Ethiopia Accused of Using Food as ‘Bait’ to Relocate Starving Masses

The American representative to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization charged Tuesday that the government of famine-stricken Ethiopia uses donated food as “a bait, a lure” to relocate hundreds of thousands of people against their will.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Millicent Fenwick, citing reports from “witnesses whose integrity cannot be questioned.”

Fenwick, an outspoken former Republican congresswoman from New Jersey, charged in an interview that Ethiopian soldiers killed four villagers Feb. 19 “for refusing to get on the truck” for relocation.

Critics say that Ethiopia’s Marxist military government has broken up families and moved people to the southern part of the country to depopulate areas controlled by rebel movements in the northern areas of Eritrea and Tigre.

The government in Addis Ababa says people are being moved to regions less affected by drought.

Fenwick--who also represents the United States on some smaller Rome-based agencies--said her witnesses include “a high cleric, a simple humble priest, international organizations, travelers and volunteers--all non-Americans--whose integrity cannot be questioned and who have every desire to be truthful. They all report the same thing: You don’t get food unless you sign up for resettlement.”

“Food becomes a bait, a lure in order to bring the people in from the unsubdued countryside,” she said. “There is no doubt these things are still continuing.”