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From 1982 to 1986, a devastating famine ravaged the Horn of Africa. The situation was most dire in Ethiopia, a country that had experienced regular famines throughout its history. Hunger and politics are perhaps more closely intertwined in Ethiopia than in any other nation. In the mid-1970s, famine was directly responsible for the collapse of the Ethiopian monarchy when Emperor Haile Selassie, a longtime U.S. ally, attempted to cover up evidence of widespread starvation to insulate his regime from domestic unrest.1 That decision proved fatal, as peasants and the military conspired in a “creeping coup” that overthrew and imprisoned Selassie. The successor regime, a military junta known as the Derg, was led by Lieutenant Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam. Once in power, the Derg announced its commitment to Marxism and within a year had severed ties to the United States, nationalized U.S. property, instituted a command economy, collectivized agriculture, and purchased large amounts of Soviet arms. The United States responded to this loss of its traditional ally by cutting all military and developmental aid, dramatically reducing emergency food aid, and cultivating an alliance with Somalia, a country with which Ethiopia was fighting a low-intensity border war at the time. The Derg inherited a country rife with political and economic instability. The Ethiopian government was engaged in long-running wars with secessionist rebel groups in the northern provinces of Eritrea and Tigray, as well as with insurgents from Somalia in the south. The incessant conflict led Ethiopia to become the most heavily militarized nation in sub-Saharan Africa. Massive ● 6 the ethiopian famine Problem Definition and Option Generation 1. Shepherd, Politics of Starvation; Shepherd, “Food Aid”; E. Keller, “Politics of Famine”; E. Keller, Revolutionary Ethiopia. defense expenditures acted as a drag on what was already a sluggish economy. Ethiopia possessed little industrial capacity and was largely dependent on the export of coffee for foreign capital. The underdeveloped nature of the Ethiopian economy—coupled with the Derg’s commitment to Marxism, high militarization , and rapid population growth—produced little growth in GDP. By most measures, Ethiopia remained the poorest country in the world throughout the 1980s.2 It was in this environment that the 1982–86 famine occurred. At its height, an estimated eight to ten million Ethiopians were at risk of starvation. While the estimates on mortality vary, all assume that well over a million Ethiopians died of hunger, prompting one relief expert to call the famine “the worst food crisis of this century.”3 The severity of the famine was the product of an especially pernicious mix of factors inside Ethiopia—drought, war, poverty, land desertification, and government mismanagement—set against the backdrop of the cold war. As such, the famine fell into a category of foreign policy issues aptly termed “complex humanitarian emergencies.”4 Complex humanitarian emergencies are, by nature, political. Although natural disasters (in this case drought) can act as catalysts, social and political factors are the root cause of massive death and human suffering.5 However, it is important to note that while the situation certainly looked like a crisis from the standpoint of Ethiopian citizens, it was not considered a crisis for the United States according to our definition. Crises are defined by a high probability of military force and threats to the core values of the state. Because neither situation applied for the United States, the famine falls into the noncrisis category. The case of the Ethiopian famine offers a look at noncrisis foreign policy making. From 1982 to late 1984, few Americans were even aware that there was a famine occurring in Africa. Although there has always been a strong humanitarian current in American public opinion, minimal issue salience in this case meant that the Reagan administration was under little political pressure to respond to the public’s still latent preferences. Consequently, the U.S. response to the famine was modest and slow. The political context changed dramatically in October 1984, however, when television and rock stars helped to focus the public’s concern on Ethiopia. As a result, consistent, widespread 142 paying attention to foreign affairs 2. Abegaz, Aid and Reform. 3. Legum, “Africa’s Food Crisis,” 25. 4. Natsios, U.S. Foreign Policy; Natsios, “NGOs and the UN System”; Natsios, “United States Disaster Response”; Callan, “U.S. Foreign Aid.” 5. Sen, Development as Freedom; Sen, Poverty and Famines; Dreze and Sen, Hunger and Public Action. [3.21.76.0] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 15...

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