for the great famine was the result not of a shortage, but of inhumane relations. There was food in the country, but when the drought came, the prices went up and the poor peasants were unable to purchase any. The government could, of course, have intervened, or allowed the rest of the world to do so, but for reasons of prestige the regime did not want to admit that there was hunger in the land, and refused aid. A million people died in Ethiopia during this time, a fact concealed first by the emperor Haile Selassie, and then by the one who took his throne and his life, Major Mengistu Haile
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