Live Aid's Failure
The purpose of Live Aid was originally to raise money for food and supplies for impoverished Ethiopians struggling to surivive in a famine. However, a significant portion of the money raised went towards funding for ammunition and armaments used to maintain the dictatorship under Mengistu.
"The Ethiopian dictator, Mengistu, until then deadlocked in the war, was using the money the west gave him to buy sophisticated weapons from the Russians, and was now able to efficiently and viciously crush the opposition."
~ Spin, 2015
"Citing recently released CIA records and a BBC investigation, Mr. Levin says most of the $283-million raised by the star-studded concerts for Ethiopian relief, held 25 years ago Tuesday, was used for arms instead of food. Four-fifths of the food aid supplied to Somalia as part of a 1992 United Nations Humanitarian mission was stolen, he writes."
~ Philanthropy, 2010.
Ethiopan Armed Forces, Brookings, 2020
Mengistu Haile Mariam, Social Justice, 1975
Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) reinforcements driving to the presidential palace in Addis Ababa in 1991, Jérôme Delay, 1991.
A starving family in Ethiopia at the height of the crisis in 1985, Daily Mail, 2010
James agrees with Araya that some money found its way into the rebel's hands - but denies it was the $95 million quoted. He believes that there is a 'strong probability' that five to ten per cent of funds was diverted for arms by the TPLF, and a further five to ten per cent used by them to finance their political 'hearts and minds' campaign - totalling up to 20 per cent."
~ John James, Daily Mail, 2010
"Substantial evidence exists also that food and monetary aid were diverted by government and insurgent forces for use in the purchase of arms and other military hardware. Declassified CIA documents, and a controversial report by the BBC allude to this."
~ Parse The Noise, 2018