{"id":87267,"date":"2017-02-27T12:00:07","date_gmt":"2017-02-27T12:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=87267"},"modified":"2017-02-21T15:01:37","modified_gmt":"2017-02-21T15:01:37","slug":"famine-threatens-millions-in-the-horn-of-africa-as-washington-prepares-expanded-war-in-somalia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/02\/famine-threatens-millions-in-the-horn-of-africa-as-washington-prepares-expanded-war-in-somalia\/","title":{"rendered":"Famine Threatens Millions in the Horn of Africa as Washington Prepares Expanded War in Somalia"},"content":{"rendered":"

21 Feb 2017 – <\/em>Even as starvation and malnutrition threaten more than 10 million lives in the Horn of Africa countries of Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, the United States and its allies are preparing a massive expansion of military operations throughout the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith nearly half its population (five million people) facing severe food and water shortages, Somalia is now on the verge of a famine. Malnutrition rates across Somalia have already reached critical levels and are expected to worsen in the coming weeks. Thousands of families are on the move in search of food and water, and many are now crossing the border into Ethiopia,\u201d Save the Children noted.<\/p>\n

The Save the Children report states further that at least 70 percent of those children screened in the Dollo Ado refugee camp in Ethiopia show signs of malnutrition. Drought conditions in that country are forcing children to drop out of school, putting them at risk of early marriage and forced migration.<\/p>\n

According to Save the Children, the upsurge in hunger is the outcome of below-average rainfall during successive wet seasons, causing food and water prices to skyrocket, herds to die and crops to fail. Cereal prices are at record highs in Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania, while maize yields are down across southern Africa as a result of new pests including the fall armyworm.<\/p>\n

According to the World Food Program (WFP), the devastating drought in the Horn of Africa is producing a humanitarian crisis in Somalia and driving urgent needs in Kenya and Ethiopia. \u201cThe number of people in crisis and emergency food insecurity levels [Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) 3 or above] now stands at 11.2 million people, with 2.9 million in Somalia, 5.6 million in Ethiopia, and 2.7 million in Kenya,\u201d the WFP reported.<\/p>\n

The WFP found that the drought is developing alongside an escalating humanitarian and political crisis in South Sudan, where more than 5 million people are in need of urgent assistance and more than 1.2 million South Sudanese have already fled to neighboring countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn six months, we\u2019ll be facing a catastrophe and a famine on a scale we cannot imagine,\u201d United Nations humanitarian chief for Somalia Peter de Clercq said Thursday. UN Food and Agriculture director Maria Semedo warned African governments that without massive influx of food aid, the situation will become \u201ca disaster like the famine in 2011.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Horn of Africa is already plagued by mass hunger. Ten million Ethiopians went hungry last year as a result of drought, and 6 million are currently in dire need of food assistance. More than half of Somalis lack access to adequate nutrition, according to the latest UN figures.<\/p>\n

Nearly 40 percent of Kenyan children experience stunted growth as a result of inadequate nutrition, according to the WFP.<\/p>\n

Amid the developing humanitarian disaster in the region, President Barack Obama approved the sale of $400 million in weapons to the Kenyan military on the day before he left office in January. Nairobi announced shortly after that on January 29 that it would soon dispatch troops to support the US-backed regime in South Sudan.<\/p>\n

The civil war in South Sudan has reached \u201ccatastrophic proportions for civilians,\u201d with \u201crecord numbers\u201d fleeing their homes under threat of \u201cmass atrocities,\u201d according to a secret UN report leaked to AFP.<\/p>\n

Six years after its establishment as the world\u2019s \u201cnewest country,\u201d the US-backed South Sudanese regime is barely able to pay its soldiers enough to eat. Inflation stands at over 800 percent and \u201ccash is so devalued it barely buys food for a week,\u201d local sources told Reuters.<\/p>\n

Although presented as a \u201cnatural disaster,\u201d famine in Africa is ultimately the product of more than a century of oppression of the continent by world imperialism amplified by the ongoing crisis and breakdown of world capitalism. The poverty of the African masses, the absence of basic social infrastructure, and the reliance of much of the population on subsistence farming have persisted even as Western companies and governments have extracted vast sums of wealth from the continent.<\/p>\n

Africa has repeatedly suffered major famines during the post-World War II period, including: Somalia (1991-1992, 2010-2012), Sudan (1998), Ethiopia (1958, 1983-85), Uganda (1980-83), the Sahel desert region (1968-1972) and Nigeria (1967-70).<\/p>\n

Even as bourgeois economists celebrate numerically high economic growth rates in a handful of African countries, conditions for the vast majority of Africans have only deteriorated further during the 25 years since the dissolution of the USSR. The wealth creation that has occurred has gone exclusively to benefit a small layer of African elites and their American and European backers. Africa\u2019s governments have abandoned anything resembling nationalist or \u201cleft\u201d policies aimed at defending the interests of their populations from the predations of foreign capital. They have moved steadily to deepen their integration into the US-dominated capitalist world order.<\/p>\n

The incompetency of Africa\u2019s elites to meet the social needs of the African masses is matched only by their enthusiasm for waging wars, invariably sponsored by the US and NATO powers. The past quarter century has seen a huge explosion of military violence and inter-state conflict on the continent. Between 1990 and 2011, the African continent saw over 400 armed conflicts, according to research presented by Dr. Paul Williams of the Elliott School of International Affairs during a January conference held by the US Africa Command (AFRICOM). Williams also reported that between 2011 and 2017, the total number of wars in Africa grew by 60 percent.<\/p>\n

The United States has repeatedly seized on famines to escalate its military operations on the continent. The 1992-1993 American-led military intervention in Somalia, \u201cOperation Restore Hope,\u201d was launched in the name of insuring food security to the population. During the 2006 and 2011 famines in Somalia, Washington backed invasions led by Ethiopian military forces, who blockaded much of the country, while tens of thousands starved, in the name of combating the Islamist militia al Shabaab.<\/p>\n

American-backed military forces have been operating on Somali soil continuously since the 2006 invasion. In 2007, African Union (AU) forces deployed to Mogadishu in support of the US-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG). Ethiopian forces were withdrawn in 2009, but returned as part of US-backed Kenyan-led intervention beginning in October 2011.<\/p>\n

In 2014, US media confirmed that American forces have been secretly active in Somalia from the very beginning of the Ethiopian-led invasion, further implicating American imperialism in a war that has produced thousands of officially registered deaths and displaced more than 1 million Somalis.<\/p>\n

The past year has seen numerous signs that a US military escalation in Somalia is being prepared. American soldiers are increasingly involved in open combat and Washington is spurring Kenya to assume a larger military role. In October 2016, unnamed \u201csenior military officials\u201d informed the New York Times<\/em> that 200-300 US Special Forces soldiers have been operating jointly with Kenyan and Ugandan troops, carrying out \u201cmore than a half-dozen raids per month,\u201d inside Somalia.<\/p>\n

In November, the Obama administration expanded the Pentagon\u2019s authority to wage war in Somalia. The new \u201cSomalia campaign\u201d is based on \u201ca blueprint for warfare which President Obama has embraced and will pass along to his successor,\u201d official sources told the Times<\/em> in October.<\/p>\n

US Special Forces, in coordination with troops from the Somali National Army, as well as the Kenyan, Ugandan and Ethiopian militaries, are organizing warfare from the capital Mogadishu. US intelligence officers are involved in interrogating prisoners, and air strikes organized by American forces are claimed to have killed hundreds of Al Shabaab fighters in recent months.<\/p>\n

US forces were directly involved in combat in southern Somalia alongside Somali National Army (SNA) units in January, including raids against the southern port city of Kismayo. American commandos are also involved in operations in Kenya\u2019s Boni forest, which lies on Somalia\u2019s southwestern border. Kenya\u2019s military has steadily escalated its operations in the area since 2015, and is constructing a 435-mile-long wall along its eastern border.<\/p>\n

As millions face starvation, the US and its regional allies are engaged in cutthroat political struggles and intrigues. Rivalries within Africa\u2019s national elites, amplified and manipulated by the US and European powers, are setting the stage for an array of potential new conflicts to be overseen by President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Forces within the US-backed Egyptian and South Sudanese regimes are conspiring to destabilize Ethiopia, according to African media. In January, a \u201cdirty deal\u201d was allegedly struck between Egyptian military dictator General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and South Sudan President Salva Kiir to back opposition groups, including the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF).<\/p>\n

Similar meetings were held between al-Sisi and his Eritrean counterpart, Isaias Afwerki, in Cairo, as \u201ca deliberate move\u201d and \u201cto pressure Addis Ababa,\u201d according to Egyptian sources cited by the New Arab<\/em>. Cairo is anxious over Ethiopia\u2019s Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam (GERD) project, which would give Ethiopia the ability to choke off the supply of Nile river water north through Sudan and Egypt.<\/p>\n

In a phone call last month with Sisi, Trump pledged US military support to the dictatorship in its so-called war on terror in Egypt and across the continent. \u201cPresident Trump underscored the United States remains strongly committed to the bilateral relationship, which has helped both countries overcome challenges in the region for decades,\u201d White House spokesman Sean Spicer stated at a press briefing.<\/p>\n

The only response of the imperialist powers to the vast human catastrophe brewing in the Horn of Africa is escalated war and the further destabilization of African nation states, aimed at re-imposing colonial-style rule. The most basic demands for peace and bread can only be achieved through a movement of the entire African working class united across all national and ethnic lines, fighting for socialism against imperialism and its national bourgeois collaborators.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 wsws.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

21 Feb 2017 – Even as starvation and malnutrition threaten more than 10 million lives in the Horn of Africa countries of Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, the United States and its allies are preparing a massive expansion of military operations throughout the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}