[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 65 (Monday, May 20, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H2638-H2640]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            CRISES IN AFRICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mrs. CLAYTON. Mr. Speaker, I am quoting from a recent report called, 
``A Future With Hope,'' prepared by Bread for the World. It says, under 
the policy to address world hunger, and I quote, ``The terrorist attack 
of September 11, 2001, profoundly affected the United States. 
Psychologically the Nation was wounded, the vulnerability exposed, and 
its sense of security shattered. The attack pushed an already faltering 
economy into recession, yet much of the developing world would suffer 
even greater devastation as a result of the attacks. A World Bank study 
reported that the ripple effect from September 11 would hurt economic 
growth in developing countries, especially in Africa.''
  Mr. Speaker, in the last years, there has been much discussion about 
assistance to Africa by Western countries, including the United States 
and Europe. With the crisis of AIDS and other infectious diseases 
continuing to grow ever more menacing, the wealthy countries of the 
world are finally, though still inadequately, taking notice, and we 
support them, taking notice of a pandemic and the devastation directed 
every day upon our African brothers and sisters.

                              {time}  1930

  AIDS does not discriminate. Killing off entire generation of 
Africans, both adults and children, it empties rural communities, towns 
and villages and professional urban classes indiscriminately, without 
regard for class or clan. However, the level of newfound interest in 
Africa remains insufficient and indeed grossly lacking. AIDS is not the 
only crisis that is causing great harm on the continent of Africa right 
now. As AIDS devastates African nations with frightening speed, so too 
do the specter of hunger and the shadows of famine fall across southern 
Africa.
  I ask my colleagues, in our newfound interest in Africa, to consider 
the widespread incidence of hunger in Africa. The reports are arriving 
with greater frequency and they are chilling. As many as 20 million 
people in the region of southern Africa are suffering from hunger and 
insecurity of food. My friends, this is equal to the population of the 
entire State of Texas. Let us just consider for one moment that we knew 
the entire State of Texas was dying for insufficient food. We indeed 
would do something.
  Please consider The Washington Post article, and I quote. I want to 
just read a part of that:
  `` `Please forgive my ramblings,' said the old man, stooped and still 
as he sat on a wooden stool in front of his mud hut. The hunger makes 
my mind wander.''
  ``In his lucid moments, Lucas Lufuzi recites the numbers, calibrating 
his catastrophic situation. Three days since he's eaten. Thirty-one 
cobs of unripe, green corn. One son: 29 years alive and 21 days dead. 
Two seasons of crops spoiled by erratic weather, rain one year, drought 
the next.''
  ``What is taking place across southern Africa is the perfect famine, 
a disastrous collaboration between nature and man that has caused the 
region's worst food shortage in nearly 60 years.''
  The worst food shortage in 60 years. Let us remember that we had the 
Biafran tragedy, the Ethiopian famines of the eighties, the long hunger 
march of the Sudanese which continues to this day. Sixty years, Mr. 
Speaker. We can do better.
  We will consider a bill on emergency funding, and I ask my colleagues 
to consider no better cause than to respond to the hunger of the world. 
Until this is done, we cannot claim to be really concerned about our 
brothers and sisters in Africa.
  In the last year, there has been much discussion about the assistance 
to Africa by Western nations including the United States and Europe. 
With the crisis of AIDS and other infectious diseases continuing to 
grow ever more menacing, the wealthy countries of the world are 
finally, though still inadequately, taking notice of the pandemic and 
the devastation that it wreaks every day upon our African

[[Page H2639]]

brothers and sisters. AIDS does not discriminate. Killing off entire 
generations of Africans, it empties rural villages and professional 
urban classes indiscriminately, without regard for class or clan. 
However the level of newfound interest in Africa, it remains 
insufficient and is grossly lacking.
  However, AIDS is not the only crisis causing great harm on the 
continent of Africa right now. As AIDS devastates African nation's with 
frightening speed, so too is the specter of hunger and the shadow of 
famine fall across Southern Africa. I ask my colleagues in our newfound 
interest in Africa to consider the widespread hunger? The reports are 
arriving with greater frequency and they are chilling. As many as 20 
million people in the region of Southern Africa are suffering from 
hunger and insecurity of nutrition. My friends, this is equal to the 
population of Texas. Let us imagine that the entire state of Texas were 
suffering through an extreme shortage of food. What would our response 
be then?
  Last week the Washington Post ran an article on this horrible 
situation. I would like to read the first part of it.
  ``Please forgive my ramblings,'' said the old man, stopped and still 
as he sat on a wooden stool in front of his mud hut. ``The hunger makes 
my mind wander.''
  ``In his lucid moments, Lucas Lufuzi recites the numbers, calibrating 
his catastrophe. Three days since he's eaten. Thirty-one cobs of unripe 
green corn. One son: 29 years alive and 21 days dead. Two seasons of 
crops spoiled by erratic weather--rain one year, drought the next.''

  ``What is taking place across southern Africa is the perfect famine, 
a disastrous collaboration between nature and man that has caused the 
region's worst food shortage in nearly 60 years.''
  The worst food shortage in 60 years! Let us remember the Biafran 
tragedy, the Ethiopian famines of the 80s, the long hunger March of the 
Sudanese, which continues to this day. For someone to contend that this 
is the worst food shortage in the region in nearly 60 years is no small 
statement, it is a call to action.
  I see very little action. Relief organizations estimate that they 
will need 145,000 tons of food, or about $70 million worth, to prevent 
widespread starvation. According to the Washington Post, donors have 
thus far pledged only $3 million.
  This week the House of Representatives will consider a supplemental 
appropriations bill that will cost over $25 billion. Much of the 
spending in this bill will be legitimate.
  But to the best of my knowledge this bill will not contains funds to 
address the looming crisis in Southern Africa. It will not provide the 
resources necessary to prevent suffering and misery in Malawi, in 
Zambia, in Zimbabwe.
  Let there be no doubt. This body would be hard pressed to find a 
better, more humane, and more necessary way to spend $50 million to 
address the famine that is ravaging Southern Africa.
  My colleagues, let us not mistake idle chatter for a real concern 
about Africa. Let us not believe that a minor increase in African 
development assistance is an adequate response to the cries for help 
now coming from Southern Africa. My friends, until the suffering of 
Africa is brought to a halt, until AIDS is contained, until the ravages 
of famine are dispersed like dust--until that day--our concern for 
Africa, no matter how real or how genuine, will not be concerned 
enough.

                [From the Washington Post, May 10, 2002]

Famine Looms for Southern Africa--Millions Suffering in Crisis Created 
                     by Nature, Exacerbated by Man

                             (By Jon Jeter)

       Mchinji, Malawi.--``Please forgive my ramblings,'' said the 
     old man, stooped and still as he sat on a wooden stool in 
     front of his mud hut. ``The hunger makes my mind wander.''
       In his lucid moments, Lucas Lufuzi recites the numbers, 
     calibrating his catastrophe. Three days since he's eaten. 
     Thirty-one tiny cobs of unripe, green corn. Two grandchildren 
     to feed. One son: 29 years alive; 21 days dead. Two seasons 
     of crops spoiled by erratic weather--rain one year, drought 
     the next.
       ``I have never seen such starvation,'' said Lufuzi, who 
     does not know his age but says he believes he is close to 60. 
     ``Our family relied on my son to work the farm and for the 
     income he earned [working part time on commercial farms].
       ``When my grandchildren's feet began to swell from hunger, 
     I had no choice but to harvest the crops before they were 
     ready. This,'' he said, nodding to a basket of shriveled 
     corn, ``is all that keeps us from death.''
       What is taking shape across southern Africa is the perfect 
     famine, disastrous collaboration between nature and man that 
     has caused the region's worst food shortage in nearly 60 
     years.
       Officials in the region say as many as 20 million people 
     are suffering from hunger and malnutrition. The U.N. World 
     Food Program is already feeding more than 2.6 million in 
     Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia and other countries in the region, 
     and agency officials say that number will at least double in 
     the coming months as peasants finish off the meager yields 
     from this season's harvest.
       Overall, relief workers anticipate they will need roughly 
     145,000 tons of food, worth about $69 million, to plug the 
     immediate shortfall in domestic crop production in the 
     region. So far, donors have pledged only about $3 million.
       Officials with the Southern African Development Community 
     (SADC), a coalition of 14 nations, say they will need to 
     import 3.2 million tons of corn--the region's staple food--to 
     offset the deficit, about double the amount imported last 
     year.
       ``We've got a full-scale famine on our hands,'' said Kerran 
     Hedland, a spokeswoman for the World Food Program in Malawi.
       A year of flooding followed by a year of drought are 
     largely to blame for the widespread crop failure. But 
     international donors, Western diplomats and civic 
     organizations say the crisis has been aggravated by graft--or 
     at least mismanagement--in Malawi and by political upheaval 
     in neighboring Zimbabwe, usually one of the continent's most 
     reliable food producers.
       Malawian officials last year inexplicably sold the 
     country's 167,000-ton emergency grain reserve and have not 
     accounted for the proceeds. Officials have denied any 
     wrongdoing and promised an investigation, but the 
     International Monetary Fund, Britain, the European Union 
     and other sources have frozen at least $75 million in aid 
     payments as a result.
       President Robert Mugabe's seizure of white-owned commercial 
     farms in Zimbabwe has hurt not only that country's crop 
     yields but those of its neighbors. With one of the region's 
     most robust agricultural sectors, Zimbabwe for years sold or 
     donated surplus crops to other African countries that needed 
     help.
       But Mugabe's violent, two-year-old campaign to redistribute 
     farms to poor, landless blacks has disrupted farming and cut 
     off routes used to transport food to neighboring countries. 
     Food production in Zimbabwe has dropped by nearly 40 percent 
     this year, according to SADC officials, and last week Mugabe 
     joined Malawi's president, Bakili Muluzi, in declaring a 
     state of emergency.
       ``Land acquisitions in Zimbabwe have had a dramatic effect 
     on the amount [of food] that should have been produced in the 
     country,'' said Judith Lewis, the World Food Program's 
     regional director for eastern and southern Africa. ``Much 
     needs to be done. The time is running out.''
       The food reserve scandal in Malawi and Zimbabwe's political 
     turmoil have compounded the problem by depleting stocks and 
     driving up the price of corn by as much as 300 percent here 
     in Malawi and in Zambia. What food is available is simply 
     unaffordable to many people in the region.
       Tipilire Kasingiro and her three small children ran out of 
     corn from last year's harvest in December, and the shortage 
     of food has kept her busy caring for her 18-month-old 
     daughter, Marizani, who has frequently been sick. That left 
     her unable to work part time as a housekeeper and earn spare 
     money in the months before the harvest.
       ``Even if I had worked, it wouldn't be enough to buy the 
     maize like I did last year,'' she said, as she held Marizani, 
     a wraith of a girl, sunken-eyed and unmoving. ``The maize is 
     so expensive this year.''
       So she foraged the village for fruit, and when she was 
     unable to find more, she and her neighbors dug up the roots 
     of a banana tree, pounded them in a bowl and made a foul-
     tasting porridge, knowing that it would eventually make them 
     ill.
       ``We were desperate, and we knew it would fill our bellies, 
     if only temporarily,'' she said. ``My babies were swelling up 
     like they were going to burst. I had to do something.''
       Southern Africa has endured widespread food shortages 
     before, most recently a decade ago when drought struck the 
     region. But the situation now is far worse, many Africans 
     say, partly because famished peasants are eating tree stems, 
     sawdust and wild leaves, causing an increase in disease.
       ``You would see people eating green maize'' during the 
     drought in the early 1990s, ``but you didn't see people 
     eating the roots of trees,'' said Sister Agnes Eneyasicio, of 
     St. Mary's Catholic Church in the village of Ludzi, in 
     Mchinji district near the border with Zambia.
       When St. Mary's opened a feeding center for 600 children in 
     January, ``our two schools were completely empty,'' she said. 
     `The children were too hungry to come to school. You'd go and 
     find whole villages empty because everyone was out searching 
     for food. We've never experienced anything like this in 
     Malawi.''
       The AIDS epidemic, which was only beginning to surface in 
     southern Africa a decade ago, is deepening the misery. An 
     estimated one of every six adult Malawians is infected with 
     HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and hunger has accelerated 
     the onset of debilitating diseases and even death among 
     many household breadwinners here, according to relief and 
     medical workers.
       The epidemic has further cut into the country's crop 
     production by leaving the elderly, children and orphans to 
     care for the sick, assume the responsibilities of planting 
     and harvesting crops, or take odd jobs for extra income.
       Herein Mchinji, AIDS, and other illnesses have compounded 
     the food problems, Lufuzi's son, James, fell ill and died 
     three weeks ago, though his father does not know exactly what 
     caused his death. ``He did not discuss that with me,'' Lufuzi 
     said.

[[Page H2640]]

       James Lufuzi had sporadic bouts of illness, but when the 
     family ran short of food late last year, his condition 
     deteriorated. He died at home last month, leaving his father, 
     a widower himself, to care for his two daughters, 9 and 7.
       When asked if his son may have had HIV, he nods. ``I 
     believe that may have been the case. The hunger fed his 
     illness until he could not hold on any longer.''
       Amid such privation, food is precious to those who have it 
     and tempting to those who do not. When Goodson Mussa was 
     accused of stealing corn from a field near the capital, 
     Lilongwe, three men used a razor blade to cut off one of his 
     ears.
       ``They beat me and spit on me, and one of them threatened 
     to douse me with [Kerosene] and set me alight,'' said Mussa, 
     33. Asked several times if he was indeed trying to steal 
     corn, Mussa refused to answer directly.
       ``Hunger is terrible,'' he said, holding his hand up to his 
     bandaged head. ``What man wouldn't steal if he's watching his 
     own children starve to death before his very eyes?''

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