Under The Same Sun

NBC had a single story regarding famine or starvation in Africa in its news programs during the same six-month period. Ironically, NBC's lone piece (8/9/02)--about Veronica, a 12-year-old AIDS orphan struggling to feed her siblings--was the only story among the three networks that was filed from the ground and concentrated on the fact that children were starving. The NBC story did mention that the famine was looming since the strategic grain reserve, meant to be kept at hand for emergencies exactly like this one, had been sold off. NBC, however, did not mention why it was sold: The president of Malawi had publicly stated (BBC, 4/9/02) that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank “insisted that, since Malawi had a surplus [of maize] and the [government's] National Food Reserve Agency had this huge loan, they had to sell the maize to repay the commercial banks.”

Blaming the victims

As can be seen from the list, almost all the coverage concentrated on the perceived faults of African governments. Zimbabwe, which is only one country out of the six that face starvation, generated most of the coverage. Most of the criticism of Zimbabwe came from U.S. officials and white farmers who had lost their property. Only once (CBS, 8/18/02) was it mentioned that in a country of 12 million black people, the white minority of 40,000 owns most of the productive land--a legacy of the colonial occupation of the country that had ended 20 years ago.

According to the London Guardian (4/3/00), "About 4,500 white farmers own 11 million hectares of Zimbabwe's prime agricultural land, while about 1 million blacks own 16 million hectares, often in drought-prone regions." In other words, this is a country where a minority of less than one hundredth of one percent owns almost two-thirds as much land as the majority--and owns the choicest land, because they once ruled the country.

These whites were generally portrayed as hard-working, honest farmers who just wanted to till their land, rather than as giant land-owners who had usurped the most productive territory--although they were surely that, given the amount of starvation that such a small number of farms was reportedly able to cause.

Mugabe's administration in Zimbabwe has been thoroughly criticized by his own citizens, and the subject is clearly newsworthy. However, the omission of basic facts such as the skewed land ownership turned a potentially useful examination of the motives of Zimbabwe's land reform program into a one-dimensional promotion for a single message: It's their own fault they're starving.

Zambia's refusal of genetically modified corn also generated what was, relatively speaking, a flurry of coverage. While this finally got CBS to cover the issue of the famine (8/30/02), only once was it mentioned that a major concern was the consequences for the ecosystem and the economy if people planted some of the corn--quite a likely scenario since, as seen in all famine situations, what corn seed stock did exist has probably been eaten by the starving population. This is critical because Zambia exports corn to the European Union--an issue that CBS alluded to only once by saying one of Zambia's concerns was that Europe was "nervous" about GM corn. In fact, far beyond "nervous," the EU for all practical purposes bans imports of GM foods, and Zambia would indeed lose access to European markets.

It was also not reported that the U.N.'s World Food Program began acquiring non-GM corn and wheat for distribution in Zambia, or that Zambia had agreed to distribute milled GM corn that could not be planted. Perhaps most alarmingly for U.S. consumers, none of the networks noted that the Zambia's request to the U.S. government for proof of the long-term safety of GM corn was answered with assurances (AP, 8/22/02) rather than with studies and reports.

CBS and the other networks were uninterested in the famine that continued to rage in Lesotho, Angola, Malawi and Mozambique, countries that notably did not fit into the "it's their fault" theme--all four had accepted GM foods, and had no land reform program upsetting production.

Causes closer to home

Meanwhile, evidence is surfacing that the current famine may actually more the result of actions of the U.S. and other Northern countries, rather than a stroke of bad luck and/or mismanagement on the part of African nations. The U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) as well as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been warning that it's quite possible Africa's droughts are now being largely exacerbated or triggered by global warming (IPCC/UNEP report, 2/21/01)--a phenomenon for which Africa is the least to blame, as Africa, with 14 percent of the world's population, is responsible for only 3 percent of global CO2 emission. UNEP and IPCC have also warned that Africa suffers disproportionately from global warming.

Recent scientific papers also suggest that pollution from industrialized nations contributed to the tragic Ethiopian famine in the 1980s (AP, 7/21/02). These issues received only one mention on network news during the period studied--a reference on ABC (3/26/02) to a possible connection between climate change and drought in Africa.

The almost complete lack of coverage regarding the global warming/famine connection was made more striking by the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) held in Johannesburg, South Africa. George W. Bush refused to attend the summit, sending Secretary of State Colin Powell instead--who was heckled by the delegates. The interruptions in Powell's speech occurred mainly at two points: first when he tried to blame Zambia and Zimbabwe for the famine, and again when he stated that "the United States is taking action to meet environmental challenges, including global climate change."

The eruption of anger at Colin Powell among delegates and dignitaries from around the world might have been better understood had any of the networks explained the context of the famine, and reminded viewers that the U.S. withdrew from the Kyoto treaty earlier this year. During the WSSD, the U.S. further antagonized those concerned about global warming by torpedoing all attempts to set goals for increasing solar, wind and other forms of renewable energy. Another link between policies of the rich world and the famine that was repeatedly made my delegates at the WSSD, but ignored by the networks, was the issue of farm subsidies; they argued that it's not possible for the poor world to keep its agriculture alive when rich nations lavishly subsidize the exports of their own farmers (Food First, 9/02).

Not even Colin Powell's subsequent visit to Angola, one of the famine-stricken countries, prompted the networks to cover the famine. Angola had been a breaking story over the summer because a 30-year-old civil war, with one of the sides armed and financed by the United States and apartheid South Africa, had just ended. The international aid community had access to Angola's remote corners for the first time in decades, discovering shocking levels of starvation.

Powell's visit to Angola was indeed spurred by the end of the civil war, but he was there neither to apologize nor to assess the damage; rather, his trip was driven by Angola's 11 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves, second only to Nigeria in sub-Saharan Africa, and the country's non-membership in OPEC. The famine in Angola was apparently on nobody's agenda: During the whole six-month period, it was mentioned only once by the three networks.

In 53 words, ABC News (6/12/02) duly reported that Doctors Without Borders attributed the starvation to "the chronic criminal neglect of the Angolan government," and the organization had accused the U.N. of being "shamefully slow in responding to the crisis since the civil war there ended earlier this year." In keeping with the "it's their own fault" rule, no mention was made of previous deep involvement of the United States in the war that devastated the country.

Some of the most surreal coverage occurred on Nightline (7/17/02) when Chris Bury reported that "the overall response still falls far short of what the U.N. says is needed," and went on to explain that "part of that is blamed on the slow onset of famine. By the time those familiar television images of starving children appear, it's too late to help them." So the lack of attention is not the media's fault but somehow the famine's fault because its "slow onset" delayed the images.

Never mind that the U.N. and aid agencies had been warning of the famine in Southern Africa at least since February 2002; never mind that images of malnourished children had been available for months; never mind that it is quite possible to file a news story about dangers posed to children who have not yet managed to consume all their body fat and develop the swollen bellies and aged faces of kwashiorkor. Never mind that all famines, almost by definition, have a slow onset.

We are not going to report the perfectly predictable course of events because they have not yet happened, the media seem to be saying, and when they do happen, we are going to duly inform you that "it's too late to help them"--and continue to ignore the story for all practical purposes. It's their fault, anyway.

Posted by zeynep at 10:34 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

September 30, 2002

Theme Song for 21st Century Famines

This article was written during a period of unprecedented coverage of the ongoing famine six African countries -- except most of the coverage implied that the famine was somehow primarily the result of Mugabe's actions in Zimbabwe.

“The situation in Zimbabwe hit you guys hard, I suppose” said my neighbor to the young woman who had just sauntered out of the customs area at the airport. She was from Malawi, he was trying to make small talk about the famine ravaging her country. She was resignedly nodding till he mentioned Zimbabwe.

With a puzzled look, she squinted in his direction: “What?”

As usual, we hear a lot about the side issue and almost nothing about the fundamental questions: hence the puzzling remark.

She probably didn't know that a good chunk of the media coverage in the United States regarding the famine that threatens six Southern African states and 12 million people concentrated on the fact that Zimbabwe’s government is trying to oust couple thousand white farmers from the most of the productive lands, most of which they control as a legacy of the white supremacist colonial rule. The truth is that this is but a side issue; the evictions haven’t helped the harvest; however, the hard reality is that rainfalls are down 75 percent in Zimbabwe. And Zimbabwe is but one country threatened by the famine.

While it is true that this famine, as with most famines, is the result of a combination of bad weather and bad policies, the real tragic story is that both the bad policy and the bad weather were severely exacerbated by the rich world.

That would be us.

It often seems that God perennially deals a bad hand to Africa. Remember Ethiopia in the eighties? The massive famine that came at the end of an almost ten year drought, the images of starving, wide-eyed, swollen-bellied children with the accompanying tune of “We are the World, We Are the Children”?

The song should be remade: “We Own the World, We Ignore the Children.”

It’s turning out that the Africa’s ‘bad luck’ is us.

Some scientists now believe that the Ethiopian drought in the eighties may have been triggered by “tiny particles of sulfur dioxide spewed by factories and power plants thousands of miles away in North America, Europe and Asia.”

In other words, pollution from industrial nations.

The current drought cycle is also quite likely aggravated by global warming and the general change in climate patterns due to human activities. In the report released last year by United Nations Environment Program, “Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability,” UNEP scientists predicted that, in terms of droughts, southern Africa would be one of the hardest hit areas from global warming and industrial pollution. The report talked of a ‘century of hunger’ and predicted that ‘lack of rain, warmer temperatures and increases in evaporation could reduce yields by a third or more in these areas.’

Africa's share of the global population is 14 percent but it's responsible for only 3.2 percent of global CO2 emission.

It gets worse.

Probably unbeknownst to my neighbor in the airport, Malawi, under the ‘advice’ of IMF, World Bank and other international lenders and donors, was forced to cut fertilizer and maize subsidies to its millions of subsistence farmers. The lack of subsidies made it hard for poor farmers to buy fertilizer and seeds -- and subsistence farmers constitute almost 70 percent of Malawi’s population. Meanwhile, back at the ranch in the rich world, farmers are heavily subsidized. The 2002 Farm Bill in the United States will provide $190 billion in new subsidy money over the next 10 years to US farmers, which constitute only two percent of the population -- and most of that money will go to the wealthy, corporate agribusinesses. European Union too heavily subsidizes its own farmers.

None of that for Malawi.

And, as Challis McDonough of Voice Of America reported, most farmers in Malawi could not borrow the money to buy fertilizer and seed since the interest rate on loans from commercial banks were incredibly high, about 55 percent.

My neighbor in the airport waiting lounge was probably also not aware that just two year ago, Malawi had a bumper crop and wanted to keep a chunk of in its strategic grain reserves to guard against famines.

The insolence.

Countries such as Malawi do not get to make their own policy, with the best interests of their people in mind. This little country with an annual per capita income less than $200 and a life expectancy of 38 (yes, thirty eight, 3-8 as in two times nineteen) already owes $1.5 billion, about 90 percent of its GDP, to various financiers.

Malawi’s President Muluzi gave an interview he gave to BBC on April 9th, 2002. In the interview, Muluzi explained that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank “insisted that, since Malawi had a surplus [of maize] and the (government's) National Food Reserve Agency had this huge loan, they had to sell the maize to repay the commercial banks.” The ‘huge loan’ had been taken to establish the reserve. Its repayment meant that the maize in the reserve was sold off. Why was this done at all, you might ask. I didn’t do the research, I don’t know. However, I do know that a familiar pattern is well established with IMF bail-outs and loans and Heavily Indebted Poor Country initiatives and what not -- quite likely, some bank in New York, Paris, London Zurich or Tokyo made some money from the transaction itself with commission, interest, consulting fees...

So, onward, they starve.

This is the weekend of IMF / World Bank protests in DC. One of the key demands is ‘to cancel all impoverished country debt to the World Bank and IMF.’ IMF and the World Bank as well as most governments of the rich world are opposed to what they call debt forgiveness, mostly claiming that it breeds irresponsibility. They have come up with various schemes that are supposed to provide some debt relief while providing accountability -- most of these schemes have so far required that these countries take on fresh debt.

I, too have a proposal about debt forgiveness: let’s cancel the debt and hope they find it in their hearts to forgive us.

Posted by zeynep at 09:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack