Word: rebels
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Getting the food to the hungry is made more difficult by inadequate port facilities, poor or nonexistent roads and insufficient planes and trucks to transport food to rural areas. But the biggest block in the pipeline is civil strife. The government is battling 23 rebel groups and factions in every part of the country. The two strongest insurgent armies are in Tigre and Eritrea, the provinces hit hardest by the drought. Eritrea has been in rebellion against the government ever since it was annexed by Ethiopia in 1962, and a guerrilla movement began building in Tigre...
...rebel sabotage brought the entire operation for Tigre and Eritrea to a halt for more than a month. Not only were the convoys under threat from Eritrean and Tigrean rebels, but even those agencies willing to risk assault could not move their trucks because the government closed the roads. "If many people die this year and next, it will not be due to drought but the politico- military situation," said one relief worker...
...rebels assert that the real motive behind the program is to persecute Eritreans and Tigreans and drain the rebel fronts of potential recruits. Dr. Frederick Machmer, head of the U.S. relief team in Addis Ababa, believes the rebels are disrupting the aid effort so the international community will accept "that they are a force to be reckoned with and that they control areas of the north." Geldof, whose organization owned some of the trucks blown up in October, finds the tactics of both sides despicable. Said he last week: "To attack food trucks and seal off roads in these conditions...
...tons of food are currently in Ethiopia, with shipments arriving daily. By the end of this month, an additional 90,000 tons are expected, thus ensuring Ethiopia enough food through Christmas if some of the hungry are put on three-quarter rations. Relief workers are racing to distribute food. Rebel attacks and logistical problems have cost valuable time, however, and in the past few days the pace has quickened. Last week three transport planes left Europe for Ethiopia and are now airlifting food from Asmara, near the Red Sea port of Assab, to Mekele. The European Community, which organized...
...what? "The aid Ethiopians need is diplomatic pressure, not food," says Rony Brauman of Doctors Without Borders, a French charitable organization that was expelled from Ethiopia two years ago for criticizing Mengistu's brutally handled program to resettle residents of rebel-threatened areas. "If we have a duty, it is to pressure the government to change its policies. Otherwise, in two or three years, we're going to see the same bodies, the same TV footage, the same appeals from humanitarian agencies to come to the rescue." But as a French government official asks, "Who is going to take...