Need for Ethiopian aid questioned

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33424, 4 January 1974, Page 1

Need for Ethiopian aid questioned

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, January 3.

C.0.R.5.0. is to seek immediate clarification of an American report indicating that the Ethiopian Government was complacent about recent starvation among 1,300,000 of the country’s peasant population.

In November and December New Zealand, along with a number of other countries, made heavy contributions to alleviate food shortages caused by severe drought.

C.O.R.S.O’s chairman (Mr Bruce Brown) said today that the organisation had little hope of deciding on queries raised by the report until it had clarified the matter. “We always check with overseas contacts to establish the need before sending aid,” he said. C.0.R.5.0. handled the bulk of New Zealand aid for the Ethiopian appeal; since the middle of last month more than $300,000 has been given, $240,000 of which has been distributed. “We sent the money to accredited organisations in the area with representatives in the field,” said Mr Brown. These organisations were: the World Council of Churches, the International Red Cross, U.N.1.C.E.F., F.A.0., Save the Children Fund, and the Catholic Relief Services. American Government sources said this week the Administration had ordered its Embassy in Addis Ababa to investigate charges that Ethiopia had ample food available from its own agricultural output to feed its people.

The statement followed reports from Addis Ababa that though large quantities of emergency food relief were pouring into the country, Ethiopia had exported thousands of tons of grain and other staple crops. While it was claimed that many thousands of people had died of starvation, landlords and private merchants were reported to be hoarding grain grown in the southern

agricultural regions of the nation, hoping to sell it when prices rose. According to the National Bank of Ethiopia, in the first quarter of 1973 exports of such items as peas, beans and lentils were up 92 per cent on figures for the previous year.

The Ethiopian Government came in for much criticism earlier in the year for the alleged attitude of indifference it adopted toward the drought sufferers. It claimed to have been misinformed, and the Governor of the Wollo Province was dismissed.