October 18, 2011
“This land is so fertile that there is nothing that can not be grown here, we do not need fertilizers or herbicides”, is the assertion of a happy businessman farmer. One would think that refers to the lands of the pampas of Argentina, the banks of the Parana Basin Guayas or Mississippi, but no, it is a statement that speaks of Ethiopian land; apparent contradiction, then, the world knows that the people of that African country dies of hunger.
Recent news tells of a drought that flares up in 2011. It is the strongest in 60 years, brings famine to countries in the Horn of Africa, leaving the edge of death to more than twelve million people.
The Horn of Africa is made up also Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti and parts of Kenya. Covering a population of approximately one hundred million inhabitants, of whom over 14% are suffering from hunger, and for whom the UN has appealed the world to donate 1.9 billion dollars, which do not reach.
Somalia is in the midst of an internal conflict that drives thousands of people fleeing violence and seeking food. They travel to Kenya or Ethiopia deepening crises themselves living these countries. The United Nations have done little. Send requests for donations, send peacekeeping troops to try to sustain the imperialist positions in Somalia, delivered a few tons of food. Hillary Clinton, without blushing, said that if Africans do not understand one they can not expect international aid continues to arrive, as if she didn’t represent the country that has done more damage to the planet.
This image of the Horn of Africa is presented as an obvious justification for the famine that is almost a constant. But the impossibility of maintaining order, the government or the law is just or justification in a case where that situation has not prevented those in power to sell or lease the best land in their countries to transnational corporations, title ” appropriate to use underutilized land. ”
The sale or rental of productive land to companies for their production is exported and sold at high prices in times like the present one, in which the FAO has reported that food prices have strong tendencies to rise, is in the facts, the reason for the famine in the Horn of Africa persists.
This is a neo-colonialist policies promoted by the UN through the FAO considers that fertile land should be properly exploited. With this argument the World Bank has legal changes opened the possibility that countries and large corporations to buy or lease large blocks of time for major production areas.
“India, Saudi Arabia and China are the first purchasers of land in Africa. But Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and companies in Sweden, Germany and UK, “claims a reporter. Likewise, these negotiations are benefiting from large corporations such as Karuturi, an Indian company located among the 25 largest in the world in the field of agriculture land in Ethiopia qaue rented in rice farming then exported to their country. So does the company Star, the Saudi billionaire Al Moudi, which invested 2 billion dollars. Beidahuang Group of Chinese capital has in Africa and other continents over two billion hectares.
So capitalism again show its savagery, violence, recklessness, inhumanity, … Their representatives, leaders, entrepreneurs to cry out for peace, while performing these policies of appropriation of foreign bread-only show that this system leads to the annihilation of mankind. In times of crisis like the present, sustain the rate of profit is not repaired at no cost.
