U.S.-backed Ethiopian regime faces food crisis

After months of food deficits and deepening domestic and regional political problems within the broader context of the world economic crisis, the Ethiopian government has made a request to aid agencies and foreign states for $175 million in assistance. This Horn of Africa nation of 83 million has experienced drought for several years, along with other countries in the region such as Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Djibouti.

This crisis in Ethiopia comes at a time when the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is making preparations for upcoming 2010 elections. The government has also been involved in military operations in neighboring Somalia, which it invaded in December 2006. Ethiopian troops remained there until January of this year. Recent reports indicate that the Ethiopian military is carrying out periodic incursions into central Somalia to counter advances by Islamic resistance movements that control large areas of Somalia.

In recent months, the lack of economic resources being allocated to domestic expenditures in Ethiopia has created a grave humanitarian crisis that could threaten famine.

Ethiopia’s state minister for agriculture and rural development, Mitiku Kassa, said recently that the number of people needing emergency assistance has increased to 6.2 million, from 4.9 million at the beginning of the year. The official indicated that the request included nearly 160,000 tons of food, in addition to nonfood assistance such as health and sanitation supplies and support for agricultural and livestock production.

Paul Smith-Lomas, a spokesperson for the international aid agency Oxfam, called it “the worst drought in 10 years.”

Most of the aid is expected to come from the U.S., which was behind Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia. The World Bank, headquartered in Washington, announced on Oct. 24 that it is providing grants totaling $480 million to the Ethiopian government.

Regional and global context

The current situation in Ethiopia must be viewed within the broader regional political and social dilemma facing Africa, as well as the overall world economic crisis, which has thrust hundreds of millions of people further into poverty and uncertainty.

The Ethiopian government’s close relationship with successive U.S. administrations has served to place the country as a military outpost for imperialism in the Horn of Africa.

In the aftermath of Ethiopia’s 2006 invasion of Somalia, the country and region were driven into a worsening humanitarian disaster. More than 4 million people have been displaced inside and outside of Somalia.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports that there are 1,600 Ethiopian refugees in the breakaway Republic of Somaliland and some 14,000 asylum seekers.

In addition to Somaliland, thousands of Ethiopians and Somalis have fled across the Red Sea to Yemen, where many are subjected to forced labor and imprisonment. A recently issued press release from the Horn of Africa League for Human Rights on Oct. 20 claims, “Hundreds of Oromos and Somalis from Ethiopia and Somalia, who fled their respective countries due to political unrest, are currently facing very harsh situations, including forced labor and extrajudicial imprisonment in Yemen.”

Neighboring Djibouti, a former French colony, now has a U.S. military base that serves as the launching pad for the so-called “war on terrorism” in the Horn of Africa. The government in Djibouti has targeted the small Red Sea nation of Eritrea, accusing the country of training resistance movements throughout the region.

Djibouti, with a population of only 800,000, also hosts France’s largest military base on the African continent. Djibouti is the main route to the sea for the landlocked nation of Ethiopia.

The port in Djibouti is utilized by many foreign naval vessels that travel the Gulf of Aden to purportedly fight piracy in the region. Djibouti foreign minister, Mahmoud Ali Youssef, claims that Eritrea is supporting al-Shabaab, one of the Islamic resistance movements fighting the U.S.-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) based in Mogadishu, Somalia. The U.S. government alleges that al-Shabaab and the Hizbul Islam organizations fighting the TFG are affiliated with al-Qaida.

Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki denied that his government was supporting resistance groups in Somalia and Ethiopia. Isaias charged that the internal problems in Somalia derive from the interference of neighboring Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya, all of which are heavily backed by the U.S.

According to Reuters, “The U.N. Security Council, the African Union and Washington have all warned Asmara [Eritrea’s capital] against destabilizing Somalia, and a move to impose sanctions has gathered speed, with Britain joining a chorus of states willing to punish Eritrea.” (Reuters, Oct. 25)

Long-term solutions needed

While the U.S. government has pledged to provide the overwhelming majority of assistance to Ethiopia in the current period, aid organizations have begun to question the policy of responding to crisis situations without addressing the underlying causes of food deficits and famine.

Oxfam international aid director, Penny Lawrence, stated in a recent report, “We cannot make the rains come, but there is much more that we can do to break the cycle of drought-driven disaster in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. Food aid offers temporary relief and has kept people alive in countless situations, but does not tackle the underlying causes that continue to make people vulnerable to disaster year after year.” (Band Aids and Beyond, Oct. 22)

ActionAid also issued a report on crisis driven humanitarian assistance in Africa. The report, entitled “Who’s Really Fighting Hunger,” questioned why over one billion people in the world today are hungry.

“Almost a third of the world’s children are growing up malnourished. This is perhaps one of the most shameful achievements of recent history, since there is no good reason for anyone to go hungry in today’s world,” said the report.

The report said that “hunger begins with inequality—between men and women, and between rich and poor. It grows because of perverse policies that treat food purely as a commodity, not a right. It is because of these policies that most developing countries no longer grow enough to feed themselves, and that their farmers are among the hungriest and poorest people in the world. Meanwhile, the rich world battles obesity.”

An examination of the nature of agricultural production and food distribution in developing countries gives a clearer picture of why these problems recur on a periodic basis.

As a result of the legacy of colonialism and neocolonialism, agricultural production in many African countries is geared towards export to Western industrialized states. The export of crops and raw materials to the industrialized and imperialist nations is the major source of foreign exchange, or what is known as “hard currency.”

With a decline in commodity prices and fluctuations in demand for exports, the developing states are dependent upon the economic conditions in the imperialist states and the terms of trade set by international organizations dominated by the West. The economic crisis in the Western industrialized states has had a severe impact on developing countries, especially because of a decline in foreign exchange earnings as well as the overall gross domestic product.

Subsistence farming is also difficult for independent producers, due to the lack of credit to acquire seeds, livestock and implements. When governments are influenced by the economic interests and foreign policy imperatives of the imperialist states, it is almost impossible for them to focus on the concrete needs of their own people, particularly the workers and farmers.

Ethiopian Revolution of 1974

Famine struck large sections of Ethiopia during 1973-74. In February 1974, mass unrest developed in the capital of Addis Ababa and spread throughout the country. Workers and students engaged in general strikes and rebellions that eventually led to the overthrow of the monarchy of Haile Selassie. The monarchy, which had been dominant in Ethiopia for centuries, was swept away in a matter of months.

The country instituted massive and unprecedented land reform policies that empowered workers and farmers in the rural areas. The mass struggles of the 1970s were led by various leftist parties and mass organizations. However, there was no unified revolutionary front that could seize power in its own name. The socialist-oriented reforms were instituted by a provisional military council, which took control.

When the Workers Party of Ethiopia was formed in the mid-1980s, the country was engulfed with internal and regional conflicts, including an imperialist-sponsored invasion by Somalia. Changing policies within the Soviet Union—which, along with Cuba, had provided assistance to the Ethiopian Revolution—hampered the ability of the country to maintain a foreign policy independent of the U.S.

Drought and famine struck again in 1984-85 and was utilized for propaganda purposes by the U.S. and British imperialists. The Soviet Union worked with the Ethiopian government at the time to relocate thousands of people from drought-affected areas to other regions of the country. Nonetheless, by the beginning of the 1990s, the Soviet Union was in decline and the Workers Party government collapsed in 1991.

Since the early 1990s, the Ethiopian government of Meles Zenawi has been closely allied with the U.S. and Western imperialism. The federal government presides over what Alemayehu G. Mariam described in a recent article as “an extensive security and media network entirely in its own interests. Ethiopia’s 2010 elections appear likely to be far from ‘free and fair.’” (Pambazuka News, Oct. 22)

The experience of the last two decades in Ethiopia illustrates the failure of capitalist agricultural policies. They have not empowered the workers and farmers but instead have made the country even more dependent on assistance from U.S. imperialism.

What is needed is a break with U.S. imperialist-controlled domestic and foreign policy and the creation of a government that is committed to the interests of the workers and farmers of Ethiopia and the development of fraternal relations with the peoples throughout the Horn of Africa region.