A Starving Africa Cries Out for Partnership of Superpowers

Starvation and armed conflict are ghastly commonplace in sub-Sahara Africa and likely to remain so unless the United States and Soviet Union act, as they have done in Afghanistan, to subordinate ideological rivalries and redirect energies to Africa’s vast humanitarian and development needs.

Governments and dissident movements in Ethiopia, Somalia, Mozambique, Angola and Sudan, in pursuit of wars that are unending and probably unwinnable, have received huge amounts of military assistance from Moscow and Washington for too long. In Ethiopia, armed conflict has persisted for 26 years; in Mozambique, for 10 years; in Angola for 13 years. It is arguable that without U.S. and Soviet aid, many of these wars would have ended by now.

Certainly, without the superpowers’ transfer of sophisticated weaponry they would not be as deadly. The real tragedy is that the rights and wrongs of all the wars have little or no meaning for the populations whose lives are at risk.

The Soviet Union has traditionally sought to gain influence through ideology and arms, while the United States coupled its military aid with money and food. Indeed, Soviet weapons aid far exceeds that of the United States in the past decade and has been augmented by the presence of Cuban troops in Angola, Mozambique and Ethiopia.

Save for the limited number of military advisers in the Sudan, the United States stations neither troops in the region nor seeks proxies from outside. More important, Washington has remained the world’s most generous donor of emergency humanitarian assistance.

Several months ago Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev said that “when the Afghan knot is untied,” the way would open for resolution of other regional conflicts. That time is here. Ronald Reagan acted promptly in appealing for the Soviet leader’s intervention in Ethiopia, where Moscow is the regime’s exclusive arms supplier. Earlier, the Soviets had pledged an unprecedented 250,000 tons of emergency foodstuffs, calculated, American officials noted, to just exceed this year’s U.S. commitment of 247,000 tons. “Let’s say there was a food race and we lost,” one official said.

Even a food race would not bring an end to famine there. Food is piling up at Ethiopian ports despite the efforts of humanitarian agencies like Catholic Relief Services, which is serving 500,000 starving people in Eritrea and Tigre but is capable of assisting twice that number, and others that are prevented from maximum distribution since national priorities are assigned to the war.

There are no quick fixes for war and festering famine for a continent subject to the competition of the big powers for more than a century. The U.S.-Soviet Union competition for geopolitical advantage, allies, outposts and the raw materials of Africa is painfully similar to the colonial powers’ attempt to secure the same assets for themselves and to deny them to each other. Regrettably, today’s superpowers stepped in, in many cases by invitation, just as Africa’s de-colonized countries were finding their feet and feeding themselves.

As the Soviets saw a no-win situation in Afghanistan, surely the futility of continuing militarization of Africa is equally self-evident. Despite some earlier mixed signals, Washington has been increasingly clear-sighted on the region’s priorities. It has stimulated negotiations that include Cuba and South Africa over the future of Angola and Namibia, which are inescapably linked. It required seven years to get to the negotiating table recently in London. No such time lag can be permitted from here on.

It was encouraging recently to hear Anatoly F. Dobrynin, longtime Soviet ambassador to the United States and now a prominent member of the Central Committee, echo his boss while addressing an extraordinary meeting of American and Soviet scholars and government officials. Dobrynin spoke of the need to establish “norms of behavior to limit military action and to regulate regional conflicts that could escalate.” Developing the norms will require at least what used to be called “confidence-building measures,” which is what Afghanistan sets up.

Given its role in constructing the Afghanistan agreements, the United Nations would be the appropriate instrument to use to build disengagement agreements. Signed agreements are better than verbal ones but understandings, short of formal texts, can and have been made to work in the past. Whatever their form, commitments would have to include: disavowals to seek advantage from insurgencies whether called “national liberation” movements or not; prohibitions against use of military assistance for other than justifiable self-defense; a ban on introduction of sophisticated weapons; opposition to intervention of outside forces, unless special treaty provisions apply, and incentives to promote economic and social development.

No one should assume that Soviet-American agreements to disengage militarily in Africa inherently spell an end to coups, counter coups or civil war. Indeed, it may still be too much to assume a mutual will to do so. We don’t yet know how or whether Gorbachev will respond to Reagan’s approach on Ethiopia. The President should set everyone’s sights beyond one country and speak to all where the two governments have any influence and where humanitarian and basic development needs are neglected or held hostage to armed conflict.