Exploiters blame land reform, but
Roots of famine are in West's plunder of Africa
By G. Dunkel
The harvest is finished in southern Africa and the situation
is grim. The United Nations World Food Program estimates that
300,000 people could die from starvation and related diseases
over the next six months.
The U.S. Agency for International Development estimates that
14 million people in southern Africa will be affected. Figures
from some European and African charitable organizations rise as
high as 20 million.
Whichever estimate is most accurate, a major human tragedy
is unfolding while the WFP goes from one Western capital to
another, begging for the money it needs to buy food to save
some of these people--if it comes in time.
The countries involved--Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique,
Lesotho, Zambia and Swaziland--are among the poorest in the
world. Their agriculture could not stand the shock of floods
followed by drought. The current famine, according to experts
at the International Food Policy Research Institute, may have
been sparked by bad weather, but it was fueled by poverty.
Southern Africa lacks the infrastructure--including roads
and railways--to move food from where it can be grown to where
it is needed. This is the result both of the legacy of
underdevelopment caused by colonialism, and of decades of apar
theid in South Africa and war by imperialist-financed bandits
like UNITA in Angola and Renamo in Mozambique.
So-called experts like senior USAID official Roger Winter
and Judith Lewis, the World Food Program's regional director
for eastern and southern Africa, along with commentators from
newspapers like the Baltimore Sun and the Wall Street Journal,
ignore the grave effects of poverty and war. Instead they blame
the governments of countries like Zimbabwe and Malawi for
"failed policies."
Washington shirks responsibility
Zimbabwe is criticized for taking away the land seized by
white colonial farmers and turning it over to the people. Lewis
told the Washington Post May 10, "Land acquisitions in Zimbabwe
have had a dramatic effect on the amount [of food] that should
have been produced in the country."
But another UN agency, the Integrated Regional Information
Networks, posted a news story July 26 pointing to a different
reason for the lack of affordable food: white farmers'
hostility to government price controls.
Doug Taylor-Freeme, vice president of commodities for the
Commercial Farmers Union, commenting on a recently announced
government increase in agricultural prices, told IRIN, "We find
it unrealistic." These big landowners say prices haven't risen
enough. Vanessa McKay of the Zimbabwe Grain Producers
Association said the new price was not likely to be an
incentive, as costs had increased by 122 percent.
If the new higher prices are "unrealistic" and "not an
incentive," then certainly the old prices were less of an
incentive. What these white farmers--who still control a
significant part of Zimbabwe's agricultural production-really
meant was that they sat on their hands during the last growing
season while small subsistence farmers were being
devastated.
Much of the propaganda against Zimbabwe is coming from
Britain, the former colonial power.
Winter, the USAID official, added another element in his
attacks on Zimbabwe. He told the Associated Press July 26 that
millions of people could suffer from starvation while
Zimbabwean health and agricultural officials checked the safety
of genetically modified grain shipped by the United States.
Zambia announced July 26 that it might refuse a loan of $50
million if it was forced to buy genetically modified grain.
Malawi on front line
Malawi, a country of 11 million people between Mozambique
and Zambia, is probably the country most affected. There the
life expectancy is 42 years. Infant mortality is 134 deaths per
thousand births.
Some estimates suggest that 70 percent of all Malawians
suffer from hunger. Thousands have already died. About 3
million people are currently being fed from international
donations. (Johannesburg Business Day, July 26)
Malawi has been harshly criticized by the imperialist
countries for selling off its grain reserve of 600,000 tons of
corn in October 2001. That is enough corn to feed all of Malawi
for nine months. Some press reports don't even mention that the
government says the International Monetary Fund forced it to
sell the reserve and open the corn market to private traders.
Others report the IMF's claim that it was just a
"recommendation."
But Business Day got the IMF to admit it told Malawi to sell
part of the reserve.
A few months later the Malawian government had to take out a
$30 million loan from Absa Bank, one of South Africa's largest,
at hugely unfavorable terms to buy back some of the reserves at
a 500-percent markup. Grain merchants in southern Africa know
they can charge exorbitant amounts because people are starving
and they can sell outside the region if price controls get in
the way.
Instead of dealing with the coming human catastrophe,
Washington, Europe and the IMF are using it to score political
points against land reform in Zimbabwe. U.S. agribusiness
giants like Archer Daniels Midland also see this as an
opportunity to push genetically modified corn on the African
market.
Reprinted from the Aug. 8, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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