The Causes Of Famine

Sir, - Kevin Myers (June 10th) typically sets up a straw man relating to the cause of African famine, and then proceeds to demolish…

Sir, - Kevin Myers (June 10th) typically sets up a straw man relating to the cause of African famine, and then proceeds to demolish it to his own complete satisfaction. He argues that famine is caused by African tyrants (which is true), that relief aid can be damaging (that's true as well), and that interests in the West bear no responsibility for the African tragedy (which is stretching it a bit). Famine is not, according to Mr Myers, caused by the West "sucking food and capital out of places like Tanzania".

In the first place, Tanzania is not actually suffering from famine, though Mr Myers can perhaps be forgiven for neglecting such country-specific nuances in the broad sweep of his polemic. Secondly, who exactly has Mr Myers heard making the specific, simplistic argument he attacks? Probably no-one, given that it is always much easier to lampoon attitudes you invent yourself than to engage with real ones.

As far as Western responsibility is concerned, Mr Myers is too restrained by far when he describes the US role as being confined to "the good ole C-130 Hercules . . . dropping food yet again". To take just one example, between 1962 and 1988 (the height of the Cold War), six countries - Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Somalia, Sudan and Zaire - topped the list of US aid recipients, and in each case such aid primarily went to support the very leaders Mr Myers describes as "rabble", leaders, whose appeal to the US lay in their adherence to Mr Myers's beloved principles of laissez-fairism. The point is not that the US bears primary responsibility for the present sorry state of those countries, but rather that the West's role is not limited to the misguided benefactor of Mr Myers's benign imagination.

In a letter published the same day as Mr Myers's column, K. W. Supple Kane makes a passing reference to Belgians not being to blame "for the Hutu and Tutsi chopping each other up" in Rwanda. Here again, we have a similar confusion - because a Western power does not bear primary responsibility for a problem, it therefore bears no responsibility at all. The Belgian government did not invent the Hutu-Tutsi division in Rwanda but, through the introduction of a rigid identity card system and through the cynical use of Tutsis as the agents of colonial rule, it certainly reinforced the division and exacerbated the bitterness which would ultimately culminate in genocide. That the French government more recently supplied arms and troops to the genocidal Rwandan government is another instance of the West playing a role other than that of bemused giver of charity.

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The causes of famine and genocide are complex. Some, by no means all, lie with Western governments, while most do indeed lie with African elites. An acknowledgement of the responsibilities borne by all relevant parties would be a better starting point than the simplistic polemics of such as Kevin Myers. - Yours, etc.

Andy Storey,

Ravensdale Park,

Dublin 12.