Democrat April-May 2000 (Number 43)
EU rice mountain rots
whilst Third World starves
by Brian Denny
The obscene sight of EU officials claiming it would
be "wrong" to send the Brussels rice mountain to feed the starving
in the drought-ridden Horn of Africa because it will damage the market
tells us a lot about the monster which rules us.
"Structural" surplus!
Italian rice growers pleaded for their stockpiles,
hoarded under the ludicrous Common Agricultural Policy, to be used
to feed the world's hungry but European Commission spokesman Gregor
Kreuzhuber coldly said "No! We have a huge structural surplus and
we need to balance the market.
"But it's wrong to say this could be solved either
through dumping goods on third world markets or by giving it away
as food aid. We need to reform the sector," he said.
Rice rotting away
The Italian Rice Industry Association (AIRI) said
EU paddy rice stocks of 500,000 tonnes, nearly half of which are of
Italian origin and 20 per cent of the EU's annual production, were
in danger of rotting and should be used where needed.
The call came after the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation
warned that up to 16 million people face starvation in the Horn of
Africa, including Ethiopia, Eriteria and Somalia, following years
of drought.
Rice surplus
However, increasing quantities of rice are being
poured into so-called intervention stocks, buying in food commodities
at guaranteed prices under the EU farm policy.
This process under the CAP ensures EU "price stability"
rather than increased production and EU calls for "reform" under the
so-called Agenda 2000 means slashing jobs and capacity in the industry.
AIRI estimated that EU taxpayers had paid over 100
million for the rice stocks and it costs more than 1 million per month
to store it. It said delivery of the EU rice stocks to Africa would
cut the EU's own costs. "Excessive rice in the EU could be used to
reach the needy, and would represent at the same time a considerable
saving of resources," AIRI said.
AIRI director Roberto Carriere said: "If the European
Union does not use these stocks for food aid as quickly as possible,
they will deteriorate and have to be destroyed."
"While the appeals of the United Nations to rich countries
multiply in order to save millions of seriously malnourished people,
the EU risks having to destroy thousands of tonnes of rice for which
it has paid," he said.
Madness of CAP
This insane example of the destructive nature of
CAP can be multiplied by any number of agricultural produce grown
within the EU.
Ethiopia accused rich countries of waiting until they
saw "skeletons on screens" before answering appeals to avert new famines
in the Horn of Africa.
EU feet of clay
Oxfam also said aid for Ethiopia was not arriving
fast enough and accused the EU of dragging its feet.
"The EC failed to meet its commitment last year, providing
little more than half the food it promised. It is now more than one
year behind on its pledges," it said.
This is the reality of Brussels attitude to Africa
behind the smiles at the recent EU-Africa summit in Cairo.
After centuries of colonial pillage and exploitation
EU leaders also had the bare-faced gall to claim that the main cause
of low levels of development in Africa was "corruption."
The patronising and racist message was clear - it's
your own fault.
Moreover, Brussels also demanded that Africa drop
trade barriers, designed to protect beleaguered African economies,
in order to allow EU goods to flood their fragile markets. This is
formally organised in the Lome convention between the EU and nearly
70 Afro-Caribbean-Pacific states.
Aid has fallen off
However, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak hit the
nail on the head when he said Western aid to Africa had fallen sharply
in the last two decades, commodity prices had fallen and the continent's
share of world trade had shrunk.
"Under these unfavourable external conditions, the
African debt crisis has aggravated into unprecedented dimensions,"
he said.
The increasingly colonial attitude of countries like
Britain to it's former colonies was also revealed at the summit in
verbal attacks on Zimbabwe.
Britain cannot lecture
Whatever one thinks of the country's elected President
Robert Mugabe, Foreign Office Minister Peter Hain is in no position
to lecture Zimbabwe that it is "uncivilised" while the UK daily bombs
Iraq and helped flatten Yugoslavia last year.
Brussels drive to create it's own currency and an
army to protect it's interests and compete for resources have been
the overriding issues democrats have been campaigning against.
However, the democratic movement may also find it
fruitful to refocus on the EU's attitude to the third world and the
obscenity of food mountain's created by CAP which are larger than
ever.