‘U.S. led Somalia to devastation’

Press
TV talks with Richard Becker of the ANSWER coalition, from San
Francisco, to discuss with him the African food crisis. Following is
a rough transcript of the interview.

Press
TV:

There was a consensus reached at the EU in terms of how much aid they
should be giving, this was back in 2008 at the height of the global
financial crisis, and they made a pledge of one billion euros to
developing countries. There have also been other pledges by world
powers. Why isn’t this translating to anything on the ground because
we’re not looking at any improvement especially with what is
occurring in the Horn of Africa, which is the focal point of where
the need is?

Richard
Becker:

Time after time, both in regard to the EU and to the US, the pledges
of aid are not borne out by the delivery of the aid. This has been
the case in Haiti; it’s been in numerous countries in Africa. There
are the conferences that take place where the grand proclamations are
made, but the mainstream media in general do not follow up on what
actually happens.

I would like to point out that the
shortfall of the World Food Program’s 477 million dollar budget was
equaled by the first two days of just the US war in Libya. The entire
budget of the World Food Program what it needs to feed these millions
of people who are suffering horrifically — that 477 million dollars
— equals about one day and a half of the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan combined.

And I think there’s another aspect of
this, too. How did Somalia come to be in the situation that it is
today? More than thirty years ago, the US pulled the last stable
national government that Somalia had, headed by Mohamed Siad Barre,
into an alliance to make war against Ethiopia.

The purpose of
this war was not only to bring down Ethiopia and the government in
Ethiopia at the time, but it was part of the US strategy, the global
strategy, of fighting against what it perceived as allies of the
Soviet Union. As soon as the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991 and
even a little bit before that as it was disintegrating, the US
government’s interest in Somalia evaporated. And it left Somalia in
an absolutely devastated state.

The contribution of the US
geopolitics to the crisis that exists today in Somalia is traceable
to that period that was reinforced by the staged intervention in 1992
and early 1993 that was rehearsed several times over — the
humanitarian intervention idea to sustain the Pentagon — and it has
been sustained by the US intervention both directly and by having
Ethiopia then intervene in Somalia to prevent a resolution of the
civil war. This aspect of it cannot be overstated.

Press
TV:

When we talk about a conceptual approach, you have people starving,
let’s get money to them… What is the disconnect there? I know I’m
making it sound very general… Of course, there’s politics and
agencies involved and challenges in ways of getting the food to the
people, but there are people dying. Why can’t there be a way to save
these people in a quicker way?

Richard
Becker:

Well, there has to be. There has to be an emergency immediate aid. I
completely agree with that. I would say another problem though with
the food aid that comes in, in the times when there is not a crisis
or when the crisis is receding, as happened in Somalia in the mid
1990s, was that it proved to be a disincentive to grow when the
drought ended because it was undercutting the price for farmers.

So, this whole conceptual way of approaching development
reliant on NGOs and this kind of intervention… I would agree it
often proves to create more problems than it solves.

I want
to respond to your point about RTP (the Right to Protect). The RTP
argument is a new form of justification for imperialist intervention
and it is used very very selectively as you were suggesting. The
Right to Protect, as in the case of Libya, the bombing of Libya
that’s now been going on for 114 days and it has hit many many
civilian areas, that is to protect civilians is a very good example
of how the RTP is selectively used to justify this kind of military
intervention while at the same time there seems to be no RTP
initiative or desire on the part of the same officials who are making
the argument about Libya, when it comes to people starving by the
millions in the Horn of Africa.

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