shouldnt this thread be titled.. "Ethiopian civil war coninues to ravage food supplies". Sorry, but its not all becuase of rain, irrigation or farming techniques.
Ethiopia is not in a state of war, civil or otherwise. They just have too many people and not enough grain. If civil war was the cause, then how does it explain the similar drought in Eritrea, Ethiopia's neighbor (and the people who long ago fought and won the civil war I think you were talking about)? A few years back they were fighting a hard and expensive war with Eritrea, and there wasn't a famine then. This isn't unique to the Horn of Africa either. There is a severe famine in the west (Mauritania, Mali and Senegal) and in the south (Zambia, Angola, Zimbabwe, Mosambique, Malawi). This is going to be a giganitic tragedy in the next few months.
yeah.. whatever.Thirty years of conflict has just vanished.Dont be so damned foolish.Just as somalia, the warlords who run Ethiopia/Eritrea/Sudan etc.. are still waging conflict against each other on a daily basis.and they use food and starvation as their tool of terror. as far as the other "nations" you listed.Give me a break.None are stellar examples of stability.The food the west sends just feeds thugs who will keep the populace in the dark ages.
If war was the cause of the famine, then why is the famine spread across areas instead of limited to single nations? Why is there no severe famine in places like Ivory Coast, which is in a terrible civil war? Why is there famine in places like Eritrea which has no civil war? The Ethiopian population is more than 85% agrarian. No one keeps the food from the people - the people themselves see that the food isn't growing. Ethiopia does have some problem in the south, but it isn't anything new and it certainly isn't something that would cause its leaders to purposly starve more than 10 million people. There are plenty of articles about people in striken areas, and even those in the heart of the seperatist areas (like the regions of Arsi and Bale) say that the cause of the famine is the drought. Even if you go by the wildly optimistic reports in the Oromo Liberation Front web site (www.oromoliberationfront.org) it isn't so much a war as occasional skirmishing with some terrorism and police actions thrown in once in a while. I have no doubt that the worldwide crash in coffee prices cost the Ethiopian economy far more than all its internal fighting and displaced peoples put together.
I got a suggestion, MOVE! Jesus frigging Christ they gunna die either way might as well die trying to leave. If you cant because youre bedridden, by the time help arrives youd be dead anyways.
Interesting point, I hadn't come across that. The Guardian link below points to a few other problems (difficult access to ports and debt repayments) that aren't necessarily causing the famine, but are aggravating the situation. Some people I talk to are reluctant to donate to this cause because they feel like the West (the North?) keeps giving starving people fish, but never teaches them how to fish. Well, a lot of organizations are doing both, and right now both are needed. Some good organizations are: CARE, Oxfam, Red Cross/Red Crescent. http://www.guardian.co.uk/famine/story/0,12128,838011,00.html
Speaking of the drop in coffee prices. http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1030/p07s01-woam.html Tough time in Central America.
"you see this....it's sand...yeah, sand...you know what it was 5,000 years ago? Sand. You know what it's going to be in 5,000 years? That's right, Sand. The problem isn't that you're hungry, IT'S THAT YOU'RE A FARMER IN THE DESERT. NOTHING GROWS HERE, NOTHING'S EVER GOING TO GROW HERE AAAAGGGGH AAGGGGGHHHH!!!!! Don't send these people food, send them greyhound busses and move them the phuck out of there... AAAAGGGGH ...AAGGGGGHHHH!!!!! Such a great skit. I miss that guy. Anyway, I agree that sending these people food only makes hungry kids in 5 years. Should we let them starve because of that? No. Is it our fault that we live in a country where food is plentiful and they don't? No, but if we can feed them, we should try. I went to Costco last night and bought an entire Grain Silo of Parmesean cheese for 3 bucks, and enough broccoli to replant the merrit parkway from here to Hartford and back for four dollars. They don't have those options, or the money to take advantage of them. Could I forgo the super-size fillet of fish meal and use that $ 5.16 to feed 10 starving ethopians for a week? Yes. Will I? Probably not. Thing is there is no way to feed the hungry people without having part of that food go to war lords, terrorists and other people I don't care to sustain with my charity. Figure out a way to prefect the process and I would donate. In lieu of that, I'll feed the hungry Americans first (I do a very modest amount of homeless food helpout via a church nearby).
Coffee prices crashed 30 years ago. There are many countries more dependent on coffee production than Ethiopia. They're not suffering famine.
> Coffee prices crashed 30 years ago. There are > many countries more dependent on coffee > production than Ethiopia. They're not suffering > famine. The primary cause of Ethiopia's famine is drought. Someone else said it was civil war. I said it wasn't, and that Ethiopia is most likely losing more from low coffee prices than from civil war. If you look at CrewDust's article or those from other places, you will see that current coffee prices are causing problems all over the world.