suffering and welfare are the first to be cut. In the poorest 37 countries (most of which are in Africa), per capita spending on health has fallen by 50 per cent over the last few years, and education by one quarter.
Madagascar, which has a strong adjustment programme according to the World Bank, has doubled infant mortality since 1980. Today one million people are desperately hungry in a largely unreported famine in southern Madagascar.
Discontent
Rarely does the IMF demand uts in military or police expenditure. This is not surprising; only governments prepared to use harsh repression will survive the political discontent that usually followsimplementation of structural adjustment •roorammes For Africa to escape this nightmare requires a new, just and equal system of international economic relations.
One proposal that points in the right direction comes from the United Nations Development Programme. It suggests a number of 'essential human goals' that can be attained by the vear 2000.
These include basic educa=on, primary health care and sate water for all; the elimina=o: of serious malnutrition; at JEs: 80 per cent access to family 2snime to lord ten ad =arning; creation • - the poorest 37 countries (most of which are "IMF/World Bank loans come with stringent conditions. Governments have no choice but to implement 'Structural Adjustment Programmes' and comply with World Bank and IMF advice. A refusal results in a cut-off of reduce absolute poverty by 50 celerated growth rates.
What would it take? These goals could be achieved if; a) the current debt-related net transfer of $50 billion a year On Toe Door courtes wer wide were reduced by three per cent a year a 'peace dividend' of their foreign aid bud Is the New World Order willingness to spend $50 billion deliberate neglect of hunger in Somalia and throughout Africa, surely gives us the answer.
*The two articles on these pages vation.' 15 months ago. prevent it. bloody hungry to starving.' Mogadishu. of Somalia in 'THE DESPERATELY thin baby hung in the weighing harness, kicking and screaming in protest. Loose folds hung down from her skeletal arms and legs... Bishar weighs less now than when she was born a year ago.
The Somalian director of the Save the Children Fund, Mr Paul Simon, said Bishar was Somalla. only one of 30,000 dangerously malnourished children in a city of 80,000 on the brink of starThat dispatch appeared in the Times-almost it illustrates that Western countries, the United Nations and its agencies, and the international news media, were aware of the impending catastrophe. Nothing was done to It what has now become a chilling reality, Paul Simon predicted at the time: 'Unil the international organisations come in here with vast quantities of food that are needed, these people will simply continue to deteriorate rapidly from At least two million people are now at risk. This terrible famine is a result of the international community's refusal to come to the aid of the Somali people immediately after the mass uprising which ousted the dictatorship of Siad Barre in January 1991, and of the West's support for the corrupt and brutal Barre regime from 1978, when it broke from Moscow, until its fall.
Famine and chaos
The world's indifference compounded the crisis created by Barre's regime, which over two decades shattered Somalia's society, economy and infrastructure. It is these factors that have plunged Somalia into famine and social chaos, not simply drought and factional blood-letting in Somalia gained independence in July 1960 It united two former colonies, British Somaliland in the north and the Italian Trusteeship Territory the east and south. Half the country's population of 6-7 million people live as nomadic herders. In 1988 almost 70 per cent of the export income was derived from livestock, while bananas accounted for 23 per cent. Per capita income is just $170; the foreign debt is $2 After independence a series of civilian governments plagued by corruption, nepotism and favouritism made little progress in developing the country. In 1969, army and police officers, led by Major-General Siad Barre seized power and appointed Barre head of state.
Friendship treaty
At first the new regime announced reforms which would benefit the rural population. A friendship treaty was signed with the Soviet Union in 1974. Moscow sent 6000 civilian and military advisers, and Barre allowed the use of the Red Sea port of Berbera to the Soviet navy.
But an increasingly authoritarian Barre tried to whip up nationalism over Somalia's claim on Ethiopia's Somali-speaking Ogaden region. His decision to invade Ogaden in 1978 led to falling out with the Soviet Union, which then helped Ethiopia to defeat the attack.
Barre embraced Washington. The United States navy took over the Berbera port, and US economic and military aid began to flow to Clan-based guerrilla movements began to organise. Barre devastated the home areas of the various guerrilla fronts. The hardest hit area was northern Somalia, where the Somali National Movement (SNM) was active.
In May 1988, the SNM captured and held the major northern cities of Burao and Hargeisa.
Genocide
Barre responded by launching virtual genocide against the Issaq people, the backbone of the SNM's fighters. Somali army tanks and jets decimated every village and settlement they passed through in the north. Burao was all but obliterated. Only five per cent of Hargeisa's building were left standing.
The entire population of the towns was dispersed. Power and water facilities, bridges, communication links and hospitals were destroyed. in the countryside the wells were poisoned and livestock killed. Landmines were strewn throughout the pastures.
The majority clan in the Mogadishu area and central Somalia, the Hawiye, formed the opposition United Somali Congress, which began to infiltrate the capital. Now it was the turn of these areas to face Barre's wrath. In late December 1990, the USC launched its offensive for the capital. In a final act of desperation, Barre ordered his troops to pound the rebel-held districts of Mogadishu day and night for weeks.
•Barre scuttled out of Mogadishu towards his homeland near the Kenyan border in a tank convoy on 26 January 1991. On 31 January Hargeisa fell to the SNM; on 18 March the SNM declared north Somalia the independent Republic of Somaliland.
The country's economy was smashed, its infrastructure destroyed. Millions of Somalis were displaced and unable to plant crops or tend their livestock. The whole region was now in the grip of a terrible drought that even in 'normal' circumstances would have been a terrible burden.
In the final period of the Barre regime virtually all aid was halted. Three months after the fall of Barre, Mogadishu was already in the grip of The UN, its agencies and the West, ignored the chorus of warning by aid agencies that only massive aid could relieve the mounting hunger and defuse the armed squabbling over scarce food resources.
Only a full 18 months after the fall of the Barre regime did the UN Security Council belatedly authorise emergency food aid to Somalia. The terrible situation in that country is now being cynically manipulated to justify armed intervention, and the setting aside of national sovereignty, on 'humanitarian' grounds.
No. 28 26 Sept, 1992
Features
further loans from all public or private sources in the capitalist world"
billion, almost twice the GNP. Killed by a cynical New World Order