TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/012290/0122006.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 7.1 KB | 153 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 40

AFRICA

Death by Starvation


This time the threat of mass famine is less the caprice of cruel
nature than the work of obstinate men


    Of all the obscenities of war, none is as inexcusable as the
deliberate slaughter of civilians. Yet much of the world is
silent now, though millions of innocent Africans stand in
jeopardy of extinction. These people will not die by the sword
or the other traditional implements of war. Instead, they will
be slain by one of the cruelest weapons of any era --
starvation. They will die slowly and painfully; in a world of
abundance, they will die hungry.

    And most of the dying will be done in the Horn of Africa.
In Ethiopia upwards of 4.5 million people, more than four times
the number wiped out by the great famine of 1984-85, may starve
this year if food relief is not provided -- and soon. In Sudan,
where as many as a quarter of a million people died of hunger
in 1987-88, the most dire estimates suggest that 3 million
could suffer the same fate by the middle of this decade. Once
again the world may see those sickening images: skeletal
children too weak to swat away the flies that swarm around
their eyes; old people slumped against herding sticks, too
weary to take another step.

    Famine in Africa may seem like yesterday's news. This time,
however, the prospect of mass starvation is not just the
caprice of nature but is largely the work of man. Drought and
crop failures have not gone unnoticed. Wealthy donor nations
have pledged hundreds of thousands of tons of foodstuffs.
Distribution networks exist to allocate the food. Relief
convoys stand ready to move it. All that separates millions of
malnourished Ethiopians and Sudanese from the food that could
save their lives is a handful of stubborn men: President
Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia, Lieut. General Omar Hassan
el Bashir, the head of Sudan's 15-man junta, and the rebel
leaders opposing them. All are more intent upon winning their
wars than feeding the people they are supposedly fighting for.
"If people die this time, it is not going to be because of the
drought but because of the military and political situation,"
says Father Michael Schultheis, an American Jesuit based in
Nairobi.


    ETHIOPIA. The last time famine visited, the rains had failed
for three years and people were already dying before the world
awakened to the tragedy. This time most of the country had a
better than normal harvest in 1988 and crop failures are
confined to the northern provinces of Eritrea, Tigre and Wollo.
Moreover, there is food in the relief pipeline; last week the
United Nations' World Food Program announced an additional $8
million in emergency food aid, and the European Community
raised its pledge $12 million.

    Yet a hunger crisis may hit as early as March because most
of the people at risk are trapped behind lines controlled by
the three insurgent armies battling Mengistu's troops. Mengistu
so far refuses to let relief convoys enter rebel-controlled
territories for fear the food may go toward feeding the
insurgents or the trucks may be ferrying arms to them. His
obstinacy follows a year of humiliating defeats for his forces
in Eritrea and Tigre.

    The military situation shows no sign of improvement in
either province. Following an attempted coup against Mengistu
by members of his own army last May, the government opened
peace negotiations with the secessionist Eritrean People's
Liberation Front. They arranged a cease-fire, but a subsequent
round of talks ended in stalemate last November without any
agreement for the movement of food to drought-stricken areas.
To the south in Tigre, two rebel armies have managed to drive
out all troops and representatives of the civilian government.
Since August the rebels have been pressing an offensive through
Gondar and Wollo provinces, seizing towns within 85 miles of
the capital, Addis Ababa.

    What makes this situation doubly frustrating is that
distribution networks now exist in Eritrea and Tigre -- if only
the government would put them to use. But the organizations are
controlled by the rebel fronts. The Mengistu government might
be less obdurate if the food were funneled through the Joint
Relief Partnership, a group of five Ethiopian churches without
ties to any of the rebel groups. In response to heavy
international pressure, Mengistu hinted that the government
might work with the churches to open "corridors of safe
passage" through the hardest-hit regions. But he has yet to
give formal approval.


    SUDAN. Since seizing power in a coup last June, Bashir has
found one pretext after another for preventing relief agencies
from helping the hungry. In November his fundamentalist Muslim
government stopped a grain train and banned all emergency
relief flights bound for the Christian and animist south.
Khartoum justified the blockade of food and medical supplies
by claiming that aerial bombardments of two rebel-held towns
in the south made it too dangerous for relief workers to
operate. When the rebels, who have no aircraft, charged that the
bombings were in fact the work of the government, an official
spokesman vaguely promised an "investigation." The blockade has
also made it difficult for the U.N.-sponsored Operation
Lifeline Sudan to supply farmers with seeds and tools for
planting, just when plentiful rains hold the promise of a
bumper harvest.

    In early December former U.S. President Jimmy Carter tried
to launch negotiations between Bashir's government and the
rebel Sudanese People's Liberation Movement, which seeks
independence from Khartoum's harsh Islamic law. But the talks
collapsed, and fighting has apparently intensified. On Jan. 4
a Sudanese guerrilla radio broadcast charged that 2,000
tribesmen were slaughtered by government-sponsored Arab
militias in the Jebelein area, 250 miles south of Khartoum. The
government claims that only 214 were killed, and that the
deaths followed rioting over a farm dispute.

    Reporters have not been able to get into the region to
verify these reports, but many accounts from witnesses on the
scene suggest that the government is bent on crushing relief
operations. On Dec. 21 a plane carrying volunteers from a
French medical-relief organization was shot down, and three
French medics and a Sudanese relief worker were killed. Since
then, the French organization has temporarily recalled two of
its teams from the area.

    There is little hope that either country will settle its
political differences soon enough to allow a swift rescue of
the people in peril. Ethiopia has recently claimed victories
against the Tigre rebels, which may soften Mengistu just enough
to permit some relief operations, at least for a time. But in
Sudan, stiff rebel resistance threatens only to convince Bashir
that his best course is to continue to block the already
difficult lines of transport into the south -- and let
starvation and disease do the rest.


By Jill Smolowe. Reported by David Cemlyn-Jones/Nairobi and
William Dowell/Cairo.