During the heat of the crisis, the local Swedish newspaper Hallands Nyheter interviewed me about The Famine Scam and wrote an article about it, which was recently added to the web.

Published on March 5th, the article is entitled Falkenbergare kritiska till bilden av svält i Niger. For all those who do not understand Swedish, here is an English translation:

Falkenberg people critical to the image of starvation in Niger

The Garvi family that run the Eden Foundation has opinions

Was the famine a bluff? A television documentary is shaking Norway, placing its finger on the ignorance about Africa and the assumingly false image of a famine in Niger 2005. The Garvi family from Falkenberg, who run a long-term aid project in Niger, are amongst the critical voices in this startling documentary.

FALKENBERG. For more than 20 years, the Garvi family has been running the aid organisation Eden Foundation in the African country of Niger. They help the farmers by giving them seeds to sow; a way of making the desert bloom. Periodically, they’ve lived in Falkenberg, where their aid organisation has its Swedish base.

“Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world. People die of malaria and other diseases. They have low resistance and little access to health care. But it’s a long-term situation that calls for long-term efforts”, says Esther Garvi to Hallands Nyheter.

“It does more damage than good when the aid organisations temporarily come in and create chaos. They dump prices by spreading food and destroy people’s capacity of taking care of themselves”, she says.

2005 for her was a surprising experience when Niger all of a sudden was known as a “hunger catastrophe”, partly through the British BBC’s influential reports.

“There have been famines before, but 2005 was nothing extraordinary, it was just a slightly worse year. And yes, there were grasshoppers in some areas, but that happens with regular intervals,” she says.

According to her, and to the Norwegian documentary, the famine catastrophe started to live its own life: it became truth for many, but was mostly a sign of the widespread lack of knowledge of the living conditions in Africa.

“The aid industry handles huge sums of money, which is why things like this happen”, says Esther Garvi, who says that emergency fundraising is mostly characterized by a short-term emotional commitment that unsettles the economy of the country.

The reason why the TV documentary, which was shown on Monday evening, has been given so much attention in Norway is largely due to its heavy criticism directed at Jan Egeland, politician and top diplomat.

Egeland has a significant reputation and was at that time responsible for UN’s aid operations. Regarding Niger, he is criticized for lack of knowledge and for having gone public with unrelated and exaggerated figures of the so-called famine.

“TV wants to portray things as if I’ve exaggerated, but that is one hundred percent wrong. I stand by every word,” says Jan Egeland himself to the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet.

Esther Garvi is currently in Oslo taking part in the debate surrounding the documentary. It was her parents, Arne and Elisabeth (the father has Norwegian background), who in 1986 started Eden Foundation. They brought their children along with them, drove through Europe, took the boat to Africa, continued through the Sahara and then settled in Niger.

Esther’s mother recently passed away after a long period of illness, but the father, the brother and Esther carry Eden Foundation forward.

Håkan Bergström, Hallands Nyheter