Latest update April 18th, 2024 12:59 AM
Sep 14, 2011 Editorial
The UN, in its wisdom, decided that 2011 would be the “International Year for People of African Descent” (IYPAD). The idea was for nations that had people of African descent as a consequence of the slave trade and slavery to be more sensitive – and to take rectificatory actions – for that blot on history of humanity. It would appear that that exhortation has given license for the world – more specifically, the developed world – to turn a blind eye to the tragedy of the famine in East Africa.
Up to last month, over 29,000 children had already perished due to the drought in Somalia alone – with another 640,000 acutely malnourished, according to the UN. The number of adults that have died could only be estimated in “tens of thousands”. Over 11 million “need urgent assistance to stay alive, as they face their worst drought in decades,” according to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. One of Somalia’s regions that used to be described as its “breadbasket” has just been declared “famine affected”.
A famine is measured by the rates of hunger, malnutrition and deaths, but the key factor is that it must be widespread. Technically, famine is defined as a crude mortality rate of more than two persons per 10,000 every day and the wasting rates of above 30 per cent among children under five. It was not a case that the world did not know that the catastrophe of a famine in Somalia was imminent. The US-funded Famine Early Warning System had alerted the international community about the impending crisis on six occasions last year. But the warnings were ignored.
But there is a background to the present famine – described as the worse in six decades – that makes it stand out in a region where drought is endemic: it has been precipitated by a decades-old civil war waged by local warlords. Previously, when Somalia was a stable and united country, the central government used to successfully tackle the periodic droughts that affected the region. By 2006, a group named the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) defeated the warlords and established a tenuous peace. The US administration of then President Bush, however, labelled the group as “terroristic” and orchestrated an invasion by Ethiopia.
It is not without some irony that the leader of the ICU is now President of Somalia and, backed by the US, is spearheading the internal fight against Al-Shabab, his former armed youth wing. Branded “the rebels”, Al-Shabab, for its part, has declared its affiliation with Al-Qaeda and its intention to establish an Islamic state in Somalia. Kenya, along with Ethiopia and Uganda, is spearheading the external African Union’s efforts to defeat and sideline Al-Shabab. The blame for Somalia’s devastating famine should therefore not be levelled totally at the weather, but at geopolitics and armed militia.
The African Union, the UN, the EU, and the US continued to describe the famine as a drought until July 18 of this year, when it was no longer possible to conceal the deaths of almost 80,000 people from starvation. Concerned with the threat of terror from Al-Shabab, they ignored the fate of the millions of people who live in areas controlled by Al-Shabab.
Aid agencies assert that assistance of at least $1 billion would be needed before year-end to meet the needs of the drought victims. However, the response from the international community, especially the West, has not been good. Less than one-fifth of the money requested by international aid agencies has materialised. In 2010, the U.N. had appealed for aid of $500 million in order to provide food security in the East African region, but could secure only less than half of the amount from international donors. According to international agencies, aid has reached only 20 per cent of the 2.6 million Somalis.
In this IYPAD, it may not be out of place to note the untold billions that have been found by the developed north and the IMF to prevent the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain) from defaulting in Europe and “facing hardships”.
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