Begging as a custom: Compilation of Ethiopia’s hunger appeals

25-07-2011

By Ankob Zuta, Blogger of De Birhan Blogspot

I just read Professor Al Mariam’s article, Dictator with a conscience? , just an hour ago. It was a hilarious one, please do read it. Below, I have complied some of the years, in which there is a record of, Ethiopia’s regime sought for food aid and or emergency appeal. Seemingly like a custom, there wasn’t a single year, in which the regime didn’t beseech for food. My question is “Is the government used to appealing for food?”

I won’t go into much analysis (just landed from trip), I leave you to do your own observation and analysis this time and you be the judge too.

I start with this year’s appeal made by the Minister for Agri. Few weeks ago.

2011

“As a result, it is estimated that a total of 4.5 million people will require humanitarian assistance during the remainder period of the current year, i.e. from July-December 2011. This suggests an increase of 40percent from the April’s HRD estimate, 3.2 million. Of the total revised 4.5 million beneficiaries, 41 and 32 percent are in Oromiya and Somali regional States respectively. In order to fill the food gap of this population there is a need to provide a total of around 380 MT of food valued at approximately USD 292,434,684 urgently given there is already critical shortage of food resources in the country.” Ato Mitiku Kassa- State Minster of Agriculture, On the occasion of the launch of Revised Humanitarian Requirements Document for July-December 2011.

2010

“Accordingly, the findings of the multi-agency assessment conducted in November/December 2009 and subsequent monitoring results indicate that approximately 5.2 million people require relief food assistance in 2010. The total net emergency food requirement from January to December 2010 and non-food needs for the first six months amounts to USD 286.4 million. The net food requirement, including TSF needs, stands at 290,271 MT, estimated to cost around USD 231.3 million. In addition a total of USD 55.1 million is required to respond to non-food needs of identified beneficiaries in the health and nutrition, water and sanitation and agriculture and education sectors. ” HUMANITARIAN REQUIREMENTS DOCUMENT - 2010, JOINT GOVERNMENT AND PARTNERS’ DOCUMENT

HUMANITARIAN REQUIREMENTS DOCUMENT - 2010, JOINT GOVERNMENT AND PARTNERS’ DOCUMENT

2009

“In January 2009, the Ethiopian Government with its humanitarian partners identified a total of 4.9 million beneficiaries that require emergency assistance in the year through the joint needs assessment conducted in November/December 2008. This joint approach shows the Government’s commitment to make the procedure transparent.” Ethiopian Emergency Relief Appeal 2009.

2008

“Approximately, 2, 181,467 people are estimated to require emergency food assistance in 2008. The total food aid requirement for these beneficiaries stands at about 171,646 MT (139,395 grain, 4,181 oil, 13,940 pulses, and 14,130 blended foods).” Humanitarian Requirements for 2008, Government-Partners Joint Document .

Humanitarian Requirements for 2008, Government-Partners Joint Document.

2007

B e l g P re- h a r v e s t and P a s t o r a l A r e a a s s e s s m e nt a n d U p d a t e o n E m e r g e n c y Food r e q u i r e m e n t F r o m A u g u s t t o D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 7.

2006

Food Supply, Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission ,Early Warning System , January 2006 Report.

2005

“In general, as per the multi-agency need assessment, followed by a review of the results by the federal disaster prevention and preparedness commission about 3.3 million people are likely to continue requiring emergency relief assistance from August to December 2005. The food situation of additional 2.5 million people still need close monitoring. The food assistance required for the remaining months of 2005 is estimated to be 235,400.60 MT, out of which 166,253.21 Mt is cereal, 47,535.44 is blended food, 4,986.56 is oil and 16,625.39 pulses.” Update on Emergency Food Requirement from August to December 2005.

As can be seen in most of the tables, the regions that are continually affected by the food crisis every year are Oromia and Somali regions of Ethiopia; which are the strongholds or main sources of rebels. Some even say that these regions are neglected by the Central government as a result experiencing man made hunger.

Update on Emergency Food Requirement from August to December 2005.

2004

“The multi-agency pre-harvest assessment teams determined that a total of 7,181,400 people (about 10% of the total population) will need humanitarian food assistance beginning in January 2004, while 2,187,600 will require close monitoring. Table 1 below summarizes the number of people expected to require food assistance and close monitoring in each region. Pastoral area assessment is soon to be undertaken in Somali, Borena and South Omo. Currently it is assumed that the 2003 beneficiary figure will remain the same at 1.1 million.” Food Supply, Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission, Early Warning System , January 2004 Report.

Food Supply, Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission ,Early Warning System , January 2004 Report.

2003

“The multi-agency pre harvest assessment teams concluded that a total of 11.3 million are estimated to need food aid beginning in January 2003, while just under 3.1 million people are expected to be able to cope but will remain under close monitoring. In total, 14.5 million people are at risk by the drought, about 21% of the total population (see Table 1 below). It may be the case, depending on upcoming cropping seasons that this group will need relief assistance towards the end of the year.” Food Supply, Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission ,Early Warning System , January 2003 Report.

Food Supply, Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission, Early Warning System, January 2003 Report.

1999

“The failure of this year’s Belg has now created additional need which has to be addressed through a much more effective relief intervention during the remaining months of the year and beyond. Including the recent Bleg victims, the total number of the people which will require relief assistance (those affected by Meher and Belg failure as well as the displaced) is now at a minimum of 4,603,478 which could reach upto 5 million. The food assistance require,nt during June-Decemeber period is estimated to be about 358,950 MT.The breakdown of this by region is as follows ” Revised Appeal for Assistance, Emergency Relief Needs in Ethiopia in 1999, Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission .

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-taEcj-rQLpM/Ti29XQiIinI/AAAAAAAAAYM/FKWwwoJukZg/s320/1999.JPG

Revised Appeal for Assistance, Emergency Relief Needs in Ethiopia in 1999, Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission.

1997

“Earlier expectations that food security situations would considerably improve in the belg crop growing areas with the coming in of the belg harvest this year have not been fulfilled. Instaed, the food situation in nearly all of these areas have deterortaited considerably because of the poor belg. Consequantely, a total of 1,211,800 people are now seeking relief food assistance purely due to the failure of belg crop this year. The total food aid required to meet their relief needs up to the end of the year is estimated at 98,349 MT. An additional 569,500 people affected by the current poor belg, will be under close monitoring” Early Warning Department, Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission July, 1997.

Conclusion

The above compilations are few of the ones I found. Since the Meles Zenawi government came to power there was no year that a year passed without an appeal for food aid. In the previous regimes there were one or two major famines that were all. But in the current regime, Ethiopians continue to starve regularly every year. The tables above are evidences for it.

I am trying collect food appeals in the previous regimes, those of you have the records please do halla at me.

Then I say,

· Unless the government or the ones that will come root out the issue of hunger; find a once and for all solution for these people; there won’t be peace or development.

· Somalia our neighbour may be helped to skip the current famine with the international support but it won’t be hunger free unless the Nation finds stability. Their instability will trickle down to us meaning we will continue to starve as a Nation and as a region.

· NGOs started to bud over half a century ago. But their success in times of hunger and famine, which are predictable and early warned, has not been more than a job of a fire brigade. What do they do to prempt and prevent hunger and such famine. Why do they all of a sudden now alert the whole world and force citizens of the West to aid, fund and donate? The same with the regimes of East Africa. Very oxymoronic …

Weekend's music choice

By Ankob Zuta, Blogger of De Birhan Blogspot

24-7-2011

"I watch her reflection in the mirror, clear and proud with beauty, her lips wide,full painted blood-red and her eyes coloured are large liquid brown.Clasped around her neck, a silver necklace, glittering with green stones, lights up her face " I took the above excerpt from one of my newly introduced friends article that appeared in the Nation's top magazine.

My article below on full belly thesis had one of the highest hits- over 400 in two days.May be the presidents are taking a note out of it too.lol

De Birhan Blogspot would like to express its condolence to the families and fans of Amy Winehouse. She died at a tender age.

For around four years now, I have been so busy and with little or no time to indulge myself. I smell time is coming for that. Go somewhere funky,hot and do crazily self indulging stuffs.

Anyway, here is my weekend's music choice,

Stevie Wonder - Part Time Lover

The Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia and Eritrea: the Full belly Thesis

By Ankob Zuta, Blogger of De Birhan Blogspot

21-7-2011

Somalia's malnutrition, has been declared a famine by the United Nations yesterday. It is so unreal, in the 21^st century famine? damn. The whole region of the Horn of Africa is starving. So sad. But what can a poor man like me do…except lip service and bewail? I am ashamed of the region as a whole as it failed in this high-tech century to develop and be still holding the bowl of begging. Dambiasa Moyo (PhD), the Zambian born international economist had preceded few years ago a new school of thought that decimated the aid model. She argued the the so called NGOs, aid agencies and donations have done nothing for Africa but made them dependent fools. I added ‘fools’ in fact lol. But we are---yes we are fools who still depend on others for our survivals. Although, some would say even European countries and the US do beg IMF and WB…it is a completely different scenario from us …Social Welfare and food stamps are also different from the beggaries of ours. So I was saying, Moyo’s new movement and thought of changing the aid model that has been gaining momentum has been crushed down by the shameful and starving nations of the Horn of Africa, who revived and rejuvenated the dying international NGOs again. If the drought and famine of the Horn of Africa didn’t happen or had the leaders and governments of the Horn of Africa had enough preparation and readiness for such times, the international NGO model would have fully perished. And Africans would have been compelled to stop looking at the hands of others and worked their ass off.

Look at the Diagram below,

It is the most used and applied social psychological theory. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology, proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation. Maslow's theory suggests that the most basic level of needs must be met before the individual will strongly desire (or focus motivation upon) the secondary or higher level needs. Let’s now take the above diagram and apply it to the politics and politicians of the horn of Africa. Do moist us or our politicians see ourselves/themselves in the above diagram? Do you think our politicians have reached the self actualisation stage before they joined the political struggle ? Can we name any of them?

I personally like the theory and feel that it applies in most contexts to me and even politicians. If you ask me …in which stage I am I can proudly say I am at the bottom— I am the stage of fighting for my daily food, wising to build my own house, have a wife and settle and do SEX lol in general I am working hard to fulfil my psychological needs now. But that doesn’t and hasn’t prevented me from having or aspiring to have the stages in the esteem section and worrying about the welfare of others and basically from leaping that Stage.

Now, are the people of the Horn of Africa, whose 50% are under the poverty threshold/hunger stage, so calm and unable to fight for their freedom, equality, rights and democracy because they haven’t fulfilled their psychological needs? Closed ended question again.

The Full-Belly Thesis

Just a year after I was born, in 1983, there came a cross-cutting research by Rhoda Howard entitled “The Full-Belly Thesis: Should Economic Rights Take Priority over Civil and Political Rights? Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa’’. The Full-Belly Thesis, it is a theory, and is my topic for today.

According to Howard, the "full-belly” thesis is that a man's belly must be full before he can indulge in the "luxury" of worrying about his political freedoms. Simply put it says that freedom and civil and political rights are luxuries for the starving masses and can only be bestowed upon them once the primary needs of food and health have been fulfilled. Proponents of the 'full belly thesis' would point to the history of the industrial revolution in Europe or to the success of the four Asian dragons to vindicate their stand, insisting on the need to focus the energies of the population towards meeting basic needs.

The Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia and Eritrea

The region that holds these countries is one of the most unstable, corrupt, repressive, diseased, hungered, war ravaged, totalitarian, and ‘backward’ regions of the world. Recently, it has appeared in the headlines of the international media once again not for any success story but for famine and hunger as usual. One good thing that this chaos brought the region was an attention from the Western Policy makers, who now started to view the regions as a strategic location. Crisis makes a place a strategic spot. If it is strategic then, influential Westerners would start to hear the voices coming from the Region, either from oppositions, civil societies or tiny creatures like me who think have panacea for the regions mess that disrupts international peace and prosperity.

Leaving, that aside let me delve on these countries from the spectrum of Full-Belly Thesis.

The Sudan: Sudan has recently found oil. It is one of the major exporters of oil in the Horn as well. Sudan is making huge economic strides. Infrastructures, huge manufacturing are being built in Khartoum.On the other hand, according to this year Amnesty International report ‘throughout Sudan, the government routinely represses human rights defenders, political opponents and ordinary civilians, subjecting many to torture and other forms of ill-treatment.’’ All forms of civil and political rights are suppressed mainly due to repressive religious laws and government.Al Bashir’s regime still sequences economic development (filling the belly) before freedom and civil and political rights.

Djibouti :located in the shores of the Horn of Africa, this small country of less than one million people is also making good economic strides especially in terms of GDP, around 6 percent in 2010. However the United States Department 2011 reports states, “Significant human rights abuses in the country included difficult prison conditions; prolonged pretrial detention; denial of fair public trial; interference with privacy rights; restrictions on freedoms of the press, assembly, and association; lack of protection for refugees; corruption; discrimination against women; female genital mutilation (FGM); discrimination against persons with disabilities; and restrictions on unions.” Omar Gulleh , who is a monopolist capitalist himself, promotes fast economic development by relinquishing the above rights. He practices the full belly theory too.

Eritrea : a small nation that seceded from Ethiopia in 1992, has been described to have had this kind of civil and political rights level by the 20111 report of Amnesty International “The government severely restricted freedom of expression and freedom of religion. No opposition parties, independent journalism or civil society organizations, or unregistered faith groups were allowed. The authorities used arbitrary arrests, detentions and torture to stifle opposition, holding thousands of political prisoners in dire conditions, many in secret detention. Military conscription was compulsory and deserters, draft evaders and their families were harassed, imprisoned and ill-treated. A "shoot to kill" policy against anyone attempting to flee across the border remained in place.”

In the middle of these atrocities, it is only Eritrea that has little suffered or has so far been affected by the drought problem in the Horn of Africa. In his recent, interview, the Information Minister of Eritrea said that his country had achieved full food security and wouldn't need any food aid from anyone. The Country has also found gold mines and is showing progress. Eritrea also openly practices the full-belly theory.

Somalia: Somalia which is now famine hit, failed state led by a shaky government. The Nation is difficult to be considered in the above theory or any other deconstruction. One thing clear here is that; Somalia’s famine is mainly caused due to long-term political and civil rights absence meaning state failure,war and conflict from the nation not just due to yesterday’s rain absence.

Ethiopia: Ethiopia, my mother land is a good case of the Full-Belly Thesis. The regime of Meles Zenawi is the darling of the West.He plays and flexes to all beats. Meles has been a Maoist, then a liberal and since 2004/05 a developmental democrat. Intrinsically and ideologically; a revolutionary democrat. Since then he has been advocating that economic growth and filling the belly of poor Ethiopian precedes social and political rights or success. His recent Growth and Transformation Plan is a prime case in point as it only plans to ambitiously be wealthy than the latter. “A serious analysis of the relationships between civil/political and economic human rights must confront the fact that sub-Saharan African societies, like all other societies, are stratified by social class, and that the elites who formulate economic policy may well be doing so in their own interests, not in the interests of the malnourished masses.” (Howard,1983) says.

The service sector of Ethiopia has been highly growing and the GDP was reportedly growing too. But, Ethiopia has now one of the most repressive regimes in the world that denies all the civil and political rights of its citizens at home and even in the Diaspora.

China set out one version in a 1991 white paper, arguing that survival rights - to food, shelter and health - take priority over freedom of expression and other civil and political rights, since the latter are meaningless if one is starving. Violation of those rights is justified as a trade-off by states with limited resources.

Bundle up

I bundle up my points with three conceptions; interactivity, universality and indivisibility. By interactivity I mean, basic human political and civil rights and human security (economic development) are interactive not sequential. That was Howard’s contention too.

And the last two points as I quote from another study here “'universality', that is that human rights and obligations apply worldwide, and cannot be watered down in a particular country or region - through bogus arguments about cultural specificity for example; and 'indivisibility', that all rights are vitally important - that the right to development, for example, does not take priority over the right to join a trade union. These are arguments that continue to be used by governments today to justify torture, killings and 'disappearances'. If development is to result from substantive participation not only have all to be free to join in the debate but, be empowered to contribute. ”

As an anonymous participant in the 1966 Dakar seminar on human rights quoted by Howard (1983) put it, 'To sacrifice the liberties inherent in the human personality in the name of economic development... [is] to reduce the individual to the role of producer and consumer of goods, which . . [is] far too high a price to pay for improving the material conditions of existence."

Countries of the Horn of Africa :The Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia and Eritrea ought to be revolutionised. A new generation of freedom,justice, equality,peace, liberty , prosperity and comfort lovers and upholders need to come in. The new generation has to take power. Instead of solely working for selfish and individual national solutions, these countries should work for a regionally cooperative and mutual growth and benefit. The current enmity and war tempered situation of the Horn would and could be solved by the reconciling and forward thinking youth. The Horn of Africaners should work for a holistic solution to our identical miseries.

HIM Haile Selassie's birthday to be celebrated in Wabi Shebele Hotel

HIM Haile Sellasie

By Ankob Zuta, Blogger of De Birhan Blogspot

19-7-11

The birthday of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie, former emperor of Ethiopia, will be celebrated in Wabi Shebelle Hotel,Addis Abeba this Satudrday, July 23rd. According to De Birhan's sources the half day birthday program is going to be commemorated in the presence of dignitaries, artists and grandsons of HIM, particularly Bede-Mariam Mekonen. Haile Selassie I (meaning Power of the Trinity) was born on 23 July 1892 in Harar,Ethiopian.Born Tafari Makonnen, was Ethiopia's regent from 1916 to 1930 and Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. The heir to a dynasty that traced its origins to the 13th century, and from there by tradition back to King Solomon and Queen Makeda, Empress of Axum, known in the Abrahamic tradition as the Queen of Sheba. A defining figure in both Ethiopian and African history , as described by Wikipedia,Rastafarians perceive Haile Selassie as a messianic figure who will lead a future golden age of eternal peace, righteousness, and prosperity. He himself was an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian throughout his life.

According to Addis Fortune's July 10,2011 report " Bede-Mariam Mekonen (grandson of HIM) and his brothers, the four progenies of the late Prince Mekonen Haile-Selassie, won their suit to reclaim ownership of Wabe Shebelle Hotel, after 15 years of dispute with the mighty power of the state. The 108 room hotel, one of the landmarks of Addis Abeba, located on Ras Mekonen Street, is now back with the royal family after they paid 25 million Br in backward costs to the government".

After the passing away of Prince Mekonnen, the emperor’s son who died in a car accident on Debre Zeit Road, the emperor had given the hotel as a gift to the former’s children.

De Birhan wishes the best of Enlightenment to all those who are celebrating HIM Hailesellasie's birthday all over the world.

Haile Selassie's 80th Birthday Thank You Card

Trivialisation and then about Ethnic media

By Ankob Zuta,Blogger of De Birhan Blogspot

18-7-11

News International phone hacking scandal continues to sequel in a funny way. Imagine this scandal happening in Ethiopia. What would have happened?

That is food for thought for you to ponder. But ask me what my opinion is about the Murdoch scandal. My answer would be based on Jurgen Habermas' thought(t19 97)p opular for his stewardship and writings on public sphere, for him, in the ideal public sphere ,private issues aren’t discussed and therefore people develop their own thoughts on them unspoiled by already knowing what other people think. In short, he describes such a form of sphere where the focus is on individuals as trivial. Thus, News International’s type of journalism, a privacy invading p.p. hacking form of journalism, never been practiced since the times of penny press, could in short be assessed as trivialisation.

Let me head to the main issue for today: ethnic media.

I am reading a brand new book on a brand new topic. Written by Matthew D. Matsaganis, Vikki S.Katz and Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach in 2011, Understanding Ethnic Media Producers, Consumers and Societies, brings us this very new topic of ethnic media.It has five parts and nine chapters.

The preface begins by introducing us to the Gazette de Leyde,one of the very first ethnic newspapers published in the 1600 by French protestant refugees in Holland. Then goes to define ethnic media; it says, ethnic media are media that are produced by and for (a) immigrants, (b) racial, ethnic and linguistic minorities as well as (c)indigenous populations living across different countries.

On page 32, the book goes on to discuss about Fredrick Douglas’ North Star first published in 1847 and was instrumental in the enlightenment of African Americans and abolition of slave trade. On the same page, it cities the applaudable case of Native Americans, especially the Cherokee who had fought relocation in 1828.

It states that ethnic media play two major functions, connective function; connecting the immigrant to news and events in the home country and orientation function; orienting the new comer to their new community and country.

Ethnic media also play a huge role in the formation of ethnic identity and in how that identity is defined over time and in different geographic contexts. In chapter seven, it divides ethnic media organisations into six typologies; small scale, local operations (Addis Dimtse, Netsanet Le Ethiopia and Sweden and Negat Ethiopian Community Radio are some examples from our own ethnic media), Large ethnic media Corporations, the Multinational Media Enterprise , Transnational or Global Ethnic Media (Zee TV of India is an example in this case .We may take ESAT as a prime example of ours too), Public and non Profit Broadcasters, and Virtual Media Organisations. Then it says that when state policies support ethnic media, they do so through one of the five models: Integrationist Model-integrative model, Economic (Shallow Multiculturalism)-superficial, Divisive Model-state uses ethnicity to create tension and rivalry, Preemptive Model-state creating anti-immigrant unity media or pro integration, and Proselytism Model – the state or religious organisation forms a media via the lingua of minorities to do its aim. Geo-ethnic media are ethnic media that serve residents of geographically limited communities. As to the writers the major challenges of ethnic media are; attrition and poaching from the mainstream media, access to sources and resources, and discrimination. Finally the book forecasts that both from a producer’s and consumer’s perspective, ethnic media have a huge role to play. In their study conducted on some 10 countries on the availability of ethnic media in their respective countries, Sweden had the highest.

Some three years ago, I used to write for an Eastern European ethnic newspaper, and then all of a sudden I stooped, due to personal reasons. I mostly wrote about African and Ethiopian issues. At the point in time, I was in discussion with one of the founders of that Paper to begin our own ethnic media to but to no avail….

One of the highly budding and promising Ethiopian ethnic media is Ze Habesha Newspaper, found in Minnesota, United States. Ethiopian Satellite Television (ESAT) is another. But I don’t know of any Ethiopian owned ethnic media in any part of the world that focuses on the larger immigrant population i.e. Africans or all immigrants at large. Language seems to be one of the major hindrances; although the intention itself is not there from the start.

Issues of my everyday concern such as freedom, equality, global justice, comfort and the like aren’t only a lacklustre of Africans in Africa - although Africa is in perils as a continent ; Africans, in the Diaspora are abused as well especially in the case of host - immigrants relationship. Ethiopians have historically led and fought for the rights and freedom of all oppressed people in Africa and beyond. Today, we are tiring with the nuts and bolts of our private life and our ‘starvingly repressive’ nation. But but…there is still a room in our head that thinks beyond that poor nation and families…we/I still think of my rights and equality in the West.I do want Africans in the diaspora to be connected in information and communication with their homes always,I want Africans to be aware of what is going on in the new countries that they have adopted as their new homes, I want Africans to debate, deliberate, discuss and enhance their civil and democratic rights as citizens of the world and their refugee countries, and finally I want us all as human beings to respect each other and live in this world in Liberté, égalité and fraternité. Therefore, should establishing an inter-continental ethnic media be a good solution ?

NB : This piece is not about the non Diasporic mainstream ethnic media which mostly are seen as conflict and narrow agenda spreaders.I will in the future write about ethnic media and conflict. The above one was solely about ethnic media founded by emigrants in their second homes.

Ode on Solitude

"Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.

Blest! who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mix'd; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please,
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me dye;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lye."

By Alexander Pope 1700