[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13823]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          AFRICAN FOOD CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, last week I was here on this floor for an 
hour speaking of the crisis in southern Africa, speaking about the 
famine, speaking about southern Africa's plight. Approximately 13 
million people in southern Africa are in danger of starvation. Last 
week, I talked about the fact that people were resorting to eating 
whatever they could find, dirt, bugs, weeds, whatever could fill their 
stomachs. I talked about the depiction of this famine on ABC last week. 
I raised the question of why it has taken us so long to respond to what 
is now impending death in these six nations. I have asked over and over 
again for this issue to be addressed in the Congress of the United 
States.
  On July 18, the Secretary-General of the United Nations launched the 
consolidated national appeals for the humanitarian crisis in southern 
Africa. The United Nations is requesting $611 million for immediate 
food, medicine, and other emergency assistance to respond to this 
crisis. This assistance is needed within the next 2 months. It cannot 
wait until next year.
  In the midst of this crisis, the administration is proposing to cut 
total funding for food assistance programs by 18 percent. This would 
reduce food assistance funds from over $2 billion in fiscal year 2002 
to less than $1.7 billion in fiscal year 2003. This lower level of 
funding would have to provide for the continuing needs of Afghanistan 
as well as the emerging famine in southern Africa.
  On June 20, 2002, I sent a letter to the conferees on H.R. 4775, the 
Supplemental Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2002, asking them to 
provide an emergency supplemental appropriation of $200 million to 
respond to the food crisis in southern Africa. This letter explained 
that an emergency appropriation is essential to enable the United 
States Government to provide desperately needed assistance to millions 
of starving people. Sixty-two Members of Congress signed my letter. 
Unfortunately, the conference committee reported the conference report 
for the supplemental appropriations act last Friday and provided not 
one dime, no additional assistance, for southern Africa. This 
conference report is scheduled to come to the House floor tomorrow. I 
urge my colleagues to recommit this conference report to the conference 
committee with instructions to add at least $200 million for famine 
relief for southern Africa.
  According to Mr. Kenzo Oshima, the United Nations Under Secretary-
General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, 
there still is an opportunity to avert famine and save lives, but this 
window is closing rapidly. We cannot afford to wait until fiscal year 
2003. We cannot even wait until Congress returns in September. We must 
recommit the conference report with instructions to add immediate 
funding for famine relief. The people of southern Africa need our help 
now.
  Mr. Speaker, today's Wall Street Journal includes an article on the 
United Nations' appeal for humanitarian assistance for the people of 
southern Africa. I submit this article for the Congressional Record.
  Mr. Speaker, we can wait and wait and wait and then all feel very 
sorry when we see dying people in southern Africa depicted on 
television in the next few months. Or we can do something about it now. 
I would ask my colleagues to please join me and recommit the conference 
report so that we can add the needed $200 million to avoid this 
devastation, this famine in southern Africa.

      U.N. Warns West to Act to Help Southern Africa Avoid Famine

                        (By Michael M. Phillips)

       Washington.--Nearly 13 million people in southern Africa 
     face imminent starvation unless the U.S. and other wealthy 
     nations contribute more than $600 million in food, medicine 
     and other emergency assistance over the next two months, the 
     United Nations warned.
       Drought conditions have left six nations struggling to meet 
     their food needs, but a bad situation has been turned into an 
     impending disaster by the repressive policies of Zimbabwean 
     President Robert Mugabe, the U.N. said.
       ``It is not inevitable that people should die in 
     substantial numbers,'' said Ross Mountain, the U.N.'s 
     assistant emergency-relief coordinator.
       So far, donor nations have pledged roughly $170 million of 
     the $611 million the U.N. says it needs by September if a 
     famine is to be averted in Malawi, Mozambique, Lesotho, 
     Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The U.S. has pledged $98 
     million of that for food aid, and Mr. Mountain was in 
     Washington to plead for more in meetings with the U.S. Agency 
     for International Development and the National Security 
     Council.
       The brewing famine is the worst the region has seen since a 
     drought 10 years ago threatened 18 million people, the U.N. 
     said. But today's situation may prove even more disastrous. 
     One difference, the U.N. said, is that now the working 
     populations of the countries involved have been gutted by 
     AIDS. In Zimbabwe, for instance, HIV infects 35% of pregnant 
     women, and many households are now headed by children or 
     grandparents.
       Zimbabwe's government has pushed the region closer to the 
     edge of catastrophe through policies that have devastated 
     local food production and prevented private food aid from 
     entering the country, the U.N. said. Mr. Mugabe, who kept 
     power through an election widely criticized as rigged, has 
     distributed white-owned commercial farms among his 
     supporters--a politically popular but economically disastrous 
     move in the view of the U.S., U.N., and other foreign 
     entities. The government has barred food imports that don't 
     go through official channels, the U.N. said.
       The crisis ``is very much complicated in the case of 
     Zimbabwe by a number of policy decisions that have turned 
     that country from one of the grain baskets of Africa into one 
     of the basket cases of Africa,'' Mr. Mountain said.
       Zimbabwe needs about half of the assistance the U.N. is 
     requesting.
       Sign Chavbonga, press counselor at the Zimbabwean Embassy 
     in Washington, said the food situation is serious, but denied 
     that government policies have worsened the effects of the 
     drought. He said World Food Program aid is starting to reach 
     drought-stricken areas.

                          ____________________