The great Ethiopian famine of 1984 remembered
There is famine in Ethiopia in 2014, but it is known by other fancy names
Alemayehu G. Mariam
2014-11-92
With the connivance of the ‘international community’ and a phalanx of aid
people, successive Ethiopian regimes have succeeded to hide the reality of
famine facing millions of its people every year. The regimes have also
prevented critical interrogation of the political dimensions of these
recurrent food crises.
Famine in Ethiopia is a topic that horrifies me. Over the years, I have
written long commentaries on the subject often challenging with
incontrovertible facts the fabricated and false claims of the Tigrean
Peoples Liberation Front and its late leader Meles Zenawi that there has
been no famine in Ethiopia since they took power in 1991. Of course, there
has been famine in Ethiopia every year since 1991. They just don’t call
famine, famine. They have fancy names for it like “extreme malnutrition”,
“severe under-nutrition”, “extreme food shortage”, “catastrophic food
shortages” and other clever misnomers. However, famine in Ethiopia
sugarcoated with fancy words and phrases is still famine!
Food is the quintessential human right. All human beings have a God-given
right to food. Without food and water there is no life; and those who
control food and water control life itself. The problem in Ethiopia for over
one-half century has been that the governments and regimes in power who
controlled the supply of food have pleaded congenital ignorance when it
comes to famine. H.I.M. Haile Selassie said he did not know there was famine
in northern Ethiopia in 1973-74. In 1984-85, military strongman Mengistu
Hailemariam said exactly the same thing. “Yo no sabía…” Meles Zenawi in 2008
said, “We did not know there was famine in Southern Ethiopia until emaciated
children began to appear.” Oh! The curse of know nothing and do nothing
governments and regimes in Ethiopia!
Since I joined the human rights struggle in Ethiopia after the 2005 election
after the late Meles Zenawi ordered the massacre of hundreds of unarmed
protesters, I have used my pen (keyboard) to hold Meles and his Tigrean
Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) disciples accountable if not before a court
of international law, at least before the court of international public
opinion. Their ongoing depraved indifference to millions of Ethiopians
facing famine year after year is a testament to their continuing and
monumental crimes against humanity.
In his first press conference in Addis Ababa after Meles and his gang seized
power, Meles declared that the litmus test for the success of his regime
should be whether Ethiopians were able to eat three meals a day. (See video
<
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ebpD6YqV3o> here.) Two decades later in
2011, Meles pompously
<
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Ethiopia+won%27t+need+food+aid+after+2015%3A+
Meles-a01612328057> declared, “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.”
“Three meals a day” in 2014 Ethiopia is pie in the sky for the vast majority
of Ethiopians. There is no chance that Ethiopia will feed itself “without
the need for massive food aid” by 2015, which is two months from now. In
fact, Ethiopia today is 123 out of 125 worst fed countries in the world.
According to a
<
http://www.oxfam.org:8000/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2014-01-15/dutch-beat-
french-and-swiss-top-oxfams-new-global-food-table> 2014 Oxfam report, “while
the Netherlands ranks number one in the world for having the most plentiful,
nutritious, healthy and affordable diet, Chad is last on 125th behind
Ethiopia and Angola.”
For years, the TPLF leaders 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.” Meles’ “plan to produce
surplus” was 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. Meles and his TPLF gang have
adamantly opposed private ownership of land, which by all expert accounts is
the single most important factor in ensuring food security in any nation. In
2010, food inflation in Ethiopia remained at 47.4 percent.
The TPLF and the international poverty pimps that coddle and protect the
TPLF would like the world to believe in a rosy fairy tale about
“double-digit economic growth”, “construction of massive infrastructure” and
“leadership in the fight against terrorism”. They will never talk about the
famine that has stalked Ethiopia for decades now. Those poverty pimps are so
clever that they have invented a whole set of words and phrases not to call
famine, famine. The word “famine” is banned from their official reports. It
has been replaced by such phrases as “severe malnutrition”, “food deficit”,
“acute food insecurity”, “extreme food consumption gaps” and many others
deceptive euphemisms.
In its August 15, 2014 <
http://www.usaid.gov/ethiopia/food-assistance>
report USAID wants us to believe that the thing that walks like a duck,
quacks like a duck and swims like a duck is NOT a duck. USAID says, “Despite
a fast-growing economy… Ethiopia… experiences high levels of both chronic
and acute food insecurity, particularly among rural populations and
smallholder farmers. Approximately 44% percent of children under 5 years of
age in Ethiopia are severely chronically malnourished, or stunted. The
long-term effects of chronic malnutrition are estimated to cost the
Government of Ethiopia approximately 16.5 percent of its GDP every year
according to the UN World Food Program (WFP).”
What does this bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo actually mean? Many in rural areas
are facing famine-like conditions? Babies, toddlers and small children are
starving? It makes me sick to my stomach! USAID and the rest of
international poverty pimp network members think we are too dumb and too
stupid not to see their stupid word and phrase games about famine in
Ethiopia. They should know that we are not as dumb as we look. (Are we!?!?
Just wondering.) “That which we call a rose, any other name would smell as
sweet”, but USAID and the rest of the international poverty pimps should
know that they cannot sugarcoat famine in Ethiopia by calling it “extreme
malnutrition” and expect to fool anybody.
THE GREAT ETHIOPIAN FAMINE OF 1984
For me the best way to remember the Great 1984 Ethiopian Famine today is by
remembering the hidden Ethiopian famine of Ethiopia in 2014. In October
1984, the BBC released a <
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29691158>
documentary on the “Ethiopian famine that shocked the world.” Describing
that famine as “shocking” is a gross understatement of the reality. It was
disgraceful, dreadful, ghastly, sickening, monstrous, scandalous and
unspeakably horrifying. BBC reporter Michael Buerk described it as a
“biblical famine”. His documentary today is considered as
<
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8315248.stm> “one of the most famous television
reports of the late 20th Century.” Watching the video of that famine is
psychologically devastating today as it was 30 years ago when it happened.
An estimated one-half million people in northern Ethiopia died as a result
of the 1984 famine. Some 600 thousand people were forcibly transported by
military truck from their home villages and farms to various regions in the
southern part of the country. Tens of thousands of peasants died in the
transportation process and at the various settlement camps. The military
Derg regime also used the opportunity to depopulate certain areas considered
sympathetic to rebels by creating a “villagization” program. The outcome of
the Derg’s response to that famine was an unmitigated disaster.
In 1987,
<
http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/2011/08/20/why_are_ethiopians_starving_
again_in_2011> Time Magazine wrote about famine in Ethiopia that year
questioning what was really going on in Ethiopia. “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… 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?”
THE END OF FAMINE IN ETHIOPIA ACCORDING TO MELES ZENAWI AND HIS TPLF
DISCIPLES
For years, Meles and his TPLF disciples have been advertising their
<
http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/2012/05/13/african_hunger_games_at_camp
_david> “Productive Safety Net Programme” (driven by foreign aid in the form
of budget support supposedly) as the silver bullet against famine. That
program presumably “prevents asset depletion at the household level and
creates productive assets at the community level accelerating the end of the
cycle of dependence on food aid”.
In October 2011, Meles
<
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Ethiopia+won%27t+need+food+aid+after+2015%3A+
Meles-a01612328057> 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.” His “plan to produce surplus” was to be
implemented 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 to feed people in India and the Middle East. So
much for the TPLF's hype of "ending the cycle of dependence on food aid."
The facts speak for themselves. According to the
<
https://www.wfp.org/countries/ethiopia/overview> World Food Programme
report (WFP) (the branch of the United Nations and the world's largest
humanitarian organization addressing hunger and promoting food security), in
2014, 2.7 million Ethiopians need food assistance and that WFP plans to
assist nearly 6.5 million vulnerable Ethiopians with food and special
nutritional assistance, including school children, farmers, people living
with HIV/AIDS, mothers and infants, refugees and others. In 2012, there were
<
http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/OI_Brief_D
evelopment_Aid_Ethiopia.pdf> 3.76 million people in need of emergency food
aid; in 2011, the number was 4.5 million; 5 million in 2010 and 2009 and 6
million in 2008. According to a 2013 U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization
(FAO)
<
http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/OI_Brief_D
evelopment_Aid_Ethiopia.pdf> report, “34 million Ethiopians--40 percent of
the population--are considered chronically hungry.” To be “chronically
hungry” means to go without food for a very long time. Isn’t that what we
used to call starvation and famine in 1984?
IN HONOR AND REMEMBRANCE OF THOSE ETHIOPIANS WHO HAVE DIED NEEDLESSLY FROM
FAMINE IN ETHIOPIA
In honor and remembrance of the victims of the Great Ethiopian Famine of
1984 and those who died needlessly since then, I review a few of the many
commentaries I have written over the years on hunger, starvation and famine
in Ethiopia. I do so not to self-congratulate or to seek recognition for my
miniscule efforts to raise public awareness. I do it for the same reason I
do all of my human rights advocacy: To speak truth to power and abusers of
power.
For years, I have relentlessly criticized the late Meles Zenawi and his TPLF
regime for their depraved indifference to the issue of famine and starvation
in Ethiopia. In 2008, I wrote a commentary entitled,
<
http://www.ethiomedia.com/all/6096.html> “The art of denial (lying)”. I
argued that Meles and his TPLF crew deserve credit for perfecting the art of
denial (lying) just like the smooth career criminals who deny everything
when caught. When Meles was confronted by the facts of famine in Ethiopia,
his response was, “What famine?” In an
<
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ethiopias-silently-creepi_
b_418068.html> interview with Time Magazin on August 7, 2008, Meles flatly
denied the existence of famine in Ethiopia: “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." (“Stupid is as stupid does,” said Forrest
Gump, the character in the movie by the same name.)
Meles’ deputy, Addisu Legesse, following his boss 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.” Mitiku Kassa, Meles’ “Minister of Agriculture
and Rural Development” 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.”
In An interview with journalist
<
http://blog.oup.com/2012/08/meles-zenawi-in-his-own-words/> Peter Gill on
August 22, 2012, Meles said he was clueless of the famine engulfing Southern
Ethiopia. “That was a failure on our part. We were late in recognising we
had an emergency on our hands. We did not know that a crisis was brewing in
these specific areas until emaciated children began to appear.” For Meles,
the proof of famine is “emaciated children”. Everything else is at worst an
“emergency”. All of the talk of famine is merely a figment of the overactive
imagination of the foreign media and humanitarian organizations.
In November 2009, I wrote <
http://www.ethiopianreview.com/index/11124> a
commentary entitled, “Famine and the Noisome Beast in Ethiopia”. I wondered
out loud how successive Ethiopian governments and regimes over the past
one-half century could blame famine on “acts of God.” The TPLF regime even
today blames “poor and erratic rains,” “drought conditions,” “deforestation
and soil erosion,” “overgrazing,” and other “natural factors” for “severe
malnutrition” and “chronic food shortages” in Ethiopia. They shrug their
soulders and say, "It ain't us. It's God who did it! He forgot to send the
rains."
In April 2010, in my commentary,
<
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ethiopias-silently-creepi_
b_418068.html> “The ‘Silently’ Creeping Famine in Ethiopia”, I vehemently
protested the dishonesty of the international organizations, bureaucrats and
officials who use euphemisms to hide the ugly truth about famines and
mass-scale hunger in Ethiopia. I accused the heartless international poverty
pimps of inventing a lexicon 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. The international poverty pimps cannot hide the truth about famine by
talking nonsense 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”amine word. They got to call a spade, a spade!
FEWSNET (Famine Early Warning Systems Network”, a creation of the US Agency
for International Development (USAID), has invented a ridiculous taxonomy to
describe hungry people in places like Ethiopia. According to FEWSNET, when
it comes to food, there are people who are generally food secure, moderately
food insecure, highly food insecure, extremely food insecure and those
facing famine. Translated into ordinary English and applied to countries
like Ethiopia, these nonsensical categories seem to equate those who eat
once a day as generally food secure, followed by the moderately food secure
who eat one meal every other day. The highly food insecure eat once every
three days. The extremely food insecure eat once a week. Those who never eat
face famine and die! The kind of madness that masquerades as “science”!
In March 2011, I wrote a commentary entitled,
<
http://www.ethiopianreview.com/index/32070> “The Moral Hazard of U.S.
Policy in Africa” arguing that the TPLF regime is so heavily dependent on
the safety net of foreign aid, massive infusion of multilateral loans and a
perpetual supply of humanitarian assistance that were it left to its own
devices it will likely behave very differently (more responsibly). Why
shouldn’t the donors and loaners leave the TPLF to deal with the
consequences of its mismanagement of the economy and debilitating
corruption? The fact of the matter is that for over two decades, the TPLF
regime has gone out into the international community with bowls begging for
food to feed millions of Ethiopians without being held accountable by the
donors and loaners. As a result, the regime has been completely indifferent
to the plight of the people.
In July 2011, I wrote a commentary entitled,
<
http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/2011/07/10/ethiopia_apocalypse_now_or_i
n_40_years> “Apocalypse Now or in 40 Years?” I was and still am concerned
whether there will be an “Ethiopia” in 2050. I argued that whether Ethiopia
survives as a viable nation in 2050 free of war, disease, pestilence and
famine will not depend on an imaginary “double-digit” 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 decisive issue in Ethiopia today
and the years to come.
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). The TPLF has failed to
implement a national family planning program which will avert such a
catastrophe. The bottom line is that Ethiopia’s population is growing by 3
percent every year. If Ethiopia cannot adequately feed, clothe and shelter
90 million of its people today, is there any way in God’s green earth that
she will be able to feed 278 million in just 35 years?
In my August 8, 2011, commentary entitled,
<
http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/2011/08/07/ethiopia_meles_zenawi_and_th
e_weaponization_of_famine> “Meles Zenawi and the Weaponization of Famine”, I
argued that Meles and his TPLF gang were insidiously manipulating famine as
a political and military weapon to cling to power. I argued that 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.
Famine is also a military and political weapon. Meles and his TPLF have used
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.
My August 15, 2011, commentary entitled,
<
http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/2011/08/14/ethiopia_starve_the_beast_no
t_the_people> “Starve the Beast, Feed the People!” was a call to action. I
urged Ethiopians to stand up to the Western donors and loaners who continue
to support the criminal regime of Meles Zenawi and the TPLF in Ethiopia and
declare, “Starve the TPLF 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
TPLF-beast that is feeding on the Ethiopian body politics, and help feed the
starving people."
In my August 22, 2011, commentary entitled,
<
http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/2011/08/20/why_are_ethiopians_starving_
again_in_2011> “Why are Ethiopians Starving Again in 2011?”, I gave ten
reasons why Ethiopians are still starving in 2011, (and in 2014 as well): 1)
Famine is not merely a humanitarian catastrophe in Ethiopia; it is a
powerful political and military weapon. 2) Famine is a recurrent fact in
Ethiopia because that country has been in an endless cycle of dictatorship
for decades. 3) Famine in Ethiopia is an annual crisis because the TPLF
dictators do not give a damn if the people die one by one or by the
millions. 4) Famine is a structural part of the Ethiopian economy because
the “government” owns all the land. 5) Famine persists in Ethiopia because
massive human rights abuses persist. 6) Famine persists in Ethiopia because
Meles Zenawi’s TPLF regime has succeeded in keeping the famine hidden. 7)
Famine persists in Ethiopia because there is a “conspiracy of silence” or a
“conspiracy of turn a blind eye”by Western aid agencies, timid NGOs and a
mindless international press. 8) Famine persists in Ethiopia because the
regime in power for over two decades has failed to devise and implement an
effective family planning policy. 9) Famine in Ethiopia is good business for
the TPLF. 10) It is true “a hungry man/woman is an angry man/woman.”
In my August 29, 2011 commentary entitled,
<
http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/2011/08/28/what_should_the_world_do_to_
save_starving_ethiopians> “What Should the World Do To Save Starving
Ethiopians?”, I offered 10 reasonable recommendations to save starving
Ethiopians. 1) Take the moral hazard out of Western aid in Ethiopia. 2) Put
humanity and human rights back in Western humanitarian aid in Ethiopia. 3)
Promote and support a stable and healthy Ethiopian society through aid, not
entrench an iron-fisted and malignant dictatorship. 4) Never bankroll bad
actions by dictators with good Western taxpayer money. 5) Make partnership
with the Ethiopian people, not the Meles Zenawi TPLF dictatorship. 6) Hold
the local paymasters of aid accountable. 7) Condition aid and loans on the
implementation of comprehensive family planning programs in Ethiopia. 8) To
help the starving people of Ethiopia, help Ethiopian women. 9) To help the
starving people of Ethiopia, help Ethiopia’s youth (70 percent of Ethiopians
are under age 35.) 10) Starve the (TPLF) Beast, Feed the People.
In October 2012, I rang the alarm bell in my commentary
<
http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/2012/10/07/ethiopia_an_early_warning_fo
r_a_famine_in_2013> “Ethiopia: An Early Warning of a Famine in 2013”. By
carefully piecing data, analyses and findings from various sources including
the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), Oxfam, the U.N. World
Food Programme, the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization and reports of
the New England Complex Systems Institute, [NECSI] (a group of academics
from Harvard and MIT who specialize in predicting how changes in environment
can lead to political instability and upheavals), I warned that 2013 was
likely to be the threshold year for the onset of famine or “catastrophic
food crises”. I also challenged the ridiculous classifications of the
international poverty pimps and their pseudo-scientific stages of food
deprivation, e.g. “acute Food Insecurity”, “Stressed” situations, “Crises”
mode, etc.
In May 2012, I argued in my commentary,
<
http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/2012/05/13/african_hunger_games_at_camp
_david> African Hunger Games at Camp David, that food has been used as a
political weapon in Ethiopia. Hunger has been the new weapon of choice to
generate support for the TPLF regime and to decimate their political rivals.
Meles and his TPLF have been pretty successful in crushing the hearts, minds
and spirits of the people by keeping their stomachs empty. Those who oppose
the TPLF 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.
In February 2014, I wrote a commentary entitled,
<
http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/2014/02/07/a_glimpse_of_the_creeping_fa
mine_in_ethiopia> “A Glimpse of the Creeping Famine in Ethiopia”. That month
an investigative report by NBC news stated, “[Ethiopia] is the face of the
world food crises. In a village in Southern Ethiopia, mothers cue with their
malnourished children for emergency rations of food. They can’t afford to
feed their babies and now it seems neither can the outside world. The
distended stomachs, a symptom of the hunger so many here are suffering after
two poor harvests in a row, and there are more new cases everyday… They were
given food rations ten days ago… The government reserves ran out long ago,
and now the U.N. supply is thinning too.” (In 2008, Meles Zenawi said, he
knew nothing about the famine in Southern Ethiopia. They still did not know
of the famine in February 2014. They believe there is famine only when
skeletal children wander the streets and countryside.) The curse of a know
nothing do nothing regime!
I recently
<
http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/2014/09/26/shame_on_me_for_being_proud_
of_president_obama> challenged President Barack Obama for making patently
false statements on September 23 that he knew or should have reasonably
known to be untrue when he made them. “We have seen enormous progress in a
country [Ethiopia] that once had great difficulty feeding itself. It’s now
not only leading the pack in terms of agricultural production in the region,
but will soon be an exporter potentially not just of agriculture, but also
power because of the development that’s been taking place there.” I should
like to believe he was grossly misinformed because USAID’s August 15, 2014
<
http://www.usaid.gov/ethiopia/food-assistance> report completely
contradicts him. “Despite a fast-growing economy, Ethiopia remains one of
the poorest countries in the world. It experiences high levels of both
chronic and acute food insecurity, particularly among rural populations and
smallholder farmers.”
FAMINE IN ETHIOPIA IS TPLF-MADE
In 2011,
<
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/16/us-germany-eastafrica-worldbank-i
dUSTRE77F62R20110816> 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 policy
making 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. For
the past 23 years, the TPLF has mis-governed, mis-administered and
mismanaged Ethiopian society, politics and economy. Penny Lawrence, Oxfam's
international director, after visiting Ethiopia in May 2012 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, similarly explained that the “current [2012
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.” The
entire responsibility for Ethiopia’s famine (or whatever sugarcoated word
they want to use to disguise famine) rests at the feet of the TPLF leaders.
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?
Where is the TPLF leaders’ plan for food security for the country?
Do TPLF leaders really think that by giving away millions of hectares of
land to so-called investors for commercialized export agriculture they will
prevent famine or ensure food security in Ethiopia?
Do the international poverty pimps believe that they can make Ethiopia
self-sufficient by giving the TPLF food aid which the TPLF in turn will
weaponize to maintain itself in power?
Do the international poverty pimps believe that they can fill the bellies of
starving Ethiopians with assurances that they are only suffering from
“extreme malnutrition”?
POST-SCRIPT
I find it extremely distressing to see few Ethiopians taking the lead in
remembering the great tragedies of the Ethiopian people over the past
several decades. I am grateful that the BBC has taken media leadership today
to commemorate the Great Ethiopia Famine of 1984. I am ashamed (but
eternally grateful to our Western friends) that Ethiopia’s defenders in
times of great tragedy are Western institutions and personalities. When our
human rights are violated, our defenders are organizations such as Human
Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Freedom House, Genocide Watch and
others. When our independent journalists are jailed and exiled, it is the
Committee to Protect Journalists that mans the defensive lines. When our
rivers and indigenous people are facing extinction, it is International
Rivers and the Oakland Institute that come to our defense. The double shame
of it is that few of us are even donating members of the very organizations
that defend our rights and dignity. (The truth hurts, doesn’t it?!)
Perhaps some of my readers may disagree, but I see few CIVIC-SOCIETY
organizations toiling to defend human rights or press rights in Ethiopia. I
see few civic organizations standing up to prevent genocide in Gambella, the
Ogaden and many other parts of Ethiopia. I see few civic organizations
dedicated to the promotion of youth issues or women’s causes. I am aware of
only one civic organization dedicated to celebrating the achievements of
distinguished Ethiopians. Why can’t we stand for ourselves? What is that our
Western friends got that we ain’t got? Is it money, knowledge, commitment….?
What? Why can’t we stand and defend out rights against thugs?
As we remember the 1984 Great Ethiopian famine in 2014, I want my readers to
be very aware that there is famine going on in various parts of Ethiopia
today. Just because the BBC or some other investigative body is not
reporting it does not mean it is not occurring. One of the reasons the TPLF
regime has clamped down so hard on the independent press is to prevent such
reports from going out into the international media.
I also want my readers to be aware that the international poverty pimps that
pump billions in food aid into Ethiopia every year have a “conspiracy” of
silence not to use the “F”amine word. They want to skin over the ghastly
face of FAMINE in Ethiopia with discombobulating bureaucratic phrases and
words.
On a personal note, I find it mind-boggling that one person’s voice should
be heard week after week for years on so many important topics affecting
Ethiopia and Ethiopians when there are so many Ethiopians scholars and men
and women of learning throughout the world who could also have their voices
heard. People are “amazed “that I have written long commentaries on so many
topics every single week, without missing a single week, for years and
expressed my voice and views. I do not find that amazing at all. What I find
mind-bogglingly amazing is the fact that so many learned and intellectually
accomplished Ethiopians have chosen to speak their minds every single week,
without missing a single week, year after year, with their thunderous
silence.
Commitment and passion for any cause are unique to the individual, but I
believe every Ethiopian, particularly those blessed with great learning,
have a duty to man up and woman up to the cause of human rights and dignity
in Ethiopia, Africa and elsewhere. I am afraid that when future generations
of Ethiopians look back at our generation, they will all stand up, point
their collective index fingers and resoundingly shout out, “We Accuse!”
La luta continua! (The struggle continues!)
Famine in Ethiopia sugarcoated by fancy words and phrases is still famine!
* Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam teaches political science at California
State University, San Bernardino and is a practicing defense lawyer.
Received on Sun Nov 02 2014 - 04:48:34 EST