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Drought, War, and the Politics of Famine in

Ethiopia and Eritrea

Edmond J. Keller

The Journal of Modern African Studies / Volume 30 / Issue 04 / December 1992, pp 609 -
624
DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X00011071, Published online: 11 November 2008

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How to cite this article:

Edmond J. Keller (1992). Drought, War, and the Politics of Famine in Ethiopia
and Eritrea. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 30, pp 609-624
doi:10.1017/S0022278X00011071

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The Journal of Modem African Studies, 30, 4 (1992), pp. 609—624
Copyright © 1992 Cambridge University Press

Drought, War, and the Politics of

Famine in Ethiopia and Eritrea
by EDMONDJ. KELLER*

D U R I N G almost two decades, beginning in the early 1970s, the Horn

of Africa was racked by the ravages of hunger and war. Natural
disasters are not new to the region, which historically could count on
at least seven major droughts each century, but in the current era they
have been increasing, in part due to massive deforestation and the
changing pattern of weather.1 It is estimated that in Ethiopia alone,
because of soil erosion and deforestation, 30,000 million tons of top-soil
are lost each year.2 A second important factor affecting the severity of
famine has been the dramatic escalation in the level and intensity of
civil conflict, nowhere more evident than in Ethiopia.
A devastating drought and associated famine contributed greatly to
the demise of the imperial regime of Haile Selassie in September 1974.3
The fall of the Old Order, and the failure of the new leaders between
then and 1991 to develop a plan for the rebuilding of society that was
widely accepted as legitimate, fuelled an internal war in the Ethiopian
heartland, and a struggle for national liberation in the former Italian
colony of Eritrea. The latter conflict lasted for over three decades; and
during the 1980s, its scale, scope, and intensity increased markedly,
culminating in victory for the Eritrean People's Liberation Front
(E.P.L.F.) in April 1991. Concurrently the internal opponents of
Ethiopia's revolutionary regime became better armed and organised,
and under the leadership of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary
Democratic Front (E.P.R.D.F.) they were able to depose President
Mengistu Haile Mariam even as the rebels were claiming victory in
Eritrea.
Why were those living in the rural areas not able to use traditional
techniques of survival to mitigate the ill effects of drought, and avoid

* Professor of Political Science and Director of the James S. Coleman African Studies Center,
University of California, Los Angeles.
1
Richard Pankhurst, The History of Famine and Epidemics in Ethiopia (Addis Ababa, 1985), p. 1.
2
Mary Kay Magistad, 'On the Razor's Edge', in Africa Report (New York), May-June 1987,
p. 64.
3
Jack Shepherd, The Politics of Starvation (New York, 1975), p. 17.

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6lO EDMOND J. KELLER

complete devastation by famine? Would it not have been feasible for

Ethiopia's Government, which possessed a very capable drought/
famine early-warning system, to have mobilised the population to
tackle these problems with a limited amount of foreign assistance?4
Tragically, the 1980s were far from being 'normal', because millions of
people died as a consequence not only of drought and famine, but also
the ravages of war. Even more were physically displaced from their
homesteads and pushed/pulled into resettlement or refugee camps
throughout the region. Still others swelled the ranks of the homeless
and the unemployed masses huddled in urban slums. In addition, all
sides in the various conflicts on occasion used food and/or its denial as
a weapon of war.
The purpose of this article is to analyse how political decisions
exacerbated the consequences of drought during the mid-1980s.
Despite being faced with a natural disaster of enormous proportions,
the Government of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
continued to pursue its expensive, ill-conceived socialist strategy of
development, as well as attempting to completely eliminate its
opponents, and in the process systematically used relief aid as a
replacement for funds that were being devoted to prosecuting military
objectives. The broader implication of these policies was the persistence
of conditions that threatened all aspects of national as well as regional
security, and ultimately led to the collapse of Mengistu's Afro-Marxist
regime.

BACKGROUND TO THE POLITICS OF FAMINE

The Emperor had refused to admit that more and more Ethiopians
were starving until their terrible plight was revealed by a British
television documentary in 1973.5 Jack Shepherd argues that not only
was the imperial regime guilty of suppressing information about the
true scope and impact of the drought, but that multilateral and
bilateral agencies went along with the cover-up instead of pressing for
remedial action. They seem to have been more concerned with
maintaining 'good working relations' with the host Government and
refrained from doing anything that might embarrass it. Shepherd
quotes an Ethiopian official as telling a United Nations representative:
' If it is a choice between making this public and not receiving aid, then
we can do without the aid. ' 6

4
Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues, Famine: a man-made disaster?
5 6
(New York, 1985). Shepherd, op. cit. p. 34. Ibid. pp. 26-7.

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 FAMINE IN ETHIOPIA AND ERITREA 6ll

Evidence indicates that the Government was aware of the severity of

the drought by mid-1973; yet, it would only accept outside assistance
that was discreetly provided. Prospective donors such as the World
Food Programme, the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), and
the United States Agency for International Development (U.S.A.I.D.)
were approached privately and successfully convinced to begin shipping
limited food aid quietly without publicly commenting about the
seriousness of the problem.7 However, it was not long before
international concern was heightened by the findings of Unicef's own
survey of drought and famine conditions that were leaked to a London
newspaper, notably evidence that at least one million people were at
risk of starvation in the provinces of Wollo and Tigre alone. With the
release of the B.B.C. documentary, Haile Selassie could no longer deny
the 'hidden famine'.
Although relief camps, administered mainly by the Ethiopian Red
Cross, had been set up by August 1973 to cater for upwards of 60,000
victims, nearly 200,000 had died of famine, disease, and malnutrition
before the end of the year. Indeed, it is estimated that 20 per cent of all
the inhabitants and 90 per cent of all the animals in Wollo, the worst
affected province, had perished by then, and that 80 per cent of the
crop had been lost. Before the drought, Wollo and Tigre had supplied
40 per cent of Ethiopia's total food production.8
The mismanagement of the drought and famine was merely the last
element in the case being mounted against Haile Selassie's anach-
ronistic and growingly ineffective regime. This had been founded on a
feudal system of government and administration characterised by
cultural chauvinism, as well as ethnic and regional inequalities, and
was in the throes of a severe economic crisis that had been allowed to
escalate out of control.9 After the Emperor had been overthrown by a
coup d'etat staged by young military officers and policemen in September
1974, Ethiopia was governed by a committee that became known as the
Derg.
Although the new leaders considered themselves to be revolution-
aries, they had initially no clear ideological programme. However,
they hastily drafted a populist platform, pledging to eliminate
corruption, injustice, and inequality, and to create a unified,

7
Ibid. p. 17.
8
Julius Holt and John Seaman, 'The Scope of the Drought', in Abdul Mejid Hussein (ed.),
Drought and Famine in Ethiopia (London, 1976), p. 2.
9
EdmondJ. Keller, Revolutionary Ethiopia:fromEmpire to People's Republic (Bloomington, 1988),
pp. 131-87.

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6l2 EDMOND J. KELLER

democratically-based society. Exiled opponents of the old regime

began to return home and to participate in discussions over the design
for the new society. All banks, insurance companies, and most large-
scale industries were nationalised, followed in early 1975 by all rural
and urban property. As welcome as these reforms were to many
Ethiopians, they proved not to satisfy the civilian 'left', which pressed
for even more radical measures. Viewing itself as the legitimate
vanguard of the revolution, rather than stepping aside or sharing
power with civilian elements, the Derg shifted ideological direction in
mid-1976 and declared its commitment to 'scientific socialism'.
When Haile Selassie was overthrown, the Eritrean struggle for
national liberation had been going on for 13 years. Although the
Italian colony of Eritrea had been federated by the United Nations
with Ethiopia after World War II, the terms of that constitutional
arrangement had been steadily eroded, until finally, in November
1962, the Eritrean Assembly voted to make Eritrea the fourteenth
province of Ethiopia. Seeing ' the writing on the wall' from as early as
1958, Eritrean nationalists formed themselves two years later into an
army of liberation and made plans to fight against the incorporation of
their country into the Ethiopian Empire. After an uncertain beginning,
the Eritrean opposition managed to evolve into a credible fighting
force, albeit with two major wings: the Eritrean Liberation Front
(E.L.F.) and the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (E.P.L.F.). The
former could best be described as a leftist-nationalist organisation,
dedicated to the pursuit of social justice for Eritrea, even if within the
context of a viable federation, while the latter favoured self-
determination, up to and including independence.10
In January 1974 the E.P.L.F. inflicted a crushing defeat on Haile
Selassie's forces, thus severely affecting the morale within the army and
exposing the ever-weakening position of the Crown.11 Although the
new leaders declared that one of their main priorities was to resolve the
'Eritrean question', some favoured a political settlement, while others
pressed for decisive military action in order to create a united ' Greater
Ethiopia', including Eritrea. However, by late 1976 the Derg had
neither been able to solve the Eritrean problem nor to prevent
escalating armed opposition throughout the rest of the country,
especially in urban areas, despite a number of very repressive and
brutal measures.

10
Ibid. 150-5.
11
Bereket Habte Selassie, Conflict and Intervention in the Horn of Africa (New York, 1980), p. 66.

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 FAMINE IN ETHIOPIA AND ERITREA 613

After Jimmy Carter had become President of the United States in

1977, he made human rights the centre-piece of his foreign policy, and
threatened to curtail military aid if the Ethiopian Government did not
improve its record in this field. The Derg broke off relations with
Washington at the height of its internal crisis, and the chaos deepened.
Urban guerrilla warfare reigned at the centre, and armed opposition
groups more vigorously pressed their cause in the countryside, including
the Western Somalia Liberation Front (W.S.L.F.).
In June 1977, the W.S.L.F., in collaboration with regular troops
supplied by the regime in Mogadishu, penetrated into the Ogaden
region of Ethiopia, bent on reuniting their brethren there with those in
the Somali Republic. Over the next eight months, these opposition
forces came to occupy vast tracts of land in southeastern and east-
central Ethiopia. However, the regime in Addis Ababa now began to
receive assistance from the Soviet Union and several of its Communist
allies, and by late 1978 the Ogaden was effectively back in the hands
of Ethiopia. This allowed the Derg to turn its attention to the problems
faced in the north, and the need for concerted action against not only
the E.P.L.F., but also a new group founded in 1975, the Tigre People's
Liberation Front (T.P.L.F.).
In Eritrea, the counter-offensive began in May 1978 when Ethiopian
forces, with Soviet, East German, and South Yemeni support, pushed
their way out of their Asmara fortress. Over the next four years, the
Derg was unable to bring Eritrea under firm control, but decided
instead of abandoning its military strategy to redouble its efforts by
introducing a systematic campaign to win the 'hearts and minds' of the
Eritreans.12 The thrust of'Operation Red Star' was twofold. First, it
was supposed to provide the resources necessary for economic
reconstruction: to rebuild and reopen factories that had been closed; to
repair school buildings, transportation networks, and other infra-
structure; to provide jobs for the unemployed; and to improve the
distribution of food and other commodities. Second, the campaign
aimed to arm workers and peasants, to give them military training, and
to provide them with the political and technical education needed to
create a sense of Ethiopian identity. At the same time the national army
was expected to 'deal a death blow to secessionist bandits'.
On balance, ' Operation Red Star' was a failure, particularly from
a military perspective. The E.P.L.F. was temporarily neutralised in a

12
Evil Days — Thirty Years of War and Famine in Ethiopia: an Africa Watch report (New York, 1991),
p p . 113—22.

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614 EDMOND J. KELLER

virtual stalemate, but only at a tremendous cost in human lives: in 1982

alone, as many as 30,000 Ethiopian soldiers were either killed or
wounded in the campaign. For the next five years, the E.P.L.F. waged
an effective guerrilla struggle against Ethiopian forces in Eritrea, while
at the same time building up its regular army capabilities largely by
appropriating weapons, equipment, and ammunition as the spoils of
war.
In Tigre, the Derg embarked upon six major campaigns between
1981 and 1982. After having been nearly decimated in the 1978
counter-offensive, the T.P.L.F., with the assistance of the E.P.L.F., had
been able to recover, and by the early 1980s had developed into an
extremely effective fighting force of about 10,000 that controlled almost
90 per cent of Tigre. In 1982 the T.P.L.F., supported by some members
of the Ethiopian People's Democratic Movement (E.P.D.M.), opened
up fronts in the neighbouring province of Wollo. However, with no
access to heavy weapons the rebels were not able, at least not until after
1986, to have firmly established areas from which to launch attacks
against the Ethiopian army.13
The Derg wished to destroy the T.P.L.F., as well as its base of
popular support, to disrupt agricultural production, and to regain
control of the fertile western region of Tigre. In the process, many
hectares of cropland were destroyed as a result of troop movements, as
well as by incendiary bombs and napalm in what amounted to a
'scorched earth policy', designed to deny the T.P.L.F. cover as well as
a reliable supply of food.14 When it moved into an area, the Ethiopian
army was accompanied by cadres that collected unpaid taxes and
contributions. The net effect of all of this was to disrupt the planting
cycle, and to make crops susceptible to insect and weed infestation.15
Ethiopia's efforts to eliminate opposition led to a dramatic increase
not only in the size of its armed forces but also in the level of military
expenditures. In part this was a response by Mengistu and his closest
supporters to a perceived threat from the United States.16 When he
assumed office in 1981, the American President, Ronald Reagan,
sought to step up efforts to halt Soviet expansionism in the Horn by
continuing Carter's encirclement strategy designed to isolate Ethiopia
by surrounding it with U.S. allies, and by regularly participating in

13
Ibid. pp. 139-40.
14
Ibid. pp. 133-56, and James Firebrace and Gayle Smith, The Hidden Revolution: an analysis
of social change in Tigre (London, 1982), pp. 15—16.
15
Jason W. Clay and Bonnie K. Holcomb, Politics and the Ethiopian Famine, 1984-85 (Cambridge,
MA, 1986), p. 194.
16
Dawit Wolde Giorgis, Red Tears: war, famine and revolution in Ethiopia (Trenton, NJ, 1989),
p. 107.

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 FAMINE IN ETHIOPIA AND ERITREA 615

joint military exercises in the region. The Ethiopian armed forces had
grown from about 65,000 in the mid-1970s to more than 300,000 by the
early 1980s, while the defence budget had expanded tenfold to $381
million, not including grants.17 By 1990 the Soviet Union had provided
during the preceding 13 years upwards of $13,000 million in military
assistance, and by then it was estimated that the wars in the north were
consuming more than two-thirds of Ethiopia's annual budget.18
Ironically, this growing militarisation took place while a major natural
calamity was unfolding.

THE GREAT FAMINE OF I983-6

The beginnings of the 1983-6 drought and resultant famine can be

traced to the intermittent food crises of the previous decade, combined
with the political chaos that reigned between 1976 and 1978, and the
Derg's attempt to implement its socialist development strategy despite
adverse conditions.19 Stephen Varnis has suggested that the famine
resulted from the latter's efforts to implement its revolutionary policies
despite being ill-equipped to make these work, especially in the face of
strong international opposition.20
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (F.A.O.) seemed
more concerned with the capacity of the Ethiopian authorities to
distribute whatever food was received, rather than with forthrightly
addressing the drought and impending famine, and hence repeatedly
slashed the Government's requests for help between 1981 and 1984,
based upon projected needs. Even the United States, traditionally the
most generous contributor of humanitarian assistance, delayed respond-
ing to Ethiopia's latest crisis. Some in the Reagan Administration
argued that it was 'naive to assume that food aid has as its major
purpose the alleviation of hunger and poverty', 21 and this was cut from
8,172 metric tons in 1982 to zero in 1984, despite warnings that millions
were at risk.

17
U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers,
ig8s (Washington, DC, 1985).
18
See Graham Hancock, Lords of Poverty: the free-wheeling lifestyles, power, prestige and corruption
of the multi-billion dollar aid business (London, 1989), p. 71.
19
Gopalakrishna Kumar, Ethiopian Famines, 1973-1985: a case study (Oxford, November 1987),
United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economics Research, Wider
Working Papers No. 26, p. 26.
20
See, for example, Stephen L. Varnis, Reluctant Aid or Aiding the Reluctant ? U.S. Food Aid Policy
and Ethiopian Famine Relief (New Brunswick, N J , 1990), p . 2 1 .
21
Jack Shepherd, 'Ethiopia: the use of food as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy', in Issue:
a journal of opinion (Los Angeles), 14, 1985, p. 5.

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6l6 EDMOND J. KELLER

Ethiopia's Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner, Dawit Wolde

Giorgis, had revealed the gravity of the situation to the donor
community at an early date, but with little effect, mainly because of the
negative international reaction to the Derg's attempts to implement its
socialist programmes of change despite the country's poor economic
and social conditions.22 Over 300,000 died in 1984 alone, more than
twice the number in the famine a decade before. By 1985, almost 20 per
cent of Ethiopia's 40 million inhabitants were at risk, and of these, 2*5
million, in 12 of the country's 14 provinces, were indeed starving. By
the end of the following year the death toll had climbed to more than
one million.23
The famine proceeded in four distinct phases. The first revealed itself
in 1982 when the belg rains (usually from February to May) failed in
Eritrea and Tigre, at a time when lowlanders usually plant their
staples, notably maize and sorghum, while highlanders begin to grow
their short-maturing barley and wheat. The second rainy season,
known as meher (lasting from June to September), was also disap-
pointing in several regions, and it was clear then that there would be
famine, and that it had the potential to be widespread.24
The second phase began when the belg rains failed again in 1983,
because although the meher rains were better than the year before, they
were still not adequate, particularly in Wollo, Tigre, and Eritrea. This
coupled with the intensification of armed conflict in the north led many
residents in these regions to emigrate to refugee camps in the Sudan.
The Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (R.R.C.) tried desperately
to give the impression that it was in control of the situation, but was
clearly losing ground since its appeals for emergency international
assistance initially elicited only limited response.
By 1984 it was estimated that over two million people in Wollo and
Tigre alone were being affected by what might be described as phase
three of the famine, because the meher rains were both erratic and
late. Almost all of Ethiopia's provinces, including Eritrea, were under
severe stress. Crops had not been planted in many places, and
elsewhere they withered from the excessively dry soil and associated
pest infestation. Without sufficient water, pasture land became
overgrazed and barren. Goats and cattle perished in record numbers,

22
See Stefan Brune, 'Agrarian Development, Famine and Foreign Aid: the Ethiopian
Experience', in Afrika Spectrum (Hamburg), 23, 3, 1988, p. 256, and A. G. Mariam,' Socialism and
Politics of Famine in Ethiopia', in Conflict (New York), 9, 1986, pp. 109-33.
23
' E t h i o p i a Revisited', in African Recovery (New Y o r k ) , 1, F e b r u a r y - A p r i l 1987, p . 2, a n d
24
Kumar, op. cit. p. 42. Kumar, op. cit. pp. 31-2.

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 FAMINE IN ETHIOPIA AND ERITREA 617

and peasant farmers found that it was increasingly difficult without

oxen to maintain their fields.25
Those peasants and pastoralists in the north who did not emigrate to
the Sudan began to flock to administrative centres in search of food,
and by late 1984, some international relief assistance finally began to
arrive. Even then, the Government did not have the infrastructural or
logistical capacity to effectively meet the needs of those more direly
affected near their own homes. Some walked for 50 or 60 miles in order
to receive food, and on the way countless numbers died. Although there
were as many as 286 distribution and 162 feeding stations by 1985, as
well as three major shelters, the mushrooming of such relief centres had
the unintended consequence of creating an inordinate dependence on
external aid. Ideally, the most able-bodied would have come to collect
enough provisions to sustain their families for several weeks and then
returned home.26 However, thousands of families stayed, many of them
needing medical attention, thereby causing problems when the
Government attempted to close down these centres.
In 1985, the famine entered its fourth phase. The meher rains were
good, suggesting that the worst might be over, and two seasons later,
for the first time in five years, Ethiopia appeared to be headed for
normal grain harvests. By 1987, the number of people remaining in
residual pockets of famine was 2-5 million, down from almost 7 million
the previous year. Only a few small feeding centres remained open, and
the President announced the goal of food self-sufficiency by 1990.27

By the end of 1987 the drought had returned again: almost all the
crops failed in Eritrea, and in Tigre it was nearly as bad.28 By 1989 the
yield in Eritrea was only about 75 per cent of normal, and in Wollo and
Tigre about 85 and 50 per cent, respectively. More than five million
people were at risk in these regions by the beginning of 1990, mainly
because armed conflict made it difficult not only to plant and harvest
crops, but also to deliver relief assistance.29
There is no doubt that both the Derg and its opponents, the T.P.L.F.
25 26
Preston King, An African Winter (New York, 1986), p. 37. Ibid. pp. 40-1.
27
J a m e s Brooke, ' E t h i o p i a ' s Post-Famine G o a l : self-sufficiency', in The New York Times, 10
M a r c h 1987.
28
U.S.A.I.D., 'Situation Report-Ethiopia', Washington, DC, 17 September 1987.
29
David Holdridge, ' S t a t e m e n t ' , in Famine in Ethiopia: Joint Hearing Before the Sub-Committee on
Africa of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the International Task Force of the Select Committee on Hunger,
U.S. House of Representatives (Washington, DC, 28 February 1990).

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6l8 EDMOND J. KELLER

and the E.P.L.F., on occasion used the inhabitants of the drought-

affected areas as pawns in their respective military strategies. An Africa
Watch report suggested in 1991 that in contrast to the Derg's policies
in Eritrea, the counter-insurgency strategy followed in Tigre ' involved
a greater level of indiscriminate violence against the civilian population,
and there was no attempt to provide even the most minimal level of
compensatory assistance to the stricken population'. 30

THE PRIMACY OF POLITICS

Throughout the famine of the past decade, the Derg continued to

pursue both its political and military objectives. Politically it wanted to
establish its hegemony in all parts of Ethiopia. This could clearly be
seen in its policies relating to state farms and collectivisation, as well as
resettlement and villagisation.
The Derg had been committed to state farm development from the
very earliest days of the revolution. It created a special Ministry for this
purpose in 1979, and by 1981 four per cent of all land under cultivation
was on state farms. They employed both permanent and seasonal
workers, and provided many with housing, medical, and other services.
But the experiment generally failed, not least because the mechanised
nature of productive activities meant that these farms required high-
cost, skilled manpower.
State farms consumed about 82 per cent of all imported fertilisers,
almost 75 per cent of the hybrid seeds that were distributed annually,
and more than 80 per cent of the subsidised credit. In addition, they
were paid about 20 to 50 per cent more than peasants for their
produce.31 Nevertheless, state farms operated at a loss and were
characterised by gross inefficiency. Although accounting for less than
15 per cent of all marketed grain, the Government relied heavily upon
them to produce a significant proportion of needed staple foods, albeit
at the expense of the small-scale farming sector. Initially, attempts were
made to collectivise peasant holdings by voluntary means in the
expectation that by 1985 half of all their output would be through
producer co-operatives.
The Derg appears to have been driven more by political imperatives
than by perceived economic objectives. For example, it adopted a
policy at the height of the famine that was initially designed to relocate
1 "5 million of those peasants more severely affected by drought in the

30 31
Evil Days, p. 133. Keller, op. cit. pp. 255-6.

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 FAMINE IN ETHIOPIA AND ERITREA 619

north. The first settlers experienced tremendous hardships, being

chosen from feeding centres in Tigre, Wollo, and northern Shoa, and
transported by trucks, buses, and cargo planes to camps in Kaffa,
Gojam, Gondar, Wollega, and Illubabor that were poorly prepared to
receive such a vast influx.
By 1988, despite the programme's obvious failure, President
Mengistu repeatedly asserted that it would continue, even estimating
that eventually about 16 per cent of Ethiopia's population would be
resettled. However, as explained later by the former R.R.C. Com-
missioner, Dawit Wolde Giorgis: 'Resettlement programs became our
Siberia. As a result, in the minds of the people they were equated with
concentration camps'. 32 Many of those forcibly resettled were able to
escape. Some fled into the Sudan or Somalia, and others took whatever
shelter they could find or walked thousands of miles along the border
in order to return to their home areas. Still others joined opposition
forces.
Some critics charged that the Ethiopian regime deliberately
disrupted the efforts of international relief agencies to bring the famine
under control by forcibly removing the victims of drought from
northern feeding centres, and by sending them to camps in the south
and west. Moreover, others contended that this kind of programme
violated the most fundamental human rights of all those concerned.
The T.P.L.F. and other opposition groups alleged that the main aim
was to depopulate Tigre and Wollo, thereby freeing the Derg to commit
genocide against those that remained.33
Reports of as many as 100,000 people dying in the earlier stages of
resettlement have proved to be unfounded, although Africa Watch
estimates that at least 50,000 deaths can be attributed to the
programme.34 The living conditions in the new sites were extremely
poor, and food, shelter, and medical supplies were grossly inadequate. 35
No matter what the motivation, the net effect of the policy was to
further improve - at least temporarily - the Derg's ability to control
areas of the country characterised by civil unrest, and to advance its
socialist policies. Cadres of the Workers' Party of Ethiopia were
assigned to carry out the tasks of political education and agitation in
each of the settlements, and to monitor and stimulate production.
The villagisation programme, like resettlement, was designed to

32 33
Wolde Giorgis, op. cit. p. 285. Firebrace and Smith, op. cit. pp. 15-16.
34
Evil Days, p . 227.
35
See Francois J e a n , Ethiopie: du bon usage de la famine (Paris, M e d e c i n s sans Frontieres, 1986),
p . 72.

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62O EDMOND J. KELLER

provide the inhabitants with needed social services. The long-term goal
was to move as many as 33 million rural residents - about two-thirds
of the country's total population - by 1994, and inevitably this caused
a great deal of social disruption. People were often uprooted from their
homes during the planting or harvesting seasons, causing immediate
shortfalls in food production.36 Families were frequently required to
move from their traditional homesteads into clustered villages where
the land to be cultivated was often on fragmented plots far from their
new dwellings. Only 13 million peasants - a b o u t 40 per cent of the
planned total - had been ' villagised' by late 1989, and the programme
was halted the following year. It had been most successful in those
southern and central areas that were under the firm control of the
regime, but never took hold in Tigre, Eritrea, and other parts of the
north.
The official position was that the Ethiopian Government was trying
to improve the access of rural residents to social services, and to
strengthen their ability to defend themselves against rebels. But
although villagisation, like resettlement, appeared to many to make
sense on purely technical grounds, it soon became clear that there was
a deeper political motive, namely: to convert villagised communities
into producer co-operatives or collectives, as well as centres for military
recruitment.

THE WEAPON OF FOOD

The Derg consistently attempted to deny food to rebel forces and

their supporters, most obviously through the already mentioned
'scorched earth policy'. There is no doubt at all that livestock, farms,
and food stores in Tigre and Eritrea were systematically bombed.37
Indeed, in December 1984, a high-ranking official frankly admitted to
a U.S. Government representative that 'food is a major element in our
strategy against the secessionists', and that the Ethiopian army ' tries to
cut the rebels off from food supplies'.38 He went on to warn about the
dangers likely to be experienced by anyone caught trying to deliver
relief supplies behind enemy lines. However, the regime was not
consistently able to implement its threats because non-governmental
36
Varnis, op. cit. p. 39.
37
See Evil Days, pp. 177-210; Mary Dines, 'Ethiopian Violation of Human Rights in Eritrea',
in Lionel Cliffe and Basil Davidson (eds.), The Long Struggle of Eritrea for Independence and Constructive
Peace ( T r e n t o n , N J , 1988), p p . 1 3 9 - 6 1 ; a n d R o b e r t K a p l a n , Surrender or Starve: the wars behind the
famine (Boulder, 1988).
38
D a v i d A . K o r n , Ethiopia, the United States and the Soviet Union ( L o n d o n a n d C a r b o n d a l e , I L ,
1986), p. 137.

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 FAMINE IN ETHIOPIA AND ERITREA 621

relief agencies often violated this policy. As a matter of fact, at the

height of the crisis, the United States even engaged in cross-border
operations to assist famine victims in Eritrea and Tigre.39
Foreign donors regularly argued that they did not want to get
involved in Ethiopia's political problems, and that their only aim was
to help the needy. However, some agencies were invariably drawn into
domestic controversies, especially those that looked to the Government
to sanction where they worked. For example, the F.A.O. went so far as
to support the resettlement and villagisation programmes, while those
voluntary organisations that agreed to operate in certain areas also
indirectly aided the Derg in its political objectives. Concurrently, the
Eritrean and Tigrean rebels established their own relief agencies, and
they were able to compete with the Mengistu regime for outside
assistance, mainly from privately funded donors.
The Derg felt the need to levy charges on all the food and other relief
supplies being brought into the country, mainly in order to help finance
its war machine. As much as $30 million was raised in 1985 by
imposing an import fee that was initially set as high as $50*50 per
metric ton for all donors (except the United Nations, which had to pay
$49). However, this levy was reduced to $20 following an outcry from
all the affected agencies.40 To make matters worse, some truck-loads of
food intended for civilian centres were diverted by military officials in
order to meet the needs of their own soldiers and armed supporters.41
In the north, relief supplies were being deliberately used to induce local
residents to join the Ethiopian army, and to pay the soldiers. In some
cases local merchants bought the food, which they then sold to the
rebels.42
By 1987, the Derg's efforts to use food as a weapon were being
directly challenged by the E.P.L.F. A U.N. convoy of 23 trucks
supplied by Band-Aid and the Catholic Relief Services was destroyed
in October, and nearly 450 tons of wheat — enough to feed 45,000
people for a month — were doused with petrol and set ablaze.43 Three
months later the rebels attacked yet another convoy, claiming that it
was part of a military operation. Within weeks this was followed by a
major victory by the E.P.L.F. at Afabet, and with the fall of this

39
David O t t a w a y , ' U . S . Relief P r o g r a m to Defy E t h i o p i a ' , i n The Washington Post, 31 M a y
1988. The first time the United States engaged in cross-border relief operations was in 1984-5.
40
Congressional Record: U.S. House of Representatives (Washington, D C ) , 7 O c t o b e r 1987,
p . H8297, a n d R o y P a t e m a n , Eritrea: even the stones are burning ( T r e n t o n , N J , 1990), p . 192.
41
Cohen, loc. cit.
42
See Varnis, op. cit. p. 162; Pateman, op. cit. p. 195; and Dines, loc. cit. p. 153.
43
Blaine H a r d e n , ' F o o d Aid Destroyed in E t h i o p i a ' , in The Washington Post, 26 O c t o b e r 1987.

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622 EDMOND J. KELLER

important Eritrean garrison town, President Mengistu declared a state

of emergency. He exhorted Ethiopians to rise in defence of the
'Motherland' with the rallying cry of 'Everything to the Warfront'.
The military was empowered to shoot anyone suspected of aiding the
E.P.L.F., and a io-mile strip along the Red Sea coast was declared to
be a no-man's land. Simultaneously, foreign relief agencies were
ordered out of the north, and the military commandeered all
government food trucks and fuel for the war effort.44 Although the state
of emergency was relaxed in May 1988, the Derg continued to refuse to
allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to resume its
presence in the north.
As the decade drew to a close it became clear that the two wars in
the north had reached a decisive stage, and that the rebels were
prepared to use whatever means necessary to topple Mengistu. In
January 1990 the E.P.L.F. demonstrated that it had become stronger
and was well prepared to prevent the Derg from operating unchallenged
in Eritrea. Several speedy attack boats captured a Polish ship that was
approaching the port of Massawa and held its crew hostage for several
weeks, thereby causing insurance rates for vessels operating along the
Eritrean coast to rise sharply.45 The following month a Danish ship
carrying relief supplies was seized by the E.P.L.F., and only released
several days later after its cargo had been unloaded.46 Ethiopian forces
responded by attacking the port with cluster bombs and napalm,
thereby destroying thousands of tons of food and medicines, whereupon
the E.P.L.F. refused to allow relief aid bound for Ethiopia, or those
parts of Eritrea still in Ethiopian hands, to pass through Massawa.47
After the intervention of the U.N. Secretary-General and others, an
agreement was finally reached in early 1991 that allowed the aid
passing through Massawa to be divided evenly between rebel groups
and the Government, and the safe passage of relief supplies into
Ethiopian hands. However, this did not dramatically alleviate the ill
effects of drought and famine. Anything that moved in daylight hours
in Eritrea and Tigre was liable to be bombed by the Ethiopians. At the

44
Chester A. Crocker, ' S t a t e m e n t ' , in Update on Recent Developments in Ethiopia: the famine crisis.
Hearing before the Sub-Committee on Human Rights and International Organisations and on Africa of the
Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives (Washington, D C , 21 April 1988), a n d J o h n
Kifner, ' E r i t r e a : starving a n end to guerrilla w a r ' , in The San Francisco Chronicle, 31 August 1988.
45
Jane Perlez, 'Polish Crew Tells of Three Week Ordeal After Red Sea Attack', in The New
York Times, 23 January 1990.
46
U.S. Agency for International Development,' Ethiopia - Drought'; Situation Report No. 7,
Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, Washington, DC, 28 March 1990, p. 2.
47
G e r t r u d e Samueals, ' F i g h t i n g F a m i n e in N o r t h Africa', in The New Leader (New York), 30
April 1990, p . 12, a n d E r i t r e a n Relief Association, ' U r g e n t A p p e a l ' , in Adulis (London),
February-March 1991.

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 FAMINE IN ETHIOPIA AND ERITREA 623

same time, the rebels continued their relentless assault to cut the
country in half, helped by the fact that they were still receiving some
relief supplies via the areas that they controlled along the Sudan
border.
In Tigre, the T.P.L.F. had been engaged since the beginning of 1988
in its largest offensive against Ethiopian forces to date. Over the next
two years, it captured the entire region, including the urban centres of
Axum, Inda Silase, and Mekele. Following an abortive coup against
President Mengistu in May 1989, its ranks were swollen by Ethiopian
military defectors, including whole units. In addition, the T.P.L.F.
made significant strides towards creating a united front comprised of
organisations opposed to the Derg's rule. Most significantly, it joined
forces with the Ethiopian People's Democratic Movement in forming
the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (E.P.R.D.F.),
which now claimed that it sought to eliminate the last vestiges of
feudalism and imperialism, and to form a genuinely democratic society.
In addition to holding all of Tigre by early 1991, the E.P.R.D.F.
controlled large portions of Wollo, Gondar, and Gojam, and its forces
had penetrated to within less than 100 miles of Addis Ababa. It was
also threatening to cut Ethiopia's last north-south supply-line leading
from the port city of Assab, the main route for the transportation of
relief aid following the earlier loss of Massawa. By April, the Mengistu
regime had lost Eritrea, and the E.P.R.D.F. marched victoriously, with
little resistance from the Ethiopian armed forces, to claim the seat of
governance in Addis Ababa.

CONCLUSION

The ' Great Famine of 1983-6' was exacerbated by the ill-conceived

policies of the Derg. Because of climatic changes, the drought of that
period was bound to be major, but under other circumstances its effects
might have been mitigated through effective policies and timely foreign
disaster relief. But the Ethiopian regime seemed more interested in
pursuing a political agenda of statist control rather than a strategy
designed to achieve food security. Its tactics used to suppress the
northern opposition have been described by some as approaching
genocide,48 based on the allegation that a systematic attempt was made
to starve the people of Tigre and Eritrea, and certainly there is clear
evidence that the Derg used food as a weapon of war. Persistent
48
See Jean Zeiler, ' Genocide Convention - Ethiopian Famine in the Eritrean War for
Independence', in Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law (Athens, GA), 19, Fall 1989,
PP- 589-612-

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624 EDMOND J. KELLER

attempts to pursue its ideologically-determined strategy of devel-

opment, even when this involved the use of massive military force and
the denial of humanitarian relief in rebel-held areas, lend credence to
this assertion.
The net effect of such policies was to inhibit the achievement of food
security not only in Ethiopia and Eritrea, but in the Horn as a whole.
In addition, the protracted civil conflicts threatened the political
stability of the entire region, not least because of the dramatically
increased level of militarisation that was a product of superpower cold
war rivalry. Provided the fighting has really ended, the road is now
open for a more effective management of inevitable future incidents of
drought and famine. However, this is not to say that these problems
will be easy to address; only that they will not be as difficult as they
have been in the recent past. Peasants freed from social disruptions and
threats to life should be better able to resort to traditional survival
strategies in times of subsistence crises, even though some humanitarian
assistance will certainly still be needed.

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