Ethiopia famine aid 'spent on weapons'

Millions of dollars earmarked for victims of the Ethiopian famine of 1984-85 went on buying weapons, according to a BBC investigation.

Former rebel leaders told the BBC that they posed as merchants in meetings with charity workers to get aid money.

They then diverted the cash to fund their attempts to overthrow the government of the time.

Documents released by the CIA confirmed aid was "almost certainly being diverted for military purposes".

Although millions of people were saved by the Western aid that poured into the country, evidence suggests not all of the aid went to the most needy.

At the time, the Ethiopian government was fighting rebellions in the northern provinces of Eritrea and Tigray.

Much of the countryside was outside of government control, so relief agencies brought aid in from neighbouring Sudan.

Some was in the form of food, some as cash, to buy grain from Ethiopian farmers in areas that were still in surplus.

Undercover rebels

Max Peberdy, an aid worker from Christian Aid, carried in nearly $500,000 in Ethiopian currency across the border in 1984.

On his journey, Mr Peberdy was guarded by 50 young fighters of the rebel movement, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).

But he insists he went in with the rebels' relief organisation, Relief Society of Tigray (Rest).

"There had to be a complete separation between the support we got from the TPLF and the logistics of this grain purchasing, which was in the hands of the Rest officials," he said.

But the merchant Mr Peberdy dealt with in that transaction claims he was, in fact, a senior member of the TPLF rebels.

"I was given clothes to make me look like a Muslim merchant. This was a trick for the NGOs," says Gebremedhin Araya.

Underneath the sacks of grain he sold, he says, were sacks filled with sand.

He says he handed over the money he received to TPLF leaders, including Meles Zenawi - the man who went on to become Ethiopia's prime minister in 1991.

Mr Meles' office declined to comment on the allegations.

Mr Peberdy still believes that none of the aid was diverted.

"It's 25 years since this happened and in the 25 years, it's the first time anybody has claimed such a thing."

He insists that to the best of his knowledge, the food went to feed the starving.

But Mr Gebremedhin's version of events is supported by the TPLF's former commander, Aregawi Berhe.

Now living in exile in the Netherlands, he says the rebels put on what he describes as a "drama" to get the money.