From: jnr@igc.apc.org (Jim Rosenfield)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Subject: Re: 10/07 Wire stories on hunger
Date: 8 Oct 92 00:22:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1471700165:cdp:1471700167:000:6239
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!jnr    Oct  7 17:22:00 1992


/* Written  5:19 pm  Oct  7, 1992 by jnr in cdp:hunger.general */
APn  10/05 0024  Southern Africa-Drought

Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 

By BARRY RENFREW   Associated Press Writer 

NJELELE, South Africa (AP) -- The mighty Limpopo River is dry, a
broad belt of dirt snaking through a landscape ravaged by a
drought that has pushed millions of people to the edge of
starvation. 

Where a torrent of green water hundreds of yards wide should be
flowing past and nourishing crops, there is just dust. People say
they remember nothing like it in their lifetimes. 

"You can't grow anything. The earth is dead," Hani Mkansi, a
peasant farmer, said as she stared out over a lifeless field near
the river. 

Across southern Africa, the worst drought in 100 years has
stripped many areas bare. Villagers in some places eat mud to
stave off hunger pains after months of surviving on leaves and
roots that have now run out. 

Fields are patches of windblown dust, hundreds of thousands of
cattle are dead or dying and millions of desperate people depend
on food from aid agencies struggling to meet the growing demand. 

Up to 20 million people, or about a fifth of the population, are
struggling to survive in the 10 nations of southern Africa. But
aid workers do not expect a repeat of the disaster ravaging
Somalia farther to the north, except possibly in war-torn
Mozambique, where the United Nations says 3 million people face
death from famine and disease. 

"With less than 50 percent of average crop yields anticipated
during 1992-93, at least 18 million people face the specter of
starvation, even famine," said a U.N. report. 

A quarter of Zimbabwe's 10 million people get food aid, but
almost as many have been turned away. Large parts of Swaziland
depend on 21 overworked government water trucks. In South Africa,
the continent's strongest economy, aid groups feeding at least 2
million people have been forced to cut food allowances because
they are overwhelmed by demand. 

"It is worse, much, much worse than we anticipated ... field
trips are journeys of discovery into previously uncharted depths
of misery, human suffering and want," said Ina Perlman, head of
Operation Hunger, a private South African aid group. 

Everywhere, the drought's impact has been made far worse by
incompetence and bureaucratic red tape, politics, corruption and
violence. Much of the suffering could have been avoided if there
had been planning and political accountability, aid workers say. 

"Too much has been left for too long. We want action -- not next
month, not next week, not tomorrow, not today, but now," said
Erich Bloch, an economist in Zimbabwe. 

Mozambique has been shattered by a 16-year war between the
leftist government and right-wing rebels. In some northern
regions people are dying from malnutrition and related diseases. 

Mozambique's government and the Renamo guerilla group signed a
cease-fire Sunday to end their 16-year-old civil war, but the
damage has already been done.

"There is absolutely nothing left to eat," said Jean-Daniel Taux,
a Red Cross official. 

Millions of tons of food must be distributed across southern
Africa to help keep people alive until next March and April, when
the first crops normally bloom. Summer rains are expected to be
normal in many areas, but many impoverished farmers need seed and
fertilizer to raise a new crop. 

Mindful of past African famines that have claimed millions of
lives, Western nations have been sending food to the region. But
the arrival of some aid has been delayed by lack of transport or
tardiness by some donor nations in meeting promises. 

Aid officials warn the situation could deteriorate rapidly if
there are unforeseen problems or if the rains fail again. 

"Physical condition can deteriorate quickly. Almost overnight,
you can reach a situation where people are beyond the point of no
return," said John Hicks of the U.S. Agency for International
Development. 

Despite warnings about the drought, many governments in the
region failed to take necessary precautions. 

Government bureaucrats in some areas make hungry people apply in
writing for food; aid is sent to areas with food surpluses while
famine areas are ignored; and theft takes a daily toll. 

Zimbabwe sold off 2 million tons of corn in 1991 that had been
held as food reserves. Now it is importing corn at three times
the cost of local crops, putting huge strain on its precarious
economy. 

Food aid in Malawi has been diverted to the north in an effort to
calm opposition to the authoritarian government of President
Kamuzu Banda. 

"The government is trying to pacify people in the north but at
the expense of the lives of people in the south," said an aid
official, who would not be named for fear of government
retaliation. 

Some European nations cut aid to Namibia after President Sam
Nujoma spent almost $30 million on an executive jet. Nujoma said
the jet was needed for trips to seek drought aid. 

In South Africa, the worst suffering has been in the rural
homelands, created under apartheid as separate nations for
blacks. The homelands, located in barren areas, are economic
basket cases. 

"It's been a mess for years, now it's a lot more critical," said
Johann Rissik, an Operation Hunger worker in Lebowa homeland.
"It's desperate. People are fighting over water." 

By contrast, the drought has had little impact on white areas in
South Africa, where water is plentiful. But many white farmers
have seen their livelihoods hurt by the drought. 

Food is caught in bottlenecks because inefficient governments
have not maintained railways. Emergency grain for landlocked
Zambia has been stranded in harbors in neighboring Tanzania
because there are no railway freight cars. 

Government and aid officials worry the impact of the drought will
linger. It will be hard to revive farming and there is danger of
people becoming dependent on aid, they say. 

Emergency measures must be replaced by major projects to develop
economies capable of feeding the region, they say. But much of
southern Africa is already in economic decline. 

"We Africans have to accept that our continent is slowly dying,"
said Keith Harvey, an agronomist in Zimbabwe.