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From: wetcw@pyuxa.UUCP (T C Wheeler)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: poor starving people
Message-ID: <1085@pyuxa.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Dec-84 08:48:48 EST
Article-I.D.: pyuxa.1085
Posted: Mon Dec  3 08:48:48 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Dec-84 19:47:53 EST
References: <642@amd.UUCP>, <4692@fortune.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J.
Lines: 40

Well, I guess I will put my two cents into this discussion.

The problem of starvation in Central Africa can be tied to two things:
Nature and Man.  First, Nature has been sticking it to the countries
of Central Africa by holding back the needed rain and allowing the
spread of desert-like conditions over a vast area.  There is not too
much that can be done to combat Nature.  Vast amounts of money would
be needed to even make a dent in the water problem.

Secondly, the hand of man can take a great deal of blame for the
shortage of food in the area.  First, Etheopia, Chad, The Sudan,
and a swath of countries right out to the Atlantic Ocean have been
doing two things to insure the starvation of their people.  Several of
these countries have been buying military supplies to fight internal
strife and have overlooked the needs of the people.  Those countries
not into current warfare situations have been enccouraging their
farmers to plant cash crops for sale to overseas markets.  By planting
the cash crops, they have taken much need land out of production
needed to supply the basic needs of the population.  

There have been droughts before, but because the farmers were producing
basic food crops and storing the surplus, the extent of the drought
was blunted.  Now, with the production of cash crops, there is no
surplus to fall back on in times of drought.  Further, with many
of the governments in the area hell-bent for military power, there
is no money to buy food stocks.  

I find it ludicrous that Southern Chad has great fields of strawberries
planted just to adorn the tables of Europe.  Angola grows great
harvests of soy beans, yet they have no soy bean processing plants.
The crop is sold to European markets and the money used to buy
military goods to shore up the ruling party stronghold.  This
scenario can be repeated all across Central Africa.  

What can be done, you might ask?  I don't know short of going over
there and whacking the rulers up-side-the-head and splainin it
to em.  Maybe some of you folks could come up with some suggestions?
That was a dumb thing to say, of course you all have suggestions.
T. C. Wheeler