[2011 Aug] Eritrea: An Island of Food in Africa’s Horn of Hunger by Thomas C. Mountain

[2011 Aug] Starving Somalia: U.S. “Other Wars” Kill More than Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq by Glen Ford  Somalia had a semblance of peace, and a government to protect the peace, for a very brief time before the U.S. armed and instigated an Ethiopian invasion of the country, in late 2006. They crushed and scattered the Islamist government – called the Islamic Courts – whose youth wing, the Shabab, then mounted a guerilla resistance. Almost immediately, the country was plunged into what the United Nations called “the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa.”

[2011 July] World Food Program in Somalia: Angel of Mercy or Angel of Death? by Thomas C. Mountain  Back in 2006, just as Somali farmers brought their grain harvest to market, the WFP began the distribution of its entire year’s grain aid for Somalia. With thousands of tons of free grain available, Somali farmers found it almost impossible to sell their harvest and faced disaster......Then in 2007, just as the Somali grain harvest began to arrive in local markets, the WFP once again distributed its entire year’s grain aid, only this time with the Ethiopian army there to protect it. With a four-year-long on-and-off-again drought since afflicting most of Somalia, you could say the WFP helped put the nail in the coffin of Somali agriculture.