Global Policy Forum

By "A Concerned Ethiopian"

There is nothing more demeaning and paralyzing than being at the mercy of somebody whether it is another human being, institution or any agency-particularly when it comes to one's sustenance and physical survival. The subject of my specific concern is the shameful practice of begging the international community to feed the hungry every time a drought hits parts of Africa. African countries from Ethiopia (the classic basket case) to Kenya, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Somalia and the rest have made it a routine practice to hold the international community accountable for the starvation and death of Africans every few years. Ethiopia has perfected the art to the point where a hydra-like institutional framework has been created to coordinate the mobilization, delivery and 'mismanagement' of international alms on a perennial basis. Once known as the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, it has been lately given a less pejorative and more benign designation of Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission. The Commissioner of this organization has often enjoyed close attention by successive governments because he has successfully mobilized grains, finance, logistical support and international goodwill through a shameful parade of hungry faces.

The foremost responsibility of any government is to feed its people whether it is by growing its own food or complementing it through international trade. No country should be allowed to sit in the United Nations that shirks this responsibility. But alas, a growing number of African countries have taken it upon themselves to prepare elaborate mechanisms and justifications to shamelessly parade their hungry peoples before the international community and demand grains, oils, tents, vehicles and money to deal with hunger- a tragedy that has been essentially the product of inappropriate development policies and priorities. At the height of the 1984/85 famine that decimated close to 1 million Ethiopians, the revolutionary government was busy paving the revolution square and preparing the army for a massive parade. The police made sure that the human skeletons who made it to the gates of Addis Ababa, the capital city, were prevented from entering the capital and spoiling the huge 'party' that Mengistu had prepared to legitimize his 10 years of socialist democratic misrule and revolutionary 'achievements'. This time around, it was neither necessary to show a weeping Commissioner nor the ghastly pictures of the hungry whose pitiful pictures were shot by Dimbelbey, the British journalist a decade earlier. I shall always remember the pain and feeling of utter devastation when Ethiopian TV spent so much airtime to show the ambassador of a Mideastern country give 50,000 birr to feed the hungry. So many Ethiopian 'negades' [traders] would have been willing to give that amount of money without any sweat if they were approached decently. Do not misunderstand me, I am not putting down the humanitarian gesture of the ambassador but simply highlighting the need for mobilizing your own resources before compromising the dignity of one's people. But the revolutionary government had labeled all traders as petty bourgeois only to be tolerated until the economy was totally socialized.

In 1994, high officials of the current government were head over heels to tell the international community that Ethiopian government will not be responsible for any deaths that might take place due to the negligence of the international community because they have made it known in due time. Funny enough, the bluff worked and a catastrophic situation was averted and it was a bonanza for both NGOs and the government. In all cases, the victims have been the Ethiopian people because they have been repeatedly paraded before the eyes of the world as people who could neither feed nor take care of themselves. Ethiopia is a country, which has the natural resources base not only to feed itself but also to have a thriving agriculture based economy. Unfortunately, successive governments have been unable and unwilling to chart out a sound agricultural development policy that could extricate the country from the indignity of parading its hungry people before the world.

A couple of weeks ago, the government was pleading for international assistance to feed more than 5.2 million Ethiopians who are at risk of starvation. While it does not strike me as something out of line of the workings of successive Ethiopian governments, it hurts me a lot to witness another catastrophe unfolding under a government that has no respect for its people and could easily use the opportunity to mobilize food and finance from the international community as a strategic option to finance its discriminatory regional development policy. It is clear that Tigray, the home ground of the governing elite will not be the scene of starvation. The 'enemy' populations of other regions will have to bear the brunt of the catastrophe. The international community should understand the true nature of this discriminatory government and channel its assistance through NGOs that have credible reputation in dealing with such emergencies.

African governments should be ashamed of themselves to let the rest of the world feed Africans ad infinitum. Enough is enough and all Africans should hold their governments accountable for the indignity and suffering that they have to endure due to the shameless policies of their governments. A government that does not put priority on the purchase of grains and other essentials at times of drought and food emergencies does not deserve to remain in power. It has forfeited its responsibility to govern and should be removed from power by all means including through armed struggle. Forty years of post-independence humiliation is enough. Ethiopia's perennial disasters are the products of poor governance rather than ecological processes. Droughts hit many parts of the world including the United States but we have never seen the governments of these countries humiliating their peoples by parading their bloated bellies and skeletons to the international community. The whole drama of 'democratization of governance' that has been pushed by the international community in the 1990s in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world should start with the fulfillment of the basic human right of a population-freedom from hunger and starvation.

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