Monday, May 8, 2000 (This is an unedited, uncorrected transcript.) Prepared by Burrelle’s Information Services, which takes sole responsibility for accuracy of transcription
CHRIS WALLACE, ABCNEWS Once again, the faces, the desolation, the drought.
1ST WOMAN We’ve had no rain.
JIM WOOTEN, ABCNEWS No rain. Not at all?
1ST WOMAN We’ve had a sprinkle for about three seconds the other day.CHRIS WALLACE Once again millions of people cut off, at risk of starvation.
JIM WOOTEN If these ladies who have walked for many miles and days to find food, do you have food for them?
MAN (Through translator) No, we don’t have food for them.
CHRIS WALLACE Is history repeating itself? Tonight, Ethiopia, on the brink.
ANNOUNCER From ABCNEWS, this is Nightline. Substituting for Ted Koppel and reporting from Washington, Chris Wallace.
CHRIS WALLACE It has been 15 years since the world focused on Ethiopia, 15 years since the Live Aid concert awakened people far too late to the terrible human tragedy there, 15 years since tons of food was sent to that bleak corner of Africa, 15 years since one million people died in a grinding famine.
Now, it is happening once again in Ethiopia. Not a famine yet, but after almost four years of drought, thousands of people have begun to die for lack of food and water. And relief workers say it could get much worse in a hurry. If there is one big difference from 15 years ago, it is that the world is hearing about the situation this time at a much earlier stage. Food shipments have already begun. Relief organizations are on the ground. But all of this is not nearly enough. ABC’s Jim Wooten went to the Ogaden, that part of Ethiopia bordering on Somalia that has been hit hardest by the drought and this is what he saw.
JIM WOOTEN (VO) There is a cruel and ruthless splendor here. In the shimmering sweep of the ancient landscape, in the stark austerity of its natural architecture, a fierce beauty unmarked by millions of years of human habitation that began eons before Africa was named Africa, long before there was an Ethiopia or a place mapped as the Ogaden. Or even this primitive, almost primeval village within its borders called Hadawe (ph). Welcome. Welcome to the hell of Hadawe, to its gnawing hunger and burning thirst, to its disease and deprivation, to its daily ration of death. The village chief Muhammad Muhammad counts the casualties.
(OC) How many do you think have died so far?
MUHAMMED MUHAMMED (Foreign language spoken)
JIM WOOTEN (VO) Three hundred eighty-seven dead in the last six weeks. Mostly children and babies, he reports, including two of his own. And there’s nothing he can do for those who have come to rely on him. These ethnic Somalis, these pastoral farmers with no crops to harvest, these nomadic herders with dwindling herds, all these people who call themselves in their language, the hulo ducato, ph), translated ‘the people of the rain.’ Ironic since it hasn’t rained here in nearly four years.
(OC) A thousand days as dry as the dust this land has become. And even though there’s a good breeze today, a stiff wind from the south which usually means rain, there’s no real sign of it, and no hope for relief anywhere on this vast, endless sprawl of the Ogaden.
2ND WOMAN (Foreign language spoken)
JIM WOOTEN (VO) Sixteen days, she says.
(OC) How is the baby?
(VO) The baby is very critical.
(OC) How long since you’ve had anything to eat?
2ND WOMAN (Foreign language spoken)
JIM WOOTEN (VO) No food for five days, no water for
three.And on their weary journey across the parched, cracked earth searching for help, her two-year-old son died. Now having reached Hadawe, their destination, they learn from Muhammad Muhammad there is nothing here to share.
No one has officially defined this as another Ethiopian famine. In fact, just last month, Catherine Britini (ph), head of the World Food Program, came and saw and left and said specifically it is not—not a famine. Judith Lewis is the World Food Program director in Ethiopia. (OC) When does it get to be a famine?
JUDITH LEWIS, WORLD FOOD PROGRAM Well, you know, there are all sorts of definitions in terms of famine. What does that mean? We think that famine means that there is a wide scale lack of food. And that is—that’s not the case in Ethiopia right now.
MARGARITA CLARK We’re not in a famine stage here. We’re at a—at a—at a prestage. We have a severe drought. If the drought continues, a famine will occur. And you’re going to need more food than is currently required.
JIM WOOTEN (VO) Nevertheless, unofficially, of course, this is what famine would look like if there were a famine in Hadawe or anywhere else in Ethiopia.
In all these exponentially expanding pockets of desperation in which thousands of people have already died and at least nine million more are now at risk of starvation.
For veterans in the international aid community, those who were here and tried to help in the massive famine of the mid ’80s, it is deja vu, sad and sorrowful.
JOHN JAMES, HUMANITARIAN RELIEF CONSULTANT Now I find it just as distressing as I did then, to see tiny children like little skeletons. But also I have another sorrow, that we have not succeeded, really, in handling the situation better.
JIM WOOTEN (VO) Quite often, though he has seen so much, John James cannot keep from crying at what he is seeing now.
JOHN JAMES Well, particularly, if you go to a therapeutic feeding center and you see these tiny, young children like wizened old men, it has to make you weep again, even though you have seen this many times in the past. The weeping’s no good. So you very rapidly tell yourself, ‘Well, now think about, concentrate your mind on what we can do for the future.’
JIM WOOTEN (VO) The problem, however—the overarching problem is that whatever it’s called, famine or prefamine or crisis, here in the Ogaden, the future is now, right now.
CHRIS WALLACE The outside world is once again being blamed for not responding sooner and more effectively. Is history repeating itself? That in part two of Jim Wooten’s report when we return.
ANNOUNCER This is ABCNEWS: Nightline, brought to you by...
(Commercial break)
JIM WOOTEN (VO) One more sizzling African day, and one more unfortunate inhabitant of the Ogaden, a baby camel whose mother’s milk is gone. And before this day is gone, the calf will be left behind to bawl through the night alone and die before the dawn on a barren landscape littered with thousands of carcasses, camels and sheep and goats and cattle.
And if the livestock, so much hardier, so much more resilient than people, if these animals are now falling in such numbers, no wonder there’s no reliable count of the human casualties in this long, lethal drought. And no wonder as well that given such dire and desperate need, the outside world is now being blamed for not responding sooner or more effectively. Listen to this Ethiopian doctor.
2ND MAN The aid agencies...(unintelligible)...they release their food only when they saw the child on the television.
2ND MAN Because they don’t respond immediately. They didn’t respond immediately.
JIM WOOTEN (VO) No immediate response. An understandable indictment, but unjustified. Since late last year when Ethiopia and the international community accurately forecast the current crisis, both have tried to avert it not only with local help, but also with the commitment and shipment of tons of food and medicine from America and Europe.
And beyond its pledge of half a million tons of food, the US is also spending $5 million to enlarge the most accessible port in the region, Djibouti and to improve the almost impossible roads that lead here from there. But the distances and the difficulties of delivery are enormous.
JUDITH LEWIS What has happened is that the food from last—you know, the food comes in over time. Just because it’s pledged in one year does not necessarily mean it’s going to get into the country that year. Sometimes countries who give in kind, it can be anywhere from three to five months from the time it’s pledged until the time it actually gets in—into country.
JIM WOOTEN (VO) That would be in normal times, and times are anything but normal in Ethiopia these days. A corrupt and lethargic government is staggering beneath $9 billion of foreign debt.
And yet it’s waging an unpopular border war with neighboring Eritrea that has not only killed thousands but drains the national treasury at a rate of at least $500,000 a day. Moreover, since 1998, Ethiopia has purchased more than half a billion dollars of weapons.
No wonder then there’s little or no money for the Ogaden, the eastern stretch of the country where even anecdotal evidence available to journalists clearly indicates an absence of government concern and assistance. In Dinan, ph), for example, water is delivered by Save The Children. And while it’s welcome, it’s not enough to provide even a minimum for the families in the village.
Most of the food that is delivered comes from the United Nations. And it’s never enough. This extended family has walked two days and nights to this feeding station, only to discover that the last delivery has all been distributed.
(OC) What will happen to you if no food comes? 3RD WOMAN (Through translator) We will die for hunger, like the cattle and the goats.
JIM WOOTEN (VO) This culture has changed very little since biblical times and probably won’t be much different over the next few millennia.
(OC) What has changed significantly is the world beyond with its massive willingness and capacity to help. And yet even that has not had much of an impact on these people. If the food and water come, they will eat it and drink it. If it doesn’t, many of them will die. But this hard way of life in the Ogaden will survive.
(VO) And in hard times like these, they will still come to the villages and the towns like ghosts from centuries past, chased across the parched earth by hunger and death to places like this one, Dire (ph), where they hear the now familiar refrain from the village head man. ‘You are welcome to stay, but there is nothing here for you.’ Nothing, of course, but a place to wait, to starve, to die.
CHRIS WALLACE And joining us now from London, ABC’s Jim Wooten.
Jim, from what you saw, what is going to make the difference here? Is the food coming fast enough? Are the delivery systems in place to prevent a full fledged famine?
JIM WOOTEN The delivery systems are in place as far as getting the food to Africa is concerned. And enough food has probably been pledged already.
The problem is getting the food from the ports in Djibouti, which is about 600 or 700 miles up north from where these people are, getting it down to them. There are bandits in the area. It’s pretty dodgey driving on the roads there.
There are two guerrilla groups dedicated to independence for the Ogaden or for its reconnection to Somalia. So it’s very dangerous, it’s very difficult.
The roads are almost impassable. So if the roads can be repaired, and if the bandits stay away, and the trucks run, and the food gets in, the answer to your question is yes. I’m just not sure.
CHRIS WALLACE There were heavy rains in the Ogaden last week, but rather than improve the situation, I understand it made things even worse?
JIM WOOTEN Well, it is a catch 22, Chris. We were in a village called Duri, which you saw a bit of it in—in the piece there. And the night before we arrived, they had had just a brief rain there, the first they’d had in months and months. Only a brief one.
And it decreased the temperature so rapidly and so drastically, that they lost four little babies that night, simply because it rained.
The second part of that catch 22 is that if it rains there now, it will wash out the roads and make them even more impassable, make it all that much more difficult for them to get food to people who are hungry, whether it’s raining or not.
CHRIS WALLACE And Jim, when you talk to the people in the Ogaden, knowing how bad it was 15 years ago, are they afraid?
JIM WOOTEN (VO) Well, they’re a very stoic people, but—and I’m not sure that fear is something that they register with strangers. What they do talk about with people like me and with my crew is the inevitability of their starvation if no help comes. They understand that quite well, and that is, they simply say, ‘Look, if we don’t get food, we don’t get water, we’re going to die.’
CHRIS WALLACE Jim Wooten with a sad, sad report from Ethiopia.
Jim, thanks very much. We’ll be joined by an international relief official who has been on the ground in Ethiopia when we return.
(Commercial break)
CHRIS WALLACE Recently officials from Oxfam, the international relief organization, came to see us here at Nightline.
They warned of an impending famine, another potential disaster for Ethiopia. Joining us now from London, Rachel Stabb, an Oxfam media officer who visited the drought-stricken region several times last month.
Miss Stabb, Jim Wooten pointed out that according to the bureaucrats, this is not yet officially a famine. How bad is it? Is that just a matter of semantics?
RACHEL STABB, OXFAM MEDIA OFFICER It is very bad. It is critical. We believe, as he said, that it is not in famine proportions. But what we’re trying to do is prevent a—a disaster from happening either in the Somali region or further in other parts of Ethiopia.
CHRIS WALLACE Let’s talk about the situation in the Ogaden. It has been called the forgotten corner of the country. Just how primitive are the transportation routes, the communications there?
RACHEL STABB Well, I visited a different part of the Somali region, Aftazone (ph), which is next door to Godye (ph), and in the whole 1,000 square kilometers, there isn’t a single telephone.
There’s only radio contact with the neighboring zones and with the regional capital. On top of that, the road system is very primitive.
It’s very difficult to get about. And trucks can get stuck there and it’s very difficult to distribute food to people in need.
CHRIS WALLACE Well—well, I was going to follow up on exactly that point, because it was something that Jim Wooten raised. Even if you had all the food there, can you get it? Given those terrible conditions as terribly primitive transportation situations and communications, can you get it to the people who need it?
RACHEL STABB Well, we have to try, because what we’ve all seen, all the people who have been in that area have seen, is people in desperate need.
They’re trying their hardest to find alternative ways to eke out food, but we have to find ways of getting food to the most remote areas, even if we use camels, which is what is sometimes being used in certain regions.
CHRIS WALLACE How much of this situation is the natural disaster, and obviously the drought has been terrible there. And how much is it exacerbated by the war with Eritrea? How much has that made it even harder to feed the Ethiopians?
RACHEL STABB Well, Oxfam believes that there needs to be a—a resolution to the conflict, the border conflict with Eritrea, because undoubtedly, that is a barrier to getting long term international aid to resolve the poverty in country.
But at the same time, the Somali region has suffered three years of drought, and it has run out of ways of coping with the lack of rain.
CHRIS WALLACE You know, we keep reading in the papers that Western officials are announcing, keep announcing huge shipments of food. How is the West? How are international relief organizations responding to this crisis?
RACHEL STABB There’s has been a response in pledges and food and ships are beginning to come into Djibouti at the moment. But there’s still a need to work very hard to get that food on the ground and to the villages in remote parts of Ethiopia.
So the response has been good, but I have to say of all the food that’s been delivered to Ethiopia this year, half of it has come in the month of April. So that really shows how much there was a need to raise the issue in the international community.
CHRIS WALLACE We have talked about this Ms. Stabb in kind of a macro sense, but from your trips to that region, is there a single image or two that stays with you that says just how dire the situation is?
RACHEL STABB There are so many images in a visit like this. I think being shown the roots of a palm tree that people were using to boil up broth as the only nourishment they could get. They hadn’t received any food aid for two months.
That was one image. And another image was a grandmother who had traveled with her family for three days after losing all their livestock and they’d heard there were food rations but the—the cruel thing about rumors like that was by the time they reached the town concerned all the food rations had run out. And I—the baby concerned only had a few days to live.
CHRIS WALLACE I was going to say the way things are going, what’s going to happen to those people and what’s going to happen to the people that we saw in Jim Wooten’s report tonight?
RACHEL STABB Well, undoubtedly, the sad fact is that young babies and elderly people are dying daily still. But we have to redouble our efforts to get food on the ground as fast as we can and particularly into the highlands prepositioned before the rains in that region are expected in mid June. And it’s really a race against time.
CHRIS WALLACE We’re going to have to leave it there Rachel Stabb from Oxfam. We want to thank you very much for joining us tonight and providing that special insight for us.
If you’d like to chat online with Rachel Stabb, I’ll tell you how when we come back.
(Commercial break)
CHRIS WALLACE If you want to know more about the possible famine in Ethiopia, you can chat with Oxfam’s Rachel Stabb tomorrow online at 2 PM Eastern Time.
Just click on the Nightline page at abcnews.com. And that’s our report for tonight. I’m Chris Wallace in Washington. For all of us here at ABCNEWS, good night.
