The Monitor (Kampala)
EDITORIAL
February 24, 2003
Posted to the web February 24, 2003
Kampala
People are dying quietly in Karamoja. Famine and drought are ravaging their land. A recent BBC report says skulls of those who have starved to death are beginning to litter the plains of this land.
To the east of Karamoja, you have the Acholi region where the disruption of socio-economic life by years of insurgency has left one million people on the verge of starvation.
By itself, the World Food Programme (WFP) cannot roll back the imminent tragedy. And this is why it is heartening to learn that the government has promised to give the WFP Shs 1 billion over four months to help contain the situation.
Let us, however, remember that help for the Acholi living in the internally displaced people's (IDP) camps is coming only after relief agencies have shouted themselves hoarse. The help coming their way has not been the result of a proactive food security policy but a knee-jerk reaction to political pressure.
In Karamoja, the local politicians continue to talk about the grave situation facing their people. Church-affiliated relief agencies have also sounded the alarm. Government is thus very much aware of the death by starvation that is unraveling in the region, but we do not see any serious programme to counter the problem. In fact, foreign envoys seem to be taking the initiative in appealing for relief aid.
Karamoja is also caught up in what could be one of the worst inter-clan fighting in recent times as the Dodoth and Jie work to eliminate each other. The Pokot are equally wreaking havoc, rustling emaciated cattle and killing their defenceless owners.
The apparent lack of a clear food security policy in places where insecurity combines with the vagaries of nature to make farming impossible is, unfortunately, too obvious.
Yet government can surely buy food from parts of the country where farmers are selling produce to unscrupulous traders at criminally low prices and stock it for times like this.
Uganda is by no means incapable of feeding its population. What we need is some coherence in the food security policy, so we can be spared the indignity of begging for even the most basic needs of our people.
