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<p class="gmail-Default"><span> </span><b><span style="font-size:20pt">Operation Starvation, </span></b><b><span style="font-size:11.5pt">Alex de Waal on Counter-Humanitarianism and the Return
of Famine as a Weapon of War,<span> </span></span></b><i><span style="font-size:11.5pt">The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy<span> </span>Tufts University. </span></i></p>
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<span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Candara"></span><i><span style="font-size:11pt;color:windowtext">This is a more complete version of the essay published in the
</span></i><b><i><span style="font-size:11pt;color:windowtext">London Review
of Books </span></i></b><i><span style="font-size:11pt;color:windowtext">(39:12,
15 June 2017, pp. 9-12) EXCERPTS</span></i>
<span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Candara"></span><div class="gmail-WordSection2"><p class="gmail-Default"><i><span style="font-size:11pt;color:windowtext"> </span></i></p>
<p class="gmail-Default"><font size="4"><span style="font-family:Cambria;color:windowtext">In its 1ary use, the verb
‘to starve’ is transitive: Something people<span> </span>do to one another, like torture or murder.</span></font></p><font size="4"> </font><font size="4">
</font><p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">Mass starvation on account of the weather has all but
disappeared: today’s famines are all caused by political decisions, yet too
often, journalists<span> </span>use the phrase
man-made famine as if it were a surprise. </font></p><font size="4"></font><font size="4"><span style="font-family:Cambria;color:windowtext"></span></font><font size="4"> </font><p class="gmail-Default"><font size="4"><span style="font-family:Cambria;color:windowtext">Over the last half century,
famines have become rarer and less lethal. Last year I wrote in the <i>New York
Times </i>that they might be abolished for good. But this year, mass
starvation is back and we face the possibility of four or five simultaneous
famines in the world.</span></font><font size="4"><b><span style="font-family:Cambria;color:windowtext"> </span></b></font><font size="4">
</font></p><p class="gmail-Default"><font size="4"><b><span style="font-family:Cambria;color:windowtext">Don’t be fooled by pictures
that show hungry people in arid landscapes: this is entirely a famine crime,
and the weather had nothing to do with it. </span></b></font></p><font size="4">
</font><font size="4">
</font><p class="gmail-Default"><font size="4"><b><span style="font-family:Cambria;color:windowtext">There’s nothing natural or inevitable
about people dying from hunger when the rains fail. </span></b><span style="font-family:Cambria;color:windowtext"></span></font><font size="4"><span style="font-family:Cambria;color:windowtext"> </span></font><font size="4">
</font></p><p class="gmail-Default"><font size="4"><span style="font-family:Cambria;color:windowtext">That’s a fact that can never
be repeated too often, because it corrects the most common misconception about
famine. </span><span style="font-family:Cambria;color:windowtext"></span></font></p><font size="4">
</font><font size="4">
</font><p class="gmail-Default"><font size="4"><span style="font-family:Cambria;color:windowtext">Yet these political famines
seem scarcely to register in our collective imagination. They are strikingly
absent from the canon on which theories of famine and policies for food
security have been constructed. Even Amartya Sen did not take them into account
when developing his entitlement theory of famine causation which correctly
overturned explanations of famine based exclusively on food shortage.</span></font></p><font size="4"></font><font size="4"><span style="font-family:Cambria;color:windowtext"> </span></font><font size="4">
</font><p class="gmail-Default"><font size="4"><b><span style="font-family:Cambria;color:windowtext">Faced with the problems of
defining the crime and proving culpability, prosecutors since Nuremberg have
pursued charges other than famine crimes. </span></b><span style="font-family:Cambria;color:windowtext"></span></font></p><font size="4">
</font><font size="4">
</font><p class="gmail-Default"><font size="4"><span style="font-family:Cambria;color:windowtext">Prosecuting starvation as
murder (or extermination) faces extraordinary evidenciary problems. </span></font></p><font size="4">
</font><font size="4">
</font><p class="gmail-Default"><font size="4"><span style="font-family:Cambria;color:windowtext">M<b>ass starvation is still
caused by the same toxic mixture of war, dictatorship and atrocity. </b></span></font></p><font size="4">
</font><font size="4">
</font><p class="gmail-Default"><font size="4"><span style="font-family:Cambria;color:windowtext">The Geneva Convention, Art
54 states outright that starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is
prohibited . It is a bold statement <span> </span>of humanitarian
law, but its application is limited.</span><span style="font-family:Cambria;color:windowtext"></span></font></p><font size="4"></font><font size="4"><span style="font-family:Cambria;color:windowtext">But beware, counter-terrorist
operations can be just as inhumane when they impede aid and harass aid worker</span><span style="color:windowtext">s. </span></font><font size="4">
</font></div><font size="4">
<span style="font-family:Candara"><br></span></font></div><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Candara">Full article:<br style="page-break-before:always" clear="all">
</span><div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <a href="https://sites.tufts.edu/wpf/files/2017/08/Operation-Starvation-extended-20170616.pdf" target="_blank">https://sites.tufts.<wbr>edu/wpf/files/2017/08/<wbr>Operation-Starvation-extended-<wbr>20170616.pdf</a> <div class="gmail_quote"><div><div style="font-family:verdana,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:16px"><div><br></div><br></div></div></div></div></div>