Mr. Hugh Parmer's extraordinary request to use the ports of a State at war with another State, the potential beneficiary of the good will gesture was based on a simple calculation of the inability of the port of Djibouti to handle the tonnage required to stave off a potential famine crisis in Ethiopia. The figure most often used of people in need of emergency assistance is 8.1 million people, although the government of Ethiopia thinks it may go as high as 10.6 million. Experts in the World food Program have calculated that at least 900,000 metric tons of supplies during the next few months was needed to avert the looming catastrophe. At best Djibouti's monthly import capacity is about 100,000 to 120,000. The food need in Ethiopia is around 100,000 metric tons per month. There's no way Djibouti has the capacity to handle the demand. Other ports suggested Berbera, Mombassa, or Port Sudan were either too far from the famine stricken areas, or they were too expensive, and or inefficient. Assab has the capacity, and supplies could be moved into Ethiopia expeditiously and efficiently, and food could be distributed in time to save lives. There was a sound basis for Mr. Parmer's request.

Believing correctly that Eritrea's concurrence on the use of Assab was a major breakthrough, Mr. Parmer proceeded to Addis Ababa to see Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. He asked the Prime Minister what he thought if supplies were to be brought in through Assab. The Prime Minster was stunned that the question was even asked. Mr. Meles told the visiting American that the government of Eritrea would not permit it, and even if it did Ethiopia would object receiving any supplies through Eritrean ports. Mr. Parmer failed to convince the Ethiopian leader that the magnitude of the food crisis was such that every available method must be used to save lives. The Prime Minister refused to budge.

When the government of Eritrea's decided to allow the use of Assab as a point of entry for relief destined for Ethiopia, it put Prime Minister Meles on the spot. The choice for Prime Minster Meles was stark and unforgiving: accept Eritrea's offer, and save people, or reject the offer, and lose people. The international donor community wanted the Prime Minister to accept the offer and save lives. But the Prime Minster, reflecting the TPLF's determination to pursue the war at all cost, rejected the offer, knowing full well millions of his compatriots were on the brink of starvation. The Prime Minister's rejection exhibited unspeakable callousness, an unacceptable insensitivity to the suffering of his people. But, then, the Prime Minister, as students of the TPLF's history know, is the product of his Party's culture where callousness, deceit and greed are deeply embedded traits. These traits, including the view that famine provides an opportunity for making money for the ruling regime, have been there all along. But there is also something else, something Eritreans have known all along, but which may be new to the rest of the world: TPLF's total disregard for its citizens lives.

A political party whose callous army uses human waves in battle, and illiterate peasants as human "mine-sweepers" cannot be expected to do what it takes to save its own citizens from death from famine. In the past Ethiopian rulers had routinely demonstrated degrees of callousness towards their subjects. There's nothing new in what the TPLF is doing. It's simply following precedents established by previous rulers. What makes the current callousness like that of the Derg's that preceded it is that it's taking place in full view of the rest of the world.

The world has taken note that Ethiopia continues to squander its scarce resource while doggedly pursuing a pointless war. The link between famine and war, now universally acknowledged by the world community, remains anathema to the Ethiopian government. But the link is there and no amount of official bluster can wish it away. In act the more the Ethiopian government tries to deny the link, the more heartless the Addis Ababa regime appears. In its refusal to permit the delivery of relief supplies through Eritrean ports, when these ports are the most efficient, and the quickest way to deliver supplies to the needy, the regime has indelibly reinforced its callousness.

When asked by reporter Stephen Smith (April 14, 2000) whether Ethiopia would consider accepting cease-fire, and the use of Eritrean ports to bring in relief supplies, Prime Minister Meles said, " No to cease fire, and no to the question of using the Eritrean ports-Massawa and Assab-to convey the assistance. This humiliation would be unacceptable, even to save lives." Not only did the Prime Minister reject the call for a cease-fire and the use of Eritrean ports to expedite the delivery of relief, he termed both suggestions acts of humiliation, even if the purpose of the proposals was to save lives. For the average person, not conversant with the TPLF's world-view, the Prime Minister's judgment is as puzzling as it is disturbing. One has to ask: Why did the proposal to save lives elicit such a bitter response from the government of Ethiopia? What is it about doing everything possible to save lives that the TPLF would cavalierly dismiss the gesture as something tantamount to humiliation? It's difficult to know the precise reasons, but several factors may explain Ethiopia's inhuman reaction.

The ostensible reason Prime Minster Meles gave was Djibouti's proximity to the affected areas, and how Assab is a long distance away from the Somali region where famine is located. Is Djibouti, along with Berbera; closer to the famine area than is Assab, or even Massawa? A closer look at the numbers tells a far different story. If the April rains fail as expected, the 8.1 million would increase by another 2.5 million, bringing the total number of Ethiopians in need of food assistance to 10.6 million. The Ethiopian government and its supporters are claiming that the food shortage is limited to a specific region in the Ogaden, the Somali National Regional State. But if we assume the entire Somali population has been affected, that would only give us 3.4 million (1997 census). So where does that leave the remaining 7.2 million?

There is an inconsistency that needs explanation from Ethiopian authorities, and the donor community that has taken Ethiopia's estimate of the magnitude of the problem at face value. A closer look at the numbers shows that the magnitude of the problem maybe exaggerated, or the Ethiopian government is hiding the prevalence of risk of famine in other regions of the country. While the former cannot be excluded, it appears the later may be more the case. There are solid reasons why it may do either: the threat of famine attracts larger donation that can be used to finance the war. Or it may wish to hide the prevalence of famine in other regions, as this will demonstrate the government's failed economic policy. It may also be politically sensitive to tell the truth. The clue is provided by a web site provided by the Ethiopian Embassy in Ottawa, Canada. In an article, "lewegn derash wegen new" (only Ethiopians can help Ethiopians) the Embassy has listed Tigray, Wollo, Gondar, Afar, Oromia and Ogaden, as places where food shortage is most acute. While the government is more than happy to allow the transmission of harrowing pictures of "skeletons on the screen" from the Somalia region of Ethiopia, as a way to attract donations from the international community, it has placed a tight lid to similar cases of famine elsewhere for political reasons.

For the Ethiopian government, nowhere is the prevalence of famine as sensitive as it is in Tigray where relief workers report that two-dozen people die everyday in the vicinity of Adi Grat. Quoting relief workers, Karl Vick of the Washington Post (April 24, 2000) has written that in Tigray the destitute are slowly selling bits of their houses for fire-an impending sign that famine is either not far off or is claiming victims. There is a point to be made here, a point that reinforces the link between famine and war. Before the war it was common for people in Tigray to cross the border into Eritrea during normal times or times of economic emergency for jobs and cross border trade to provide their families with the sustenance of life. Now with the war and the closure of the border, Tigray's destitute have nowhere to go! In a very real sense they are the most immediate victims of the war, a fact the TPLF does not wish to acknowledge, or the world to know. If it were not for the war, people from the border communities would have used the traditional safety valve from utter destitution, crossing in to Eritrea. Nowhere in Ethiopia is the link between war and destitution as well established as it is in Tigray, the TPLF's home base.

For people in eastern Tigray Djibouti and Berbera might as well be in Outer Mongolia, too far to do them any good. To admit openly that there's serious food shortage in Tigray is to increase international pressure on the government to allow the delivery of relief supplies through Eritrea's ports. Secondly the TPLF government would have to justify why it spent so much money on food and entertainment (estimated at US$5 million) and splurging another US$10 million on a monument to itself when people are dying of hunger in Tigray. Prime Minister Meles' government knows the comparison with the Derg's extravagant celebration at time of the last Great Famine is too obvious, that the need for assistance had to be covered up.

Greed explains why the Ethiopian government pushed for Djibouti, and Berbera, as it did early on for Mombassa and Port Sudan, in lieu of Assab and Massawa. In TPLF's Ethiopia famine is big business, and after coffee, relief assistance is Ethiopia's principal earner of hard currency. The greater the distance between a port of entry for relief supplies, and the affected areas, the more hard currency donors have to pay for transportation. The hard currency is often used to buy arms for the war. As the German daily, Frankfurter Allgmeine Zeitung noted in its April 14, 2000 issue: " Trucks hired by the donor countries from the Ethiopian government-for hard currency-were transporting food to the drought areas at the same time as giant Russian aircraft loaded with tanks and military equipment were landing in Addis Ababa." The paper added, " the Ethiopian mobilization was indirectly financed with the money from donor countries."

The TPLF, through its monopoly of the trucking business has made a lot of money out of famine. Several months ago, the World Food Program wanted to send emergency food supply. Wishing to comply with the government's request that nothing be shipped through Eritrea's ports, Mombassa was used as the entry point for food destined for Tigray, some 2,500 km while Massawa, at 300 km was close by, almost next door to the affected areas. Given that the inland charge per ton/km is 22 cents, paid in hard currency by donors, Mombassa is much more lucrative than Massawa. Simple calculation shows that bringing supplies from Djibouti, Berbera, Mombassa, or Port Sudan to the famine areas in Tigray, Wollo, or Gondar, for example, is a lot more hard currency for TPLF's treasury than bringing in supplies through Eritrea's ports. But what's expensive in dollars for donors and in lives for people from the affected areas, translates into big money in the bank for TPLF. No one in the donor community seems to have asked the most obvious question: if they had not been forced to import food through the most expensive route, more money would have been left to purchase more food for Ethiopia's famine stricken population.

The opportunity famine provides TPLF owned and operated trucking companies for making lucrative business deals is illustrated by the latest shipment of food that arrived in Djibouti. It will take 400 to 450 trucks a day for four months to deliver the nearly 500,000 metric tons of relief commodities the U.S has pledged. Another 400,000 tons has been pledged by the European Union, which will mean additional business for TPLF owned trucks. Since the majority of the needy population is away from the areas most visited by TV crews, in the Ogaden region, the trucks will have to take the food to far away place such as Tigray and Gondar, places that because of their proximity could have been served better by Assab and Massawa. But that would have been, among other things, less business for the TPLF.

A third and final reason that may explain Ethiopia's rejection of Eritrea's ports is what appeared in Walta, TPLF's principal news outlet, although never openly stated by the government of Prime Minister Meles. Walta revealed the political and economic basis of the government's rejection of Assab. It said that as long as the government of President Isaias was in power, Ethiopia would never use Assab. But if the Eritrean government is overthrown, presumably with the help of TPLF forces, and a "democratic" regime established there, then Ethiopia would gladly resume the use of Eritrean ports. Walta has restated what has been known all along about the purpose of the conflict. From TPLF's point of view the conflict is no longer about a contested border; it is about undermining Eritrea's sovereignty to advance TPLF's hegemonic interest in the region.

Accepting Mr. Parmer's proposal for Assab if accepted by Ethiopia would mean a lost "opportunity" for TPLF plan of overthrowing the Eritrean government and replacing it with one amenable to Mekele. Given the choice between continuing the war with the chance of overthrowing the Eritrean government and putting 8.1 million Ethiopians at risk of famine, the TPLF government chose the later. The war has nothing to do with Ethiopia's sovereignty. The excuse is just that-an excuse for doing away with Eritrea's sovereignty by force. The Prime Minister's defiance that Ethiopians have defended their sovereignty in half-full stomachs is a hollow rhetorical sledge hammer designed to conceal that the TPLF is not about to let go of the opportunity to make a ton of money out of its people's misery.

Eritrea's concurrence to the donors' request for the use of Assab created a nightmarish situation of the Ethiopia's minority controlled government. While the TPLF government has emerged as a callous administration unresponsive to the needs of its people, Eritrea's reputation as a responsible state has been reaffirmed. Eritrea's humane gesture has undermined the "outlaw" image the TPLF wanted to hang on Eritrea. It continues to gall the Prime Minister that, the Government of the State of Eritrea, the target of the Prime Minister's inexhaustible supply of insults, has risen to the occasion as a responsible member of the international community, notwithstanding his government's persistent campaign to isolate Eritrea.

Much to Ethiopia's chagrin, the request for Eritrea's ports and the magnitude of the food shortage has brought home to the international community the link between famine and war, a link the Ethiopian leaders had tried strenuously to deny, but without much credibility. And for the first time aid officials and foreign governments have began to question Ethiopia's priority. They are asking why they have to feed Ethiopia's hungry when the Ethiopian government is wasting resources on the war. Ethiopian government officials are aware that by establishing the link, the donor community is trying to pressure Ethiopia to stop the war and feed its people. In a recent (April 25, 2000) Agance France Press reported Haile Kiros, the government's spokesman complained that the humanitarian operation has "the sole aim of putting pressure on us to stop the war. Something Prime Minister has vowed to ignore." It is in this context that we have to understand Mr. Meles' reference to the use of Eritrea's ports as an act of humiliation for Ethiopia.

Eritrea's offer has brought unwelcome attention to Ethiopia's dependence on the donor community to feed Ethiopians, while it used resources on the war. It is not clear what the donor community would do with the knowledge that Ethiopia has ceded the responsibility of feeding its people to the international community while it goes out shopping for arms. A dramatic example of the helplessness of the donor community was illustrated when World food Program Executive Director Catherine Bertini visited Djibouti early this month. She witnessed the cargo ship Vale unloading 30,000 tons of wheat for Ethiopia's hungry, while a few meters away a Bulgarian cargo ship was unloading its cargo of ammunitions. The irony could not have escaped Ms Bertini.

Callousness is a hallmark of Prime Minister Meles' government. Indeed the TPLF government has written the book on meanness. Its treatment of Eritrean and Ethiopians of Eritrean heritage it forcibly uprooted from their homes in Ethiopia is a textbook mean-spiritedness with few parallels in history. Among the uprooted were children, nuns and octogenarians who were deported because, said the government of Ethiopia; they were a threat to "national security." Greed? Profiting from other people's misery is a deeply ingrained habit of the TPLF for whom famine is big business. Politics? Decisions are made not in terms of what's good for the country, but rather what's good for the ruling Marxist Leninist League of Tigray. This has been the pattern the past two years.

Too bad that too many people had to die in the needless war, or millions have to stare starvation in the face for the world to notice that the Ethiopian government has very little regards for the welfare of its own people. It may be too late for those who have already perished. But if the world's interest takes hold, may be some lives would be spared. May be. But then there is no guarantee that a life saved through donors' generosity may not be sent north to fight, and perhaps die, in a senseless war. In this the donors' moral responsibility is clear. Dying in war is as bad as dying from hunger. The international community should summon the same energy, the same commitment for a peaceful resolution of the conflict as it has in feeding Ethiopia's hungry. In the final analysis, what's the point of saving a child from death from hunger, only to see his father die from war wounds? How is it the death of a child is morally unacceptable and that of his father isn't? These are critical questions the donor community needs to consider before we are confronted with another round of this bloody war. As a recent (April 25, 2000) AFP dispatch noted, some donors are aware that they may be oiling Ethiopia's war machine. For once they are right. After admitting that they maybe financing Ethiopia's war, donors have no excuse for doing nothing, if Prime Minister Meles goes through with his threat of attacking Eritrea and the usual horrific blood bath occurs.