Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!bbncca!rrizzo From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: re: politics of oxfam america Message-ID: <1657@bbncca.ARPA> Date: Thu, 2-Jan-86 14:37:31 EST Article-I.D.: bbncca.1657 Posted: Thu Jan 2 14:37:31 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 3-Jan-86 05:38:31 EST Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 105 >In article <1651@bbncca.ARPA> rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) writes: >>After donating, I started receiving the Oxfam newsletter, and was rather >>startled to read fairly glowing articles on Mozambique, Nicaragua, & even >>Ethiopia on subjects at best tangential to issues of humanitarian aid, >>& myopic to the point of being immoral, given Oxfam's purpose and probably >>its own self-image as effective and undeluded. >I don't know what the newsletter said about Ethiopia, but the governments >of Nicaragua and Mozambique HAVE done much to eliminate hunger in those >countries. Remembering the goal of Oxfam (elmination of hunger), it is >perfectly reasonable for its newsletter to praise a government that >has worked towards that end. This doesn't mean that Oxfam supports the >political structure in the country, it isn't even its place to make such a >judgement. The Fall 1985 Oxfam America News has articles on Nicaragua, Mozambique, and Ethiopia that implicitly endorse their regimes, & certainly portray them as acting in good faith, contrary to widely-known facts. The articles construe "elimination of hunger" broadly by discussing military conflicts, US foreign policy, etc., yet omit hunger-causing policies and acts of mass starvation committed by these regimes. Most external observers and many ordinary Nicaraguans admit the economy and living standard are considerably worse now than before the 1979 revolution; though civil war and the embargo have worsened the economic situation, the decline under the Sandinistas PRECEDED significant contra activity (see articles by the Leikens in the 10/8/84 New Republic). Nicaragua under Somoza may've been poor but wasn't seriously hungry, unlike many other underdeveloped nations, or even other central American countries. Now everything must be rationed, and food ration cards are blatantly used as weapons by the FSLN to coerce obedience (see Leiken or Shirley Christian or others: I'll soon post an extensive bibliography of articles and books on Central American conflicts that don't echo Sandinist or contra agitprop). Much current Nicaraguan hunger was created, often deliberately, by the Sandi- nistas or their policies. It's well-known that Ethiopia's ruling Dergue (a clique of Marxist-Leninist military officers that slaughtered members of the Selassie regime and have created 1 million Ethiopian exiles abroad who fled for their lives and/or freedom) has deliberately promoted mass starvation of Eritreans, inhabitants of Tigre province and other ethnic groups, because some of them support gue- rilla opponents of the regime: by preventing delivery of food or access for international relief organizations or by letting food rot in storage. There's not a word about this in the newsletter. The Mozambique article describes "the destructive presence of the insurgent Mozambique National Resistance Movement which received support from South Africa and continues its campaign of economic sabotage and terror in much of the country." The MNRM is opposed to Mozambique's Marxist regime, which for many years prior to independence waged a campaign of economic sabotage and terror in much of the country. >Amnesty International (which you mentioned as a "good" international >organization, doesn't protest against government policies which are bad but not >classified as human rights violations. Does this make Amnesty suspect as well? AI certainly doesn't laud nasty regimes simply because it can't currently identify human rights abuses (hard to do for any communist country, given their complete control of information). Oxfam America seems to be systematically ignoring promotion of hunger by some revolutionary regimes. >>I've decided not to give them another cent until they "clean up their >>act." Amnesty International, they're not; maybe they should be, that >>is, strictly impartial but morally sensitive. >Well I hope you enjoy basking in your self-righteousness while >one more person goes starving because you didn't contribute. Now isn't this a case of the pot calling the kettle beige! I wonder how long Larry's support of Oxfam America would last if it began criticizing Sandinist or Dergue uses of hunger & starvation? There are two ways to eliminate hunger: 1. Feed the hungry; or, 2. Starve them to death. The regimes Larry admires for their progressive and enlightened social policies are precisely those that have frequently resorted to mass starva- tion, food discrimination, or whose ruinous & antihuman economic programs have destroyed or disabled entire economies, causing hunger and famines that were avoidable: 1 In 1931-2, the Bolsheviks expropriated the harvest of the Ukraine, sealed off its borders, letting none exit or enter, and proceeded to deliberately starve 7-10 million Ukrainians in order to destroy Ukrainian nationalism by destroying Ukrainians (I'll shortly post an article on this, too). It was genocide by planned famine. 2 China's Great Leap Forward in 1958-1962, a piece of sheer folly foisted on the country by Mao, resulted in mass starvation: estimates place the dead at 50 million or more. 3 Partial & gradual, or complete & quick, starvation, as well as planned malnutrition designed to enervate, is a key component of the USSR's gulag, or system of 1000s of concentration camps. Similar gulags exist in Cuba and other communist societies. Food rationing common to communist countries is a principal tool of political control. Larry's hot and indignant response is misplaced. Cheers, Ron Rizzo