Never heard of Badme
Photo by Martin Stolk
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Cairo Times, Egypt, 04-05-2000
Ethiopia makes little secret that the money it saves thanks to international famine relief is spent on the war
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Never heard of Badme |
Asked about whether the money spent on Ethiopia's war with Eritrea could have been used to buy food, Mesfin Ayele of the Ethiopian Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission gestures at the crowd of people waiting to receive their monthly rations.
"These people have no idea what is happening at the front in Badme or Sheraro," he said. "They only care about what is happening in their stomach."While famine has once again hit the Horn of Africa, the region keeps living up to her reputation of being a wasp's nest of conflict - incurring the displeasure of donor countries. This week the Eritrean-Ethiopian war will mark the sad occasion of its second anniversary. The Sudanese civil war will soon enter its eighteenth year, the Somalian conflict its tenth. At the same time Ethiopia is occupying part of Somalia, Djibouti and Somaliland are squaring up with heavy artillery and there is a seemingly endless list of guerilla groups and bandits active in the region.
The chronically insecure situation in the Somali Ogaden is also one of the reasons local aid organisations had not earlier anticipated the famine in the by now world famous village of Gode. On the World Food Program's map of Ethiopian food security the whole south east of the country was left blank: no data available. The region was simply not safe enough to assess. Even now visitors to Gode are asked to sign a disclaimer.
The food shortages in the Horn of Africa have renewed discussions on the relation between famine and armed conflict. Donor countries providing aid were unpleasantly surprised when the Ethiopian Government blamed them for the current famine. While the country virtually demanded $200 million dollars in food aid for the running year, an estimated one million dollars a day is spent on the war with Eritrea. In the same week as the UN's special missionaire Catherine Bertini travelled around the famine zone, the Ethiopian airforce took delivery of two fighters and two bombers planes.
Nevertheless Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi reacted furiously when UN Secretary General Kofi Annan suggested that the current famine was interconnected with the conflict with Eritrea. In the same breath he stated that providing Ethiopia with food aid through Eritrea's southern port Assab was totally out of the question. The country's government does not want to hear a single criticism on their "fight against Eritrean aggression". When Germany last week did utter some undisclosed remarks, Ethiopia recalled its ambassador. The Ethiopian newspaper The Reporter quoted Zenawi as saying: "We do not believe protecting one's sovereignty is a luxury for the rich."
"We should not mix emergency food aid with politics," says Kassahun Bishaw, the regional coordinator for Wollo and Tigray of the British Save the Children. He reacts emotional when discussing the sceptic attitude of the donors. "It is inhuman of the west to use food aid as a means to enforce a peace agreement".
The donors don't doubt that the drought is the direct cause of the famine. The international aid community is simply fearfull that they will - again - directly or indirectly subsidize an armed conflict. The donors are still trying to cope with their experience with the Dergue regime. To their chagrin they feel that it is taken for granted that they will send food and money, even though in their eyes the Ethiopian government could have done more for its own people. Zenawi has retorted that "the view of Ethiopians is that you need not have a full tummy in order to protect your sovereignty."
Kassahun thinks the debate is irrelevant. "Maybe it is good that the international community puts pressure on both governments, but they should not threaten with the whip of hunger."
The Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict also influences the distribution of the emergency food aid. As Zenawi said, sending aid through Assab is out of the question. The first 85,000 metric tons shipment of emergency food aid now lies moored outside the port of Djibouti. The ship is too big to enter the harbor. Despite this problem it is quite probable that the ports of Djibouti and Berbera combined could handle the 150,000 tons of grain a month which is on its way.
Getting the goods from there to the Ethiopian hinterland however remains a problem. Thanks to the heavy military traffic the already bad roads have only gotten worse. The Ethiopian government speaks freely about air lifts and food drops: they do not have to foot the bill. The good news is that several Oromo guerilla movements in the Somali Ogaden have declared an unilateral cease fire to accomodate transporting the food overland.
Ethiopia had expected to win the war with Eritrea not so much through a straightforward military victory as through economic attrition. But even though with its population of 60 million, Ethiopia may have more soldiers, Eritrea receives around $150 million a year from their diaspora - enough to finance the war and keep the economy on a low fire. Especially in Ethiopia the many "voluntary contributions" for the war effort have had an infuence on the already stretched coping capacity of the mainly small peasant communities. The several times failed harvests now hurt even more. At the same time both countries have around a quarter of million young capable men and women living in trenches that could otherwise be stimulating their countries' development.
The northern province Tigray, which borders Eritrea, is closed to foreigners. Journalists are expected to copy the government declarations. Regardless, on the way to the north one sees more and more military activities. A truck with a trailer for transporting tanks passes, and village streets are filled with wounded and soldiers on leave. Ethiopia does not seem to bother too much about the West's criticism. Zenawi's ruling party, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, regards the war as an entirely internal affair. Moreover, there are elections to be won at the end of May and an external enemy is a good way to rally support.
Increased military activity in the country points towards a possible renewal of hostilities, which have currently died down, despite last weekend's proximity talks in Algiers. At press time no results were known yet. If hostilities do start, both countries will claim the other one started. But regardless, the international donor community will be extremely upset in case of a new offensive.
Kassahun's fear that donors will stop aid because of the war seems unfounded, however. Aid organisations realise that with the current famine saving lives is the highest priority.
The question remains however whther or not the war will backfire on Zenawi's government. Painter Tesfay in Addis Abeba thinks so, anyway. "War is bad," he said: "It is an invention of the government to keep the people from questioning Ethiopia's economic and political problems. But one day they will have to explain to distraught mothers where their sons and husbands have gone."
Meanwhile, Hyuwet and her three year old daughter Samira are waiting at the busstation of Addis Abeba. Hyuwet wants to go to Mekele in Tigray to find out once and for all whether her husband - a soldier on the front with Eritrea - is still alive. The last time she tried the army refused to answer her queries and she went home to her south Ethiopain village Jima with all her doubts, as well as hopes, alive. However the two day bus journey will not start today. The army has requisitioned all busses to the north for transporting soldiers. Samira says 'pappa' to every stranger that plays with her.