Ethiopia Vows to Arm Aid Convoys to Rebel Areas

The Ethiopian government has refused to allow the Red Cross to transport famine relief into rebel-held areas of the country but promised that it would organize armed convoys to make sure supplies do reach those areas, senior Western aid officials said Saturday.

The officials said Kurt Jansson, the U.N. assistant secretary general, asked Mengistu Haile Mariam, Ethiopia’s head of state, to allow the International Red Cross to organize transportation of food to guerrilla-controlled areas of Tigre and Eritrea provinces.

Jansson’s request followed protests from Western donors that food shipments were being blocked to an estimated 2.3 million people in famine-stricken areas outside government control, aid officials said.

The officials declined to be identified lest it harm their working relations with both Ethiopian and U.N. officials.

They said Mengistu turned down Jansson’s request, but promised him that Addis Ababa would step up armed convoys of relief supplies to Ethiopia’s northern regions.

Past and present governments in Addis Ababa have been battling Eritrean secessionists since 1962 and Tigreans demanding autonomy since the late 1970s.

Jansson confirmed that Mengistu made the assurances at their meeting Wednesday.

“I suggested a formula but was assured by the chairman that the government can reach all people in need in any part of the country,” Jansson said. “He (Mengistu) said he would increase food convoys, with security escorts, into these areas.” Jansson, a Finn appointed to head U.N. emergency operations in Ethiopia, declined further comment.

Some of the relief officials interviewed Saturday remained skeptical about the effectiveness of government relief convoys.

“Who would the food be reaching?” one official asked. “They can only get it mainly along major roads, and even then they would be subject to rebel attacks.

“And they can only leave it at government-controlled centers, hoping people will come there to collect it. But this would not get food to the people in non-government-controlled areas.”

The Red Cross distributes food to areas on both sides of the conflict but in separate programs, one based in Addis Ababa, the other in Khartoum, capital of neighboring Sudan.