An investigation into the conditions of resettlement after the famine.

War, famine, pestilence and doctrinaire Marxist-Leninist dictatorship; these are the four horsemen of modern Ethiopia's particular apocalypse. They have combined with one another into a brew more poisonous even than the sum of its parts. Just how a people of such ancient culture and proud history, and of such intelligence and sophistication, could have come to this sad fate requires some words of explanation. That the name Ethiopia has, over the past two decades, become synonymous with starvation, civil war and man's massive inhumanity to his fellow man, is a source of deep pain to Ethiopians everywhere o those in the growing Ethiopian diaspora as much as to those who remain within Ethiopia's borders and of bewilderment and puzzlement to others. There must be a reason for it. This volume, the result of a recent symposium that included two very distinguished former high officials of the Mengistu regime, provides much of the answer.

Report on the obstacles to emergency relief operations and international organization response to the tragedies of drought and starvation in Ethiopia - comments on the political aspects and social implications of central government behaviour, surveys the magnitude of the famine disaster, and the role of UN (incl. The UN and specialized agencies), and suggests a possible new institutional framework for international cooperation in such circumstances. References.

The terrible 1984 famine in Ethiopia focused the world's attention on the country and the issue of aid as never before. Anyone over the age of 30 remembers something of the events - if not the original TV pictures, then Band Aid and Live Aid, Geldof and Bono. Peter Gill was the first journalist to reach the epicentre of the famine and one of the TV reporters who brought the tragedy to light. This book is the story of what happened to Ethiopia in the 25 years following Live Aid: the place, the people, the westerners who have tried to help, and the wider multinational aid business that has come into being. We saved countless lives in the beginning and continued to save them now, but have we done much else to transform the lives of Ethiopia's poor and set them on a 'development' course that will enable the country to do without us?

Who is responsible for the failures? African generals and politicians are the prime culprits for creating famines in Sudan, Somalia and Zaire, but western donors abet their authoritarianism, partly through imposing structural adjustment programmes.