We have two separate humanitarian crises looming, quite apart from the devastating Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in West Africa, with its tentacles reaching far and wide; Islamic State in the Middle East, spreading terror, hatred and death...with its tentacles reaching far and wide. So where is the story on two different potential catastrophes?
A Putsch takes place in Ukraine, Fascists are among those taking power, anti-Russian and anti-Jewish slogans are chanted, Russian-speakers are tortured and attacked, massacres take place against Russian-speakers. The West backs the perpetrators and imposes sanctions against Russia. Russia tries to broker a peace deal and a ceasefire in a foreign country, in which according to its "Government", Russia has no jurisdiction. The West increases the sanctions and continues to back those who committed massacres. Just like they did in Syria, until their little darling (ISIL/ISIS/Islamic State) turned into a monster.
So rather than imposing sanctions and spreading division, sowing the seeds of hatred, why doesn't the West use its energy concentrating on development, instead of deployment, and why doesn't it use its political clout to pull the world together instead of tearing it apart?
While everyone is speaking about the spread of Ebola Virus Disease (now that it has started to make inroads into Western countries), where is the story on the impending food crisis in West Africa? Kanayo Nwanze, the President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, has warned that urgent action is needed to stave off an impending food crisis.
Speaking on World Food Day on October 16, in an interview with the UN News Center, he stated that eighty per cent of the food eaten today in the developing world is produced by smallholders on family farms. Here, he claims, is the danger because these farmers are most at risk from cycles of hunger and poverty. "We should actually decide to take action beyond words," he warns.
He said that unless we start to invest in the real infrastructure which supports agricultural production, which means people, there could be a shortage of food in the coming years.
Fast forward a few thousand miles to the East, the UNO is warning of "an immense humanitarian crisis" this Winter in Iraq, the country destroyed by, who else, NATO back in 2003, when it was invaded illegally, outside the auspices of the UNO, in a murderous invasion causing the deaths of some one million people, in which military hardware was deployed against civilian structures.
In the words of Rashid Khalikov, director of the UN Office in Geneva for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, "an immense humanitarian emergency is unfolding in front of our eyes".
Officials from the UNO and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation found a potentially calamitous situation in the areas they visited, ravaged by the conflict caused by Islamic State, created in the void caused by the invasion led by, who else, Washington and poodle in chief, the top lapdog, London. They found 850,000 people displaced in Kurdistan, they found 90,000 people living in the open in Dohuk Governorate. As a harsh winter approaches, nearly one million people are in urgent need of food and shelter, while 5.2 million Iraqis need assistance, 1.8 million of these being children.
Those responsible are not only Islamic State, it is the United States of America and the United Kingdom, who in one of their imperialist ventures, destabilized a State and did not think the consequences through. The onus lies on these two countries, the ones who have been the motor behind the sanctions against Russia, to take a good look at their own foreign policy, man up to their responsibilities, and change tack.
Next story: a humanitarian crisis in Libya. Caused by guess who?
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
(timothy.hinchey@gmail.com)
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