September 16, 2008
As we continue to raise funds for disaster relief work in Haiti (to donate, see below), we re-send this article written after Hurricane Mitch in 1998. Most of the analysis in this article applies to recent death and devastation caused in Haiti.
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HURRICANE MITCH & HUMAN RIGHTS
By Grahame Russell, November 1998
“We are very fragile in many areas. That's what 'poor' means.” (Arturo Corroles, Honduran Government)
In late October, early November 1998, Hurricane Mitch moved through Central America, dumping as much as 6 feet of rain on some regions. Mitch impacted most harshly Honduras and Nicaragua, and also Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize, Costa Rica and Chiapas (Mexico).
In Honduras, as many as 30,000 people were killed or went missing; over 1,000,000 either homeless or otherwise affected.
“We will never know the real death toll, since many people were buried by mud. Entire families died in distant villages where there is no one to report their disappearance.” (Tito Sequeira, Nicaraguan Government)
Most victims of Mitch lived in precarious, impoverished conditions to begin with. Of the homes destroyed in Tegucigalpa (Honduran capital), "many were one-room hovels that blanketed the steep hills surrounding the city, poor areas long since denuded of trees by residents needing firewood. The soil had poor drainage and the waters from Mitch's downpours had nowhere to go, so thousands of homes were simply swept away in flash floods and mud slides."[2]
Even as food, health and shelter relief continue to be urgent, it is crucial to analyze the underlying nature of what happened.
NATURAL DISASTERS & DISCRIMINATORY SUFFERING
“After the mud and muck finally recede, what will again be revealed is the bedrock social problem of the region, and that is extreme poverty.” (Peter Bell, CARE USA)
While the rains were "natural", the death and destruction from Hurricane Mitch cannot be blamed on a "natural disaster". There are explainable political, economic and ecological reasons.
"One reason that the flooding in [Nicaragua] was so bad was that much of the land had been previously deforested, and the soils therefore eroded due to bad land-management practices, based on economic gain alone."[3]
“Clear-cut logging, hillside farms, and rampant housing development exacerbated mud slides and floods, ... . The damage was most extreme in Honduras, where loggers and farmers have stripped away about 225,000 acres of forests every year.”[4]
THE ECONOMICS OF “DISASTERS”
Likewise, there are explainable political and economic reasons, of national and international character, as to why so many people in Central America live in precarious conditions of systemic violations of their economic, social and political rights.
“This was a disaster waiting to happen. International Monetary Fund economic policies, forced on the government [of Honduras] via 'structural adjustment', have channeled most official investment in the past two decades towards developing export industries like forestry and fruit, partly to enable Honduras to pay off their massive debts.”[5]
Most commentary has not considered that the development economic model itself contributed to the death and suffering caused by Mitch.
Larry Rohter, of the New York Times [6], reported that the "highway network, that is the backbone of the entire Central American economy, has been severed in more than a hundred places. Bumper crops of bananas, coffee, rice, sugar and tobacco have been destroyed."
But what kind of economy is this highway network the “backbone” of? Rohter never questions the very nature of the economic-development model that has exploited, marginalized and impoverished so many. In a letter-to-the-editor, Gary Powell responds to Rohter:
“he list of Central America's products sounds much like the export cargo from the 17th and 18th centuries: bananas, coffee, sugar cane, cocoa and timber. Central America produces these raw materials for export to rich countries, and the profits go to the owners of the companies, which are often based in the United States and other rich nations.”[7]
To put it politely, the reigning economic-development model has invested little in the lives and communities of the majority of the Central American population. To be more direct, the reigning economic-development model systematically violates a wide range of the basic rights (economic, social, civil, cultural and political) of most people in countries like Honduras.
RE-CONSTRUCTION & RE-BUILDING
“he infrastructure that was destroyed was often created to meet the needs of the military and the multi-national corporations. In Honduras, ... the poor, who took the brunt of the storm, had been forced to live on the edges of banana plantations in flood-plain shanty towns, or on hillsides that were of no economic value to the landowners.”[8]
To simply re-construct the infrastructure of these traditional economies will not help the poor. Some development and human rights NGOs are demanding that a first step towards proper reconstruction is to cancel the foreign debts of the Central American nations. Jubilee 2000 USA Campaign points out that:
"the US government has plans to provide a total of $80 million in disaster assistance [to Central America]. ... Yet, Honduras and Nicaragua are obliged to pay back over $80 million in debt payments every five weeks – two million dollars a day, each! Guatemala and El Salvador also carry substantial debt burdens -- one million dollars a day, each! Unless it is canceled, this burden of debt – essentially unpayable – will make the effort at long term recovery a failure.”
Though avoiding any assessment of the responsibility of the international financial actors, even The Economist magazine [9] echoes the debt-related concern:
“he inflow of relief to Honduras and Nicaragua, in all forms combined, will not begin to match their yearly payments to creditors abroad. ... Does it make sense to give them disaster aid with one hand, while hindering recovery by insisting on (far bigger) debt-service payments with the other?”
Debt repayment and the related IMF-imposed austerity measures not only undermined and weakened the Central American states' capacities to respond to the floods and mud slides, but also contributed, over the past decades, to perpetuating the unjust socio-economic and political orders in these countries that systematically violate numerous rights of some 70% of their populations. The Economist acknowledges this:
“Millions in some third-world countries live, year in and year out, with a horror called extreme poverty, and many die of it. Malnutrition, dirty water and lack of health care kill far more children, undramatically, off-camera, every week than the maybe 20,000 lives swept away by Central America's latest floods and mud slides.”[10]
Thus far, the several hundred million dollars in reconstruction funds pledged by the World Bank, the European Union, the United States, and other countries, have been "earmarked for essential infrastructure works. Little or nothing is to go, so far, towards rescuing the small landowners, independent growers or businesses who have lost heavily and can ill afford to borrow more."[11]
“As it is, the West stands to gain from the disaster because the priority for reconstruction is to repair the infrastructural projects that it helped fund in the past. The contracts for new bridges, roads, flood defenses, railways, hospitals, schools, and sewerage systems will largely go to firms in Europe or the US. The emergency medical aid will pay Western pharmaceutical companies.”[12]
RECONSTRUCT WHAT?
Honduran analyst Victor Meza asks the key question: "Do we reconstruct the country – or construct a new country?"
For the foreseeable future, the international community must continue to prioritize emergency assistance to the victims. This material and financial assistance should be provided directly to NGOs and community-based organizations in the region.
Over the longer term, the reconstruction of the economies must be characterized by the implementation of community controlled economic-development programs and projects that promote and guarantee respect for economic, civil, social, cultural and political rights.
The goal of reconstruction must be to avoid rebuilding an economic-development model in which the now-even-poorer-majorities will be left to live precariously in poverty, waiting for the next hurricane to wreak even further havoc and death on their lives.
* * * ENDNOTES * * *
2- Washington Post, November 14, 1998, p.A17; 3- The Guardian, November 18, 1998, p.13; 4- David Marcus, Boston Globe, November 11, 1998; 5- The Guardian, November 13, 1998; 6- November 14, 1998; 7- New York Times, November 14, 1998; 8- Ronald Patterson, letter to editor, New York Times, November 14, 1998; 9- November 14, 1998, p.16; 10- November 14, 1998, p.16; 11- The Guardian, November 18, 1998, p.18; 12- The Guardian, November 18, 1998, p.18.
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Grahame Russell, a non-practising lawyer and human rights, enviro- and development activist, is co-director of Rights Action [info@rightsaction.org / www.rightsaction.org]. Based in Guatemala, with tax-deductible status in the USA and Canada, Rights Action raises funds for and provides technical assistance to community-based human rights, environment and development projects in Guatemala and Honduras, and also Chiapas, El Salvador and Haiti; and Rights Action engages in north-south education and activism concerning repression, impoverishment and environmental abuse.
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TO MAKE TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS for Disaster Relief in Haiti:
1- Make check payable to "Rights Action" and mail to:
* UNITED STATES: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887;
* CANADA: 552 - 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8.
CREDIT-CARD DONATIONS: http://www.rightsaction.org/Templates/donations_index.html
TO WIRE FUNDS, contact Grahame Russelll: info@rightsaction.org.
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