Land of Silence and starvation
A famine is growing across Ethiopia, but the government is
clamping down on information - even ejecting aid agencies
that could help bring aid for fear of provoking unrest and
losing their grip on power
6 November, 2009 | BY GEOFFREY YORK
(For Globe and Mail)
many farmers have seen their corn harvests fail.
“We are between life and death,” says 50-year-old farmer Geda
Shenu, who was forced to buy corn at Meki market after most of
his crops failed in this year's drought. He shows the empty weed-
filled fields where he planted corn and beans, crops that never grew
when the rains never came.
To survive, he is selling one of his two oxen and giving his family just
two sparse meals a day. He and his neighbours have marched down
to the local government office to sign a petition pleading for
government help. “If we don't get any aid, we will die,” he says.
“How can we feed our children?”
It's a story the Ethiopian government does not want told.
On the 25th anniversary of the famine that killed nearly a million
Ethiopians in 1984, any talk of drought and hunger is still a highly
sensitive issue in this impoverished country, subject to draconian
controls by the government. Two regimes were toppled in the 1970s
and 1990s because of discontent over famines, and the current
regime is determined to avoid their fate.
Aid agencies that dare to speak out publicly, or even to allow a
photo of a malnourished child at a feeding centre, can be punished
or expelled from the country. Visas or work permits are often
denied, projects can be delayed, and import approvals for vital
equipment can be buried. Most relief agencies are prohibited from
allowing visits by journalists or foreigners, except under strict
government control.
After a disastrous series of crop failures, the number of Ethiopians
needing emergency aid has jumped from 4.9 million to 6.2 million in
the past 10 months. Yet most journalists are barred from travelling
to the countryside to document the drought. Relief workers avoid
any public comments about the rising malnutrition, and none will talk
candidly to journalists except on condition of anonymity.
Another restriction is even more damaging: Foreign agencies are not
permitted to do their own independent assessments of malnutrition
this year. Instead, they must be accompanied by government
officials in joint teams that are difficult and time-consuming to
negotiate, delaying the response to regional emergencies.
Aid agencies have known since July that at least seven million
people will need emergency aid in Ethiopia this year, based on
detailed assessments across the country. But the government
delayed the release of these figures, continuing to insist publicly that
only 5.3 million people needed help.
Finally, after months of mystifying delays, the government announced
in late October that 6.2 million people needed emergency aid – still
below the true figure, and too late to trigger a large-scale fundraising
effort this year. Another estimate is due to be released in mid-
November, unless it too is delayed.
Why such heavy-handed controls from a government that is seen as
a U.S. ally in the Horn of Africa, a country that is still viewed
sympathetically by most of the world? One reason is the election
scheduled for May. The long-ruling party, the Ethiopian People's
Revolutionary Democratic Front, is keeping a tight grip on the vote.
The last election, in 2005, was widely criticized for vote-rigging and
fraud, and about 200 people were killed after the election when
police fired on opposition protesters.
Since then, the government has strengthened its control of the
country. Maoist-style neighbourhood committees watch over all
activity in the villages, with informants appointed for every five
families in some areas. Local elections in 2008 were so carefully
managed that the opposition ended up with only a tiny handful of the
three million seats.
But nobody expects the controls to disappear after the May
election. The ruling party has always been sensitive about any
questioning of its ability to feed the country. Its own rise to power in
1991 was largely a result of the famines of the 1980s. And it knows
that the long reign of Emperor Haile Selassie was brought crashing
down after the globally televised images of the 1974 famine.
Relief agencies say it is harder to make a global appeal for help for
Ethiopia when the official estimates are politicized, minimized and
delayed. By the time the 2009 appeal was released in late October,
only two months were left in the year.
“This year's fight is over,” said an aid worker at one of the biggest
agencies. “The children who were at risk of death in the summer
have died by now.”
In some of the hardest-hit regions, foreign relief agencies have
extremely limited access. Their movements are tightly controlled,
partly because of military operations against rebel groups in the
Somali region. Several of the biggest international agencies were
expelled from the region or withdrew under pressure in 2007 and
2008.
In another region, Tigray, aid agencies are heavily restricted,
because Tigray is the traditional base of the ruling EPRDF. “It's a
black spot, because it's supposed to be a model of success,” one
aid worker says. “When people are starving, the information doesn't
get out.”
The government is widely suspected of using the foreign aid
shipments to reward its supporters. Up to 20 per cent of the aid is
“lost” before it reaches the neediest people, but the diverted sacks
of food are often noticed at military barracks, according to one aid
worker.
When Ethiopia is hit by cholera outbreaks, as often happens, the
government prefers to call it acute watery diarrhea because it
dislikes the bad publicity that cholera attracts. The latest cholera
outbreak, which began in August, has sickened thousands of people,
but the government called it AWD and minimized the numbers.
When the true numbers finally surfaced in a United Nations
document, the government was so furious that it suspended its co-
operation meetings with the relief agencies for a month.
In fear of government punishment, many agencies fall into self-
censorship. “There's a whole layer of anxiety that we're all operating
under,” one veteran worker said. “The obsession with control has
been even stronger than last year.”
Some Western diplomats argue that the government's euphemisms
and public evasions are unimportant because the accurate
assessment data is known internally to the key agencies that supply
emergency aid to Ethiopia. Compared with many other African
countries, they say, Ethiopia is relatively efficient in distributing aid
and is introducing good programs to expand health care and food
delivery in rural regions.
But others say the government's sensitivities and restrictions are
hampering the world's response to Ethiopia's emergencies, delaying
the flow of crucial aid for months.
“If you delay the life-saving response, lives don't get saved,” one
relief worker says. “People get weaker and less productive. And the
response is a short-term band-aid. If you recognize a situation
earlier, the response can reduce the chances of needing emergency
aid in the future.”
Another aid worker is even more blunt. “The government is locked
into a cycle of very significant denial,” he said. “It's playing with
millions of lives.”
Ethiopia has been hit by a series of crop failures and droughts since
2007, and the cumulative effect is taking a heavy toll. Fully one-sixth
of Ethiopia's 80 million people are on food aid.
But instead of redoubling its efforts to seek help, Prime Minister
Meles Zenawi repeatedly denies that Ethiopia has a food crisis and
accuses the “food aid industry” and the “lords of poverty” of
deliberately inflating the number of Ethiopians who need aid.
Back in the drought-stricken Meki region, a farmer named Gudeta
Beriso points to a field of withered corn stalks, surrounded by
empty fields. “In the old days, all of this was covered by corn,” he
said.
“Now you don't see anything. The fields are just rubbish. We
haven't had a good crop for two years. We are worried about the
future. We are shouting for help.”
Courtesy
A famine is growing across Ethiopia, but the government is
clamping down on information - even ejecting aid agencies
that could help bring aid for fear of provoking unrest and
losing their grip on power
6 November, 2009 | BY GEOFFREY YORK
(For Globe and Mail)
- MEKI, ETHIOPIA
— On market day in
the dusty town of
Meki, the few cobs
of corn sold by the
hawkers are
scrawny, pale,
scabby and
pockmarked. Yet the
many farmers have seen their corn harvests fail.
“We are between life and death,” says 50-year-old farmer Geda
Shenu, who was forced to buy corn at Meki market after most of
his crops failed in this year's drought. He shows the empty weed-
filled fields where he planted corn and beans, crops that never grew
when the rains never came.
To survive, he is selling one of his two oxen and giving his family just
two sparse meals a day. He and his neighbours have marched down
to the local government office to sign a petition pleading for
government help. “If we don't get any aid, we will die,” he says.
“How can we feed our children?”
It's a story the Ethiopian government does not want told.
On the 25th anniversary of the famine that killed nearly a million
Ethiopians in 1984, any talk of drought and hunger is still a highly
sensitive issue in this impoverished country, subject to draconian
controls by the government. Two regimes were toppled in the 1970s
and 1990s because of discontent over famines, and the current
regime is determined to avoid their fate.
Aid agencies that dare to speak out publicly, or even to allow a
photo of a malnourished child at a feeding centre, can be punished
or expelled from the country. Visas or work permits are often
denied, projects can be delayed, and import approvals for vital
equipment can be buried. Most relief agencies are prohibited from
allowing visits by journalists or foreigners, except under strict
government control.
After a disastrous series of crop failures, the number of Ethiopians
needing emergency aid has jumped from 4.9 million to 6.2 million in
the past 10 months. Yet most journalists are barred from travelling
to the countryside to document the drought. Relief workers avoid
any public comments about the rising malnutrition, and none will talk
candidly to journalists except on condition of anonymity.
Another restriction is even more damaging: Foreign agencies are not
permitted to do their own independent assessments of malnutrition
this year. Instead, they must be accompanied by government
officials in joint teams that are difficult and time-consuming to
negotiate, delaying the response to regional emergencies.
Aid agencies have known since July that at least seven million
people will need emergency aid in Ethiopia this year, based on
detailed assessments across the country. But the government
delayed the release of these figures, continuing to insist publicly that
only 5.3 million people needed help.
Finally, after months of mystifying delays, the government announced
in late October that 6.2 million people needed emergency aid – still
below the true figure, and too late to trigger a large-scale fundraising
effort this year. Another estimate is due to be released in mid-
November, unless it too is delayed.
Why such heavy-handed controls from a government that is seen as
a U.S. ally in the Horn of Africa, a country that is still viewed
sympathetically by most of the world? One reason is the election
scheduled for May. The long-ruling party, the Ethiopian People's
Revolutionary Democratic Front, is keeping a tight grip on the vote.
The last election, in 2005, was widely criticized for vote-rigging and
fraud, and about 200 people were killed after the election when
police fired on opposition protesters.
Since then, the government has strengthened its control of the
country. Maoist-style neighbourhood committees watch over all
activity in the villages, with informants appointed for every five
families in some areas. Local elections in 2008 were so carefully
managed that the opposition ended up with only a tiny handful of the
three million seats.
But nobody expects the controls to disappear after the May
election. The ruling party has always been sensitive about any
questioning of its ability to feed the country. Its own rise to power in
1991 was largely a result of the famines of the 1980s. And it knows
that the long reign of Emperor Haile Selassie was brought crashing
down after the globally televised images of the 1974 famine.
Relief agencies say it is harder to make a global appeal for help for
Ethiopia when the official estimates are politicized, minimized and
delayed. By the time the 2009 appeal was released in late October,
only two months were left in the year.
“This year's fight is over,” said an aid worker at one of the biggest
agencies. “The children who were at risk of death in the summer
have died by now.”
In some of the hardest-hit regions, foreign relief agencies have
extremely limited access. Their movements are tightly controlled,
partly because of military operations against rebel groups in the
Somali region. Several of the biggest international agencies were
expelled from the region or withdrew under pressure in 2007 and
2008.
In another region, Tigray, aid agencies are heavily restricted,
because Tigray is the traditional base of the ruling EPRDF. “It's a
black spot, because it's supposed to be a model of success,” one
aid worker says. “When people are starving, the information doesn't
get out.”
The government is widely suspected of using the foreign aid
shipments to reward its supporters. Up to 20 per cent of the aid is
“lost” before it reaches the neediest people, but the diverted sacks
of food are often noticed at military barracks, according to one aid
worker.
When Ethiopia is hit by cholera outbreaks, as often happens, the
government prefers to call it acute watery diarrhea because it
dislikes the bad publicity that cholera attracts. The latest cholera
outbreak, which began in August, has sickened thousands of people,
but the government called it AWD and minimized the numbers.
When the true numbers finally surfaced in a United Nations
document, the government was so furious that it suspended its co-
operation meetings with the relief agencies for a month.
In fear of government punishment, many agencies fall into self-
censorship. “There's a whole layer of anxiety that we're all operating
under,” one veteran worker said. “The obsession with control has
been even stronger than last year.”
Some Western diplomats argue that the government's euphemisms
and public evasions are unimportant because the accurate
assessment data is known internally to the key agencies that supply
emergency aid to Ethiopia. Compared with many other African
countries, they say, Ethiopia is relatively efficient in distributing aid
and is introducing good programs to expand health care and food
delivery in rural regions.
But others say the government's sensitivities and restrictions are
hampering the world's response to Ethiopia's emergencies, delaying
the flow of crucial aid for months.
“If you delay the life-saving response, lives don't get saved,” one
relief worker says. “People get weaker and less productive. And the
response is a short-term band-aid. If you recognize a situation
earlier, the response can reduce the chances of needing emergency
aid in the future.”
Another aid worker is even more blunt. “The government is locked
into a cycle of very significant denial,” he said. “It's playing with
millions of lives.”
Ethiopia has been hit by a series of crop failures and droughts since
2007, and the cumulative effect is taking a heavy toll. Fully one-sixth
of Ethiopia's 80 million people are on food aid.
But instead of redoubling its efforts to seek help, Prime Minister
Meles Zenawi repeatedly denies that Ethiopia has a food crisis and
accuses the “food aid industry” and the “lords of poverty” of
deliberately inflating the number of Ethiopians who need aid.
Back in the drought-stricken Meki region, a farmer named Gudeta
Beriso points to a field of withered corn stalks, surrounded by
empty fields. “In the old days, all of this was covered by corn,” he
said.
“Now you don't see anything. The fields are just rubbish. We
haven't had a good crop for two years. We are worried about the
future. We are shouting for help.”
Courtesy
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