Hurricane Felix smashed into the north Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua September 4, destroying more than 350 communities and entire forests on its sweep inland from the Caribbean Sea.. Fifty days of torrential rains in the western and north-central regions of the country on the Pacific side added to the national disaster. On October 19 President Ortega declared a State of Emergency and called on legislators to revise the national budget to free up resources for emergency reconstruction, repair, and rehabilitation work. The rains and flooding brought in their wake a serious leptospirosis epidemic that is spreading from its epicenter in Chinandega to other departments (provinces). Over 1,650 people have been infected and ten have died from the bacteria.

The FSLN government has acted decisively to try to contain the spread of disease – a difficult challenge given the vast number of contaminated wells, rivers, lakes, and ponds. The army and health ministry are mobilized in affected regions, and government leaders are appealing to community leaders and activists to join the effort.

Rosario Murillo, Coordinator of the government’s Communication and Citizenry Council and a national leader of the Citizens’ Power Councils (CPCs), issued a call for a full mobilization of the CPCs to counter the spread of disease. “CPCs must place themselves at the service of health officials at the local, municipal, and provincial levels. CPC coordinators should meet immediately with local health personnel to design plans to counter spread of disease – most importantly through voluntary clean up brigades and work to spread health information to the population.”

On October 31 the National Assembly approved the government’s proposed reforms to the national budget by an overwhelming majority — 71 of 91 deputies. The reform includes emergency allocation of US$2.8 million for repairing part of the 3,000 kilometers of destroyed or damaged roads. The reforms came as part of a package that included a proposal to freeze repayment of a sizeable part of the internal debt and allocate those financial resources to reconstruction and rehabilitation.. The budget reform will make available in 2008 US$48 million of a $220 million debt owed to a handful of powerful and wealthy bond holders who acquired that paper wealth in a scam that still remains under official investigation.
One hopeful sign breaking the grim monotony of disaster stories is the response of the government, especially in relation to Hurricane Felix. Supporters and critics alike have given fair to good marks to its relief efforts, outreach to international support, and its respect for the cultural mores and autonomous rights of indigenous people and leaders on the north Caribbean coast. This is not to say there are no problems, or even outrages and cases of neglect or corruption. What is striking, however, is how well public administrators have done with their limited resources and their newness to the job (the changeover of government took place last January), especially given the magnitude of the crisis.

Definitely not New Orleans

Would the Bush team have done so well under similar circumstances? Over and out to New Orleans for an informed response!

The atmosphere and mood around the rehabilitation and reconstruction campaigns is a marked contrast to the vile and perverse corruption of the Liberal government of Arnoldo Aleman during and after Hurricane Mitch in 1988. On that watch, donated funds found their way into Miami bank accounts and the construction of sumptuous beach front retreats on the Pacific Ocean.

The disaster in the Pacific and north-central zones comes on top of the horrendous destruction wrought by Hurricane Felix on the other side of the country. The category five hurricane left behind nearly 200,000 victims mostly homeless. Well over 100 people were killed and the toll continues to rise. More than 100 are reported missing in the RAAN, most now presumed to have perished. Eighty percent of the social and economic infrastructure of the regional capital city of Bilwi (Puerto Cabezas) was seriously damaged or destroyed. Damage to forests is estimated to be around US1 billion, an economic measure that does not encompass long term ecological degradation and loss of biodiversity, nor the spiritual grief this inflicts on peoples for whom trees and forests are kindred spirits.  Both the Nicaraguan government and the United Nations World Food Programme declared a state of emergency for the region, and humanitarian assistance poured in from many parts of the world. The Managua and Bilwi airports became two ends of a massive air bridge, and land caravans did the rest. Just this weekend (October 26) another caravan of 600 tons of emergency supplies left Managua for Bilwi.
Here is a thumbnail sketch of the scope and depth of the natural disaster, based on data available as of October 31, compiled from reports in El Nuevo Diario and government press releases:

• 109 deaths caused directly or indirectly by torrential rains and floods
• 135 people disappeared, many now presumed dead
• 22,840 destroyed or semi-destroyed houses
• More than 30 bridges destroyed
• More than 150 churches and health centers destroyed
• More than 2 million quintals of coffee at risk of being lost because of the destruction of 500 kilometers of roads in the north-central region
• On the national level, more than 3,000 kilometers of roads destroyed in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN), and western and north-central regions
• More than 200,000 people victimized, over 40,000 families
• More than 107,000 hectares of different kinds of crops lost
• 894,900 hectares of forests knocked down, amounting to an estimated US$1 billion dollars of future economic loss
• 45,000 head of cattle destroyed
• More than 1600 cases of leptospirosis
• Seven of the country’s 17 departments (provinces) were impacted

The destruction of the country’s already precarious rural transport system is, next to the spread of disease, the most urgent problem the country must resolve rapidly. Unless road access is quickly restored the country’s production and marketing of beans, rice, corn, lobster, coffee, sugar, and peanuts are all threatened. The latter three crops account for a significant portion of the country’s annual export earnings, and the first three are vital to the country’s basic food intake.

Worse than Hurricane Mitch

The huge volume of rainfall over the past month dwarfs the 130 millimeters deposited over the Pacific region by Hurricane Mitch in 1998. Since October 14th, 600 millimeters of water have fallen on Chinandega and León. The impact of the storms is regional. Over 20 people have perished in Costa Rica alone.

Bean, bread, corn, rice, egg, dairy produce, cooking oil, and poultry prices have skyrocketed. Public demonstrations have taken place to demand price controls, but thus far few official measures of that kind have been taken. Bakers in Managua and León have resisted a government ruling against a proposed hike in bread prices, one they defend because the price of flour has also gone up.

Some sectors that are extremely hostile to the FSLN are looking for ways to take advantage of hunger and desperation to create violent incidents and set grassroots sectors against one another. On October 30, for example, about a hundred sympathizers of the Liberal Alliance Party (ALN) in Puerto Cabezas stormed and pillaged the municipal food depot, and threatened to occupy the regional airport. Later, led by ALN representative Jaime Chow, they besieged the municipal government offices. Yatama, the main Misikitu indigenous party and major force in the autonomous regional government, mobilized its forces to counter the ALN mob.

Some factors in the rapid rise in food prices are beyond the control of the Nicaraguan government – for example, there is a worldwide trend of rising prices for most basic grains — allegedly fueled by rising effective demand in China and India. Corn prices have fluctuated wildly in response to ethanol related speculation. In the last two years Nicaragua’s petroleum costs have doubled, a burden that gets quickly shifted onto the backs of consumers.

Hoarding and speculation fuel price gauging

Significant national activities, however, also contribute to stinging inflation. Long, daily power cuts undermine the efficiency of production, transport, and marketing, adding to costs across the board. Private sector hoarding and speculative trading distort price structures and induce a psychology of passing on costs to helpless consumers. Privileging the lucrative El Salvador bean market directly adds to scarcity and price gouging in our country. Dionisio Marenco, Managua’s mayor and a central FSLN leader, is calling on the government to stop export of basic grains until national food supplies are guaranteed. Leaders of the Nicaraguan Communal Movement and other grassroots sectors are backing his position.

Meanwhile, the government has suspended the 30% tariff on beans in order to facilitate their import. A shortage of red beans on the world market, however, had made that option less attractive. The inevitable result, under capitalist market conditions, is for prices to skyrocket. A pound of beans now sells for a little over US$1 in local markets, more than chicken and some other meats. That means that families living on US$1 a day (over 35% of the population) will do without their main staple many days of the week. And it means greater downstream costs for the state when it comes to cope with the inevitable health and social problems produced by greater levels of malnutrition and hunger.

Farmers and economists are gravely concerned about lack of seeds for the next planting season (the Apante). Traditionally, Apante planting would begin by mid October, but we now face delays because of lack of seeds and other inputs.  UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) local representative, Laura de Clementi, told participants in a Managua Food and Nutrition Security Festival October 20 that the FAO had already secured US$2 million of the $3 million needed to guarantee the current planting season. “Failure to plant now could mean famine next year,” she warned. Ministry of Agriculture spokespersons informed the same gathering of government plans to increase the levels of support from agronomists and other specialists to attempt to guarantee a good Apante harvest.

The National Workers’ Union Federation (UNE), led by Sandinista National Assembly deputy Gustavo Porras (who is also the longstanding leader of the health workers union FETSALUD) is leading a campaign for repudiation of a large part of the country’s internal debt, owned mainly by private banks who acquired the capital and deposits fraudulently from “failed” banks six years ago — the infamous Cenis (Certificados negociables de inversión) bond scam referred to above. Both the State Prosecutor’s Office and the Auditor General have declared the Cenis bonds to be illegal and official fraud investigations are still underway

The National Assembly met in extraordinary session October 30 and approved President Ortega’s proposal for a legislated two-year freeze on principal and interest payments for the Cenis bonds. Ortega attended the session, accompanied by several cabinet ministers and army specialist involved in emergency response work. After he and members of the cabinet and army made special presentations on the crisis, the President heard interventions from deputies of all parties in the assembly. The mood was generally supportive of the government’s proposals, but the deputies also expressed criticisms of shortcomings in the proposals from the Executive Branch. All the opposition party caucuses in the parliament, however, offered support in principle to the debt moratorium proposal – the ALN, the PLC, and the MRS Alliance.

Banks default on tax payments

In addition to the freeze on the Cenis bond payments, the government contemplates negotiating with the banking community for longer payment periods and lower interest rates when the freeze is lifted. President Ortega has also called on financial groups that have recently sold bank shares to pay the corresponding taxes – an obligation they have successfully ignored ever since defeating the FSLN in the 1990 elections. The most glaring current case involves the powerful Pellas group and its Banco de America Central (BAC) which sold shares to General Electric, and Ernesto Fernández Holmann’s Banco Uno, sold to Citigroup.

Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (ALN) leader Eduardo Montealegre said he and the ALN favor a new agreement on debt payment to bondholder by the government.  He is one of the country’s biggest bankers, and is still covered in mud for his role in the Cenis scam. But he told the newspaper La Prensa last week that he now believes “bankers holding bonds as a result of obtaining deposits from fraudulently collapsed banks should sit down with the government, the Central Bank, and the Ministry of Finance to re-finance them…”  (They really should, wouldn’t you agree?)

The first countries to react with significant aid and solidarity have been Nicaragua’s main partners in ALBA – Venezuela and Cuba – and also Peru which just cancelled an old US$50 million debt. ALBA is an international cooperation organization based on promoting social, political, and economic integration of the nations and countries of Indo-Latin America and the Caribbean. Its current full members are Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. The acronym spells the word for DAWN in Spanish.

A high level Venezuelan government delegation arrived in Managua October 19 to discuss emergency response measures with authorities and experts. It was headed by Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro, and also included Infrastructure Minister José David Cabello, the head of the Army Engineers Corps, General Noel Grisanti,, and Housing vice-minister Edith Gómez. The mandate of the delegation was to prepare a joint Nicaragua-Venezuela study to serve as the basis for establishing concrete aid and cooperation agreements to respond to the disaster. That same day Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called Daniel Ortega during his Managua “State of Emergency” press conference to express Venezuela’s solidarity and keenness to extend aid. Chavez announced that ALBA had decided to create a “Sandino Fund” to support countries devastated by natural causes. A Venezuelan tanker, he reported, was slated to arrive in Nicaragua October, 27, laden with oil and US$6 million worth of laminated zinc roofing sheets and related housing construction materials.

Cuban medical aid

Cuban medical and disaster control specialists are working side by side with technical personnel from various government ministries to cope with the complex web of problems related to disease and epidemic control, contaminated water, lack of latrines, and overcrowded, undersupplied hospitals and clinics in the devastated areas.

On October 23 Nicaragua’s Sandinista government leaders met with representatives of foreign governments accredited in Managua. They have set up a Mesa de cooperantes (Cooperant Group) to coordinate their cooperation and aid initiatives.  Nicaraguan authorities presented them with a fully documented request for almost US$400 million for rehabilitation and reconstruction emergency response both in the RAAN and on the Pacific side of the country. Stuart Hughes, Canada’s diplomatic representative in the Region, expressed the Mesa’s positive response to the government’s appeal.

Since Hurricane Felix hit land just north of Puerto Cabezas Nicaragua has received US$13 million in international aid, and an additional US$13.2 million in kind donation. Major donors, after Cuba, Venezuela, and Peru, are: European Union ($1.4 million), Denmark ($2 million), United Nations ($5 million), Norway ($1.3 million), USA ($3.2 million). Of a total of US$54 million pledged for building reconstruction (health posts, hospitals, schools), only $20.7 has been received in cash or materials thus far.

Four guiding precepts for disaster response

The nine-month old FSLN government, despite its evident dependence on many experts, specialists, and longstanding functionaries in state ministries, has managed to establish a different philosophy and approach to disaster relief from that of the last three administrations. Its response is distinguished by at least four fundamental precepts:

? Nicaraguan authorities and technical personnel act in the knowledge that these disasters are caused by human activity, leading to global warming and consequent climatic shifts, the immediate “natural” cause of our hurricanes and torrential rains. Flooding in Nicaragua is partly caused by extensive deforestation, leading to a well-known draught-flood syndrome.

? They also recognize that natural disasters hit poor and marginalized sectors harder than others; therefore the country’s economic and fiscal priorities must be altered to fit that reality.

? Key agencies and ministries handling the disaster are oriented to draw grassroots sectors into efforts to minimize the spread of disease and to address the threat of famine.
? The fledgling government looks to international solidarity It views bi- and multilateral, and also grassroots international cooperation as a complement to, and not a substitute for, domestic solidarity and state responsibility. The central government, working in tandem with the RAAN autonomous regional government, has already made important links with solidarity initiatives in a number of developed countries

Whatever successes or failures take place in the disaster response campaign, the government is relatively disabled in terms of its ability to resolve in the short or medium run the negative economic and social impact of the most recent events. Prices are spiraling out of control and the blight of unemployment has spread wider and deeper across the land.

The National Energy Institute has just granted permission to the privatized electrical companies to apply a 7% rate increase over the next two months, without excluding the likelihood of another 8% increase in January 2008. This decision has provoked anger and rejection among broad sectors, although all opposition parties ignored it in their interventions in latest National Assembly session reported above. The impact of these increases will be passed on to consumers and the poor in multiple forms, and they will trigger increases in prices of products and services right down the line.

The mood on the street, on campuses, and in workplaces is reflective of a growing disdain for politicians and wannabe leaders who use human tragedy as a political springboard. Many, if not most people would love to shout out “to hell with politicians, we want help and relief from the disaster, from impossible food and energy prices, from lack of medicines in the hospitals, from unemployment, from violence and robberies…”

People’s patience in the political system may well be evaporating.  Only a serious effort to confront the national emergency and to make the rich oligarchy share the burden of the costs of reconstruction and rehabilitation of agriculture can begin to shore up confidence and hope.
The current core of FSLN leaders around Daniel Ortega’s government and the party National Directorate often take flak for an apparent vertical or command leadership style and method of centralizing decision making. Nevertheless, they appear to be more in touch with popular moods than opposition critics, and clearly more so than their more hysterical opponents in right wing media like La Prensa. The subdued, soft-spoken critical support offered by opposition politicians to the government’s emergency fiscal proposals in the National Assembly October 30 suggest that they also sense this political advantage now enjoyed by the Ortega administration and its supporters at different levels of power in the regions and municipalities.

This writer – by no means an “impartial” observer (if any such creatures exist, they would probably already be patented) – has noted signs of a new mood in the country favorable to solidarity as the most likely way out of this tragic crisis. Solidary action and cooperative relations both within our country and beyond are the order of the day. If this is true (and I admit it remains to be validated in concrete deeds) then a major turnabout may be underway in Nicaragua, a turn away from the “save your own hide” mentality that has characterized the last 17-year neo-liberal regime in the land of Darío and Sandino.

Some amazing examples of elementary human response are occurring here:

? Nursery operators in Estelí, also hard hit by rains and flooding, are donating seedlings to help reforestation in areas flattened by Hurricane Felix.

? The UNAN- León medical school sent brigades to disaster areas in the RAAN. Made up of fourth and fifth year medical students, they attended over 4,000 patients during September and October in such communities as Bilwi, Salsa and Tasba Pri. The UNAN- León emergency committee has decided to remain in permanent session to be able to also turn its attention to rainstorm victims on the Pacific side of the country.

? Managua’s Sandinista Radio La Primerisima cooperative has been campaigning to aid a Miskitu community in the RAAN – Krukira. Their campaign has led the station to step up its coverage of issues of concern to Caribbean Coast people and quality information and entertainment shaped to help overcome general ignorance in Managua about the autonomous regions [see http://amicsdepuertocabezas.blogspot.com/2007/09/crnica-i-acte-dentrega-dajuda-krukira.html ].
Hemispheric indigenous solidarity conference to assemble in the RAAN

This wave of hope and sharing can build on the heritage of the broad solidarity movement of the 1980s. But, this time solidarity can take on a wider and more diverse scope, on both sides of the relationships. It has arisen around very basic and simple needs and urgings — emergency relief for reconstruction and rehabilitation. There are many more possibilities now than in the 80s to rapidly generate broad support. The challenges and opportunities cry out for diversity of approach and initiative in full respect for what others set out to do.
Brooklyn Rivera, a leader of the Miskitu indigenous party Yatama (Sons of Mother Earth) and FSLN-Convergence member of the National Assembly, announced October 30 that a hemispheric indigenous conference will be held in Bilwi to coordinate grassroots indigenous aid to the Miskitu and Mayagna people, whose communities took the brunt of the force of Hurricane Felix.
Examples of effective solidarity from abroad abound. Two stand out for me, based on my own contact with them:

? The Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean’s initiative at Canada’s York University — launched in partnership with Rights Action, a well known human rights NGO in Canada and the United States. This is a modest appeal, backed by the university Presidency, to support reconstruction efforts at the Bilwi-Kamla campus of URACCAN and a local coop TV cable service, in addition to programs of the local autonomous RAAN government [see CERLAC Nicaragua project website at http://www.yorku.ca/cerlac/felix.htm ].

? The Hurricane Felix News website (Topix) is a powerful tool available to many different initiatives to aid Felix victims and to advocate on their behalf. [ See  http://www.topix.net  or  http://www.topix.net/hurricane/hurricane-felix ]. This site has become a major source of information about the crisis provoked by subsequent torrential rains and flooding. It provides up-to-date news about a number of special UN aid programs targeting flood victims in Western Nicaragua [See, for example, their October 26 report Western Nicaragua Hit By Floods, Landslides at  http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0710/S00603.htm ].
Some people believe that God or Mother Nature (or the spirits) are taking revenge on Nicaragua. Still others say it’s all about global warning. They are convinced that human agency is the main cause of the disasters that have tormented our homeland now for almost eight weeks.

Our country is steeped in Christian and other myths and mysticism. In that cultural matrix, the notion of Divine Punishment is deeply rooted. One of our major novelists and former Vice-President, Sergio Ramírez chose that theme as the title for his 1988 novel – Castigo Divino. Diabolical or divine, the catastrophe facing the country is sheer pain and agony The incessant torment renders people vulnerable to irrational notions about crime and punishment – and unfortunately, to irrational, obscurantist movements of both a religious and political stripe that impede local people from acting to counter injustices and to solve their own problems with their own methods and know-how.

At such times it is instructive to heed the example of great fighters and leaders of previous battles against human misery and injustice. In his last letter to his children, Che Guevara advised them — “Above all, try always to be able to feel deeply any injustice committed against any person in any part of the world. It is the most beautiful quality of a revolutionary.” 

We can all discover that quality in ourselves and one another by acting and working with that spirit and vision.
It’s called solidarity, solidarité, solidaridad. SOL for short!