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From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: more politics of oxfam: there they go again?!
Message-ID: <1704@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 14-Feb-86 12:31:50 EST
Article-I.D.: bbncca.1704
Posted: Fri Feb 14 12:31:50 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Feb-86 22:55:57 EST
Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma.
Lines: 46

The Winter 1986 Oxfam America News, a newsletter, contains an
article by OA executive director John Hummock, "Aiding Peasant
Production in Ethiopia," a report on his visits to Oxfam projects
in northern Shoa & Hararge provinces, & part of a "Special Report:
Recovery in Africa" which also includes brief mention of Oxfam 
grants to Mozambique and Angola.  (Is Mali Marxist?  There are
2 longer articles on it about dam repairs & assisting nomadic
herders.)

Though "the focus of Oxfam America's program in Ethiopia has
gradually shifted from emergency relief toward longer-term,
drought-recovery assistance" requiring increasing coordination
with the Dergue regime, no mention is made of the murderous
Dergue resettlement programs in northern Ethiopia alleged
in a Rocky Mountain News article (1/31/86) posted to the net
by David Olson (1/31/86).

Yet there are odd echoes in what Hummock writes: a Fatima who
found work as a cook at a feeding center still yearns to return
to her village; the following quote may refer to more than just
famine: "Much of Oxfam America's work in Ethiopia has focused
on assisting farmers who HAVE managed to stay on their land";
he visits Ererguda producers' cooperative, begun by the Dergue
two years ago with prisoners "serving time for petty offenses.
They wanted to return to work the land, so when they were
released, the government set aside for them an unused part
of an old estate that had been expropriated after the 1974
revolution."  From an initial 115 families, "by early last
year....most had left, and they were down to 26."  It was
then "Oxfam began working in the area."  Hummock found 36
families.

By itself it sounds innocent enough: the famine's driven the
starving from their blasted farms.  The regime does what it
can to repair the damage.  Though Oxfam America appears to
be gradually increasing its ties to the regime.

But from what we know of the Dergue, its brutality, its murderous
manipulation of famine relief, & with allegations now that relief
may be killing more than it saves by luring northerners into un-
healthy transit camps in order to destroy the social base of rebels,
OA's breezy descriptions are less than candid, and may cover up
de facto complicity with some Dergue policies.

						Regards,
						Ron Rizzo