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The Mengistu government has also antagonized Western governments and aid groups with its grand scheme of moving 2 million Ethiopians, as soon as possible and however possible, from the ravaged farmlands of the north to the more fertile and sparsely populated regions of the southwest.In principle, the program makes a fair amount of sense. In practice, however, some of the 350,000 already resettled have fled their new homes, claiming that they were relocated against their will. Sometimes, they report, they were cultivating their fields when they were suddenly seized and flown south in Soviet transport aircraft; in the process, many families were torn apart. To make matters worse, resettled farmers frequently have not been provided with draft animals or farming tools or seeds. All the while, the resettlement project uses up funds and transport desperately needed to supply the hungry. "Tremendous resources are directed to resettlement," says a Western relief official in Addis Ababa, "at the expense of all those other people needing famine relief."
The forced resettlement scheme has further agitated Washington's already mixed feelings about assisting the citizens of an unfriendly government. "We don't like the regime," says a senior State Department official. "It's an abomination. But we must deal with the emergency." Not long ago, indeed, the U.S., which has been the most generous donor of famine assistance (more than $300 million since last October), lifted restrictions on development aid to Ethiopia.
Last week, Mengistu made some promising moves. He ordered increased daily processing of supplies at Assab, Ethiopia's largest port, where 100,000 tons of grain have been stockpiled and are going to waste. He also announced that 70% of the country's commercial trucks would be made available for shuttling relief goods from Assab to the parched heartlands.
Yet it is the final sad irony of Ethiopia's predicament that, after a decade of drought, relief workers are, for the moment, praying for little rain. Early last week, torrential downpours damaged 5% of the supplies stranded at Assab. Worse still, heavy rains expected in many areas within the next two months will render roads muddy and impassable for relief trucks. Above all, they will increase the likelihood that both contagious diseases and death by exposure could sweep through the crowded camps.