by David Zenian
Addis Ababa - International relief organizations are once again warning against a killer-famine in Ethiopia.
From all the available information, indications are that by the end of this year, an estimated 6.8 million men, women and children will face starvation if the coming summer months fail to produce adequate amounts of rain.
In the meantime, while organizations like the United States Agency for International Development rush thousands of tons of emergency relief supplies, a sea of poor Ethiopians continue to converge into Addis Ababa in search of better living conditions.
Addis Ababa, which literally means “New Flower”, is wilting under the pressure. Streets are packed with thousands of homeless vagabonds sifting through trash and begging at traffic lights across the city.
Unemployment is rampant, and even those who are working can barely keep up with the high level of inflation. Production in every sector is rock bottom.
Government officials are often helpless in dealing with the ever-escalating number of newcomers who stand no chance of rehabilitation. Disease and hunger are on the rise despite a year-round relief campaign.
Perched on a green and beautiful plateau 2,300 meters above sea level, Ethiopia is poverty stricken, exhausted from decades of serious food deficits caused by civil conflict, tribal clashes, and drought.
According to recent statistics, the evenly-divided Christian-Moslem population of Ethiopia, a country twice the size of France, has grown by an estimated 13 million since 1984, making it more and more difficult to avoid the tragedies of famine, poverty, disease and death.
The picture is so bleak that even the glossiest of government-published propaganda leaflets agree that while agriculture remains the backbone of the national economy with 60 percent of the country’s 1.2 million square kilometer area arable, only 10.4 percent is actually cultivated to feed a population of more than 50 million, 50 percent of whom are under 20 years of age.
But if fighting famine is top on the agenda of the Transitional Government of Ethiopia, moving the country closer to a democracy is not far behind thanks to the constant prodding — and support — of the United States.
“Exhausted by 30 years of civil war that ended in 1991 with the creation of the independent state of Erithrea, a former Italian colony annexed to Ethiopia in 1952, and a parallel 17 years of communist and extreme socialist rule, Ethiopia today is facing the uphill task of building a new democracy.
In the 20 years since Emperor Haile Selassie was toppled by a left-wing military coup, the bulk of private property has been nationalized, especially factories, large farms, and every piece of real estate which did not classify as a primary residence.
The Armenian community, once an economic force to be reckoned with, was devastated as Armenian-owned flour mills, tanneries, shoe factories, printing presses and other businesses and homes were grabbed by the Dergue, the military government that came to power in 1974.
In the two or three years following the military coup, the number of Armenians living in Ethiopia dropped from an estimated 1,200 to a meager 150 — including nearly half of mixed Ethiopian-Armenian parentage.
The same was true with the country’s small Italian and Greek expatriate communities which today are close to oblivion.
Assuming power in 1991, the ruling Ethiopian People’s Democratic Front (EPRDF) has introduced a National Charter drawing upon the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Charter, blessed by Washington, guarantees among other things: freedom of expression and political pluralism, the right of nations and nationalities to self-determination, freedom of nations and nationalities to organize themselves, their right to develop their own social, historical, linguistic and cultural heritage, and their right to establish an independent judicial system.
A hefty agenda, and given the number of “nations and nationalities” in the Ethiopian mosaic, a difficult one too.
An official proclamation dated July, 1992 divided the country into 14 administrative regions and recognized more than 60 different groups which it classified as “nations, nationalities and peoples.”
While the overall policy of the country will remain in the hands of the central government in Addis Ababa, each of the so-called entities will have a greater say in the running of their day-to-day affairs.
Western diplomats are convinced that the new approach is the only sure way of correcting past mistakes. For one, they believe that a highly centralized system of government and decision-making as well as a lack of accountability in the past contributed to the uneven development of the regions, nations and nationalities. Policies have always been initiated from the top.
Today, the emphasis is on the grass roots, the smaller units which are being brought together to facilitate the creation of a democratic and hopefully more prosperous country of diverse ethno-linguistic groups.
But poverty and democracy do not mix well.
“Drastic action must be taken if sad scenes of weak and dying people are not to flash across the world’s television screens,” the Addis Ababa authorities told foreign envoys recently.
Maybe they meant “we must end hunger to save democracy.”
