Aid for Arms in Ethiopia

BBC News

4th march 2010

It was a charity appeal on a global scale. In 1985, an unprecedented array of performers took part in two marathon, televised concerts in Britain and the United States - all to raise money for a terrible famine in Ethiopia. And it worked. It's thought the concerts eventually generated about two hundred and fifty million dollars in donations from the public. But now, evidence has emerged that the aid agencies charged with distributing that money, were hoodwinked: that millions of dollars were diverted to buy weapons for rebels in Ethiopia - and that the United States knew this was going on. The BBC's Africa editor, Martin Plaut, investigates for Assignment.

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