FOOD AS A POLITICAL WEAPON

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 566.

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The genocide by starvation initiated by Stalin in Ukraine in the 1930's has had many Communist imitators during the 20th century.

Ethiopia was taken over by a Communist regime in 1974. Under the leadership of Mengistu Haile Mariam, thousands, perhaps millions of people, mostly Eritreans seeking independence, were allowed to starve to death while the government spent millions of dollars on military armaments.

Cambodia was taken over by the Communist Khmer Rouge in 1975. During the next three years the government of Pol Pot was responsible for the death of some 2 million men, women and children through a program of planned execution and forced starvation.

Afghanistan was invaded by the Soviet Union in 1979. Unable to subdue the Afghan

countryside, the Soviets began a program of genocidal suppression which included "killing of the civilian support population, terrorizing and driving of the survivors, and creating famine conditions."

As in the past, the Western press has paid relatively little attention to these horrors

and when it has, as in the case of Ethiopia, the Communist regime's culpability was hardly mentioned. In Ethiopia, the press reported drought as the major cause of the famine.

As Western food and medical supplies flooded in, the Soviets sent arms. Grain rotted

on docks and in warehouses because the only available trucks belonged to the army which did not consider food transport for the starving a priority. Wheat ships were made to wait at anchor offshore while Soviet freighters unloaded arms, ammunition and tanks.