use any word, except the “F” word, to describe the chronic and massive food shortages in the country. For Zenawi there is “no famine in Ethiopia”, only “spot shortages,” “severe malnutrition”, “food insecurity”, “food crisis”, “serious drought” and so on. “Food shortages” are not the result of poor agricultural planning and practices, official incompetence, massive corruption, criminal negligence, etc., but are caused by “drought conditions,” “erratic rains” “damaged or delayed crops”, “deforestation”, “soil erosion,” “overgrazing” and other ecological factors. In January 2012, Zenawi once again denied famine in Ethiopia in a CNN interview: “Ethiopia is facing a major famine. How can you justify spending on a military operation in another country when your own people are starving?” Zenawi responded, “There is no famine in Ethiopia as all humanitarian organizations will tell you. There is a serious drought, but we are able to keep our people fed….”
The international poverty mongers/pimps (PMPs) have invented a “scientific” classification system for “food shortages” behind which Zenawi has been able to hide the true magnitude and severity of the problem in the country. The euphemisms of the PMPs avoid the “F” word altogether regardless of the extremity of the food shortage. For the PMPs the conditions fall into one of the following categories: “Acute Food Insecurity, Stressed, Crisis, Emergency and Catastrophe.” It is “scientifically” impossible to have famine in Africa! So the conspiracy of silence goes on to keep famine in Ethiopia hidden by clever use of masking euphemisms.
Zenawi and his top lieutenants have been promising to end “food shortages caused by drought” in a very short time. In 2009, Simon Mechale, head of the country’s “Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency”, proudly declared: “Ethiopia will soon fully ensure its food security.” For several years now, Zenawi has been advertising his “Productive Safety Net Programme” as the mechanism to end the “cycle of dependence on food aid” by bridging “production deficits and protecting household and community assets”. In October 2011 Zenawi told his party faithful: “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.” Zenawi’s “plan to produce surplus” is by “leasing” out millions of hectares of the country’s prime agricultural land to so-called international investors (land grabbers) whose only aim is to raise crops for export. Ethiopia will produce food to feed other nations while Ethiopians starve. Zenawi has adamantly opposed private ownership of land, which by all expert accounts is the single most important factor in ensuring food security in any nation. Yet last year, food inflation in Ethiopia remained at 47.4 percent.
Food has been used as a political weapon in Ethiopia. Hunger has been the new weapon of choice to generate support for Zenawi’s regime and to decimate his political rivals. Zenawi has been pretty successful in crushing the hearts, minds and spirits of the people by keeping their stomachs empty. Those who oppose Zenawi’s 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 in western Ethiopia, entire communities have been forced off the land to make way for Indian “investors” in violation of international conventions that protect the rights of indigenous peoples. Human Rights Watch, among other organizations, has raised serious concerns over the misuse of humanitarian food aid: “The Ethiopian government is routinely using access to aid as a weapon to control people and crush dissent. If you don’t play the ruling party’s game, you get shut out. Without effective, independent monitoring, international aid will continue to be abused to consolidate a repressive single-party state.” In 2009, U.S. State Department promised to investigate allegations that “$850 million in food and anti-poverty aid from the U.S. is being distributed on the basis of political favoritism by the current prime minister’s party.” No report has been issued.
In 2011, U.S. Census Bureau made the frightening prediction that Ethiopia’s population by 2050 will more than triple to 278 million. Ethiopia’s chronic “food insecurity” is expected to get increasingly worse culminating in a “Malthusian catastrophe” (where disease, starvation, war, etc. will reduce the population to the level of food production) in the foreseeable future. Zenawi’s regime has failed to implement a national family planning program which will avert such a catastrophe.
Famine in Ethiopia is Ninety Percent Man-Made
In 2011, Wolfgang Fengler, a lead economist for the World Bank, in a refreshingly honest moment for an international banker said, “The famine in the Horn of Africa is a result of artificially high prices for food and civil conflict than natural and environmental causes. This crisis is manmade. Droughts have occurred over and again, but you need bad policymaking for that to lead to a famine.” In other words, it is bad and poor governance that is at the core of the famine problem in Ethiopia, not drought or other environmental causes. Penny Lawrence, Oxfam’s international director, after visiting Ethiopia observed: “Drought does not need to mean hunger and destitution. If communities have irrigation for crops, grain stores, and wells to harvest rains then they can survive despite what the elements throw at them.” Martin Plaut, BBC World Service News Africa editor explains that the “current [Ethiopian food] crisis is in part the result of policies designed to keep farmers on the land, which belongs to the state and cannot be sold.” So the obvious questions are: Why does a regime that has rejected socialism and is presumably committed to a free market economy insist on complete state ownership of land? Why is there not an adequate system of irrigation for crops, grain storages and wells to harvest rains throughout the country? Does Zenawi really have a food security policy for the country?
The Hunger Games at Camp David
After four decades at the humanitarian food aid trough, it is unlikely that Ethiopia will achieve food security even in the distant future. President Obama is rightly concerned over the “food shortages” in the Horn and the Sahel in the coming year. Last month, the United States pledged to provide nearly $200 million in additional humanitarian aid to the Horn in anticipation of “poor rains and drought”. In 2011, the U.S. provided over $1.1 billion in humanitarian aid to Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.
On May 19, President Obama and the G8 leaders will have to face some tough questions: What is the moral hazard of endlessly supplying food relief to the Horn countries? Why should the world continue to help a country that leases millions of hectares of the most fertile land in the country and become the breadbasket for India and the Middle East while its people are starving? Why should the world provide food aid to a country when the ruling regime weaponizes the aid to decimate opposition, crush the democratic aspirations of the people and flagrantly violate human rights? Does aiding dictators who use food aid for political purposes end famine and food shortages in Africa?
The G8 leaders can talk about “food shortages” until the cows come home, but the answer to famine in Ethiopia and in the Horn is not never ending handouts to starving populations and free lunches to panhandling dictators. Handouts create a moral hazard of negative dependency by recipients which incapacitates them from fending for themselves. Zenawi and the other African dictators have no incentive to address the “food shortage” issue because they are absolutely and positively sure that the U.S. and other G8 countries will ALWAYS deliver humanitarian food aid to their starving populations year after year. As a world leader, the U.S. has a moral obligation to provide humanitarian food aid to famine victims; but it also has the moral responsibility of leveraging the billions in handouts (development aid, loans from the multilateral institutions and budget support payments) to dictators to promote democracy, human rights and rule of law in Africa.
In May 2010, Zenawi’s party won 99.6 percent of the seats in parliament. Despite two decades of one-party domination, Zenawi has not been able to do much to address the structural problem of food insecurity in the country. But he has been blowing his horn about bogus stratospheric economic growth. Ethiopians suffer from chronic food shortages and famine because they lack a political framework that can deal effectively with the problem. The Indian economics Nobel laureate Amartya Sen argued that the best way to avert famines is by institutionalizing 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.” Famines are kept hidden from public view by jailing opposition leaders, journalists and civic society advocates who could sound the alarm over an impending famine.
What Should the U.S. Do for Ethiopia?
All the U.S. needs to do for Ethiopia is practice what it preaches. In 2009 in Accra, Ghana President Obama preached:
Development depends on good governance. History offers a clear verdict: Governments that respect the will of their own people, that govern by consent and not coercion, are more prosperous, they are more stable, and more successful than governments that do not. No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny. And now is the time for that style of governance to end…. In the 21st century, capable, reliable, and transparent institutions are the key to success — strong parliaments; honest police forces; independent judges; an independent press; a vibrant private sector; a civil society. Those are the things that give life to democracy, because that is what matters in people’s everyday lives…. History is on the side of these brave Africans, not with those who use coups or change constitutions to stay in power. Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions. With better governance, I have no doubt that Africa holds the promise of a broader base of prosperity….
Listening to Zenawi plead for more aid before the G8 to deal with the looming “food crises” (but “no famine”) is like listening to the man who killed his parents and asked for leniency from the court because he is an orphan. Now that’s chutzpah!
Amharic translations of recent commentaries by the author may be found at:
http://www.ecadforum.com/Amharic/archives/category/al-mariam-amharic
http://ethioforum.org/?cat=24
Previous commentaries by the author are available at:
http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/ and
www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/
Author’s prior commnetaries on famine in Ethiopia:
The “Silently” Creeping Famine: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ethiopias-silently-creepi_b_418068.html
What Should the World Do To Save Starving Ethiopians?http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/2011/08/28/what_should_the_world_do_to_save_starving_ethiopians
Why are Ethiopians Starving Again in 2011? http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/2011/08/20/why_are_ethiopians_starving_again_in_2011
“Famine and the Noiseome Beast” http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/11124
Ethiopia: Apocalypse Now or in 40 Years? http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/2011/07/10/ethiopia_apocalypse_now_or_in_40_years
Ethiopia: Starve the Beast, Feed the People!http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/2011/08/14/ethiopia_starve_the_beast_not_the_people
Ethiopia: Meles Zenawi and the Weaponization of Faminehttp://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/2011/08/07/ethiopia_meles_zenawi_and_the_weaponization_of_famine
20 thoughts on “African Hunger Games at Camp David”
Famine and war is unfortunately great business for fascist Meles Zenawi and his masters. The real cause of famine is POOR GOVERNANCE. Say no to state terrorism and ethnic politics in Ethiopia if you really care for Ethiopia and Ethiopians.
Development is not measured by roads and bridges but by how much the standard of living of the people is improved. Statistics could be easily manipulated for sure there are fascist Tigreans and collaborators who became millionaires in the last 20 years but at the expense of the Millions who are excluded from such so-called development.
How can one talk of free trade when two Organizations MIDROC and EFFORT are controlling the whole economy. EFFORT a holding company with over 80 subsidiaries established from money stolen from Ethiopians and Ethiopian banks and owned by the ruling party is not paying import tax and transport cost while they are using government shipping and transport facilities so how can a “normal” businessman who pays transport and import tax compete with these looters and blood suckers.
peace replies:
May 17th, 2012 at 2:46 PM
In fact EFFORT is ready to outsource and buy companies like Alamoudi all over the world and probably under the disguise of some unknown individual. I bet it is already implemented using some Arab, Asian or Western name and they will split the profit for helping EFFORT do business all over the world thus might be on Fortune 500. I believe that is what its aim is.
Forward this article to the president and other western leaders. It says a lot. Don’t underestimate their ignorance about Africa
FYI: Serkalem Fasil is quated in Time magazine of May 19,2012.
Famine in the South?
This article sites that Famine is looming in the South. In fact, we have witnessed time and time again that it is now the South that is starving to death, ever since the TPLF-Weyane took the state power from Mengistu’s regime. But, before the TPLF- Weyane had grip on state power, it was the north, particularly TIGRAY, who had been prone to drought and famine. How come now this famine is shifted from north to the south and is affecting those previously immune to famine areas of the South? The answer to this question is the key to understanding the main cause of famine in Ethiopia.
What happened to Tigray?. All of a sudden, it became fertile and surplus producer after 1991?. Is its population diffused and migrated to other parts of the country where the greener pasture is abundantly available and thus has less moth to feed?. Is it possible that more resource is diverted to this region more than ever before and as a result of this there is sufficient food stock pile no matter what the poor productivity of the province is? Is it possible that there is relative peace and stability in the region and some kind of welfare system put in place, the resource that other regions lack?. May be more development oriented projects was channeled to this region that eventually lead to sustainable development?. If Tigray is now immune to Famine, how come other parts of the country became so prone to it?
The TPLF –Weyane in their rebel years used to propagate the idea that the Mengistu regime was deliberately inducing famine and using the famine to control the population and rebel’s movement. Isn’t true that they are using the same tactic that they had been accusing of Megistu to control the population and whatever potential opposition there is to their regime? Is there any doubt that this famine is human induced and that the TPLF-regime is to Blame? How come Obama seek solution to this problem from the person who is responsible for its cause in the first place?. Does it make sense?
peace replies:
May 17th, 2012 at 2:54 PM
Although I no one wishes Tigray famine striced too, however, this indicates how it is not natural but man-made. If it was nature, due to the geographic location of Tigray, because it is arid land, it would face famine. However the fact that they made sure no famine Tigray is affected is good. By the way, the one that faces drought is not just Tigray but Wollo also. However, to say that the South is facing famine is a good indication that it is not natural because it never faced famine before but man-made thus, TPLF-made systematically. Well congrats ONLF and OLF for its support of TPLF! way to go! Still they do indirectly support TPLF!
Zenawi’s “plan to produce surplus” is by “leasing” out millions of hectares of the country’s prime agricultural land to so-called international investors (land grabbers) whose only aim is to raise crops for export. Ethiopia will produce food to feed other nations while Ethiopians starve. Zenawi has adamantly opposed private ownership of land, which by all expert accounts is the single most important factor in ensuring food security in any nation.
….The international poverty mongers/pimps (PMPs) have invented a “scientific” classification system for “food shortages” behind which Zenawi has been able to hide the true magnitude and severity of the problem in the country.
The euphemisms of the PMPs avoid the “F” word altogether regardless of the extremity of the food shortage. For the PMPs the conditions fall into one of the following categories:
“Acute Food Insecurity,
Stressed,
Crisis,
Emergency and Catastrophe.”
It is “scientifically” impossible to have famine in Africa! So the conspiracy of silence goes on to keep famine in Ethiopia hidden by clever use of masking euphemisms.
It is impossible to discuss any issue unless we agree with a certain premises. Ethiopian review thinks there is no government in ethiopia, and yet mention the drought is a direct result of incompetence of the ethiopian governemnt. In truth you can’t blame a vacum. In your analysis in Ethiopia there is a vacum, no structured state. I disagree with that. There is a state in Ethiopia. Like many countries in the world supported by US, the Ethiopian government has many problems, even not clearly elected democratically. But historically, who was elected in Ethiopia democratically?
I agree with you in one fundamental issue: there is bad governance and bad economic policy. We need to fight that. But that is not by claiming that Ethiopia has no Prime minster, or Government. Weather we like or not you have to negotiate even with devil.
The truth will prevail.
Dave Goldberg replies:
May 15th, 2012 at 11:28 AM
you don’t negotiate with the devil. you exorcise him.
peace replies:
May 17th, 2012 at 3:00 PM
It is to say there is chaos in Ethiopia, chaos indicates the lack of leadership or governance. When foreign individual is able to go in national bank is able to withdraw money as if they are citizen indicates, anyone can come in Ethiopia and do that is not only it is chaos, almost to say there is no government, no rule of law.
Obama continues to be misled by his aids that the so called Ethiopian leader is worthy of inviting; when in reality his aids are the ones cashing-in the blood and flesh of Ethiopians. Regadless how they like label the product of aiga jungle he will be captured and face justice in Ethiopia’s court system by Ethiopians.
Fkre Tesfamicael Tesfasion eritrean by birth appointed by tplf as Ethiopian Ambasador to South Sudan. Even the South Sudanese were disapointed. EreBay Agere.
loll replies:
May 15th, 2012 at 6:07 AM
These guys can’t survive without Ethiopia. Why dont they fight for unity with their mother country, imama Ethiopia.
Brothers and sisters, This Alemayehu guy is a very good writer and he definitely is smarter than me. I have a good idea
I might not be handsome but I am not stupid either. I am thinking the only way out of this problem is to form The Ethiopian Common Sense Party, that uses the sense called balancing common things with few principles for members
– If you can not convince the aid organizations confuse them
= you don’t have to be a candidate to get elected
– Education is not compulsory
– you don’t have to believe in divide and rule you can believe in rule and divide
– borrow…… borrow as much as you can count, no paper work necessary for security reasons
– Spend…….. spend on anything you want gambling, holiday etc…
– Buy………. Buy anything money can buy
-Waste………what can i say? waste is waste
– Want……..do you want some more money? start all over again
Thank you for reading my comment
Anonymous replies:
May 15th, 2012 at 12:26 AM
What is your point?
Gedlu metaferia replies:
May 15th, 2012 at 3:42 PM
Fezaza,
It is good to laugh sometimes. I almost failed from my chair after reading your comment. It is difficult to laugh these days. We all have some type of pain at different severity level. We think about home, our people and family. Time is money in the Diaspora.The economy is not good. Life in the west is more stressful than many poor countries beccause of the nature of the support structure. may be it is important to have a comedian’s page on ER. Thanks.
I don’t really know where you guys are originated from? Spreading white and naked baseless words won’t bring Ethipoia and its people no where.
Be like the original truthful Ethiopians. Don’t devote your time to write ‘Berie Welede’.
ALL ETHIOPIAN PEOPLE’S SCHOOLS HAD BEEN CONFISCATED IN MAY OF 2012 BY THE DEVIL MELES ZENAWI INORDER FOR WHISKY-WOYANE TO HAVE FULL CONTROL IN SCHOOL FEEEDING PROGRAMS AND MISMANAGE INTERNATIONAL FOOD AIDS DIRECTED TO THOSE STUDENTS WHICH ARE CURRENTLY BEING AFFECTED BY DROUGHT , LACK OF RAIN AND FAMINE IN ETHIOPIA. STUDENTS AND THE FUTURE GENERATION’S SURVIVAL OF THIS FAMINE WILL BE FULLY DECIDED BY THE DEVIL MELES ZENAWI AND UPTO THE LEVEL OF SUPPORT THE STUDENTS SHOW TOWARDS WOYANE.
MELES IS SAYING SUPPORT ME OR DIE TO ETHIOPIANS BY PUTING THEM UNIMAGINABLE SUFFERING LIFE THAT MADE A LOT SAY “NURO KALUT MEKABIR YIMOKAL.”
For the past several months, news about food shortages and famines affecting large segments of the Ethiopian population have been fuelling donation appeals from major public and private aid organizations. Low rainfall and – in Ethiopia’s case – recent stirrings in the 20 something year-old opression explain how a bad situation has suddenly become catastrophic. A precipitous drop in many families’ purchasing power in recent years, owing in large part to skyrocketing food costs, has created a situation in which any short-term disequilibrium – due to climate or security conditions, for example – is apt to turn into a disaster that can last a year or even more. In this regard, what is happening in central and southern Somalia is an extreme example of a wider phenomenon. Throughout the region, millions of people lack the purchasing power to buy what they need, though the markets are well-stocked. The markets in Somalia are functioning, too, despite the war, and people are dying of hunger not far from warehouses filled with food they can’t afford.
While the media broadcast, ad nauseum, images and accounts of the suffering endured by the people Ethiopia and epidemiological surveys confirm the severity of the situation, bringing help to Somali children is no simple matter. The armed opposition fears that a food distribution operation within its territory by foreign organizations could be used to weaken it. After all, the safety of food aid convoys was the main rationale behind international military intervention in 1992. Today, international troops engaged in military operations against the armed opposition are already involved in food distribution, and are asking for several thousand more men. Food aid lies at the heart of political and military issues, and a massive emergency deployment would mean a major, rapid shift in power relationships. In reality, the political and military conditions necessary to the success of operations that donors are being asked to fund do not currently exist.
How childhood malnutrition is being managed in neighbouring countries – where unlike Ethiopia, relief operations aren’t hindered by armed conflict – also raises some awkward questions. Some of these countries have populations ten times larger than Ethiopia. Take Somalia, for example. According to UNICEF, in the 2000s, Ethiopia and Somalia had the same percentages of moderately and severely underweight children – meaning that in absolute terms, there are ten times as many undernourished children in Ethiopia.
Who is it that is dying of hunger? Young children. What could prevent their deaths, in the short term? Powdered milk, sugar and oil-based food supplements. Why isn’t this being given to undernourished children before they reach a critical state? For two reasons. The first is a professional standard that pits prevention of undernutrition (promoting breastfeeding and certain dietary habits, and adding micronutrients to basic foodstuffs) against treatment (distributing dietary supplements to children for nutritional rehabilitation). The second is simply economic feasibility; the dietary supplements needed for nutritional rehabilitation of undernourished children now cost two to three euros a kilo. At that price, neither families nor public health institutions have the budget to treat the millions of infants each year found to have height or weight growth delays at medical visits. That’s why infants diagnosed with undernutrition usually return home untreated. Indeed, international and national recommendations require that a child be at the most advanced stage – severe marasmus or Kwashiorkor – before he is given an appropriate dietary supplement.
There are a few exceptions to this, however. The distribution of free food is considered justified in war and natural disaster situations. In these cases, infants may be treated before they reach the most severe stage of undernutrition. Outside of these humanitarian emergencies, children usually do not get food aid. So unlike Somali children, Ethiopian children – unless they’ve reached end-stage malnutrition – don’t get any help, despite the absence of any conflict preventing aid organizations from reaching them.
We should point out that two hundred years ago, people everywhere around the globe faced the same scourge. Since then, things have gotten better in the four out of every five countries that have managed to make food that specifically meets the needs of fast-growing young children available to families. In the thirty or so countries where deadly pockets of childhood undernutrition continue to be a fact of life, however, the situation can only persist. Aside from treating a few cases of severe marasmus, neither public health institutions nor families can afford nutritional rehabilitation for infants. After thirty years of trying, it’s clear that neither preventive measures nor economic development efforts in these countries can by themselves compensate for the market’s lack of affordable, infant-appropriate dietary supplements.
Since the 1970s, not a single transnational public health effort has been able to thrive under initial market conditions – whether it be immunization, contraception, the use of national essential drugs lists or drugs for AIDS. The creation of transnational public health-specific economic sectors has been possible only through differential pricing based on the income level of the countries in question. To do this, private economic operators reluctantly agreed to make a few exceptions to a single world price, while the States agreed to fund the now less-expensive effort. Without a comparable development in the area of infant feeding, we are condemned to watch children disappear year after year from the deadly combination of under-nutrition and infection. The current exacerbation in climate and economy-related malnutrition should finally convince us that it’s time to take action to ensure that dietary supplements are more available, and administered sooner, to deal with the most deadly form of malnutrition – infant under-nutrition. Should a Tobin tax ever be established, funding this type of public health project would be an excellent use of the money.