http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/world/americas/18food.html
Across Globe, Empty Bellies Bring Rising Anger
By MARC LACEY
Published: April 18, 2008
****T-AU-PRINCE, Haiti =97 Hunger bashed in
the front gate of Haiti=92s presidential palace.
Hunger poured onto the streets, burning tires
and taking on soldiers and the police. Hunger
sent the country=92s prime minister packing.
Haiti=92s hunger, that burn in the belly that so
many here feel, has become fiercer than
ever in recent days as global food prices
spiral out of reach, spiking as much as 45
percent since the end of 2006 and turning
Haitian staples like beans, corn and rice
into closely guarded treasures.
Saint Louis Meriska=92s children ate two
spoonfuls of rice apiece as their only meal
recently and then went without any food the
following day. His eyes downcast, his own
stomach empty, the unemployed father said
forlornly, =93They look at me and say, =91Papa,
I=92m hungry,=92 and I have to look away.
It=92s humiliating and it makes you angry.=94
That anger is palpable across the globe.
The food crisis is not only being felt among
the poor but is also eroding the gains of the
working and middle cl*****, sowing volatile
levels of discontent and putting new
pressures on fragile governments.
In Cairo, the military is being put to work
baking bread as rising food prices threaten
to become the spark that ignites wider anger
at a repressive government. In Burkina Faso
and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, food
riots are breaking out as never before. In
reasonably prosperous Malaysia, the ruling
coalition was nearly ousted by voters who
cited food and fuel price increases as their
main concerns.
=93It=92s the worst crisis of its kind in more than
30 years,=94 said Jeffrey D. Sachs, the
economist and special adviser to the U. N.
secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. =93It=92s a big
deal and it=92s obviously threatening a lot of
governments. There are a number of govern-
ments on the ropes, and I think there=92s more
political fallout to come.=94
Indeed, as it roils developing nations, the
spike in commodity prices =97 the biggest
since the Nixon administration =97 has pitted
the globe=92s poorer south against the relatively
wealthy north, adding to demands for reform
of rich nations=92 farm and environmental
policies. But experts say there are few quick
fixes to a crisis tied to so many factors, from
strong demand for food from emerging
economies like China=92s to rising oil prices
to the diversion of food resources to make
biofuels.
There are no scripts on how to handle the
crisis, either. In Asia, governments are
putting in place measures to limit hoarding
of rice after some shoppers panicked at
price increases and bought up everything
they could.
Even in Thailand, which produces 10 million
more tons of rice than it consumes and is
the world=92s largest rice ex****ter, super-
markets have placed signs limiting the
amount of rice shoppers are allowed to
purchase.
But there is also plenty of nervousness and
confusion about how best to proceed and
just how bad the impact may ultimately be,
particularly as already strapped gummints
struggle to keep up their food subsidies.
=91Scandalous Storm=92
=93This is a perfect storm,=94 President El=EDas
Antonio Saca of El Salvador said on Wed.
at the World Economic Forum on Latin
America in Canc=FAn, Mexico. =93How long
can we withstand the situation? We have
to feed our people, and commodities are
becoming scarce. This scandalous storm
might become a hurricane that could upset
not only our economies but also the stability
of our countries.=94
In Asia, if Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad
Badawi of Malaysia steps down, which is
looking increasingly likely amid postelection
turmoil within his party, he may be that
region=92s first high- profile political casualty
of fuel and food price inflation.
In Indonesia, fearing protests, the gummint
recently revised its 2008 budget, increasing
the amount it will spend on food subsidies
by about $280 million.
=93The biggest concern is food riots,=94 said
H.S. Dillon, a former adviser to Indonesia=92s
Ministry of Agriculture. Referring to small
but widespread protests touched off by a
rise in soybean prices in January, he said,
=93It has happened in the past and can
happen again.=94
Last month in Senegal, one of Africa=92s
oldest and most stable democracies,
police in riot gear beat and used tear gas
against people protesting high food prices
and later raided a television station that
broadcast images of the event. Many
Senegalese have expressed anger at
President Abdoulaye Wade for spending
lavishly on roads and five-star hotels for
an Islamic summit meeting last month while
many people are unable to afford rice or fish.
=93Why are these riots happening?=94 asked
Arif Husain, senior food security analyst at
the World Food Program, which has issued
urgent appeals for donations. =93The human
instinct is to survive, and people are going
to do no matter what to survive. And if you=92re
hungry you get angry quicker.=94
Leaders who ignore the rage do so at their
own risk. President Ren=E9 Pr=E9val of Haiti
appeared to taunt the populace as the
chorus of complaints about la vie ch=E8re =97
the expensive life =97 grew. He said if
Haitians could afford cellphones, which
many do carry, they should be able to feed
their families. =93If there is a protest against
the rising prices,=94 he said, =93come get me
at the palace and I will demonstrate with you.=94
When they came, filled with rage and by
the thousands, he huddled inside and his
presidential guards, with United Nations
peacekeeping troops, rebuffed them.
Within days, opposition lawmakers had
voted out Mr. Pr=E9val=92s prime minister,
Jacques-=C9douard Alexis, forcing him to
reconstitute his government. Fragile in
even the best of times, Haiti=92s population
and politics are now both simmering.
=93Why were we surprised?=94 asked Patrick
=C9lie, a Haitian political activist who followed
the food riots in Africa earlier in the year
and feared they might come to Haiti.
=93When something is coming your way all
the way from Burkina Faso you should
see it coming. What we had was like a
can of gasoline that the government left
for someone to light a match to it.=94
Dwindling Menus
The rising prices are altering menus, and
not for the better. In India, people are
scrimping on milk for their children. Daily
bowls of dal are getting thinner, as a bag
of lentils is stretched across a few more meals.
Maninder Chand, an auto-rickshaw driver
in New Delhi, said his family had given up
eating meat altogether for the last several
weeks.
Another rickshaw driver, Ravinder Kumar
Gupta, said his wife had stopped seasoning
their daily lentils, their chief source of protein,
with the usual onion and spices because
the price of cooking oil was now out of reach.
These days, they eat bowls of watery, tasteless
dal, seasoned only with salt.
Down Cairo=92s Hafziyah Street, peddlers
selling food from behind wood carts bark
out their prices. But few customers can
afford their fish or chicken, which bake in
the hot sun. Food prices have doubled in
two months.
Ahmed Abul Gheit, 25, sat on a cheap,
stained wooden chair by his own pile of
rotting tomatoes. =93We can=92t even find food,=94
he said, looking over at his friend Sobhy
Abdullah, 50. Then raising his hands toward
the sky, as if in prayer, he said, =93May God
take the guy I have in mind.=94
Mr. Abdullah nodded, knowing full well
that the =93guy=94 was President Hosni Mubarak.
The government=92s ability to address the
crisis is limited, however. It already spends
more on subsidies, including gasoline and
bread, than on education & health combined.
=93If all the people rise, then the government
will resolve this,=94 said Raisa Fikry, 50, whose
husband receives a pension equal to about
$83 a month, as she shopped for vegetables.
=93But everyone has to rise together. People
get scared. But we will all have to rise together.=94
It is the kind of talk that has prompted the
government to treat its economic woes as
a security threat, dispatching riot forces with
a strict warning that anyone who takes to the
streets will be dealt with harshly.
Niger does not need to be reminded that
hungry citizens overthrow governments.
The country=92s first postcolonial president,
Hamani Diori, was toppled amid allegations
of rampant corruption in 1974 as millions
starved during a drought.
More recently, in 2005, it was mass protests
in Niamey, the Nigerien capital, that made
the government sit up and take notice of that
year=92s food crisis, which was caused by a
complex mix of poor rains, locust infestation
and market manipulation by traders.
=93As a result of that experience the gummint
created a cabinet-level ministry to deal with
the high cost of living,=94 said Moustapha Kadi,
an activist who helped organize marches in
2005. =93So when prices went up this year the
government acted quickly to remove tariffs
on rice, which everyone eats. That quick
action has kept people from taking to the
streets.=94
The Poor Eat Mud
In Haiti, where three-quarters of the pop.
earns less than $2 a day and one in five
children is chronically malnourished, the
one business booming amid all the gloom
is the selling of patties made of mud, oil
and sugar, typically consumed only by the
most destitute.
=93It=92s salty and it has butter and you don=92t
know you=92re eating dirt,=94 said Olwich
Louis Jeune, 24, who has taken to eating
them more often in recent months. =93It makes
your stomach quiet down.=94
But the grumbling in Haiti these days is
no longer confined to the stomach. It is
now spray-painted on walls of the capital
and shouted by demonstrators.
In recent days, Mr. Pr=E9val has patched
together a response, using international aid
money and price reductions by im****ters to
cut the price of a sack of rice by about 15 %.
He has also trimmed the salaries of some
top officials. But those are considered
tem****ary measures.
Real solutions will take years. Haiti, its
agriculture industry in shambles, needs to
better feed itself. Outside investment is the
key, although that requires stability, not the
sort of widespread looting and violence that
the Haitian food riots have fostered.
Meanwhile, most of the poorest of the poor
suffer silently, too weak for activism or too
busy raising the next generation of hungry.
In the sprawling slum of Haiti=92s Cit=E9 Soleil,
Placide Simone, 29, offered one of her five
offspring to a stranger. =93Take one,=94 she said,
cradling a listless baby and motioning toward
four rail-thin toddlers, none of whom had
eaten that day. =93You pick. Just feed them.=94
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