U.S. and Ethiopia Kill Somalis With Food Weapon

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
The drought that threatens more than ten million lives in the Horn of Africa has been made vastly more deadly by U.S. and Ethiopian use of food as a weapon of war. The Americans last year forced the collapse of cooperation between aid agencies and Shabab resistance fighters in Somalia. And Ethiopia, a center of the drought, has virtually sealed off its rebellious Ogaden region from outside observers and aid providers, including the International Red Cross, in order to conceal its brutal, collective punishment of ethnic Somalis.

The Americans claim the Shabab Islamist fighters made the drought crisis worse by preventing international aid agencies from distributing food relief. But only last year, in February 2010, the New York Times was running a headline, “UN Officials Assail U.S. for Withholding Somali Aid.” We explored that story in Black Agenda Report. Back then, United Nations officials charged the U.S. with imposing conditions that made it “impossible” to deliver tens of millions in food aid to hungry Somalis. The Americans refused to allow food to be transferred from warehouses in Kenya, claiming it might enrich the coffers of the Shabab, who controlled about half of Somalia.
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