ETHIOPIA & PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR
9161 OU29 - Ethiopia -- The New Famine
In the last year of the course, in 1993 when I got back to Ethiopia in the spring, there was a massive emergency. A famine had suddenly developed, which had taken the government completely by surprise. The government had put in very closely monitored early warning systems in the north of the country, especially in Tigray, where the droughts normally occurred. But this one had happened in the south of the country where droughts are very unusual. The government was, therefore, scrambling to get in aid from overseas. They managed to get a necessary amount committed, but the problem was getting it to the areas where it was needed in time. The British government did a very good job, since the ODA had set itself the target of being the first to respond to such emergencies; and grain was already flowing into the ports even before I arrived.
The real problem was, however, that this had to be distributed in just three months before the rainy season arrived. The rainy season might be a solution for the following year’s crops but it would also wash out the roads which would be used to deliver the supplies in the meantime. The day before I arrived the government had taken the simple step of requisitioning every heavy goods vehicle in the country and all of these were then converging on the ports; so they could be filled with grain to be taken out into the more remote regions which would be cut off by floods.
Surprisingly, it was a very exhilarating atmosphere. Everyone from the president down -- and especially my students -- was involved in organising this relief effort; though all of them still managed to get my tutorials.
Over the next visits I monitored what was going on, since - between them - my students were covering most of the country and I got to know what was happening everywhere. This was the reason that, to my alarm, I suddenly realised that there was a group of farmers in the remote highlands who had been overlooked. There was something like a quarter of a million of them, in the high valleys who were not yet receiving aid; and would not receive any before the rainy season. There was a very good chance, therefore, that they would starve to death.
As usual, therefore, I started to campaign for food to reach these people. My first call was on the new ambassador to ask him to get the RAF to drop supplies into these areas; as had happened in the famine of the 1980s. Unfortunately, James Glaze had by then retired and there was a new ambassador. He was very much in the style of 'perfidious Albion', the professional foreign office ambassador whose main job was to manipulate foreigners. I don't think he knew what I was talking about. He certainly didn't know who I was. I got the feeling he probably wanted to throw me out the door! This was probably the reason I had trouble with him later on.
Next I went to the head of the food programme, the organisation of the United Nations which coordinated famine activities. I got much the same civil servants reply - that they knew what they were doing - and I should mind my own business. Eventually, therefore, I went to Seeye and asked the army to intervene. I been hoping for aeroplanes to make the drop, as they had in the famine in the 1980s, but in fact this proved unnecessary. Seeye sent a convoy of all-terrain vehicles up to the valleys with the food that they needed. I don't know what my contribution was, but I hope I saved at least a few thousand lives.
The famine itself was largely curtailed by these actions. When I first went out there were something like eight million people at risk of starvation. In the event, only something like 8,000 died. This was a miraculous in terms of the previous experiences. The drought had in fact been much worse than the previous one in the 1980s. The difference was that they now had a government which was very good at managing supply lines; and of course, in the 1980s, Mengistou had manipulated the drought, and the consequent famine, as a weapon of war. The one million who died then need never have died. They were in essence killed by Mengistou.
hits