Ethiopia Stops Famine Relief

Ethiopia's Marxist government is largely responsible for the widespread famines in that African country, concludes a soon-to-be released report by the Harvard-based Cultural Survival Inc.

"The government is one of the most significant causes of famine in the North, and is causing famine in the South by resettlement," said report author Jason W. Clay '73, director of research for Cultural Survival

The report, "The Politics of Famine in Ethiopia," culminates the largest and most scientific research project on the famine by any government or private group, Clay said.

He and his fellow researchers, anthropologist Bonnie K. Holcomb and Swiss journalist Peter Niggli, conducted extensive interviews of nearly 250 randomly selected Ethiopian refugees in several regions of the Sudan.

A major conclusion of the research is that international relief efforts have been used by the government to further its political objectives. The famine is seen by Ethiopa's leadership primarily as a tool for consolidating and centralizing power, the report says.

The 200 page report, due out in the first week of November, recommends that the efforts of humanitarian aid groups be monitored by an outside group such as the International Committee for the Red Cross.

"People can't just close their eyes to politics. The American public shouldn't be told that drought is the only cause or even the major cause of famine in Ethiopia," Clay said. He added that many of the refugees interviewed had lived through worse droughts before government actions made subsistence impossible.

Cultural Survival Inc., a non-profit organization, was founded in 1972 by Professor of Anthropology David Maybury-Lewis and other Harvard social scientists concerned about the fate of tribal peoples and ethnic minorities.

Headquartered in the Peabody Museum, the organization researches workable solutions to the contemporary problems of native groups and publishes "Cultural Survival Quarterly."