From 1982 to 1984, northern Ethiopia had no rain to water the crops or for drinking. The Derg knew about this, but they did not act right away because they wanted to keep the Eritrean army, also known as the EPLF (Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front), from getting food and supplies (Young 130-131). It was not until the BBC unveiled the story on October 23, 1984 that the government decided to respond (Sorenson 1).
The drought of 1984 claimed the lives of many Ethiopians and those remaining were destitute. The people were deprived of basic needs such as food, shelter, clothing, and medication. Many died as a result of starvation and from water-born diseases. It became very apparent that to recover from this terrible drought the people of Ethiopia would need outside assistance and instruction. A community-cantered program was implemented, teaching them to use better farming practices as well as to take care of their land. This, along with better health care, would be a long-term solution rather than just giving free handouts (Yamamori 16-20).
The government in Ethiopia both Haile Selassie and the Derg, failed because it did not respond to the desires of Ethiopians for a democracy, national self-determination, and development (Young 216).
An interview with Belaynesh Tadesse, a Food for the Hungry colleague from Ethiopia helped to identify some of the personal struggles that Ethiopians have gone through in the last 30 years.
Belaynesh, was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in December of 1957. Her father worked for the municipality office in Addis Ababa, while her mother was a stay-at-home mom. Belaynesh describes school life as being very interesting, and challenging. "We were taught English at a very young age, and we were taught Amharic as a subject in school as if you were to take English classes here." During Belaynesh's childhood, Haile Selassie was emperor. "Haile Selassie was admired and respected among Ethiopians. Before becoming emperor his name was Ras Tafari, and the people thought that he was blessed by God." However in 1974, Haile was overthrown and there was a new political power. "When I was still a young child, the Derg overthrew Haile Selassie, and our lives changed."
"We did not know this at the time, but the Derg was a communist regime. The Derg was a peaceful coup unless you crossed them. One of my classmates was killed because they thought that she was part of an underground movement. Their philosophy was that you would contribute to the Derg, or you were considered against them. I was not for them, but I survived by working at one of their youth associations."
Belaynesh moved to America in 1991 where she works with Food for the Hungry. She is currently living in Phoenix Arizona.
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Against all odds
Drought ridden Ethiopia struggles to head off a massive famine
Reporter: Brian Stewart | Producer: Carmen Merrifield
Camera: Brian Kelly Editor: Sheldon Beldick
February 12, 2002
It's the gravest crisis Ethiopia has ever faced. Twelve million people need food aid. But this isn't the great famine of 1984 again. As they pray for rain, Ethiopians are also mobilizing a grassroots movement to beat the famine.
�Find out more about aid organizations in Ethiopia
As we arrive by plane, below me, again, is the wide path of another drought. I've never seen it worse over northern Ethiopia, the "high roof of Africa" of sun-blasted mountains and cracked riverbeds.
In 1984, drought became a mega famine that killed a million people, and I'm returning to the epicentre of that suffering ? Tigre. It's not the only place now at risk, but Tigre is the one I know best.
So remote, so mesmerizing ? a national poet writes: "It is the dark side of the moon, brought to light."
But after some years of decent harvests, rains have failed, crops died. Some of the poorest people on Earth are left with virtually nothing.
Why Ethiopia again? Mostly because of sheer poverty. Ninety per cent are bare subsistence farmers. In past droughts they've had to sell off all they own. Now 11 million, 15 per cent of the nation, are too destitute to make it without help.
Simply put, food aid must rumble up these isolated roads for a year or the death toll will again be immense.
"The need is enormous. If the response is very low, things will be very bad, extremely bad. We will see people dying."
There are no illusions here. Everyone knows the coming months will be terrible. The drought is fierce. There are five million more people at risk of famine than in 1984 and the general health and poverty of the people is even worse to begin with. Ethiopia's back is truly to the wall.
Still, what's surprising, astonishing really, is one feels little sense of panic or defeatism. Instead there's a national mobilization for an all-out do-or-die struggle against famine and even the conviction that with outside help there is the will, the organization and the sheer toughness to win out.
Ethiopia is a unique country with some core strengths in any crisis. Never really colonized, it is fiercely proud and profoundly religious, the second oldest Christian country on Earth. This gives areas like Tigre a strong sense of social cohesion that is so striking to foreign aid workers like John Graham of Save the Children.
John Graham
"That gives a moral basis for society and a great strength to the family as well," says Graham. "And I worked in southern Africa for a long time as well and there? what was clearly visible was generational breakdown, that the families were in a state of tension and often collapse; whereas here, you come here, and you see very strong families, very strong moral values. Ethiopia, for example, is an incredibly poor place (but) there's incredibly little crime."
Now both the dominant Christian Orthodox Church and Muslim leaders have united to call for national sharing. All also promise to help those in need. And Ethiopians are renowned for sharing whatever they have with extended families, and poor neighbours. That's a critical start.
Having worked on emergencies in Africa since the '84 famine, Graham says Ethiopians quickly mobilize to help others.
"It's much different from any other African country I've ever been in," he says. "When there is a crisis here, people begin to donate part of their salaries. You'll have entire departments or organizations where they'll get together and say we're going to give you 50 per cent of our monthly salary against this drought."
Responce is quick. Across the north, there's a sharp rise in malnutrition cases showing up at clinics. Fortunately, this is part of an efficient famine early warning system. Past governments tried to hide famines, now clinics quickly report when the average weight of children begins to drop.
Other early warnings are field reports by The Relief Society of Tigre called REST. Travelling experts like Tsegae Asseffa checks drought and food shortages daily.
CBC's Brian Stewart: "What's frightening, I'm finding as we've been driving around for days now and everywhere it seems the same."
Tsegae Asseffa
Tsegae Asseffa: "In my experience, the drought is so bad that it resembles or it is equal to the '84-85 situation except that the response mechanism is good now. The drought itself is equivalent to that of '85-85. People have got just nothing."
CBC's Brian Stewart: "Well, you can get the food out there. You're organized to do that. But what is going to happen if the world doesn't respond? What then?"
Tsegae Asseffa: "The need is enormous. If the response is very low, things will be very bad, extremely bad. We will see people dying. We will see people moving here and there. We will see a lot of beggars in the cities. The rural population will flood into the cities just for the search of anything."
The 1984 famine killed a million people
The memory of the 1984 famine migrations haunts Ethiopia. It is exactly what Ethiopia must now prevent ? the mass movement of the starving to overcrowded food aid camps.
Many people, too famished, simply died on the way. Others succumbed to diseases in the squalid camps. Tens of thousands who were forced down to the unfamiliar tropic south died of malaria. In Ethiopia, mass movement equals mass death. So today the critical need is to keep the hungry where they are, listen to them, find out their needs, and bring food before panic movement sets it.
Another part of the early warning system is the gathering of people, many who are close to the edge, at a feed centre.
Old man: "We cannot get anything from the land now. (In) 1984 we were able to get a little so it is difficult now."
CBC's Brian Stewart: "So it is even worse than it was in 1984?"
Old man: "Yes, it is worse than the 1984-85 (famine) because we cannot get any crop or anything. So, yes, it is very bad."
Woman: "During 1984, we left our land and our home. We even buried our children in Mekelle. We were forced to leave our village and migrate to Mekelle. Now we are here. Even under difficult times we have not left our house. We are here with all the troubles."
Ethiopians hate having to ask for food. A big problem is many won't ask until they're too weak to go on. They're now encouraged to take some aid before it's too late.
CBC's Brian Stewart: "So what are you trying to do to prevent the kind of scenes we saw in 1984-85, where a whole countryside had to get up and walk to a big refugee camp?"
Tsegae Asseffa: "The policy? is that the food should go to the people, not people to travel in search of food. We have a very bad experience in '84-85. We were forced to take people to Sudan just simply to feed? to give the same distribution as this is now. But now we had enough experience of it and we have to bring the food to the people rather than people should travel to the food."
Rest officials like Tsegae have astonishing experience. As a rebel against the Marxist dictatorship in 1984 famine, Tsegae ran emergency food supply lines into Tigre, often under government fire.
Many like him in REST maintain deep grassroots connections to the people.
"When you work with the people, they tell you their needs and you have to (base) yourself from the needs of the people," he says. "If you go on your own, you may not satisfy the needs of the people. So that's why REST works with the people and gets all the information that the people need."
Another key advantage now is that the long period of civil war and conflict with Eritrea have finally ended, and the many years of shared hardship have formed self-help bonds in Tigre. You see it clearly in the crisis centre of the REST headquarters in Makelle. Officials there handle reports of growing emergency, but most are disciplined former guerrillas who are used to working with peasant farmers.
"They developed for 15 years out in the wilderness and the only way they could operate is with the full support and backing of the communities," says John Graham of Save the Children. "And because they have that mass membership, they've been able to do some really fantastic things."
"...we have the political resources (and) political power to do something about it."
And critically important is that Ethiopia's fragile democracy is still open. Prime Minister Meles Zenawa, who led the uprising against the old dictatorship, doesn't hide grim facts.
When we visit, he seems weary. Depressing reports cross his desk but Iraq dominates world attention.
Meles Zenawa, prime minister of Ethiopia
"These are anxious moments for all of us here," he says. "The risks are there for everyone to see, anything between 11 to 14 million people are facing food shortages. We do not yet have the resources in our hands to be sure that we'll manage in the coming months."
As we talk, I wonder if the mere possibility of another famine is spreading desperation, even panic.
"Somebody who has lived through 1984, I think, is to some extent insured against desperation because now, despite the bigger scope of the problem, we have the political resources (and) political power to do something about it," says Zenawa. "In 1984, there was much more room for desperation because we were not in control. Now we are in control and we can do something about it. So however difficult things might be, desperation and despair is not something that enters my mind."
The government is racing its food reserves into the countryside. What's frightening is Ethiopia will need 1.5 million tons from the world but not even half that has been pledged so far.
A warehouse at the Tigre strategic reserve where emergency food is stored. To give some sense of the emergency, a warehouse that should be filled to the brim with food isn't. The Tigre strategic reserve should have 40,000 metric tons of food. It has less than a quarter of that. Hour after hour, day after day, the food is pouring out to go to the countryside and the sheds are emptying one after the other. If sheds empty out completely, you will have mass starvation.
Ethiopia is a nation that does not waste any food. Almost every family lost members in the 1984 famine.
Even a break in the steady flow of supply trucks carrying food to the countryside could trigger the start of another migration.
Fear can be monitored in weekly gatherings, which locals call "rumour markets." Peasant farmers meet to trade or sell what's left of their sheep and goats. I didn't sense the panic selling or exodus I'd seen before, which indicates people still has confidence in early relief efforts.
But the emergency is bigger than a food crisis. It's not enough just to feed millions. Ethiopia smothers in poverty. It must somehow find development resources grow out of famine.
"Now droughts do not create famines in Canada or elsewhere. Droughts are creating risks of famine here," says Prime Minister Meles Zenawa. "Now had we had the money, the resources, we would have built structures to store the rain water and use it when the rainfall is not adequate. Now we do not have the resources to carry out such programs of water storage and management, which could have helped us overcome the problems of drought and the associated risk of famine. And then, of course, there is the overall poverty in the country.
"I always say I am lucky I was not a grown-up during that terrible time when many people lost their lives. I am lucky I haven't seen it."
Ancient land, old faiths ? however battered Ethiopia is by calamity it always seems to revive in spirit.
Berhan Weldu in 1984
Many children of the famine, like Berhan Weldu, are symbols of this. In 1984, millions watching TV news on the famine knew her face. Her coffin was already being prepared, aid workers said she was dying and there wasn't anything they could do for her.
To everyone's astonishment she survived. Three weeks later, we saw her again, just before her family was swept up again in the chaos of famine.
Four years later, we found her and her father in the north, as she became the first in her family to go to school.
Berhan Weldu, almost 20 years later
We've kept in touch. Still today, for famine youth there still no escaping the past altogether.
"I don't dream about it but in my mind I always think about that bad time," says Weldu (translated). "I always say I am lucky I was not a grown-up during that terrible time when many people lost their lives. I am lucky I haven't seen it, I do not know it. It is past and I did not feel it the way grown-up people see it, and I am glad I did not see it."
"...most importantly, just like the one who saved my life when I was almost dead, I would like to train myself as a nurse and help those who need help..."
Deeply religious, 21-year-old Weldu wonders why she survived when so many others died. She has also found a mission ? she has just enrolled in nursing college.
"Since there is scarcity of nursing here in our country, I'd like to serve my country as a nurse," she says. "Also, it is easier to find a job as a nurse than in other professions here. But most importantly, just like the one who saved my life when I was almost dead, I would like to train myself as a nurse and help those who need help here in my country and save other lives, to help them."
Even the hungry do what they can to help. Across Tigre, farmers band together to help each other build small wells and ponds to survive future droughts. Food aid helps them work so tens of thousands of such small efforts continue even during this emergency.
CBC's Brian Stewart: "What is the mood of the people here? Some seem to sing, they talk? How is the general mood of the neighbours as they work together?"
Woman 2: "They face a lot of problems and people are weak but they also have hope for the future with God willing, and we have to use the water from the pond until God gives us rain."
CBC's Brian Stewart: "Some people may ask the question, if life is so hard hear on this land, why do people stay? Why don't they go away?"
Woman 2: "Some people go but they always come back because this land is their home and they cannot leave their land for good. They still have some hope." It's backbreaking work, one farm at a time, but if enough water is caught during heavy rains it might just break a destitution cycle.
Farm children go to school as long as they can, on two often just one meal a day. But jobs off the land are scarce and industry is scarce. In Makelle, there are poignant signs of a dream in tourism that never takes off. Short of money for development, the government feels it must pour what it has into the land. Opposition leaders like Beyane Petros express a national anger at Ethiopia's constant weakness.
Beyane Petros, an opposition leader "Ethiopians are competent, and with that competence we are embarrassed to always go around and beg for food," he says.
But over more than years since I first went to Ethiopia here, I've run into the same arguments over development time and again. It remains a bizarre fact ? this impoverished country receives the lowest rate of development aid in the world. Impressed by Ethiopia's response to crisis, the West is now promising more help in restoring land. But John Graham of Save the Children still says countries that help famine emergencies do little to actually end emergencies.
"You can't simply say, 'Well we're going to cover the emergency and then we've already given them a lot of money so let's go somewhere else,'" he says. "Let's try to get that extra resource, try to get those sheep, those goats, so that people can get back on their feet. Otherwise we're going to be facing the same thing time and time again, where every few years we're going to be in destitution."
In Mekelle, at the Orthodox service of epiphany, priest blesses holy water that they will spray on the vast congregation. It's also a prayer for rains to return, a call for hope.
"None of us wants to hear about the famine of 2003," says Graham. "What we want to hear about is the crisis of 2003 that was never allowed to develop into a famine, unlike every other drought crisis that's ever happened in Ethiopia. That's what we want to be able to see, and that's what I think we can see because we have the ability to respond to this one."
"And with God's help the rain will come and I have the belief we will work harder, farm better, and get more crops in the future? even in bad times," says Berhan Weldu. It will be very close. Ethiopia needs enough rain in March and April, a good harvest, and much urgent care from the world. It's alarming how much has to go just right from here on.
Ethiopians, however, have come through in the past and may again? against all odds.
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