Food shelves empty, whoever rules

Press, 13 February 1985, Page 6

Food shelves empty, whoever rules

By HENRY KAMM, of “The New York Times,” (through NZPA) Inhaouza Mozambique In the hamlet of Inhaouza in northern Mozambique Graca Alfandega was still hungry and morose after lunching on cornmeal gruel and wild leaves. It was different in Portuguese colonial days, she said, when drought curtailed the villagers’ harvests then “there used to be food to buy in the co-operative.” Whether the village store is a co-operative under the Marxist regime that replaced the Portuguese or a private business, the important difference for Mrs Alfandega is between full and empty shelves. They are barren not only of food but also, of almost everything else, because in addition to coping with drought, Mozambique is plagued by a destructive rebellion that the Government of Samora Machel appears powerless to end. In Mozambique, Oiad, and Ethiopia, the problem

of hunger has been made particularly acute by armed insurgency. Authoritarian governments in all three countries claim absolute power without being able either to feed their peoples or protect them from violence. ; Ethiopia add Mozambique profess Marxism-Leninism and rely on the Soviet Union for political backing and the .arms that help keep their regimes in ; power. Chad claims closeness to democratic ideology and receives its diplomatic and military sustenance largely from France and,I increasingly, from the United States. For all, Western nations, notably the United States, are the nearly exclusive donors of food relief and the principal sources of medical service. Despite the ideological differences, Chad and Mozambique, at least, show similarities at a practical level: the vast majority of people, subsistence farmers and herdsmen, are materially deprived, lack a political voice, and live largely beyond the reach of Govern-

ment activities. In Mozambqiue the rebels appear to have as much sway over rural areas as. does the Government. The insurgency was started by Rhodesia’s white regime a decade ago and.was taken over and expanded by South Africa when Rhodesia became black-ruled Zimbabwe. In the hope of stopping the of the

rebels, whose black mercenaries have been indiscriminately ambushing road traffic and putting the torch to public buildings, whether they are clinics or party headquarters, Mr Machel last year concluded a treaty of good-neighbourliness with South Africa. But the treaty has done little to halt the fighting. Rising brigandry has made even more perilous and difficult the distribution of food relief through a far-flung country of 14 million people. In Chad's vast northern desert, a dissident movement backed by Libyan troops and supplies is in full control and is almost unchallenged by the Government of Hissein Habre. In the south, where most of Chad’s 4.5 million . people live, Government troops consisting notably of Mr Habre’s northern Gorane ethnic group are also confronting rebel forces. Amnesty International, the Lon-don-based human rights group, asserted last October that Mr Habre’s troops .had conducted hundreds oft®im-

mary executions and arrests. Many , of those seized have not been seen again. The southern rebels, in turn, have persecuted northern Muslims and Christians of their own ethnic groups. For more than a decade, while Chadian governments have concentrated on the repression of internal opposition, alternately inviting and repelling foreign intervention, Chad has relied on the international donor community to limit the effects of hunger. “For 10 years we have lived largely from aid,” said Abdoulaye Ibet, deputy sub-prefect of Moussoro, a desert town 420 km north of Ndjamena. He could have been speaking for the entire Sahel, the semi-arid region between the Sahara and the tropical sector. Food is distributed in Chad on trucks owned by foreign or interntaional aid organisations or private trucks paid for by them, on ferries contributed by them or over bridges built by them. For the use of the dirt tracks, the organisations pay a fee to the Govem-

ment that equals the import duties from which food aid is exempted. Fifty-three physicians and nurses of the French-Bel-gian voluntary organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Frontiers) provide most medical services outside the principal towns. Of the 50 Chadian physicians, about 10 work as administrators and most of the others practise in towns, according to Dr Ilunga Bitowela, of the World Health Organisation. “Very few are in rural areas,” he said, citing insecurity and low civil-service pay. Because of the rebel challenges, the governments of Messrs Machel and Habre are far from secure. Curiously, however, it is rare to hear either in Chad or Mozambique citizens criticising their Governments for failing to feed or protect them. Most seem too preoccupied with getting themselves and their children through one more day to reflect upon the performance of their leaders, much less, to engage in dangerous oppUpjtion.