Michael Barratt
Prime Minister,
Tell me, if you would, your own personal emotions when you first saw the films and the reports coming out of Ethiopia.
Prime Minister
Well, I had never seen anything like it. It was terrible, but one had to remember it was not something happening in history; it was actually happening today, in today's world; and I could quite understand the marvellous response of everyone. I felt the same way, and immediately—Geoffrey Howethe Foreign Secretary had just returned from a visit overseas, he saw it—and almost immediately said: “Look! We have got to do everything we can!” and that really explains why I think we were the first to try to send more emergency aid.
Emergency aid, of course, is not the whole answer. As you know, there has been famine and drought in Ethiopia another time, quite some years ago, and we sent a lot of food then; and I remember later than that, when we had the Cancún Conference. You remember that? It was twenty-two countries which met to try to tackle the problems of the lesser-developed world. We talked about these [end p1] fundamental problems a great deal, and so many of the African countries there—I remember vividly, Julius Nyerere saying: “Look! Don't just send us your surpluses except at disaster time! That isn't the right way to tackle it! We have got to be able to grow our own food; food suitable for our people; have cattle suitable for our land; so that in a normal year, we can begin to feed ourselves!”
So we have to keep the two things in mind: first, those terrible pictures—and then there were some more the other day where we had at last managed to reach some children and they were not strong enough to take anything in. They had to have a nose drip and they showed you one child that they had just managed to get some nourishment through the nose, but it was too late! And I think mothers who had children and she had no milk to feed them; that, I know, upset a lot of people who had children themselves especially.
And so we started our own effort and I also telegraphed Garret FitzGerald in case he had not seen it, because he is such a marvellous man. He was President of the Community at that time, and he had had exactly the same reaction, and the Community got going.
And then we came against another problem. We could get the food there, but how to get it distributed? And it took us a few more days than we thought to get out the Hercules aircraft—not because we were not prepared to send them in immediately, but arrangements had to be made and there were arguments about which airfield they should go to—and to keep two Hercules aircraft going you have to have about a hundred [end p2] people out there with all the maintenance and with alternatives and they have been working seven days a week. Germany, I know, sent a lot of trucks, because distribution is as important as getting the food there, and I think that we can get the amount of grain in, and I am told they need grain, really, to get the number of calories and, of course, water, equipment to make water.
We are sending a certain amount of butter oil, about 2,000 tonnes, and another 1,000 tonnes is going. That is not used in the famine disaster areas so much as when you can get people a little bit better. Then you can use that.
And also, you know, I saw these high-energy biscuits on television and we are sending some of those.
I think we just must remember it is not only in Ethiopia. The Minister for Overseas Development has just come back from the Sudan and we promptly sent some more aid there. We have done in Sudan £13 million this year, and the Chairman of our Foreign Affairs Committee also has been there; and the message they bring is really very simple, very direct: “However much you are doing, please try to do more!” because of the enormity of the problem.
And it is even worse, I am told, when you actually see it than it is on films and you begin to ask how it could happen.
I think we have to do quite a lot of teaching about what we know: about husbandry—in that kind of land, in that kind of soil. We have quite a lot of knowledge. I think, too, Israel has quite a lot of knowledge because, of course, she has had to make the very desert bloom, and utilise every rain drop so that nothing is wasted. She knows how to preserve it—how [end p3] much to give to the plants.
But the situation can get worse through overgrazing land; through putting on the wrong kind of cattle. I am told that wildebeest, for example, take very much less water than oxen, very much less water; and, of course, people must not uproot trees to burn the logs, because that takes away the moisture from the soil.
So, we have really to operate on several levels. First, the immediate relief to save the lives of so many people, which we are doing, and with the famine relief must come attention to the distribution. Secondly, we have to try to teach the best long-term husbandry; and thirdly, we have to try to carry out research to see which grains will withstand the drought best and which animals are the best for grazing. We shall probably find, you know, that it is the indigenous animals that are best and not the ones that have been introduced.
Michael Barratt
Are you satisfied simply to send out as much as the country can conceivably afford, possibly even more than they can afford, and then leave it to those on the spot, that is to say the governments on the spot, the Ethiopian Government for example, to do with that what it will or do you feel you have a responsibility and indeed you deserve some say in what is done with your relief food and other supplies? [end p4]
Prime Minister
We try to see that it gets through. That is why we have got the Hercules there. That is why, I think, other countries sent trucks. Although ours are not always the most suitable, I think sometimes the Ethiopian military have the right sort of trucks for the terrain. But I think the fact that some of our people are there does help to ensure that it gets through, because our people here want to know that it gets through. In Ethiopia it is not always easy, because of the civil war there. That is another thing which seems to us so terrible—that any government should buy weapons for a civil war, when the famine is so terrible. But it is difficult and we had a problem with getting a joint operation with helicopters and Hercules to go in to do drops in some of those areas, but we have to try to do it.
Then, you know, quite a lot of refugees from Ethiopia have gone into the Sudan and so we have sent more to the Sudan and then we look at the distribution. We do not wholly rely on governments. There are some marvellous voluntary organisations over there and they do magnificent work, and we put quite a lot through them—War on Want, Oxfam and Save The Children. They do marvellous work and quite a lot goes through them. So we do not just leave it to governments. At the beginning, there were suggestions that some of the food might be diverted to some of the military. Well, at first when there was nothing else, that was a risk you had to take—at least some got through, at least some got through. But now I think the distribution is much better. [end p5]
Again, can I stress, we all have our eyes on Ethiopia and on Chad. We have also done as much as we can to help Mozambique. They have enormous problems there. Chad, which France has done so much to help, has enormous problems. The Niger. It is not only in those two countries. There are parts of Kenya, arid regions of Kenya, too, which one needs to help, and which one needs to, again, see what one can do about the forms of husbandry.
Michael Barratt
How do you react, Prime Minister, when people make the charge—as they often and loudly do—that here in Europe we have these vast butter mountains for a start, while people are dying in their tens of thousands in Africa?
Prime Minister
Well, I think we have sent out to Ethiopia as much grain as they are able to distribute. You will remember at first the problem was the warehouses were full and we could not get the distribution. Then we got a magnificent system of distribution and all of a sudden we heard that the warehouses were empty. Fortunately, there were other ships on the way and Europe has allocated, I think, 1.2 million tonnes, and the United States is doing about the same. Some butter, although I indicate that you cannot … . it is not very easy to give right in the full famine areas butter oil. If you need oil, vegetable oil is better.
So I do not think there is a shortage of food … I hope not … . available to go to Ethiopia or Sudan, because every time [end p6] news comes in of a shortage, one or other of us manages to get some more out there, either in grain, high-energy biscuits or in oil.
All of it, of course, has to be paid for. It is there in Europe, but I did just ask what the figures were yesterday. I think it costs about £250 to get a tonne of food out there—the food and getting it out there and distributing it; and, of course, we have our Hercules there as well.
I think possibly it is Europe and the United States that I suppose are the surplus-producing countries, and Canada, and we do try to work together to see that enough goes.
Michael Barratt
You touched, Prime Minister, upon the long-term strategic needs of Africa; the need to reorganise agriculture; to fight in a much more sophisticated way the incursions of the desert, and so forth. Now, the Western World could contribute a great deal to that in terms of education alone, but do you think that is possible? How do you see that happening, bearing in mind that it starts to take you into the political arena?
Prime Minister
Well, I do not think that must matter. I think we must still make the point. Some of them are aware of the point—that they do not merely wish to be the objects of aid from Britain in a way which makes them totally dependent. They want to be independent. [end p7]
But you know, you really are up against quite a lot of old traditions and it is not easy to break those down. You can often only do it by example, by setting up a research farm and letting others see how it is done, then they wanting to learn. It is a combination of some of their traditional methods plus also the enormous increase in population. Medical aid has, of course, saved many many many many lives and then, the young people, they marry early and then you get a sudden acceleration of the population.
There are one or two countries—just take Malawi for instance. Malawi has managed to feed her own people and have a surplus, but her government said: “The first thing we have to do, the most fundamental thing, is to grow enough food!” and instead of going for sophisticated things like steel plants or prestige projects, she set out to feed the people by their own efforts. Now, I remember this vividly because when we first made the Central African Federation, you will recall that in those days that was Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia—what was then known as Nyasaland—and now of course Zambia, Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia is Zimbabwe, Nyasaland Malawi. But the poor relation of the other two countries was Nyasaland, now Malawi, and not such good soil, and one of the reasons she was put into a federation was we wondered how in the world she was going to be able to feed herself and to be independent.
But you know, when Dr. Banda returned to that country and he had been here very long, he had this mission, this purpose, feed the people; and they have. [end p8]
Now, in Northern Rhodesia, as Kenneth Kaunda will tell you, marvellously rich soil, wonderful soil. Should be feeding not only Northern Rhodesia but other countries as well. But the people are not natural farmers and they flooded into the cities and I remember when I was there for the Commonwealth Conference, we saw what they were trying to do to persuade them to go out to become farmers, because the soil is so good; and they were insisting that some of their military service was spent on being taught how to farm the land.
Now Southern Rhodesia, again, very very rich soil and of course she can not only feed herself, but other countries, but she too has been struck by drought this year and has had to import maize which is her staple.
And Botswana, again the southern part of the country, struck by drought. It has been a very very bad year, a very very bad three years for drought, of the kind that I hope we do not see again, and aggravated by the forms of husbandry that we had previously.
But all of those countries which I know, their message is “Yes, we do need help now. Yes, we do need. We have got a disaster. But equally, we want to be independent. Therefore, we want the right sort of implements!” Not the most complicated sophisticated ones. Those will not do. The ones that will help them to till more land, but the much simpler implements which they can use to such great advantage and always the research.
I do remember my very first visit to Israel, which I think was over twenty years ago, going down to see what they [end p9] had been doing with the desert, and it was fantastic. And they have—I think they must still have it—an Israeli African Institute, because they found that people were going to Israel and saying: “Well look! You know what it is like to tackle very little rainfall, drought, and therefore we think we can learn a lot from you!” and I think they have, and now everything has come at once. Before the real husbandry has got going in some parts, we have had a combination of the drought and the accumulated good work the West has been doing in saving many lives through better health and medical treatment.
Michael Barratt
Prime Minister, may we turn finally to that other area of disaster or impending disaster—what the Economic Commission for Africa foresees—a political, economic and social nightmare for the continent before the end of the century. Rescheduled debts, countries going bankrupt, the whole economic disaster that seems to loom. What can the Western World do about that, if anything?
Prime Minister
Really, we try to do two things: first, sometimes we have to reschedule the debts. Sometimes, the request for rescheduling does not come only from the poorer countries, but from some of those who have considerable resources. But there are countries in Africa which have managed their affairs very well, and I think the other countries have a lot to learn from them. [end p10]
For the others, yes, we do try to reschedule debts, because they sometimes just cannot repay the interest, let alone the capital. I think we are entitled, when we do reschedule debts, to try to work through the IMF, to say: “Look, you cannot carry on, not only for repayment of your debts, but you cannot carry on because of your own people in the way which got you into this problem. You have got to get your affairs on a reasonable basis!” and therefore it is reasonable to ask that that should be done through the International Monetary Fund, which has a good deal of experience and which does look at each country. It does not have one recipe for every one. It does just go and look at the country, looks sometimes at the politics of the country, because I think it knows that if you demand too much you just take the heart out of people. You have to make sure that they do just a little more than they think they can, and that seems to me to be a reasonable way, both in justice to those who have lent the money and in justice to the people of the country who must have some hope that if they go through these privations that there is a better life at the end of it, and some of the countries in Africa have shown that when they are governed very well, there can be.
When tragedy like drought hits, that is different, but under normal circumstances you have got to make the very best of the assets you have and see that they are well developed.