The Vice President: Help for a Hungry Land

NICE TO COME AND SEE US BUSH read a sign held by two camel-borne nomads at a refugee camp in central Sudan, which is struggling to accommodate some 600,000 starving Ethiopians. Accompanied by his wife Barbara, dozens of officials, private figures like TV Evangelist Pat Robertson, and a gaggle of reporters, Vice President George Bush was on a six-day swing through famine-plagued Africa that also took him to Mali and Niger. “When you see a little child a year old weighing five pounds,” he said, “you better start trying to press leaders who are unwilling to help.” He also preached the virtues of private enterprise to his Third World hosts.

Bush underlined the U.S.’s insistence that Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiri comply with International Monetary Fund reform proposals as a condition for receiving $200 million in aid. But in a gesture of good faith, he announced the release of $15 million to purchase fertilizer and insecticide for Sudan’s cotton planting. At a U.N. conference in Geneva this week, Bush was expected to promise a U.S. donation of half the 3 million tons of food necessary to alleviate the African famine.