From Mauritania in the West, where nearly 90% of the cattle herds have been lost, to Ethiopia in the East, where last year at least 100,000 people died of starvation in Wolla province, every country in the sub-Saharan belt of Africa is now threatened with still worse conditions.
Once again the rains have falled, and the rivers are now at their lowest recorded level, After six years in which every country in this areaknown as the Sahel-has been gripped ever mote firmly by widespread drought and famine, the situation is now at long last beginning to receive substantial coverage in the media.
This coverage, however, has been mainly distinguished by its ability to gloss over the real deep-rooted causes of this disaster. Of course the Immediate reason is to be found in the weather. But what makes the area so universally vulnerable to unfavourable climatic conditions is the way in which its cconomic, social and political structures have been distorted to serve the interests of imperialism.
CASH CROPS Virtually every state of the region The once-proud nomads of Mali are now reauced to scratching in the dust for grains scattered after an air-drop greater part of its cash exports. In Chad, cotton makes up 85% of figure-for coffee-is 56%.
modity makes these countries very vulnerable to the ups and downs of the world market price, Hence they omnus economic development.
for subsistence cultivation by is dependent on a single crop for the exports. In Niger and Senegal, groundnuts account for 70%. In Ethiopia, the This dependence on a single comthe soul.
are unable to plan any stable, autonBut a second effect has also been exposed by recent events in the Sabel -namely, that the land area availabie development. etc. the peasantry has been dangerously cut away in order to concentrate on cush crops This was achieved quite cynically -eitber by direct physical ejection, or through economic restraints such as taxation (so that smallholders had to desert their land in order to earn Furthermore, the rapid clearance of the land, destroying forest and plant cover in order to extend the area for export crop cultivation, removed natural protection and opened the way to wind erosion of VESTED INTERESTS Some governments of the region are now beginning to echo the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation experts in talking about the need for co-ordinated programmes of afforestation and similar schemes in order to stop the encroachment of the desert. But this would merely be an attempt to reverse seventy years of distorted, imperialist-imposed again adverse climatic conditions In any case, the likelihood of these particular governments coming together in any effective way to deal with the problem is very slim. For the most part they represent the section of the population whose interests are most deeply vested in the maintenance of the status quo- desert. those engaged in agriculture for export, marketing, transportation, Thus in an interview conducted by the magazine African Development with Kenneth Stevenson, director of the UN FAO Organisation for Sahel Operations, we read that even during the drought..., commercial crops have done well'. In Niger last Ethiopia's record is reminiscent of Ireland during the Great Hunger of 1845-48: 100,000 died last year while the export of foodstuffs (including grain) increased by 92%.
LAND OWNERSHIP
Of course the clue to the situation in that country lies in the landholding system itself. Agricultural experts reckon that Ethiopia s potentially capable of being the grain bowl of Africa, yet vast areas of the land lie untilled. This is because ownership is highly concentrated in the hands of a tiny class whose position is similar to that of the nobility of medieval Burope. Emperor Haile Selassie is himsel! the largest of these landowners.
No incentive has existed to increase production or the efficiency of farming methods, since rent is paid on the classic share-cropping system, with 50-7556 of the produce going to the landowner. Thus once inevitably bring about widespread disaster.
It is vital in this way to cut through some of the myths currently being propagated about the Sahel. It is quite wrong to say the present disaster is an inevitable result of the irresistible onward march of the Those who put forward such distortions are covering up the true situation, Today the sub-Saharan belt is paying the price for a century of imperialist-imposed distortion of its economic development, and by doing so tragically illuminating yet another aspect of the brutal logic of capitalism TONY SOUTHALL