EARTHQUAKE:  DISASTER AND RESPONSE 
by Harold M. Baron

        Last month two massive earthquakes shook poor regions in developing nations, El Salvador and India. The destruction has overwhelmed those two countries.  I experienced this personally, as I was in a meeting with the Coordinadora del Bajo Lempa when it occurred, only 30 miles from the Salvadoran quake's epicenter.

        From this experience two things stick in my mind.  First, the shock of feeling the building move, having some of the roof fall on me, and seeing the earth vibrate.  Panic quickly followed.  In the region around us, the quake destroyed or damaged 40% of the housing stock.  Over 10,000 people, out a population of 40,000, lost their homes.

        The second impression abiding with me is something quite different from the horror of destruction and victimization.  I saw the Coordinadora's organized capacity to respond to the disaster.  This peasant organization's response to the earthquake far outperformed the organizations led by professional experts.  As for the Salvadoran government's response, its bungling has become a public scandal.

        Some of us North Americans recognize that the US government policy has aggravated human tragedies such as these.  However, when we want to do something, we operate upon the assumption that our expertise, properly applied, can come up with the policy solutions.  We think that the Salvadorans, especially the peasants and working poor, can improve if they play by our rules.  What they need, we say to ourselves, is training in these rules.

        This characteristic American approach is misguided.  We do not see the emerging reality of some well-organized peasants forging the capacity to shape their own solutions.  El Salvador, India, and the United States would benefit if we promoted an environment in which such groups can flourish and then let them set their own course.

        You will find one example by looking at the Coordinadora's response to the earthquake.  This democratic organization, comprising 86 rural villages, works for economic and community development.  Many equally successful grassroots organizations exist in the third world.  I recently visited comparable peasant operations in Honduras and Panama.

        When the earth moved on January 13th and ended our meeting, the Coordinadora's disaster response system went into action within ten minutes.  Pickups and cars fanned out to the communities. Two hours later when we passed through the village of La Papalota, you could see the local disaster team taking an inventory of the damage.  Within 36 hours the central office had assessments from the majority of villages, despite major communication difficulties.

        The Coordinadora simultaneously manages relief and long-term project planning.  Its member communities know that food aid over an extended period can undermine local agriculture and create dependency.  Therefore, they seek to terminate reliance on emergency relief as soon as possible and to employ the new resources for rebuilding housing and accelerating the development program.

        The Coordinadora knows this strategy will work because it worked in their response to Hurricane Mitch two years ago.  Though the Lower Lempa region was the hardest hit in El Salvador, the Coordinadora's communities calculated just how much emergency support they needed to survive until the next harvest.  They used the rest of the relief funds to make housing flood-resistant and expand their two-acre sustainable agriculture program.  In the year before Mitch, they sowed 13 plots, in the year after 107.  

        Basic reconstruction has already begun, just a few weeks after the quake, even while communities still rig temporary shelters and haul drinkable water from other villages.  Of the eight shrimp cooperatives that were wiped out, one has already executed a loan to build new dikes for their ponds.

        This peasant mobilization, marked by efficiency and planning, stands in sharp contrast with the Salvadoran governments efforts. The ARENA government diminishes its capacity for execution by pushing the municipal governments to the sidelines (because the majority of the mayors belong to the opposition FMLN). The newspapers run stories about bungling every day.   La Prensa Grafica reported that the 28,000 victims in Santiago Nonualco received a government aid shipment consisting of "one lady's shoe, three pounds of salt, and other laughable quantities of goods."  El Diario Hoy cited another situation where the government sent five pounds of salt, five of sugar, and a bottle of oil to 11,000 homeless in Rosario de la Paz. 

        The Salvadoran government also stands accused of misusing relief money.  Official malfeasance is not new.  In 1999, we learned that the government had siphoned $1.3 million of aid for Hurricane Mitch victims into the campaign coffers of the ARENA Party.   The same group that managed relief following Mitch manages it after the earthquakes.

        The U.S. government's policy in dealing with Salvadoran disasters has been wrong headed.   After a history of virtually masterminding the military and oligarchy's operation of a 12 year civil war against the peasant-based guerilla, our cold war outlook still prevails.  We still have the same allies and protect them against their enemies.   In contrast, European governments have been more flexible and realistic.   Today the U.S. officials in El Salvador are extremely nervous about funneling aid through an incompetent and corrupt government.  However, even if they did develop some creative alternatives, Washington would not support them.

        In Salvadoran national politics neither the ruling ARENA party nor most of the former guerilla leadership, now heading the FMLN Party, have a vision that looks forward. Their mindsets have not adjusted to the new conditions, instead of leading they simply react to crises.

        You can see a more practical and adaptive vision emerging from the peasant sector. The 1992 Peace Accords settled the war in a compromise that provided land to peasant combatants from both sides.  The Coordinadora includes villages both of former guerillas and former government soldiers. These peasants have put aside the differences that divided them a decade ago to work for the future.  Working together, they have taken the organizational skills they learned during the war and adapted them to today's need for society building.

        We in the United States also ought to face up to the new realities.  Both for our government and ourselves, we should seek policies to encourage rather than thwart such groups as the Coordinadora.

------Harold Baron, Northwestern University
       February 22, 2001