Earthquakes in El Salvador & India
Just how natural is the disaster?
By Greg
Butterfield
In January powerful earthquakes ripped through two of the
world's poorest countries: El Salvador and India.
An earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale struck 50
miles off the coast of El Salvador Jan. 13. Seven hundred
twenty-six Salvadorans were confirmed dead by Jan. 26.
A million were homeless. Property damage was estimated at
$1 billion.
A magnitude 7.9 quake hit India's western state of Gujarat
on Jan. 26. The government there had confirmed 6,444 deaths
by Jan. 30.
Defense Minister George Fernandez told CBS News that the
toll could reach 100,000. Damage was estimated at $5.5
billion.
Ten people were also killed in neighboring Pakistan.
Left and revolutionary movements in both countries, along
with solidarity groups in the United States and elsewhere,
are organizing material aid campaigns. These efforts aim to
extend support to the working class and poor, whose needs are
often overlooked by governments and private charities.
At first glance it might appear that a natural disaster
like an earthquake is not a class issue.
But how a society prepares for an emergency, who is
affected, and how the country is rebuilt has everything to do
with the distribution of wealth and power.
Too little, too late
In imperialist countries like the United States, and in
Third World nations under the heel of banks and corporations,
the poor and the workers suffer most in a disaster. They lose
their lives, their families, their homes and their
livelihoods--something the super-rich never need fear.
Washington and other imperialist governments always make a
big noise about their generosity when a disaster strikes. But
it's sound and fury signifying little.
The ARENA party government in El Salvador is a close U.S.
ally. Washington armed and funded its counter-revolutionary
war against the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Movement
in the 1980s.
Yet by Jan. 19, Washington had given a bare $800,000 to
the relief effort there. Even then, most of the "aid" was
directed at shoring up U.S. military and agribusiness
interests, not helping the people--more than half of whom
live in extreme poverty.
President Francisco Flores was forced to make another
appeal for aid on Jan. 24. According to the BBC, Flores said
the international relief pledged so far would cover barely
one-quarter of the country's immediate needs.
He asked the World Bank and other lending institutions to
restructure the country's debt to stave off total economic
collapse.
By Jan. 26 El Salvador had received just $1.2 million of
the meager $17.2 million in pledged aid.
Even the Washington Post was moved to contrast the relief
effort with the multi-million-dollar inauguration festivities
for George W. Bush.
India faces similarly dire straits. Britain, the former
colonial power that robbed the country and drove millions of
workers and peasants to their deaths through poverty, war and
disease, said it would give just $21.5 million in aid. Japan
pledged $1.5 million and Canada $1 million.
Indian Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha appealed to the
World Bank on Jan. 29 for $1 billion in emergency assistance.
In reply, bank President James D. Wolfensohn offered $300
million.
Who's to blame?
In both countries, profiteering construction companies are
being blamed for much of the death toll.
In India, construction firms are accused of using shoddy
materials and building unstable structures that were
susceptible to quakes.
In El Salvador, landslides killed many people in places
like Las Colinas, a neighborhood in Santa Tecla.
"The landslide was the product of the greed and ambition
of the construction companies and government functionaries,"
charged the Organizations of the Civil Society, a coalition
of progressive and labor groups, in a Jan. 19 report.
The firms and the government "continued to deforest and
develop housing projects on the slope even though ecological
organizations warned them of the danger."
A statement issued by members of New York's Salvadoran
community and the Committee in Solidarity with the People of
El Salvador honed in on others responsible for the loss of
life.
"We ... hold responsible officials of the Salvadoran and
U.S. governments and of financial institutions, such as the
World Bank, that have promoted policies over the last several
years that have left the majority of Salvadoran people,
especially the poorest of the poor, even more vulnerable to
these tragedies."
Rescue team needed
The FMLN, the former guerrilla movement, is now a legal
political party. It holds one-third of the seats in
parliament and controls 60 percent of municipal
governments.
Yet the Salvadoran government has excluded the FMLN from
the official body set up to coordinate the relief effort.
ARENA officials lined their own pockets with disaster aid
after an earthquake in 1986 and a hurricane in 1998,
according to the FMLN. The government failed to plan or train
emergency personnel, even though the country sits on a major
fault line.
This is in stark contrast with a socialist country like
Cuba. When Hurricane Georges hit Cuba in 1998, the
revolutionary government mobilized the whole nation to ensure
a minimal loss of life. A well-planned evacuation and
reconstruction effort minimized the storm's damage to the
economy.
What's needed immediately is a worldwide rescue team under
the control of the oppressed nations, labor and community
organizations and people's movements.
The imperialist powers should pay for all the necessary
training and equipment--out of the vast monies they owe to
those countries they've colonized, enslaved and robbed for
centuries.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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