Ethiopia to Allow Famine Relief in Rebel-Held Areas, U.S. Says

The Ethiopian government, ending months of intransigence, has begun to allow relief agencies to enter contested territory in the north of the country and to provide food to people living in rebel-held regions, a U.S. official said Wednesday.

Only a few truckloads of food have yet entered the regions, previously off limits to Western relief agencies, M. Peter McPherson, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said at a news conference.

But the Ethiopian government has said it will allow the agencies to expand their distribution programs, making food available to about 200,000 of the 2 million residents of rebel-held areas who are believed to be at risk from famine, McPherson said. The food will be delivered to centers controlled by government troops but near the rebels’ strongholds.

The Ethiopian agreement, sought by AID for nearly a year, came just days before the White House must complete a congressionally mandated determination of whether the Marxist government in Addis Ababa is deliberately withholding food from its citizens in the northern provinces of Eritrea and Tigre.

If President Reagan makes that determination and Congress agrees, trade between the two countries--which totaled $256 million last year--would be suspended except for delivery of emergency food supplies.

McPherson, who repeatedly has criticized the Ethiopian government for what he said was a conscious effort to withhold food from the north, said the new Ethiopian tack is “hopeful” but “not momentous.” He declined to say what action he had recommended the President take.

‘Most Critical Area’

Northern Ethiopia, where fighting has been raging for years between secessionist forces and government troops, has been particularly hard hit by drought and famine. McPherson described it as “the most critical area” in Africa.

The Ethiopian government has denied that it has pursued a starvation policy in the north, but officials have said they encountered logistical problems in shipping food to areas where guerrillas operate.

Rep. Howard Wolpe (D-Mich.), who returned recently from his own trip to the region, said U.N. officials in Ethiopia told him that the problems have been corrected by the government and that emergency food aid was getting to 70% or 80% of those affected by drought in Eritrea and Tigre.

“There’s no evidence, according to the international relief community, of a policy of the (Ethiopian) government to use food as a weapon and to deprive its population of food,” Wolpe said.

2 Private Agencies

The aid is to be distributed by two private voluntary organizations, Catholic Relief Services and World Vision, which hope to truck processed sorghum and millet to about 15 new distribution centers. The two organizations already provide emergency food to Ethiopians in government-held areas of the country, including parts of Eritrea and Tigre.