A CATASTROPHIC human tragedy is looming in the horn of Africa.
Hunger and starvation of unprecedented proportion is threatening the lives of millions.
According to the World Food Programme (WFP): “More than seven million livestock have died and millions of people face the threat of starvation.
The impact of the severe drought on livelihoods will intensify rapidly in the coming months due to the effects of the extremely poor March-April-May rains.
At present, humanitarian response plans are massively under-funded.
The Somalia 2022 Humanitarian Response Plan for food security is only 20 percent funded to date.
Only 34 percent of the required US$139,5 million for the October 2021-March 2022 period of the Kenya Drought Flash Appeal was met and funding requirements for April-October 2022 period have risen further to US$180,7 million.
Immediate action is required to scale-up and sustain humanitarian assistance through at least mid-2023.”
A principal cardinal of the humanitarian ethos is that no people should starve while others throw away food.
In all international organisations, principally the UN and its organs, Western countries posit themselves as champions and protectors of humans across the globe. They purport to police the globe, yet they are actually protecting their interests.
Libya and Iraq are clear examples of what decimation the West, led by the US and Britain, can unleash on any people who refuse to kowtow to them.
Today, Western countries are shamelessly involved in the Russo-Ukraine conflict, funding Ukraine to the tune of US$48 billion for now.
The official reason for US giving ‘security assistance’ to Ukraine is: “To help Ukraine preserve its territorial integrity, secure its borders, and improve its interoperability with NATO.” (Congressional Research Service: 2023).
But there are at least 22 million people in the horn of Africa, Ethiopians, Kenyans and Somalis who need food.
They are faced with death due to hunger and the WFP only requires at least US$180,7 million and this is not forthcoming,
What makes it so easy to give US$48 billion and impossible to give US$180 million?
The US President has what is called Presidential Drawdown Authority by which, “…the President can authorise the immediate transfer of articles from US stocks up to a funding cap established by law in response to an unforeseen emergency.”
Since August 2021, President Joseph Biden has authorised 32 drawdowns amounting to US$19,2 billion.
Just before Russia’s operation in Ukraine of February 2022, the US raised the funding cap for the Presidential Drawdown Authority from US$100 million to US$11 billion.
NATO and EU allies say they have contributed US$17 billion to Ukraine in ‘security assistance’.
In the West, billions can just be thrown around as small change when millions of people are starving elsewhere — Africa, in this instance.
For how long shall Africa look to the West for assistance and salvation?
For how long shall we close our eyes to our history and reality?
The history of colonisation, looting and plundering of our resources is a reality we are still living with; the looting and plunder of resources is still going on under different names.
When the Russo-Ukrainian conflict broke out in 2022, we Africans were being whipped into line under threat of unspecified consequences.
‘Support the West’s position or face the music,’ we were told in no uncertain terms.
When will we Africans come of age?
Has our suffering throughout slavery, colonisation and bloody liberation wars not taught us the truth, not opened our eyes?
When we see the West pouring resources to ‘protect Ukraine’ and our kith and kin are left to starve, we should realise that ‘none but ourselves shall set us free’.
The West’s heavy involvement in Ukraine has nothing to do with humanitarian interests, not the protection of Ukraine’s territorial integrity or its borders.
Ukraine is strategically placed as an ally through which they can put a check on their arch-enemy Russia.
If, through Ukraine, the West can weaken or destroy Russia, their control of the world will be much stronger.
So the Africans can starve in their millions or billions, if they can perish in their entirety, the better; no-one will wage wars of liberation against them, the excruciatingly rich continent will be theirs for the taking.
In the past, they have not hesitated to wage genocidal wars in Zimbabwe, Namibia, Rwanda and other countries.
Let us open our eyes.
It is not us who are beggars, it is us who are the custodians, the owners of the richest continent on the planet.
Let us ask the right questions.
No one truly cares.
To the West, it is an evolutionary glitch that black ones like us are the owners of this richest continent on the globe.
Family planning has not helped in limiting the growth of the African population; the greater the population, the more the contenders for its wealth and this is a travesty that limits their controversies on the continent.
Billions are small change to the West, but we should never forget where those billions came from.
It is no secret that they have been looted from Africa.
It makes sense then that they leave millions to starve in the horn of Africa, a weaker, tragedy-ridden Africa is easier to subjugate.
When you are starving and feeling so low, your fighting spirit faces a greater challenge than if you are in a better position.
Those among us, primarily the opposition CCC, who have ingratiated themselves to the West as willing tools to hand the land to the West cannot pretend that they are the nation’s saviours, because we know who the West is.
They are slave drivers looking out for their capitalist interests.
