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The politics of famine in Ethiopia
Abstract
In the last few months the media has presented us with the stark human tragedy and the prospect of even more starvation and dehumanising conditions inflicted on the peoples of Ethiopia. There are several factors, both external and internal, that have contributed to such human catastrophe. The West has often used food‐aid as a political weapon. It is clear that relief aid has been withheld from starving children in order to weaken governments opposed to Western interests. On similar grounds some UN agencies who have tried to help Third World countries have seen their funds withdrawn. The Western media and charity organisations are not going to escape blame, mostly because of their failure to publicise the famine property; the scale and urgency of the tragedy were known to them much earlier. The approach of the Soviet Union and the Left is equally deplorable; they have done little or nothing. To sit aside and blame the West while millions are starving to death lacks any ‘socialist justification’. The Ethiopian government must bear heavy responsibility, although it has been anxious to cover up its faults in the wake of the public outcry, framing the famine as a natural disaster. The political and economic reasons are conveniently ignored. This is all very well to raise relief aid to relieve starving victims; for the starving nothing is too late. The high defence spending and the obsession to end the civil unrest by military means has crippled the agricultural sector. The extent of the crisis and the human tragedy is thus not entirely due to natural causes; it is mostly man‐made and preventable.
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Bibliographic note
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