Somalia’s famine: their agony and our historic part in it
There were Italians, there were Yemenis, there were Zanzibaris and there were Russians. We mingled in the hot streets of Mogadishu, or bumped into each other in the Italian restaurant across the street from the old stone built Croce del Sud Hotel. Or we might see them on the beach looking out across the port. The Somali capital was a place of intrigue and conflict. The year was 1976 and I was on my first foreign assignment to try to find out whether Russia or America was now in the ascendent in Somalia.
A hot, parched, pivotal nation, at the bottom end of the Red Sea – to visit Somalia was to risk losing your heart to her. The people were poor, but open, welcoming, and breathtakingly beautiful. By the sea they fished. Inland, they scraped a wandering farming living, entirely dependent upon rare bouts of rain.
But Somalia was also a war-ground for the outside world. Who ruled in Mogadishu mattered. Bullied and manipulated before independence, by colonial Britain and no less colonial Italy, the atlas said it all. Some official had grabbed a ruler and drawn a straight line across the Ogaden desert, dividing Ethiopia from the Somali flat lands. For the endlessly wandering nomadic peoples of the Ogaden, which side of the official’s ruler you meandered mattered not.
Somalia was ripe for rape, ripe for howitzers and the other barbarous plumbing that the outside world would import to resolve their arguments about who controlled the gateway to the Indian Ocean.
We cub reporters were in on the birth of Somalia’s agony. The country was deemed too lowly to send a senior reporter and so we boys were sent to get lost for weeks upon end to return shaggy, dusty-haired and browned from the eternally searing sun, to report our findings.
We were in on the foundations of her present pain and suffering. We found the outside world rendering her fledgling governance a nonsense. We found the British, Russian and American embassies by turns wielding more power than the President, and rarely in the interests of the indigenous people. No wonder even the hard faced Communists of Siad Barre’s menacing regime crumbled. No wonder the country splintered back into its tribal past. And amid the dawning of ever more acute shortage, no wonder they came to fight each other. And as each successive outside influence – capitalist, communist, Islamist – came to call with cash and weapons, no wonder they accepted both.
No wonder then Somalia became the most dangerous war ground in the world; no wonder her seas the unsafest on the planet.
Read more from Jonathan Rugman, writing from Kenya on aid efforts
One of the great tough-guy leaders of Africa – Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings (who became Ghana’s President with a coup in 1981 and bequeathed a democracy to his successor in 2001) is today the African Union’s Envoy to Somalia.
No wonder Rawlings cried in Mogadishu on Channel 4 News last night. His day had been consumed with dead children, starved of their lives. Somalia is their crisis and our moral burden.
We, the outside world were there. We fiddled, we manoeuvred, we manipulated to safeguard the energy of our lives, the safe transport of the world’s oil. Now it is pay back time, and Rawlings is calling forlornly from a wrecked quarter in Mogadishu, with an armed soldier at his back.
“Bring your food, your medicine, your help. Hundreds of thousands are in peril of death in the next two, three, four weeks.”
The United Nations is at his back, warning the famine is spreading. The factions on the ground are so weak and enfeebled that they are laying down their arms with arms that can now barely lift them.
Famine is not remote. Famine is us, our history, our involvement and calls down our duty.
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There are 53 comments on this post
Hi Jon
In your view, what is the best way to help/direct money?
Ed
We wait for them to sort themselves out politically, but can they do that without outside help? As you say the Somalians have historically relied on others to organise their country whatever others colonial intentions were and Somalia is now in a state of abandonment. The civil war which heads to heads Somalian against Somalian and pirates boats on their seas, has very little to do with those innocent infants who have known little else but fight for survival. My first instinct is to give them IV fluids , nutrition, build them up , nurture them , feed them ,educate them. Oh dear! the nanny state interferes again. Then I imagined dropping case loads on condoms from planes( and please no bizarre connotations) in order that the amount of potential infant sufferers may be reduced. In a violent, poor state with rape on a daily basis, who would think about preventing pregnancy. The intention of violence breeds violence.
The tears will not prevent the reality, if we give 3 million pounds will it get to those children?
International policies take time. Who said politics was about people!?
Mary Robinson( if i remember the name correctly) loves Somalia .DO THE SOMALIANS?
You are a truely deluded woman. I love my country and so deos everyother somalian. And yes somalis did create a stable government WITHOUT OUTSIDE HELP which was illegelaly attacked by the US which didn’t let somalia take a gasp of peace before plunging MY BELOVED COUNTRY back into a brutal war, using the very warlord they fought in 1993 in there many proxy wars.
I hope i educated you, and ignorance is not a good trait to live with.
How about a donation from those mega rich pirates?
How about a donation from those Western companies that polluted the seas off Somalia along with those industrial size fishing ships that over-fished the region, driving people to extreme measures?
all well and good giving aid, get the pirates to donate some of their ill gotton gains to the relief. How come it is alright to give aid knowing it will fall into the hands of rebels and not do anything about the thousands of seafarers held hostage on ships siezed by the pirates. I think there should be no aid till the pirate problem is resolved
Jon,
Amidst this umpteenth African tragedy – I don’t mind telling you I was in tears yet again at what is happening there – it seems nobody ever asks this question:
Why is it we can mobilise mass murder and air assault so quickly at one end of that continent and do virtually bugger all at the other end for innocent people?
It is the West who played a major role in destroying African societies and thieving natural resources wherever they could. It is the West who should rescue the situation. Yes, it would take a tremendous effort and organisation, but so what? We have the wealth, the resources and the capability.
All we need is the political will. But that will never be there in a capitalist system. As Harold Laski said, it is a system incompatible with fairness and decency. There is no immediate profit in helping people, only inconvenience.
We get these terrible pictures from Africa every five or ten years. We know it will happen again and again. Still our leaders do little more than wash their hands with hypocrisy.
The miracle is there is so little reaction against the West, and not so much “terrorism.” One day the invoice will REALLY fall due, and we will deserve it.
Couldn’t agree more, Philip. Our troops that have been involved in futile wars recently, especially Iraq, would be much better deployed defending aid workers in places like Somalia.
And as you say, we can well afford to sort these problems out. A ten percent tax on the £14bn of latest bank bonuses revealed yesterday would bring in triple the money the UN says it needs.
But hell, we mustn’t upset the bankers who have done so well by us in recent years, must we?
Well-said, Philip. Only just seen same.
Very interesting report on democracynow about the secret prison operated by the CIA in Somalia. Jeremy Scahill is the guy who investigated (can see his report on the Nation “The CIA’s Secret Sites in Somalia”.
Just another piece to fit into the tragedy of Somalia and another ‘player’
Thanks for this John. It’s all too clear the outside world is not interested enough. Here in Argentina on yesterday evening’s primetime news, in place of any mention of Somalia, we were informed that Jim Carrey has a new Penguin film in the cinema. Sad.
Where famine is a recurring nightmare of humanitarian disaster perhaps the UN should be looking at solutions not just emergency aid. Perhaps desalination plants, irrigation systems and solar power to fuel it all.
Birth control on a large scale would also help but cultural values and religious mores interfere. Political solutions have not worked in many parts of Africa where power of the ruling minorities is more important than lives.
Rawlings was impressive on C4 News last night. Who could not be moved at the sight of the starving babies and children – and the dignity of the mothers in these almost unbelievable circumstances?
The following is interesting on the background to the famine: http://t.co/UCRkE, and it’s worth reading some of the links in the comments, eg ‘Pension funds among biggest land investors in poor countries’: http://t.co/YkSiZcd.
Yet again famine hits a region of Africa.Yet again the aid agencies call for help.
Judging by the number of refugees and children, the country could hardly sustain them in peace time ,never mind war.Could hardly sustain them in full crops , never mind drought.
A war torn country of pirates and supposedly Al Quida yet we are expected and our government is pouring aid into the country.We do not know that that aid will reach where it is required,
A catastrophe it certainly is and were there not innocent children involved i would say , let them get on with it.Instead i would say it is up to the individual conscience whether they give or not.
Medecins Sans Frontiere are always at the forefront of the world’s disasters and, in answer to M.B-J yes, the aid will get to them. My daughter worked for MSF in the Congo and has verified this. There are lots of other reputable aid Agencies from which to choose – their adverts are filling the newspapers daily.
From two of the three preceding responses to your blog Jon, I was appalled by the obvious lack of compassion shown. How could anyone not respond, in a positive way, to last night’s heart-rending report which showed those poor children at death’s door, Jerry Rawlings in tears and Mary Robinson near to breaking down? The Western world has much to answer for in it’s scramble for Africa’s booty. Of course we were not around when this initially happened but let’s not compound the greed and avarice of those who were, by ignoring the present devastating crisis. This is not the time to be duscussing birth control, politics, or the mega rich pirates. A donation would be more appropriate.
Whilst the children die @ hhunter ..more are being brought into the world to suffer the extremes of heat, hunger and human degradation. As we blog now more are dying and more are being conceived out of rape and ignorance to perpetuate the cycle which we have seen over decades. Reaction is as you say paramount, but we cannot go on in the same cycle of not forseeing problems.It is the time to be talking about birth control ,politics and preventing the childen that the land cannot sustain and AIDS prevention.
Of course aid workers who work in places like Somalia are very brave indeed and need all the support they can get, but no, I was not moved by any well fed in tears only those precious little children who are way past tears.
When I was a child, first introduced to a thing called an atlas that was predominantly coloured pink, I loved drawing maps of Africa. Whereas trying to reproduce the counties of England meant all kinds of strange wiggly lines, in Africa I could use my ruler.
Only later did I realise that was because England’s boundaries have some logical reason for them, usually found in nature, while the straight lines of Africa were imposed by us with scant interest in the geography or the people.
I was brought up to believe that we had the right to do that, that somehow we were more important and that Africa and Africans, along with Indieans etc, were there to serve us.
And it seems that in many ways little has changed. The west (and now the east in the form of China) still exploit poor countries for their own benefit and often at the expense of the local people, and if they have nothing we want, we try to ignore them.
Well-said, Sam.
Excellent history lesson, Sam. Undoubtedly the old colonial powers were responsible for some of the chaos we see now, but not all of it.
The problem is we still can’t seem to stop interfering, made worse by the technology of HD reporting direct to our living-rooms. Unless we’re doing a ‘Geldorf’, we feel guilty.
But doing a ‘Geldorf’ not only fails to solve the immediate problem, it makes the next one even worse because more desperate mouths survived the last one, to breed yet more desperate mouths for the next, ad infinitum.
If we don’t interfere, we leave nature to take its course – that very nature which always used occasional famines to correct population imbalances everywhere. Yet we seem to think, with a few million quid (much of which never gets there anyway) and an airdrop or two, we can out-play nature in that largely barren landscape – we can’t.
It’s not possible to correct the sins of colonial forefathers by air-dropped atonement, the best we can do is to back off, leave those unfortunate people to sort out their own destiny, with regrettable short-term suffering, in the hope that alone they may then develop a sustainable society more suited to their land.
Sam, that is a view of the past and not relevant today , in as much that there are no colonial powers left in Africa.
Unfortunately mostly where we and others left a political structure that has been usurped by local politicians ,and war lords , whatever you wish to call them . The vacuum left as the colonial powers gave the countries back and even before resulted in most cases as a battle for control.That is still on going in many areas.
Is our generation responsible for present day conflicts .NO ! Should we now be involved ?Again NO.Should we or any other country be a world policeman .Again NO.
It is time we shed ourself of the baggage of Colonialism.This generation is not responsible for the last or anything in the past.
If we are to help other countries they must first be seen to be helping themselves.
Not good enough, Adrian. when the colonialists sat down with their rulers and divided up the land so they could remove the gold, diamonds etc, they ignored the natural boundaries recognised by local tribes.
And that is at the root of much of today’s conflict.
Much of our wealth was built on plundering the colonies, so it’s just not good enough now to say that they’ve abused their freedom when we decided we’d had enough. One of the things we had taught them – and continue to teach them in places like Iraq – is that if you want something the answer is force of arms.
All of which is irrelevant in terms of the current situation in Somalia where the only thing that matters is that innocent children are dying for lack of food and water.
Yesterday, as I casually topped up my ornamental garden pond with a hose pipe, I was struck by the obscenity that same amount of water might have saved several lives.
We can’t solve all the world’s problems and I agree we shouldn’t try to police it, but we can’t believe ourselves to be civilised if so many people elsewhere have so little.
Excellent comments, Sam, particularly the points raised in response to Adrian. The arbitrary division of colonised lands in to new states – often literally with a ruler – seen clearly in the Middle East as well.
But back to Africa, and Liverpool: the plundered raw materials/imports arrived in Britain up the Mersey and via other sea-ports such as Bristol and London. The grand merchants houses can still be seen in Liverpool, and in Bristol the slave trade is reflected in names such as, if I recall correctly, Black Boy Lane.
But most important for me in what you say above is your
reflection while topping up your garden pond with a hose-pipe: that the water you were using might have saved lives. It’s this kind of understanding that we all need to bring to the use of our one shared earth’s resources, and to the way we live our daily lives.
The mantra of growth is everywhere – the production of more, often useless resource-depleting stuff which countries can then compete to export to one another, using the cheapest labour governments can find. We need to bring an enquiring eye to what underlies our way of life in the rich west where inequality’s growing and ask ‘who benefits’?
meg and Sam i suggest you read the history of Somalia .Plus the history of Africa
Fantastic comments Sam ,even if incorrect.I got my old atlas out of the attic and yes certain of the N.African states do have straight lines for borders.,mainly those of French and Italian colonisation.The British colonised states on the whole have natural borders.It was a good if inaccurate way at blaming the current problems on colonialisation.
It would be as correct to blame it on Islam,but who is bothered about accuracy,
There are less than 9 million people in Somalia, our problems are not to due to lack of birth control or condoms. We need the West to stop interfering in our internal conflicts, to stop arming militias for their own gains, stop dumping your industrial toxins into our oceans killing our fish and our livelihood. The lack of rain is something Somalis themselves cannot control and Somalis in the West have since early May of this year been fundraising for their fellow countrymen before the issue was even picked up by the mainstream media, so they DO love them very much indeed. This “sympathy” is embarrassing both to us and to you. The greatest problem Somalia has is the West, we never had this many problems until you decided to colonise us. When are you going to realise that the world is for everybody and everyone has a right to rule their own country themselves and are capable of doing so?
I would like thank Jon Snow for putting this on his blog and highlighting the issue. Finally, either help us honestly without hidden agendas or leave us alone.
very well put!
so are you saying that you don’t want AID?
Are you saying that there is not a need to restrict the amount of children who suffer?
There are too many who would rather turn a blind eye . Is that what you want?
Keep your dignity to yourselves . The sympathy is for those children who are not protected , not you.
I agree help with out agendas !!
Hello Nimco. Thank you for your dignified comment. As Jon Snow says, “These [African children],they are the future of Africa. It is they who will change their countries, they who will change their continent. Not us, but them. But we can do our bit to help them.”
Well said Nimco.I think we should leave you well alone, except when pirates attack shipping,then they should be persued until caught.If you export terrorism those that seek to commit it should be destroyed.
As it is as peaceful as you suggest i believe those seeking assylum in these isles can be safely returned.
The children will indeed change Africa, if they manage to stay alive. Your pomposity in the face of children suffering appalls me.
The leaders of these countries are normally dictators and warelords who ravage and pillage the wealth and keep in the hands of a few. Where is Somalia getting the money to continue fighing it’s wars between factions to the absolute distress of their people who are on the move daily due to war and famine. People feel why should they give money to Somalia as the starving infants and their mothers who they see on their TV Screens every night never receive this aid. Many African Countries are prone to drought but if the Leaders of these countries were not corrupt and were made accountable and had proper Government in place they would have provision to deal with these disasters. Unfortunately we are tired hearing these disaster stories year in year out and nothing is done to remove these Warlords. Mugabe is a prime example of what these Dictators and Warelords do to their countries. The perception is Aid is not getting to the needy and we see no improvement these are the main two reasons people have stopped supporting Africa. Until the Root Cause is addressed by the West which are these Warlords these countries will never have provision in place to deal with their natural disasters.
To Rita
Before the lybian conflict, have you heard of poverty in that country?
I wonder what you would have to say if your child was dying of hunger and you were helpless. The dilemma is let millions of innocents die in the name of teaching the politicians a lesson… I am not sure I want to have that on my conscience. However, Margaret, you are right that these leaders need to be brought to account. Very evident when you are educated and have the luxury of discussing issues from the safety of your home rather than foraging for food for your dying child.
People are not going to give money or assistance any longer if they have evidence it is not reaching the people who need it most. There was a Panorama programme done where it was found that UN Provisions were stolen from depots and being sold on the Black Market. These countries if not at War are run by self serving Dictators that is “Fact” and does not change whether I am discussing this from my own home or not. A Drought is a Natural Disaster but how a country deals with it is Man Made. Many countries suffer from Natural Disasters but they have provisions in place and ready for action when and if it is needed. It seems in Africa where there is alot of wealth but it is in the hands of the few and they could not care less about their fellow citizens whether they live or die, that is very obvious.
Mr Clarke, there would be piracy issue if you respected the sovereignty of our seas and did not dump your toxins in them killing everything in it. The “pirates” you speak of had a respectable employment before they were forced to turn to piracy. They were fishermen. And I would love to return to my home country some day, I think you’ll find most Somalis are of that mindset. We did not leave because we chose to, but because we had to and we are very grateful for the opportunities we have had in this country but that should excuse amoral behaviour on your government’s part when it comes to foreign policy.
Nimcp,i believe the sovereignty of your so called seas extend to 12 miles.The Pirates are running hundreds of miles.I can find no reports of external pollution to the Indian Ocean other than that caused by air pollution from India and Asia.There is no way that excuses Piracy.
I have no problem with you seeking asylum , but it was you yourself that suggested there was no problem and our interference was not wanted.Colobnisation ceased over a generation ago
Make up your mind
I think I have made my point very clearly, Adrian, but I will spell it out to you again. Help without hidden agenda–that is what is the best moral thing to do for Somalia. Help, yes, we need that everyone can see it, interference and ulterior political motives, no thank you, we do not need that. And I am not giving you an excuse for piracy (I prefer to call it criminality, the term ‘piracy’ is too glorifying), I am giving you a reason. Those are two very different things but it seems to me you are hearing what you want to hear so I doubt that would make any difference to your views anyway. If you want a credible report on this, please read (with careful attention), this article in Somaliland Press quoting the general director of Somalia’s Ministry of Aviation and Transport on the issue of dumping of industrial waste and hospital waste.
Link: http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/somalias-famine-agony-historic-part/15838.
Typical of you to blame the pollution of Somalia’s air on India and Asia, you are very good at passing the buck. And by the way, I think colonization and land grabbing has a new name, perhaps it is occupation? Well, let’s see, there is Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine
apologies, this is the right link to the above-mentioned article in the Somaliland Press :
http://somalilandpress.com/somalia-radioactive-waste-surfaces-in-the-coastline-minister-21250
Nimco, that is the biggest load of c**p i have read since i started blogging
Feeding the starving today leads to the same but bigger problem later.
There is no easy solution to this repeating tragedy.
But Aid should have a price. If they want our help, the leaders of these poor nations should be told to abandon their Armies, Palaces and other status symbols and plan for their people to move to more fertile parts of that great empty continent where they can feed themselves.
Perhaps instead of desroying Libya, we might have been better to remove despots like Mugabe, who has trashed a once great food growing country.
Sad though it may be, my own preference is to agree with Nimco and not interfere anywhere unless our National Interest is threatened.
Totally agree with comment by Moonbeach Aid should have a price and this Famine in Somalia should be a watershed. I note the Rebels that are fighting one another none of them are suffering from starvation.It is just the innocent the women and their infants which are suffering despicable. If this was happening in Europe there would be uproar and intervention would be immediate and the Gov. of that country would be held accountable and they would end up in the Hague. If people in the West do not give money it is that they are fed up giving to these countries in Africa whose Leaders are never called in and made take responsiblity for their actions and for their people. What is the difference in what is happening in Somalia to the Ethnic Cleansing in Serbia 10 yrs ago, each achieve the same result, death of the Innocent. Death by starvation is the worst type of death you could impose on another human being yet these Despots have been getting away with it for decades with no punishment. Starving your people is a War Crime it is time the West started laying down the law to these Despots look after your people or you will end up in the Hague that might concentrates minds.
Doe sthis tug on Mr Snow’d sheratstrings;
I think I saw him with a watery eye once in the early 1990′s;
how musgh of his above natinal mimumum wage will he give to oxfam to help these fmaine victoms?.
where is Bob geldof or sximon cowell to offer their supoor tthis time artounf, witht he wave of new breed popstars to make a charity single.
+
Hi Jon
Unfortunately, Somalis were abandoned and ignored by the international community for several reasons. It is sad to watch a Somali child dying without food and water. Mr Jerry Rowlings could not hide his emotions and cried on air. Is there a Somali politician who cares about Somali people? Of course NO, “Somalis are resilient people” said Mary Robinson but how long that resilient will last…..! Somalis suffer because they did not accept to submit themselves to their master and Somalis are difficult to domesticate, at the same time Somalis are not competent enough to deal current situation. they need outside help……!
I am ‘impressed’ with the level of ethics and the sort being brought up in an emergency situation like this. Or to say I am sad indeed that when people are dying we think of the pros and cons of democracy. As a Ghanaian, I know few things will move Rawlings let alone shed a tear. what some contributors to the blog are not getting is that African countries, Somalia included, are very fragmented places and chiefdoms. The pirates that operate on the seas and militias that operate in mogadishu belong to different clans and so forth. For others to repel these weapon wielding guys, they also need to get armed to protect their villages,their women and children. they are not the same guys causing piracy. so separete these factors and look at the humanitarian tragedy before us. In a country like Somalia,and in most African countries, a single district the size of England can host people of different tribes and these tribes are nations in themsevels. They speak totally different languages that make french and english look same. so the pirates are not same as those in the famine region, and may not be on good tribal terms. that is why they head towards kenya and not where the rich pirates are
David Aaronovitch’s hideous article re aid to Somalia in The Times doesn’t help.
But then, does he ever?
Content to pseudo-intellecto fight on twitter with endless fans of his brand of ‘hands-off’ apathy — Aaronovitch would no doubt balk at actually rolling his sleeves, pitching up in Somalia and putting his paid-for education to better use.
Babies and young children dying is tragic enough, but last night on 4news there were pictures of children as old as seven dying in their seemingly well fed mother’s arms.
Maybe it is because so many are the result of rape. What will happen to this tragic nation ruled by piracy and conflict. I presume the fighting forces are finding food.When will the futile conflict cease?
I plead solutions so that the process of healing can begin. See my earlier comment. I am not a scientist or engineer,but a village in Vietnam has recently been supplied with electricity by solar power. One thing they have plenty of is sun.
Another asspect that bothers me deeply is the fact that the Somalians do not seem to care for their own people.
Piracy ,fighting, all for personal gain but no thought for their own.
Jon,
One of the very few British Journalists covering the Famine in Somalia.
Thank you
Interesting article Jon. Just thought what about a donation from the Western companies that polluted the seas off the coast of Somalia together with the industrial size fishing trawlers that over-fished the region, perhaps driving people to extreme measures?
Dear breakfast team most important,i would like to express my thoughts are with the families who have lost beyond believe,however all of those families are about to have their loss reduced to secondary by allowing this criminal to dictate his intention to be heard the most important factor here is that these families are allowed to mourn and have freedom of closure,the government have a moral duty to these families and the people of oslo,the media should use its voice to stop this man from making his voice heard on the world stage,to allow this is to become no more than his accomplice,this man should not be allowed his success,his views became insignificant when he became a mass murderer,please do not allow this man freedom of speech,it was of no use to him before destroyed these families,it should not be extended to him now,on the political front if this is allowed ,it sends out the message if you think you should be heard ,to insure the attention of the world stage go out and commit crime against humanity,please use your voice to insure what is wright to prevail,help the families not this criminal.
I would like to express my profound gratitude to Channel Four news for their non-patronising reportage of this famine.
Rather than the norm of a reporter standing in front of silent, emaciated families and describing their turmoil to the camera without once speaking to any Somailians, Channel Four actually utilised a British Somali journalist (Jamal Osman), spoke to Somali families and had their voices recorded for the world to hear.
The Somalis were treated as vocal, thinking, people describing their own suffering and voicing their own views on the situation, not mute, inanimate objects of pity staring listlessly into space as the camera shamelessly pans over their often naked bodies (have you ever seen a naked white baby on the news?)
Hearing Somalians on camera does not solve their problems but it shows Africans as intelligible human beings with dignity and agency, which is the least we would expect.
Now Ch4 please share your egalitarian style with the BBC et al. Thank You.