The Politics of Famine

In: Worldview, Volume 28, Issue 3, p. 20-21

Abstract

In Addis Ababa's vast Revolution Square there are large pictures of Marx, Lenin, and Engels, and of Mengistu Haile Mariam, the head of the Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopia and leader of the newly organized Workers Party of Ethiopia. In the decade since a military committee, the dirgue, dethroned Haile Selassie and abolished the monarchy, these four have been proclaimed the saviors of Ethiopia. Today, however, many Ethiopians believe the dirgue's policies are responsible for inciting the nationalities to insurrection, reducing agricultural yields in the south, helping to cause the famine in the northeast, tying Ethiopia to the capital-poor Soviet Union and its allies, and unnecessarily alienating the capital-rich West. In their opinion, the government has failed the. revolution by being repressive and rigid. Mengistu and the ideology he represent should give way to new and more flexible leaders and politics.