Alemayehu G. Mariam - Ethiopia's "silently" creeping famine

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By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam

PART I
The future of the future country
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battle between the “future makers” and “future
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The Great Ethiopian Run to Freedom

Angels in November

Witness for the future

Ethiopia's "silently" creeping famine

11 January, 2010 | Prof. 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?

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 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.