Chapter 68 The Famine Truth
Africa - the Republic of Ethiopia, the three consecutive years of famine have starved millions of people to death in this country. It is hard to imagine that such a serious human tragedy would still occur on the earth today in the twentieth century.
The severe famine in Ethiopia and several neighboring countries has aroused widespread concern from the international community. Some international human rights agencies and the United Nations have begun to pay attention to the living conditions of people on the African continent. More and more people around the world have begun to sympathize with the misfortunes of the people here. Just this year, in order to raise money to help the African people suffering from hunger, the song written by the famous American singers Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and sung by 45 American singers shocked hundreds of millions of people. Let the whole world focus on this forgotten continent.
As global attention to Ethiopia grew, so did domestic news and media outlets. They have come to this miserable land to dig news materials, looking for news clues worth reporting. Among these people, many journalists are not long-term employees of those large news organizations. Some of them just earn money by digging and investigating valuable news leads. New York Times political columnist Zoe is one of them.
Although the things Zoe saw in Ethiopia in the past few days were shocking, they were not the news material Zoe needed most. As a columnist for the New York Times, with years of industry experience, Zoe knows that if she wants to stand out among the thousands of articles reporting famine in Africa, she must have a unique perspective and a different point of view.
As a top student who graduated from the Department of Political Science at New York University, digging out the political reasons behind the incident has always been Zoe's favorite news entry point. To have her own column on a big media platform like the New York Times, Zoe's articles must resonate with the well-educated readers of the New York Times. So Zoe began to investigate the man-made reasons behind the three-year-old famine.
During her time in Ethiopia, Zoe found a lot to like. During this period of time when the famine occurred. Ethiopia, the country hardest hit by the famine, is also engaged in a war with its neighbor Somalia. Territorial disputes between the two countries added to an already severe famine. What is even more infuriating is that the food aid delivered to Africa by the international community was looted by local armed men. The food that should have been distributed to the victims instead fell into the hands of local tribal armed forces and warlords. After these people got the food, they used it as a bait to recruit soldiers and horses to expand their strength. What's more, some of the aid food was bought and sold on the black market by local officials to make huge profits. A large number of corrupt officials have been fattened up.
In order to find out how much food aided by the international community did not reach the starving people in East African countries, Zoe read a lot of food export and trade information, hoping to get an approximate number from it. However, when Zoe checked the information about the Fraternity Africa Foundation under the American Farmers Association, she was surprised to find that this foundation had exported seven million tons of wheat to East Africa in 1985 alone. Calculated based on the average per capita food consumption level in Africa, which is 200 kilograms of food per person per year. This batch of wheat is enough to feed thirty-five million people.
Enough food to feed 35 million people was exported to Africa, but in Ethiopia alone, millions of people starved to death. Zooey was taken aback when she came to this conclusion, but Zooey soon felt extremely excited. He already smelled big news.
Obviously, the seven million tons of grain would not be eaten by the people of Africa. According to the export records of the US customs, Zoe can confirm that the seven million tons of grain were indeed declared and left the United States. According to the import records of Ethiopia and other countries,
The well-documented customs declaration records from Friendly Africa that Zoe could find were less than 500,000 tons. Where did the rest of the grain go?
With doubts, Zoe began to shift the direction of the investigation to the period between the grain leaving the United States and entering Africa. In order to obtain more convincing evidence, Zoe asked the US headquarters of Friendly Africa for their transporter's information. However, the staff of Youai Africa seemed to keep this secret, and declined Zoe's request. Then Zoe contacted the staff of Youai Africa's office in Somalia. When Zoe proposed to pay a visit, the Arabic in the background voice on the other side of the phone caught Zoe's attention. He tentatively Ask the other party: "Aren't you in Somalia now?"
"Sorry, ma'am! We are in the UAE. If you insist on interviewing us, we only accept phone interviews!" The man is an unsuspecting idiot.
"Does your Friendship Africa also have an office in the UAE?" Zoe asked again.
"We are on vacation, this is employee benefits..." The other party began to talk about his extravagant life in Dubai with a little show off on the phone. From this point, Zoe roughly estimated the background of this idiot, with a typical face of a villain. Zooey guessed that this guy had never seen anything big, so he called the hotel with a swimming pool like a palace.
"Okay sir, I still have a few interviews in Mogadishu, and you should be back from Dubai when I'm done. We'll prepare another interview for you then. By the way, sir, you love Africa Charity Fund Will there be branches elsewhere, if it is convenient, I would like to interview them at the same time?" Zoe asked pretending to be casual.
"Ah! Let me think about it. By the way, we have another group of staff in Palermo. But they usually deal with shipping services. You may not understand that if you want to send food to Somalia, The most economical way is to unload the cargo on the large ship to a Suez-class freighter in a port in the Mediterranean, otherwise the ship cannot pass through the Suez Canal, and it has to go around from the southernmost part of Africa..." On the other end of the phone, the other party In order to show his erudition, he tried his best to explain half-understanding in reporter Zoe's ear.
Zoe, who finally hung up the phone, quickly sat down by the computer and wrote the first report about the truth behind the Ethiopian famine in one fell swoop—
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