------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Jan. 23, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
CAPITALIST MARKET STARVES AFRICA By G. Dunkel Millions of African people are facing starvation. While drought is the reason suggested by most of the press, falling commodity prices are often more important. The two main areas where hunger has become a major problem are in the northeast--Ethiopia and Eritrea--where 12 million people are currently at risk, and southern Africa--Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, Lesotho, Swaziland and Zambia--with 16 million at risk. Incredibly, Ethiopia is now being sued for $500 million by a group of wealthy European individuals and families for property expropriated in the 1970s by the Derg, the revolutionary military government that overthrew the emperor and nationalized the land and private businesses. Nestle, the multibillion-dollar food conglomerate, was part of the suit until its public relations department, sensing worldwide outrage, advised it to withdraw and promise that it would donate any money recovered to famine relief. The current Ethiopian government is trying to settle these claims in order to attract investment. Ethiopia's income from coffee, its major export, has collapsed as world prices have plummeted to 30-year lows. Last year it earned $149 million from its coffee exports, down from $257 million the previous year. Facing drought and famine, it can't afford to buy food and medicine on the world market. And even if it gets enough food stocks donated to feed its people, it still has to distribute them. This means supplying and maintaining the trucks that shuttle the food from the port of Djibouti, and that takes hard cash--foreign exchange-- to pay for the fuel and spare parts required. The world capitalist media are showing dead cows and starving children with sunken cheeks and distended bellies. Politicians visit Ethiopia from Europe and the U.S. and give press conferences on how conditions are now worse than in 1984, when 50,000 people died. What they don't mention are the lawyers in a British court demanding that the poorest country in the world, where most people live on less than $2 a week, come up with four times more money than the value of its major export. And the big-business media won't explain how IMF/World Bank dictates to poor countries that they increase their production of export commodities like coffee eventually leads to a glut on the world capitalist market, causing their income to actually fall. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
