Life at Debra Dowa
They managed it in time! With only hours to go before the African poten tates - were due to arrive in Addis Ababa, to attend the 20th African summit, at the seat of the Organisation of African Unity, the RAF planes delivering emergency food and. medical supplies to the starving of Ethiopia were still hogging the runway at the airport. What was going to happen? Would the summit not take place after all? But all's well that ends well. Fortunately the statesmen are now safely ensconced in Addis Ababa and the hard grind of the summit can get under way. First item on the agenda: the problem most pressing for the peoples of Africa at this tragic hour the apartheid system of South Africa. In accordance with ancient rites, the West will be traduced for persisting in its support of the minority white regime. At the same time the assembled dignitaries will almost certainly share in the happiness of the Zimbabwean government which, in the aftermath of the riots in the border town of Beitbridge last week, was relieved to re- port that traffic to and from South Africa across the Limpopo had continued undis- turbed. A lot will be said (and what better place to say it) about the plight of peoples in the continent who have to live with the reality of famines year in and year out. It's the weather, you know . . . hot place, Africa. But as a wag once said: 'Isn't it strange the way it is always socialist coun- tries which suffer from the cruel fluctua- tions of the seasons?' Perhaps — who knows — God is on the side of the free market? Let us look no further than Ethiopia — there the government, for reasons best known to itself, or perhaps by living according to the truth as revealed by another God, has forbidden farmers to store food for the eventuality of droughts (capitalist profiteering, comrade), it has also forbidden them to save money with which to buy more advanced farming equipment (ditto, comrade) and it has prevented people from earning a living from transporting food (ditto again, com- rade). In addition the junta has created a state monopoly to buy food from farmers at ludicrously low prices. Of the one billion dollars of aid that it has received over the last five years precious little has gone towards supplying what Ethiopians have most need of — roads, by means of which food is transported from one area of the country where there happens to be some to another where there happens to be none. On the other hand, that cool billion cer- tainly came in handy to buy up military hardware with which to equip the wretched Ethiopian army in its two sordid civil wars. No, the case will illustrate few lessons to
the visiting potentates. What we need, we will be told, is a New International Econo- mic Order, commodity stabilisation, re- source transfer . . . zzz . . . zzz . . . .
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