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Ethiopia Drought

Ethiopia’s regime and the weaponization of famine

By Alemayehu G. Mariam

Author’s Note:  On June 16, 2008, I published a special commentary (reproduced below in its original form) explaining the sysetmatic use of disinformation by Meles Zenawi, the dictator in Ethiopia for two decades, to deny widespread famine in various parts of Ethiopia and insidiously manipulate famine as a political and military weapon to cling to power. I wrote: “Famine is not just about images of skeletal children gasping for their last breath of air as their mothers gaze into nothingness in the sun baked landscape. It is also a military and political weapon. Meles today is using denial of food aid to “rebel areas” in the south/southeast as did Mengistu to “rebel areas” in the north back in his day. That is the classic strategic lesson Meles learned from Mengistu. Famine can be used both as a tactical and strategic weapon against one’s opponents…” I offer that commentary which originally ran without a byline to my readers at this time in light of recent revelations by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the BBC showing that the U.S., Britain,  the European Union, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are still providing billions of dollars of aid to Zenawi’s regime despite evidence that it is used as a tool of political oppression in Ethiopia.  Shame on them all!

Special Commentary: The art of denial (lying)  June 16, 2008

Credit must be given where it’s due. And Meles Zenawi and his crew deserve full credit. For perfecting the art of denial (lying) just like the smooth career criminals who deny everything when caught: “Didn’t do it! Wasn’t there! Didn’t happen! Somebody else did it. Someone stole my fingerprints to make it look like I done it!” Deny, deny, deny!

Famine? What famine? That’s the response of Meles and his gang about the famine that is slowly enveloping Ethiopia, and swallowing its people region by region. A few days ago, the reptilian “Deputy Prime Minister” Addisu Legesse groused: “Institutions that exaggerate the food shortage in Ethiopia and report inflated figures of the needy are intent on belittling the economic growth of the country and calculating their interests.” According to Meles, Inc. Ministry of Disinformation, the whole famine thing is a figment of the overactive imagination of the foreign media and humanitarian organizations: “It is ridiculous and unethical that some media outlets are reporting as if food grain price hike is typical of Ethiopia, though it is known that the existing global price hike is a result of soaring price of oil and ever-increasing demand of food grain among the developing countries. The reporting of some media is very much exaggerated and far from the truth,” concluded the garbled statement of the Disinformation Ministry.

The bottom line from Meles Inc. is: There is no famine in Ethiopia. Just millions of Ethiopians who can’t afford to buy food because it is damn too expensive! But Meles runs a pretty slick disinformation campaign: Blame the international commodities markets for high food prices in Ethiopia, and demonize the foreign media and aid organizations for ruining Ethiopia’s image. Then dish out boldfaced lies to distract public attention from the raging famine, and promptly declare victory: “The country has registered during the last five consecutive years rapid double digit economic growth…”

The fact of the matter is that people in Ethiopia are starving to death, by the thousands every day. There is no question about that: “We’re overwhelmed,” said Margaret Aguirre recently, a spokeswoman for the International Medical Corps, a California-based aid agency. “There’s not enough food and everyone’s starving and that’s all there is to it.” Georgia Shaver, the World Food Programme’s director in Ethiopia, painted an equally bleak picture saying that while up to 14 million people needed food aid across six countries in southern Africa, “in Ethiopia we could have the same number in just one country.”

Now, why would Aguirre, Shaver, the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera… lie about famine in Ethiopia? What would they gain from “exaggerating” the famine?

Famine Facts

For over three decades, Ethiopia has been the international poster lady for famine and starvation. Images of throngs of skeletal children and their starving parents scratching the sun-baked earth are indelibly imprinted in the minds of people around the world. In 1974, mutinous soldiers deposed Emperor Haile Selassie after foreign reporters (“The Unknown Famine” by Jonathan Dimbleby) and some international humanitarian organizations revealed to the world that a famine of biblical proportion was taking place in the north of the country. Just like Meles today, Haile Selassie then denied reports of widespread famine and starvation, and tried to cover it up. When news of the famine shocked the world, Haile Selassie blamed the foreign media for exaggerating the scope of the disaster and for tarnishing Ethiopia’s image.

In 1985, after a decade of disastrous experiments in socialism, Mengistu presided over a famine that claimed the lives of nearly a million people. He also blamed drought and poor rainfall for the famine (but never his disastrous socialist policies) and set out to deal with the problem by putting into place a reckless policy of forced resettlement of hundreds of thousands of people from the north to the more fertile south. Like Meles today, Mengistu then, sat with his arms crossed waiting for massive international food aid to be delivered to his door. Meles today claims the problem of famine in Ethiopia, if it existed at all, is caused by drought and poor rainfall during successive seasons (but never his disastrous economic policies that give higher priority to growing roses than teff), and now expects delivery of massive emergency food aid from Western nations to rescue Ethiopia. Like Haile Selassie who blamed the famine, the high costs of imported goods, gasoline, and skyrocketing food prices, unemployment, etc., on the international oil crises of 1973, Meles today blames the oil crises of 2008 for exactly the same things.

Meles’ Fine Art of Denial (Lying)

Meles and his gang have perfected the art of denial (lying) and raised it to new heights. They have done it by:

Denial of fact: They deny undeniable facts with a straight face. Example: “Famine does not exist in Ethiopia. It is a story made up by the foreign media and aid organizations. It is all ‘exaggerated  and far from the truth’.”

Denial of responsibility: They deny responsibility in the event such a thing as famine should be discovered. Example: “There is no famine, but if, in the unlikely event it exists, it is first and foremost the responsibility of God. He failed in his divine duty to send the rains. He did not. Therefore, there was no harvest, which means famine. God’s co-conspirators include the oil cartels and the greedy manipulators of global food prices. Last but not least of the culprits is the West. They also failed in their duty to supply food aid as they have dutifully done for the past three decades. We had nothing to do with it. We were just minding our own business growing roses and making sure of double digit economic growth.”

Denial of impact: There is really no famine as such in the country, just some pockets of grain deficits. Example: “With the exception of spot shortages in Oromiya and Somali regions, everything is hunky dory. There is plenty of food in the rest of the country, if people have the cash.”

Denial of awareness: We were so busy doing “double digit economic development” and tending to our rose gardens, we were not aware of any famine. Example: “It is impossible to have famine in a country that has been wallowing in ‘double digit economic growth for the past five years’. We’ve been so busy building office structures, luxury villas with swimming pools, world class hotels, exporting roses and importing French wines and champagne, we simply did not know famine was ravaging the countryside. Oops!! Sorry!”

Denial of recurrence: If there is famine, it just happened. Example: “We did not know this famine thing is recurrent. There were no early warning signs. No sentinel events to cause us concern that real famine was going to happen. Anyway, no big deal. We are in ‘double digit economic growth’ and this famine shall be over soon like all the rest. It is just once in a decade type of thing.”

Denial of denial: There is nothing that we must do to deal with the problem of famine, if it exists. Example: “The whole famine thing will take its own course. For decades, there has been famine in Ethiopia. It’s not like this is the first time. Nothing happened in the past from famine. There are a lot more people in Ethiopia today than were in 1974 or 1984. So, famine will have no real effect on the population. It is natural. We don’t need to do anything.”

Denial-by-admission: The whole famine thing is an overblown “exaggeration”.  Example: “It is true that millions of people are at risk of food shortage. But what some describe as famine in Ethiopia is nothing more than food insecurity. Those skeletal children that are seen in the international media are just nutritionally-challenged, but they are, by no means, famine victims! Their parents are victims of critical food shortages for extended periods, not famine. At worst, the food situation in Ethiopia points to large-scale chronic food deprivation, which is not the same as famine.”

Why is Ethiopia Stalked by Recurrent Famine?

When Haile Selassie was deposed over the famine, the people asked: Why didn’t he do something to prevent it? When Mengistu celebrated the tenth anniversary of his socialist government and hundreds of thousands of people died in a catastrophic famine, the people asked: Why didn’t he do something to prevent it? Now, the same question must be put to Meles: Why didn’t he do something to prevent the current famine as he enjoyed his Millennium celebration in Pharaonic  splendor? The answer to the question is very simple. Meles does not care! He doesn’t give a damn if famine wipes out half the population. (He might even shed a few crocodile tears!) He is concerned only with keeping himself and his gang in power, and making Ethiopia their playground. That is the absolute TRUTH!

We must go beyond the obvious to fully appreciate the severity of the current famine situation. The indisputable fact is that famine in Ethiopia is NOT a natural disaster. Certainly, it is aggravated by certain meteorological phenomena, but it is, and has always been, a preventable man-made disaster. So, we must ask some tough questions of those who have been feasting at the Table of Plenty for the last 17:

Has Meles learned any lessons at all from the Great Famines of 1973-74 and 1984-85 to prevent a famine in 2007-08?

Why isn’t famine prevention given the highest policy priority in the Meles regime?

Why is Meles so adamantly opposed to complete privatization of land, which by all expert accounts is the single most important factor in the food security of any nation?

Why is Meles spending millions upon millions of dollars in Somalia when millions upon millions of Ethiopians are starving?

Why does military spending consume nearly one-half of Ethiopia’s budget?

Why is exporting roses to Europe more important than raising teff and wheat to feed the starving people of Ethiopia?

Why hasn’t the Meles regime implemented a national family planning program in the same manner as those countries experiencing high birthrates?

Why is Meles addicted to international food aid and rescue?

Why is Ethiopia listed 138/179 countries on Corruption Index for 2007?

The Weaponization of Famine

Famine is not just about images of skeletal children gasping for their last breath of air as their mothers gaze into nothingness in the sun baked landscape. It is also a military and political weapon. Meles today is using denial of food aid to “rebel areas” in the south/southeast as did Mengistu to “rebel areas” in the north back in his day. That is the classic strategic lesson Meles learned from Mengistu. Famine can be used both as a tactical and strategic weapon against ones opponents. It could be used to depopulate troublesome regions by creating refugees and eliminating hostile guerilla forces. Like Mao Zedong said, “Guerrillas are like fish, and the people are the water in which fish swim.” When you weaponize famine, it is like draining the water out of the lake. No water! No fish! No problem!

Famine can also be used as a political weapon of control and elimination of any organized opposition. For instance, by controlling and manipulating the supply of grain to the urban markets, the regime can effectively punish and bring that population to its knees while eliminating any capacity for organized political opposition.

But famine is also very good for business (famine profiteering). 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. When these middlemen have an absolute monopoly on the acquisition, sale and distribution of agricultural commodities, particularly grains, it 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 on the market, and complete control on the distribution of international food aid equals to “mo’ money, mo’ money, and mo’ money” for Meles and his gang.

The Real Reasons for Recurrent Famines in Ethiopia

The prime reason for the current famine in Ethiopia is the misguided economic policies of the Meles regime. That is the judgment of the most experienced development economists. As Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate and world renowned welfare (development) economist, observed, “There has never been a famine in a functioning multiparty democracy.”

In Ethiopia, drought and other meteorological phenomena are aggravating factors in the causation of famine, but their effects can be mitigated through effective policies, improved planning and better coordination in a functioning multiparty democracy. But there is no way famine could be effectively addressed in a one-party totalitarian police state that places a higher priority on the cultivation of rose bushes, coffee exports, tourism and construction of villas, resorts and unneeded office buildings than feeding its people. There is no way to overcome famine when artificially low prices are maintained for agricultural commodities (so that regime-allied middlemen could make obscene profits) and few incentives are provided to farmers for expanded food production. There is no way to rid famine from Ethiopia when fertilizer is used to blackmail farmers into voting for the regime. It is impossible to avoid recurrent famines when the regime relies on flawed policies promoted by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund which ignore the critical role of the private sector in food production. Famine will always rear its ugly head in Ethiopia so long as it is used as a military and political weapon. There will always be famine in Ethiopia so long as privatization of land is prohibited.

Stretching Her Hands Unto God

Let’s face the facts. For well over three decades, Ethiopia has been forced into recurrent famines by reckless, careless, heedless, feckless, aimless and worthless governments whose solution to the structural problem of food insecurity is to stretch out unbending begging hands to the Western countries. For well over three decades, the West has responded with kindness, goodwill, mercy, understanding, charity and compassion. Today, the limits of Western charity and generosity has reached its limits. For the first time, the West has come to the conclusion that it has no moral obligations to save Ethiopia when the Ethiopian “government” is sitting on its hands and doing nothing; or when it does do something, it is only to stretch out the hand that begs.

We must come to terms with the fact that the West is no longer willing to be blackmailed into accepting moral blame for Ethiopia’s famine. That is why it will be different this time. There will be no Bob Geldofs to save Ethiopia. No Live Aid. No Michael Jacksons singing “We are the World.” It will do us no good to stretch out begging hands to the Western Powers. This time Ethiopia must stretch her hands to a much Higher Power, the only Power that can save her. And Ethiopia will be saved — let there be no doubt about that — because we believe, as written in Psalm 68:31, “Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.” And He will hold and lift her tenderly by her hands and raise her from the depths of despair, privation and misery, and deliver her from the plague of oppression! This time Ethiopia’s children must not only stretch out their hands unto God, but they must also hold hands — extend helping hands — from across the globe and embrace their brothers and sisters who are dying simply because they have nothing to eat. No Ethiopian should die from starvation!

Food for Thought: How many Ethiopians died today for lack of food?

Afterword: I have written about famine in Ethiopia on a number of occasions since June 2008. Here are some of my commentaries:

Ethiopia: Dictator With a Conscience? July 25, 2011

Ethiopia: Apocalypse Now or in 40 Years? July 10, 2011

Licensed to Steal March 10, 2010

Ethiopia’s “Silently” Creeping Famine January 11, 2010

Speaking Truth to Strangers June 10, 2010

Famine and the Noisome Beast in Ethiopia November 2, 2009

Previous commentaries by the author are available at: www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ and http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/

Ethiopia’s “Silently” Creeping Famine

By Alemayehu G. Mariam

“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.)