Africa's coming hunger

Hunger is again stalking Southern Africa. Throughout the length of the already-impoverished nation of Malawi, there is no maize, the staple food. Cassava, a substitute stomach filler, is also hard to find. So are yams. Moreover, no one seems to be doing anything to avert the coming starvation. Officials deny the seriousness of the situation.

Here, on the rainy slopes of towering Mt. Zomba in Malawi, I purchased small white potatoes and could have bought dead and live animals that were dangled from outstretched arms, a scattering of vegetables, and a variety of herbs and charms. But nothing was on sale to fill the belly in the local African manner.

Neighboring Zambia is also bereft of maize and cassava. So is Zimbabwe, traditionally a much wealthier land that usually exports maize and whose people disdain cassava and yams. In Zimbabwe, too, cooking oil and sugar (both of which Zimbabwe usually provides in abundance) are hard to find. Bread was unavailable last week.

In these three countries, up to 30 million people are at risk of going hungry by July, and millions of children are certain to become even more malnourished than they already are.

The shortages have three causes: a severe drought in the 2001 growing season, heavy rains that destroyed crops, and official mismanagement and inattention. Despite independent warnings, governments in two countries, Malawi and Zambia, have been slow to accept the extent of the maize and cassava shortfalls. Both countries have also lacked the foreign exchange with which to purchase maize from South Africa or more distant exporters.

The growing hunger in Zimbabwe has more directly man-made causes. By attacking commercial farmers steadily since 2000, President Mugabe has destroyed agricultural productivity. In recent months, too, Mugabe's thugs have confiscated maize being stored on farms to feed loyal farm workers, adding to the spread of rural famine. Despite forecasted maize shortfalls, the government sold its existing inventory of maize to the Congo and Kenya in October. High-placed individuals profited.

In order to feed Zimbabwe from February to July, when this year's maize crop will have been harvested, transported, and milled, the country will have to import about 750,000 metric tons of maize. That means moving 150,000 tons a month along congested rail lines from South Africa, or receiving the equivalent in US surplus maize directly or from the UN World Food Program via Dar es Salaam in distant Tanzania.

All of this is tortuous, late, expensive (if purchased from South Africa), and politically volatile. Yet Zimbabwe, unlike Zambia and Malawi, is virtually bankrupt because of Mugabe's troops in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and official corruption. Zambia and Malawi are poor and lack funds to invest in their people's welfare.

Indeed, Zambia's long-nationalized, mismanaged, and patronage-ridden copper industry, which provides 75 percent of the nation's export earnings, is about to collapse. By the end of 2002, Zambia may lose its main source of employment.

Malnutrition will hardly help the millions who are HIV-positive fight off AIDS. All three countries have adult HIV-positive rates approaching 30 percent. Malawi, with one physician per 60,000 persons, has the weakest health- care system, but the other two, especially cash-starved Zimbabwe, are also desperate.

Zambia has a new government, but the recent regime of President Frederick Chiluba was notoriously corrupt and magnificently neglectful of its people's welfare.

Once-tranquil Malawi has also been going through a crisis of governance and alleged corruption. Judges have been impeached, a tough and honest finance minister sacked, university students shot, and democracy made more precarious.

In a country where donors provide up to 15 percent of the annual gross domestic product, Denmark has recently withdrawn its mission in disgust, Britain is withholding balance of payments support, and the US has reduced aid.

Even if Mugabe is ousted in next month's election in Zimbabwe and President Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia revamps his predecessor's policies, the specter of hunger will still hang over their two countries, and even more unfortunate and beleaguered Malawi. Massive outside humanitarian aid is required immediately. It should be coupled with outside insistence on governmental probity, but that may be asking a lot.

• Robert I. Rotberg directs Harvard's Program on Intrastate Conflict and is president of the World Peace Foundation.

I have been looking at a few history books, and frankly, there is very little information that isn't slanted against South Africa, or I should say the colonists who set up that country. In fact, I'd say it borders on or is totally fraudulent. It's interesting how things can get confused, especially when there are people that have the agenda of keeping things muddied up. I'd like to pick up some books on South Africa after this exchange, and if you'd point me in a good direction, I'd be interested in reading.

You REALLY need a reading comprehension course; desperately !

I'm not an Afrikaner. I am an American, and my family has been here since shortly after the Civil War. None of them came from Africa, Holland, nor France. Sheeeeeeeesh ! LEARN HOW TO READ ! My newly extended family are Afrikaners and NONE of them are anything at all like what you are implying.

You are just so full of your own hatred and biases, that you are in complete denile.

Oh yes, YOU need to list your sources. You won't , because you have none at all. You don't know any FACTS ; you rely solely on emotion ! How like an hysteric LIBERAL. You're on the wrong forum, kiddo. : - )

Look, if factual nowledge was breathable air, you would have suffocated long ago.

Not one person has said that there were no people in Africa, when Europeans went to colonize it. I said ( and it happens to be an easily proven fact ! ) that the voortrekkers settled land, which was uinhabited. Please do some research, BEFORE you reply . That way, we could only guess at the pacity of your knowledge. Now, we all have been shown conclusively, that not only don't you know what you are trying to talk about, but that you incorrectly assume , that the history of the USA , is the same as the history of South Africa. That just isn't factual at all.

As a matter of fact, blacks, in Africa, do NOT consider American blacks, to be black . Neither do they think that they are the same as they. Your are suffering under a very great deal of delusional thinking; IF, that is, you can manage to think at all.

Blacks, in SubSaharan Africa, have NEVER been considered 3/5 ths of a person. American nlacks, have NEVER been " necklaced by other blacks. There are so very many differences amongst peoples and countries, that your over reaching, to tar everyone with the same brush, is laughable and ignorant.

You would be well served, to stay off these threads, entirely, until you finally learn about the topic.

One site ... ONE ON LINE SITE and the proaganda from the media ?

There are no words to describe the utter , complete , abject FAILURE , of your self indulgent, sanctimonous , bereft of factual knowledge posts. If an on line site, and the media tell you that Bishop Tutu is a well respected , intelligent man, whom those in South Africa love and follow, I guess you take THAT as words from GOD; the absoulte truth. Well, kddo, that is NOT true at all. Neither is it a FACT that the Boers went to " save the " savages " , in Africa . Something else, that the " vaunted " media has NEVER told you, but IS verifable FACT, is that the ANC is a COMMUNIST group .

Don't ever try to refute people here, when all you can do is shoot blanks, and they have fully loaded A bombs of knowledge pointed at your head. Also DO read the article, which the thread is on. Mugabe has been the sole head of Zimbabwe for over TWO decades. Mugabe is black . Mugabe is doig what NO white man has EVER done to anyone , in Zimbabwe; not even when it was Rhodesia, or prior to that, when it was still a part of South Africa ! Mugabe is closer to Stalin , than he is to Hitler.

History and current events are NOT your strong suit . I doubt that politics is either.

I shall gladly send you a book list, by FREEPmail. Unfortunately, many of the books I have read, were given to me, by my relatives in South Africa, and I don't know if they are obtainable here . I know that I, an inveterate " bookaholic " , have NEVER seen them in any bookstore, in the states.

I have been assurred, by those who would know, that the movie " SHAKA ZULU " is accurate. I have some books ( which I did buy in the USA ) about the Zulus, and Shaka's sons, in particular. The books and movies about the Boer Wars, that are available here, are ONLY from the British view, so they are tainted.

Unfortunately, there are many countries, about whose history , Ameicans are woefully ignorant of. That seems to also include their own. : - (

Too late. The Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act has already passed and been signed. If the coming elections are "free and fair" they get 26 million bucks immediately. If they are not, they get "targeted sanctions". Either way, huge food aid is ready to go on the condition that it not be handled by Mugabe or his cronies.

There are already people starving and England is already sending food. We will be next to kick in, even if we have to do it via a third party.

"After gaining (yeah right, being granted) their countries' independence, African rulers resorted to treating their own people much like the Europeans had treated them."

You really believe this, don't you? Do you notice how this little Reader's Digest version ignores the true state of Africa before the arrival of European settlers? Their non-stop tribal wars? No concept of "rule of law"? ZERO technology? ZERO infrastructure?

I've never claimed that the European settlers were saints, but they sure as all heck didn't make Africa "worse" than it was. There was no way to make it "worse". It was a festering sore of a place: disease, warfare, starvation, Stone Age (at best) living conditions. The white man brought order, law, medicine, roads, towns, schools............yes, even peace.

Go to South Africa and ask the average citizen, black or white, if they are better off now that they have "black rule". Then go to Zimbabwe and ask the same question. These people are wholly incapable, as I said before, of self-governance. They can't get past their own tribal labels, and they'd just as soon slit each others' throats as cross the street. S. Africa........once a thriving, modern country...........is now a fetid cesspool of rape, murder, graft, and every imaginable corruption. I won't even go into the Mugabe's and others throughout Africa who delight in hoarding unto themselves while murdering their fellow countrymen by the hundreds of thousands....or starving them by the millions.

No, black Africans may look back and curse the ways of the white man, but they'll take them in a heartbeat over what they have now.

You really believe this, don't you?

I don't "beleive" it, I know it first hand.

Do you notice how this little Reader's Digest version ignores the true state of Africa before the arrival of European settlers? Their non-stop tribal wars? No concept of "rule of law"?

Hmm ... kinda like the Europeans were at that time.
Always bickering amongst themselves (come to think of it, they're still at it), this duchy against that duchy, that empire against this kingdom.
France competing and warring with England, Napoleon trying to create an empire, the Hapsburgs (sp?) beating Serbia over the head, the Tsars suppressing the serfs, the Greeks hating the turks, the Serbs remembering the battle of Kosovo, Franco fighting the royalists, Hitler invading Czechoslovakia and Poland, the Bulgarians suspicious of the Turks, Germans from western-Germany considering those from eastern Germany as culturally less sophisticated, France being a bone in Nato's throat, Corsicans wanting autonomy/independence from France, Basques wanting independence from Spain, catholics and protestants fighting it out in N.Ireland, and when everyones run out of weaker opponents everybody turns on the jews.
Oh and lets not forget the time-honored tradition of some aristocracy or royal family lording it over their own countrymen.
Sounds like non-stop tribal wars to me (yeah I know, the Europeans consider themselves nations not tribes, same difference).

ZERO technology? ZERO infrastructure?

First I've already made the zero technology point.
But only an unenlightened person would draw the conclusion that inferior technology equals less valuable lives.

You know our present-day technology is "Zero" compared to what it will be in one thousand years, does that mean that our lives (and culture) are less valuable than those of the future?
Maybe Germany should go colonize Portugal then.

Blacks, in SubSaharan Africa, have NEVER been considered 3/5 ths of a person.

I never said that was the case I cited it as an example, I believe my words were "something like the 3/5 rule".
I forgot, English is not your first language.
Shall I post it in Afrikaans for you?

As a matter of fact, blacks, in Africa, do NOT consider American blacks, to be black

You mean they don't consider them to be in any way significantly related to Africans.
Maybe that's because, "American blacks" (as you put it) are Americans not Africans. (The sooner you and they realize it the better for all of us).
In the future do not presume to know what I think, and don't try to put words into my mouth.

the voortrekkers settled land, which was uinhabited

Uh huh. I was at your place last night, but you were in bed asleep. So since your kitchen was "uninhabited" I decided to plant my flag there and call it my homeland.
Yeah right!

Germany had a terrible depression, from after WW I , through WW II !

Except that Germans were no longer lugging about suitcases full of money to buy a sausage.

Why on earth do you think that Hitler was able to rise to power ;

I'm talking about when he was in power, not when he was getting there. Ah, the language barrier again.
Maybe you should take English classes.

solely through harranguing speeches about the Jews?

Which resonated with people like you.

It is a shock, to see just HOW ignorant you really are !

It is a shock, to see just HOW shocked you really are !
LMAO

No, black Africans may look back and curse the ways of the white man, but they'll take them in a heartbeat over what they have now.

Again with the narrow-minded,paint-everyone-with-one-brush, view.

Don't confuse innocent and ordinary people with greedy,incompetent "leaders" and their lackeys (ahem supporters).
I happen to know of at least one country where the former colonial power has always been respected and looked up to.
And as far as I know there was a peaceful and amicable transition to independence/mismanagement.
And the majority of ordinary citizens there have never had cause to "curse the ways of the white man".

In short you're doing the same thing that you're accusing your targets of doing ie: generalizing to every single person in sub-saharan Africa.

And no, I'm not talking about " Everlasting Exercise in Incompetence-land" Belgian Congo/Zaire/Congo. And it's not the county governened then by the thug Ian Smith and now by the thug Mugabe (two sides of the same coin).

You claim that you know about South AFrica " first hand , but listed your source , of info, a web site, that is at best, on the 5th grade level, and leaves out substancial amounts of historical facts. Which is it ; you only know what you've read ( and with your abject lack of reading comprehension, that's not saying much ) on line, or, YOU have lived in South Africa and / or Zimbabwe, for many years ?

No, dear, English is my first language / mother tongue. I doubt that you know ANY Afrikans at all, doous.

Look, the FACT is, that NO ONE, NONE, NOBODY, ZERO PEOPLE OF ANY RACE , NOT ONE HUMAN BEING, NOT EVER , lived on the vast majrity of land thet the Voortrekkers settled. The lands , where a handful of people had lived, was ceded to the Afrikaners, by those who owned it ! Please look up : Februar 4, 1938, and the TREATY signed by Digane and Retief , and the subsiquent history.

Your juvenile analogy isn't aplicable at all.

Your tenuous grasp of all history, is woefully lacking. You just keep on proving how ignorant you are.

The ONLY " language barrior " is your's ! Not only do you have a VERY difficult understanding the written word , in English, you are incapable of writing it. Your stretching / lying about historical facts, leave much to be desired. Is it ignorance, or just abject stupidty, on your part ?

Oh swell, now you are accusing me of being an anti-Semite and anti-black; again ? That's simply projection, on your part. I am not a racist of any stipe, and you would have known that, IF you read the threads about Israel and the Palestinians. Oh, but I keep forgetting ... YOU CAN'T READ VERY WELL. All you do, is type made up garbage and insults.

No, the Germans were STILL struggling, under Hitler ; almost the entire world was submerged in the Depression.You just can NOT change history, by rewriting it to suit your delusional nonrefutation.

You claim that you know about South AFrica " first hand

There you go again with your non-existent comprehension (or is it reading?) skills.

I didn't claim to know first-hand about South Africa.
This posts on this thread are about S.Africa/Zimbabwe specifically and Africa in general.

No, dear, English is my first language / mother tongue.

Believe me, it doesn't show.

I doubt that you know ANY Afrikans at all, doous.

Apparently you are too dense to recognize sarcasm without a /sarcasm tag. (Kinda like being shot and not knowing it till much later).

I doubt that you know ANY Afrikans at all, doous.

Actually I do know some Africans, I don't know any AfrikAA ns.

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