Ethiopia: The Staged Hunger

By Lutz Mücke, Die Zeit magazine
May 1, 2003

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There is enough water in Ethiopia – the advisors in developing countries, however, make the world believe that there is a catastrophic drought.

The Italian doctor Paulo Pironti has been living in Ethiopia for 18 years. His office is in Dire Dawa. He says: “For over 20 years grain has been brought here not only to help the needy but also to decrease the excess production of the highly subsidized American, Canadian and West European farmers. Why don’t they give us cash? For cash, I could buy twice the amount of grain in this area because it’s cheaper and there is no transportation expense.”

He asks why the West has such an interest in Ethiopia and his answer is because the country is a bulwark between the Islamic Sudan and Somalia opposite of the Arabic peninsula! The percentage of Christians in Ethiopia is decreasing. Pironti: “Reason enough for the U.S. to bring even more military and food support into Ethiopia after 9/11 in order to support the Christian government. Nobody is paying close attention as to where the food ends up. No doubt, there are starving people and there is great need. The question has to be asked, why that is still the case?”

On the way to Mieso, in the village of Melkahora, the farmer Aliye Mumed tells us that they receive 10 kilograms of corn per person per month. That’s all they have eaten for months. The trouble is that this corn from abroad is sterile. It can not be used for sowing, and this makes the people dependent on help for the future.

Grain that is sent to Ethiopia for human consumption can not be used for sowing for different reasons. Some types are generally not usable for sowing, others are from such old warehouse depots that they have lost their germinability, and others have been treated thermally. The Ethiopian government has recognized the seed problem but has used it for its own advantage. It has started an “Agricultural Package Program” that sells seeds and fertilizer on a loan basis. This program does not help the farmers. They slip into a dangerous dependability, not only by having to pay high interest but also by having to buy new seeds every year. The seeds are highly cultivated hybrid seeds from the American company Pioneer Hi-Bred International, which only promises a good harvest for one year. It cannot be used for sowing and has to be bought every year.

Klaus Feldner, a German agricultural expert who has been living in Ethiopia for 36 years and is living in South Gondar now, tells us about his experience. “There are some families that don’t have enough to eat. But in general there is no famine in our region. I have never seen any district being removed from the “starvation statistics” after the end of the famine.” Feldner is sure that Ethiopia could not only feed itself but could even export grain. “The potential of this country is immense.” He shares with us his last project and his “first success”, the grain called “triticale”, a crossbreed of wheat and rye, which was developed at the South African University of Stellenbosch. Triticale can more than double the harvest and reproduce itself. Its success drew even some Ethiopian ministers and ambassadors of European countries from Addis Abeba all the way to Debre Tabor.

To make this possible, the 60-year-old Feldner had to use unorthodox methods. To avoid long waiting periods and bureaucracy he smuggled the seeds into Ethiopia. He also challenges the Ethiopian Orthodox Church that prohibits the faithful farmers in the Amharic highlands from working because of the countless holidays. Farmers are only allowed to work 120 days each year.

Feldner also criticizes the highly qualified scientists in suits and ties who are sent to be advisors for Ethiopian development. “They sit behind their desks but they don’t know how to hold a plow.”
He accuses the World Food Program (WFP) of its double standards. It is too close to the government and it serves its own interests by calling out catastrophic famines on a regular basis. “Without famines the WFP could not finance its huge organization. They receive money for each distributed ton of food. Therefore they have a strong desire to exaggerate critical situations. Ethiopia, southern Sudan and Bangladesh have been a wonderful source of money during the last decades for the WFP.”

Feldner, however, could not do anything in South Gondar without influential friends. One, who agrees with him, is the high ranking government official Jonas Bekele*. Most key positions like his are filled with members of the ruling government party EPRDF. They are all loyal to the government policy. Bekele, a short man with piercing eyes, dares to point out things that could easily cost him his job. “The momentary shortage of food is not caused by the weather, rather by the dependency of 5 to 6 million Ethiopians who have been made dependent of help within the last decades. The farmers’ mentality in South Gondar has become destructive. We have become used to the help like the rising sun. There is a popular saying among the farmers: ‘We pray for rain in Canada’.”

Bekele demands that the farmers have to be enabled to provide food for themselves again. “It cannot be the task of organizations to bring bread to the ordinary people. They should enable them to bake their own bread. In the last 20 years, huge amounts of developing help moneys have been wasted. This has to stop!” Many organizations increase the problems instead of solving them because they have to justify their existence. A great reproach, which is shared by 141 members of the umbrella organization of Catholic help organizations in Ethiopia. They assume that 325 registered organizations are exclusively distributing food in the country. Nothing is left of the much praised “Help for self help” or “Long-term development” goals. Bekele talks about the excess grain harvests in different parts of the country. The last record harvest was in 2001. Unfortunately, nobody benefits from such abundance. First of all, there is no functioning marketing system and secondly, there is all the grain that is being imported. An estimated 20 to 40% of the annually imported 800,000 tons of grain end up in the markets of towns and villages and are sold at extremely low prices. No farmer can compete with these prices. Therefore, nobody farms anymore in these areas. Instead of grain, people grow the drug “Khat”, especially in eastern Ethiopia. The Khat market is growing not only in Ethiopia, but also on the Arabic peninsula, in Europe and in the U.S.

In publications and conferences the government officials in Addis Abeba always state that the country has to break away from the food help. The truth is that the government is increasingly controlling the help industry. The food help is a real blessing for the government, which rules over a widely branched economic emporium. The despots profited greatly from the 14 million tons of grain that have been imported since 1984. Big trade and transport companies that distribute the food and that are owned by the government earn up to $150 per ton. According to the extent of the proclaimed disaster, often three digit million amounts flow into the cash registers of the party. The money serves also as bribes for the loyal government officials.

Tigrai region receives about 30% of the total imported food even though only 10% of the country’s population live in Tigrai, and the need has been estimated as merely average. This was discovered through a study of the Grain Market Research Project in 1998. But there is more: only 22% of the food gets to the needy people. Most of the food ends up in places “where the government and the help organizations have invested long-term in personnel, contacts, offices and vehicles.”
The American-Ethiopian scientist team could not find a significant connection between lack of food and recipients of goods.

Immediately after the publication of these highly interesting results, the Ethiopian government stopped the research project. And that, after the project had just been celebrated as a shining example of cooperation between Ethiopia, the American Development Association USAid and the Michigan State University. The scientists were personally pressured by high ranking Ethiopian politicians to revise the results of the study and to replace some of the Ethiopian colleagues with loyal followers of the government. The team disobeyed the government, and was forced to leave the country.

The American Professor of agricultural economy, Thom S. Jayne, is still puzzled that the study has not been noticed internationally. He assumes that the Western countries’ sole interest is in keeping a Christian elite government in power and they are therefore willing to accept the total control of the Ethiopian government over the aid organizations. There are, however, not much of Christian values displayed in the Ethiopian government. Opponents disappear without legal proceedings, opposing advisors are exiled, and opposing journalists are imprisoned.

Economist and civil rights activist Berhanu Nega states: “The problem in our country is that the government owns the whole land. Therefore, no private investments or new ways of production are encouraged. Our farmers still use wooden plows like 3000 years ago. The average farmer has only 1 hectare of land and that is true for 85% of the 65 million Ethiopians. Our government doesn’t want change because this is the only way to remain in power. There is no government support in the cities anymore.” The 45-year-old Nega is sure that long lasting help can only come from within the country and that only democracy will help the people of Ethiopia. In order to establish democracy the country needs help from the West.

The group of people who comes up with the prognosis of threatening famine consists of members of the Ethiopian government, UN employees and aid organization employees. They tried to give estimated numbers in November of 2002. The people in charge were bargaining for the numbers. The aid is going to be distributed according to their report. In order to be noticed they need dramatically high numbers. Representatives of the Ethiopian government were interested in the highest possible numbers while members of the EU pleaded for lower numbers. Somehow they agreed.

Hans-Josef Dreckmann, who was the Africa correspondent of the German television channel ARD for 13 years, says: “Aid organizations and the media have one thing in common. They live from catastrophes. Ethiopia is still an effective lever for wealthy governments because most people still remember the disastrous famine of 1984/85. Back then, the Ethiopian government and the International Community allowed 10,000s of people in Northern Ethiopia to starve to death. This indescribable dying was shown on TV for the first time. The pictures were shocking and Ethiopia has used them time and again as a trump. It is also very easy for the aid organizations to mobilize the public with the symbol Ethiopia.”

Dreckmann remembers that in 2000 all of a sudden terrible pictures from Ethiopia appeared on TV. BBC, Reuter, CNN – the giants of the branch reported “Ethiopia 2000”. But everything they showed happened in only one village named Gode in Ogaden. The reports sounded like the whole country was once again “drowning in starvation”. The individual situation was used to calculate numbers for the whole country. They were talking about more than 10 million starving people.

This went even too far for the WFP President Catherine Bertini. But it was too late. The media had reported too much and Bertini’s voice went unheard. Dreckmann refused to fly to Ethiopia to report yet another exaggerated story of the situation when his station ARD wanted to send him. They quickly replaced him and sent his colleague Hans Hübner. Hübner, who used to be an Africa correspondent himself, could not confirm a serious famine but the station decided not to publicize his results. The German news report “Tagesschau” still campaigned for donations. After this event there was reported resentment between the journalist and the station.

The Ethiopian government and the WFP speaker Wagdi Othman in Addis Abeba prognosed the climax of this year’s famine for the months of April and May. They urge to act immediately. By then millions of dollars and tons of food have to be in the country.

And nobody can blame them later, that they didn’t warn early enough.

* name changed for protection. (The above article which originally appeared in the German language was translated to English by one Ethiomedia supporting family. We are truly grateful for making us and our readers read about a scandal of the Lords of Poverty commit in the name of FAMINE.- Ed.)