by Gar Smith
When climate modelers and environmentalists looked at the likely casualties of global warming, it seemed that the first countries to vanish from the face of the Earth would be the low-lying island nations of the South Pacific - erased by the tides of rising oceans.
Instead, it was mountainous Honduras that was all but erased as Hurricane Mitch - a megastorm of the kind predicted by global warming computer scenarios.
In the space of a few days, Honduras went from 20th century comforts to 15th century miseries. A stunned Honduran President Carlos Flores observed that "in 72 hours, we saw what took as much as 50 years to build - bridges, roads, buildings - in every single area of the country, they were destroyed."
At least 11,000 Hondurans died and 2 million people lost their homes. In Nicaragua, 4,000 people died, 20 percent of the population was left homeless and property damages hit $1 billion. In El Salvador, hundreds died and more than 54,000 were left homeless.
Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital was without water. The country's roads sustained $2 billion in damage as 104 bridges collapsed. Seventy percent of the nation's crops were swept away and the $200 million-a-year banana industry was devastated.
US-based Standard Fruit compounded Honduras' misery by laying off 8,000 field workers. Chiquita Brands' Honduras affiliate Tela Railroad Co. fired its 7,782 banana workers. Chiquita's workers, who had been earning $170 per month plus benefits prior to the hurricane, now have nothing to fall back on.
Before the hurricane struck, two-thirds of Honduran workers worked in agriculture. It is difficult to know what kind of livelihood remains for the survivors of Hurricane Mitch.
An e-mail dispatch to Earth Island from colleagues in Honduras reported that fishers "cannot go fishing because industrial waste has flowed into the river systems and into the gulf and ocean. Pesticides have poisoned their coast and river systems." In addition, "the pesticide stores were carried down the rivers and their toxic products have killed millions of [sea creatures]."
A Man-Made Disaster
Most of the deaths and devastation were subsequently attributed to high rates of deforestation and poor land-management practices.
"Forests are disappearing at a rate of 388,000 hectares [959,000 acres] per year… and soil loss is the norm due to lack of land planning, mining and the construction of hydroelectric dams," according to the 1998 report, State of Environment and Natural Resources in Central America.
The report (whose authors include the World Resources Institute, the UN Environment Program and the World Bank) also explained why the poor suffered most. "[F]requently, the best land is occupied by those who have the means and the technology at their exploitation, consigning the needy to poor-quality land found mainly on the slopes." In order to address the grinding poverty that forces rural farmers to cut down trees for firewood, the report advised Central American governments to increase both employment and educational opportunities for the poor.
Noting that Central America's biologically rich forests are disappearing at a rate of 44 hectares (110 acres) every hour, the report recommends creation of a "Meso-American corridor" to link existing wildlife reserves from Panama to Guatemala. As InterPress reporter Danielle Knight explained, this connection "would prevent plants and wildlife from being trapped in small reserves and allow them to reproduce and evolve - as they have for thousands of years throughout Central America."
The Nicaragua Network Environmental Task Force [Nica Net ETF, ACERCA, PO Box 57, Burlington, VT 05402, (802) 863-0571, fax: 864-8203, www.nativeforest.org] has called for an end to multinational logging in eastern Nicaragua. "The Atlantic Region has the largest intact segment of moist forest remaining in Central America [and]… hosts many rare and unknown ecosystems," says Nica Net's Soren Ambrose. "In the wake of this hurricane…, anything short of a total ban on commercial logging by multinationals in Nicaragua would be criminal," Nica Net's Mary Brook added.
Columnist Alexander Cockburn traced much of the region's environmental woes back to the Eisenhower Administration. In 1954 Guatemala's democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz was about to embark on a plan to redistribute unused land to the country's landless peasants. The land, however, had belonged to the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita Brands). The US unleashed the CIA, which waged a secret war to topple Arbenz and install a "free-market" military dictatorship.
The Kennedy administration's advocacy of the "export model" of development for Central America allowed the wealthy to force peasants off traditional lands and into the mountains where they were forced to build new farms on steep slopes. Other landless families became residents of shanties located along the riverbanks that collapsed under Mitch's onslaught.
A Hurricane-proof Province
Despite enduring the full brunt of Hurricane Mitch, the southern third of Lempira province survived with only minor physical damage and no loss of life. The reason holds a lesson for all of Central America as the battered nations try to rebuild their countries and their economies.
Not only did the 84 rural communities in Lempira survive the El Nino drought and Mitch, they have produced 5 million pounds of surplus grain. The secret, explains San Francisco Chronicle Foreign Correspondent Phil Gunson is the Quezungal method, "a virtually forgotten system for farming mountainsides invented by subsistence farmers."
"The Quezungal method involves planting crops under trees, whose roots anchor the soil. Pruning provides the soil nutrients, and terracing helps eliminate erosion," Gunson explains. "Yields have increased, crop varieties are multiplying and birds and animals that had fled the increasingly barren hillsides are beginning to return."
This ancient farming method is perfectly suited to the small, hillside plots that comprise 70 percent of Honduras' tillable land.
Honduras could be rebuilt to respect the laws of nature but international aid will tend to promote the rebuilding of the same damaging systems - large export agriculture holdings, construction in floodplains.
¿Que Hacer?
At the same time that international financial relief began to pour in to Central America, Honduras and Nicaragua were still being squeezed to pay nearly $1 million a day in debt interest to international lending agencies and US banks. (Honduras owes $4.2 billion and Nicaragua owns $6 billion.)
"Debt cancellation is the only medicine that can save these desperate economies," argues the Alliance for Global Justice [AGJ, 1247 E. St. SE, Washington, DC 20003, (202) 544-9355], "Cuba and France have canceled all debts owed them by the countries. Austria, Norway, Spain and many other countries have pledged partial relief. But the US, the richest country in the world and the most influential in terms of setting international debt policies, has made no commitment."
Noting that French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, German Foreign Minister Joschka Pischer and former presidents Carter and Bush have called for immediate action on the debt question, AGJ emphasized that "debt cancellation must not be conditioned on compliance with IMF structural adjustment programs or similar demands. Demands for government austerity are surely inappropriate in the face of sudden and massive homelessness, disease and hunger. This disaster will take… decades to overcome. Half-measures such as debt re-scheduling or a 'debt moratorium' would be insufficient."
"Nicaragua's infrastructure and public health system was in shambles before the storm hit due to the deep cuts in public spending mandated by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund," notes Anuradha Mittal, policy director for the Institute for Food and Development Policy [398 60th St., Oakland, CA 94618, (510) 654-4400, www.foodfirst.org].
The IMF has rejected calls for debt relief. "The pressures of reconstruction should not lead us to abandon [economic] stability," said IMF representative Gil Diaz. "That would be like trying to put out a fire by throwing fuel on it." The IMF continues to insist that Nicaragua pay is debt and continue to practice the IMF's version of economic stability by reducing public spending, firing government workers, increasing the costs of public services and selling state-owned properties to private businessmen.
"Critics have questioned why so many poor Hondurans were living on the banks of rivers prone to flooding and why the government allowed so much deforestation," says Mittal. "Many Hondurans think international aid should be conditioned to address some of these issues."
In a shocking ruling, the Clinton Administration's proposal to grant temporary protected status to Central American nationals already living in the US was rejected by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. As the country responsible for 25 percent of the emissions of greenhouse warming gases, the US should offer to shelter at least one quarter of the 2 million left homeless by Hurricane Mitch.
When a home burns down and a family is left on the street, the victims of misfortune are offered shelter. The US, through its dependence on oil, bears a direct responsibility for the devastation caused by the onset of extreme "petroleum weather." The US tried to evade this responsibility during climate negotiations in Argentina but the devastation in Central America requires a moral response.
The US should offer sanctuary to the homeless victims of the hurricane and floods until their lands, their crops, their homes and their livelihoods can be restores. It will take a decade or more to restore what was lost in Central America. Until these "storm-tossed victims" have a home to return to, the US should open its doors and bid them welcome.
The mounting ferocity of extreme weather events buffeting the globe carries a clear message: Economic growth and development cannot be guaranteed in a world with an unstable climate.
What You Can Do: To add your voice to the call for debt relief, contact: Enrique Iglesias, President, Inter-American Development Bank, 1300 New York Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20577, fax: (202) 623-1799; Michel Camdessus, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund, 700 19th St., NW, Washington, DC 20431, fax: (202) 623-4661; James Wolfensohn, President, World Bank Group, 1818 H St., NW, Washington, DC 20433, fax: (202) 522-0355.
Havoc in Honduras