Unexplored angles to Ethiopia’s famine news stories for the international media
“The rains did not come. So the crops did not grow and people are desperate…” Wendy Urquhart, BBC News May 30, 2008.
I was provoked to write this article after I read and watched a few of the storylines the international media and news agencies are pursuing in terms of covering the current famine and drought in Ethiopia.
Before I go into my topic for today, I would like to first start off by commending the efforts that the international media and news agencies are making to cover the current humanitarian crises in Ethiopia.
In the firs paragraph, I quoted the way the BBC News reporter excellently opens here description of the drought and starvation in Oromia region, East Shewa Zone. If I were to report on the situation there, I would not have started with a better phrase than the BBC reporter did. The reason I isolated this excellent quote is to suggest a more profound angle towards researching and covering stories of famine and drought in Ethiopia. It is primarily to inform than to critique. The quote makes a causal link between the absence of rain and failure of crops to grow and result starvation. Yes, I agree with the reporter that the immediate cause of drought and starvation is the absence of rain. However, the fundamental angle the story leaves unexplored is the fact that these droughts like its predecessor from year s 1984-85, and 2000 are man made and the direct consequences of government caused conflicts and the lack of commitment to sustainable development. Another opening by Reuters reads, “Famine Returns to Ethiopia”. Similarly, it makes connection between absence of rain and crop failure.
Ethiopia as country and Oromia as sate are the sources of many gigantic rivers that the agricultures of our neighboring courtiers such as Sudan, Egypt, Somalia, thrive on. An elementary school geography student will be able to give us a list of these rivers amongst which are the Nile, Wabe Sheble, Awash, Tekezie, Ghibe to name just a few. Wabe Sheble flows southwards for thousands of kilometers into Somalia and of course the Blue Nile flows into Egypt transporting our fertile soil. So, why are we starving and why are we always on the news for it? The answer is simple: the central governments have done nothing in terms of using the donors’ money to expand irrigations into areas that are arid and semi-arid. In fact, most of the rivers I mentioned pass right through the residential areas of the drought struck and the starved people. Perhaps, publicizing these is a major angle that the world media outlets can take in terms of story angle so that the real problem is addressed, not the symptoms.
Prior to the drought of 1984-85, the Derg military junta in power was wasting public money on extravagant parties and banquets. EPRDF/TPLF regime in Addis Ababa/ Finfinnee has also engaged in extravagant and lavish millennium parties from September 2007 up until now. These parties are restricted within the party circles while emaciated children and mothers are falling like flies in the villages of Eastern Oromia State, Ogaden, and Borana. In fact, these are the areas where millions are reported to be needing immediate food aid, but I suspect the whole country is starving including employed people in the cities although the degree is different. These are also the very areas widely known for their dissent against the oppressive and racist ethnic government. Where there is no drought, a strategy of direct ethnic-cleansing is carried out. An example of an ethnic-cleansing is the ongoing armed attack the Oromo by the Gumuz militias, which killed over 400 unarmed civilians, according to reports. Substantially, Ethiopia’s chronic famine problem is political problem that arises from lack of a concerned leadership. The country’s leadership, more often than not, uses famine to rend political opposition from pro-democracy and development groups. This is part of larger strategy to make the masses ‘starve or surrender’, to use a famous book title.
It can become very easy and addictive to reduce the cause of famine and drought in Ethiopia to a natural cause because it is easy to blame nature. The worthy approach is to investigate the patterns of government military spending, to analyze whether donors’ money /food aid is channeled to the right recipient, and whether funds are used for development. Are there irrigation schemes on, at least, tributaries of the major rivers as development effort? Not one I know of. A genuine and enduring effort to help Ethiopia must be to pressurize the government to stop wars inside and outside of its territories and to urge it to negotiate with opposition groups in order to come to consensus to form a new and inclusive transitional government that can facilitate democratic elections.
The permanent solution of ending the image of Ethiopia as a country notorious for its drought, famine and conflict lies in the hands of all stakeholders nationally and internationally. Every Ethiopian news website or radio-broadcast from the Diaspora have an editorial and humanitarian responsibility of shaping its coverage of current famine by linking it to not only natural climate changes but also to the EPRDF/TPLF’s misguided agricultural policy and its insensitivity towards sustainable development and other local and global agenda, including climate change. Otherwise, it is easy, to whine on our own separate platforms without bringing a speedy resolution to the desperate Ethiopians under the military junta.
In summary, I suggest exploring the following editorial angles to covering famine, drought and development stories in the Horn of Africa. The international media and Ethiopian Diaspora media should be able to:
1. Explore how our major rivers are not being utilized to curb food shortage;
2. Establish a link between conflict, war, and the eco-system and climate change;
3.Expose corruptions related to food aid/ and the mismanagement and mis-spending of donors ‘ money;
4.Investigate exclusions and repressions inflicted by the government on famine- hit civilians;
5.As the local media is controlled, is a moral responsibility for the international media to step up reporting on famine, human rights abuses and systematic ethnic-cleansing in Ethiopia;
6. See how people in Oromia have been denied opportunities shut out from urbanization by successive Ethiopian regimes.
These six suggestions are the ones that I have distilled from my experience and long time acquaintance with Ethiopian problems as an independent reporter and human rights activist.
Q.B
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