PRESS RELEASE
British Destabilize Africa:
Food Riots Spread as Hunger Deepens
April 9, 2008 (EIRNS)—The energetic British attempts to create chaos and famine in Kenya and Zimbabwe in Africa, take place against a background of worldwide hyperinflationary food price increases and sudden food shortages, which are threatening both to kill large numbers of people, and to bring down governments in the Third World. The developing potential food crisis and famine arise from decades of British and Brussels attacks on national food self-sufficiency, and outright food scarcity policies masked as "agricultural free trade."
Josette Sheeran, director of the United Nations World Food Program, warned that "a perfect storm" is threatening millions as food prices soar and as the need for aid grows rapidly, during a visit to East Africa, reported The East African. "We are seeing a new face of hunger," she declared at a UN conference in Ethiopia on April 1. "We are seeing more urban hunger than ever before. Often, we are seeing food on the shelves but people being unable to afford it."
Worsening economic pressures related to the cost of food have resulted in civil disturbances in five African countries in just the past three months — Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mauritania, Mozambique, and Senegal. In Kenya, the "political" violence has led to increased hunger among the displaced, and in Tanzania, 38% of children under the age of five are stunted in height due to chronic malnourishment.
Another UN official warned in Dubai that rising food prices will set off worldwide unrest and threaten political stability. Sir John Holmes, the UN's emergency relief coordinator, told the Dubai International Humanitarian Aid & Development (DIHAD) Conference that "The security implications should also not be underestimated as food riots are already being reported across the globe. Current food price trends are likely to increase sharply both the incidence and depth of food insecurity."
Holmes estimated that food prices had shot up 40% (!) on average worldwide since the summer of 2007. Soaring fuel prices will also contribute to the unrest, he said, including the direct contributions to food price hikes made by increases in diesel prices, fossil fuel-based fertilizer prices, etc.
The London Guardian newspaper listed the worst food unrest, most recently, as threatening the stability of Egypt, Haiti, and Ivory Coast, but also the riots in Cameroon in February; in Mauritania, Mozambique, and Senegal; and protests in Uzbekistan, Yemen, Bolivia, and Indonesia. UN staff in Jordan also went on strike for a day this week to demand a pay raise in the face of a 50% hike in food prices.
