The OP said "fighting famine", not "fighting the famine". Without the definite article "the", their sentence can (and arguably should) be read as referring to famine as a class of calamities, not to a particular one.
As a further example, the job of a firefighter is to fight fires as they happen, not to help the UK forever recover from The Great Fire of London.
And? Should people hate him for what he did? What is the dispute here? Would you not feel grateful for his contributions, regardless of what end of the political spectrum you're on?