Stealing from the Starving

Five years ago, the Andean highlands of southern Peru were hit by disastrous drought. The 1,000,000 Indian peasants, who chronically suffer from malnutrition, faced outright famine. From Point Four headquarters in Washington went orders that sent 100,000 tons of surplus corn, wheat, barley and dried milk on its way to Peru. The tragic story of just how little of the food found its way into the stomachs of starving Peruvians emerged last week, thanks to a congressional committee in Washington and a hard-digging U.S. newspaperman in Lima.

Much of the story was pieced together by a House subcommittee headed by Virginia Democrat Porter Hardy. Checking U.S. aid in South America, Hardy's subcommittee learned some disturbing facts when it turned to Peru.

Keeping Them Busy. Of the 100,000 tons of foodstuffs, only a fraction apparently reached the hungry people. At one point, 38,000 tons of food piled up in Peruvian ports, much of it rotting for lack of transport. Only a few hundred tons daily made its way up to the hills. Vast quantities were bought up by fast operators, who resold it to better-fed lowland folk at bargain prices. This maneuver was facilitated by the Peruvian government's decision to sell the food. The idea of charging a small sum, as one Peruvian explained at the time, was "to keep the Indians from developing a tendency to work less." The only trouble was that most Indians live outside the money economy on what they themselves produce. The drought had left nothing to sell.

Even Indians who had the money often found no food to buy. In one of the worst-hit famine cities, 13,000-ft.-high Puno, 80 tons of grain was stolen from a warehouse. Not all the grain went to thieves. The Peruvian army fed at least 350 tons of barley to cavalry horses.

One condition of U.S. aid was that money made from selling food was to be spent on job-creating public works. At Puno, Point Four auditors found that the total of food-financed public works consisted of eight handsome houses, sold below cost to local big shots.

Keeping It Out. Last week, in a series of articles in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Correspondent Richard Dudman added a few more details: "Middlemen sold some of the food to the starving at exorbitant prices. A wealthy landowner succeeded in keeping relief food out of [a nearby] valley so he could continue selling his own wheat at three times the normal price. Mills at Cuzco and Arequipa charged the drought-relief program 27-c- to 32-c- per 100 Ibs. for grinding grain when their normal fee was only 6-c-. Analysis of the flour showed it contained large amounts of dirt, added to increase the weight. Several lots of flour had to be discarded."

Last week, as Peru's courts and Congress continued "secret investigations" that have dragged on for over two years, the country had yet to see a single punitive action against those who stole from the starving.

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