|
page 1 2
3 4 5
"Ghost in the Machine: The Poverty of Honduras that
No One Created"
- continued
Welcome to New Orleans, Y'all
This time it is the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) that hosts
the anti-poverty party. From across the Americas, politicians and
business "leaders" have checked into five star hotels in this city,
famous for food and fun.
Carlos Flores Facusse, President of Honduras and member of the
country's largest land-holding family, gave a brilliant presentation
on how best to respond to "natural disasters" -- in reference to
Hurricane Mitch.
Drawing attention away from the unjust economic-development model,
long supported by international "development" institutions, Flores
declares that "no country in the world, even the rich ones, can
ever be prepared to deal with such an enormous tragedy that was
Hurricane Mitch," and of course this is not true. The biggest killer
was not the rains, nor the floods and mudslides of Hurricane Mitch,
but the preceding conditions of poverty and vulnerability in which
most Mitch victims lived.
The black ties and high heels gathered here will not say that the
real "disaster" is an economic development model that distributes
wealth up to the north and to the wealthy sectors in the poor countries;
and distributes poverty, vulnerability and despair down.
"A Moral Insult"
Even Michael Camdessus, outgoing chieftain of the IMF clan, came
to New Orleans to sagely opine that "poverty represents the true
threat to the stability of a globalized world. The gap between rich
and poor countries has increased, and this is a moral insult, and
it is a loss of economic opportunity that leads us to problems of
social explosions."
Michael takes a bow, a brave man addressing hard issues. Applause
aplenty, but please, no questions about how this immoral gap between
rich and poor is a direct result of, and grew enormously during
Michael's tenure at the IMF and the worldwide implementation of
structural adjustment programs.
Right to Water
Half a million people in Tegucigalpa, a city of one million, have
no access to potable water. In the poor barrios, a family pays 10-20
Lempiras for a small barrel of water (sometimes more, if their barrios
is higher up the steep mountainside), and most people don't earn
20 Lempiras a day ($1.50). For being poor, they pay more for what
little water they can buy in plastic jugs, "on the open market",
in their isolated, hard-to-get to barrios, than the wealthy folks
pay for water that gets delivered into their hot water tanks. …
The National Water Service (SANAA) is collapsing, losing $150,000
per month. Fear not, a privatization plan exists. A bill is before
Congress (whose members may well be incorporating Private Water
Inc. right now) that will drive the price of water up. [elHeraldo,
00-03-27, p2]
^
page top ^
And From the Oasis, We Shall Build a Desert
"Honduras is a half-step away from creating a desert in its territory,"
reads a headline. To understand this "calamity", the article talks
about how "the poor cut trees to bring home loads of firewood on
their backs, to cook their [paltry amounts] of food" in marginalized
barrios, on steep mountain sides. The article does not talk of how
the poor moved to over crowded cities when their lands were appropriated
to produce food for exports. The article does not mention the corruption
in COHDEFOR (Honduran Government Corporation of Forestry Development.
[There is a case in the courts against the former head of COHDEFOR
for falsifying documents and selling illegal commercial logging
permits]. The article does not talk of the landowners and military
chainsaw experts illegally cutting trees for export to northern
markets or luxury homes of their own. [There are regions of the
country where people don't enter for fear of roving paramilitary
bands in the hire of narco-traffickers and wood exporters.] Right
to a healthy, sustainable environment, … Not. [elHeraldo, 00-03-27,
p22]
A "social explosion"
This time, it is Madeleine Albright's turn. The US Secretary of
State has also come to New Orleans to argue emotionally that the
issue of poverty must be on the agenda of every international agency,
because if it is not attended to, "there might be an enormous social
explosion."
Her concern is about a "social explosion" … you know, when poor
people take to the streets, protest, throw rocks, get beaten by
the police; maybe even rise up like those Injun Zapatistas in Mexico.
Her concern is not about the social explosions that happen everyday,
across the planet, when tens of thousands of children and infants
are killed by a million causes related to poverty, in the quiet
of their shacks, beyond the tracks that Albright has probably never
crossed, except to inaugurate a water pump, posing before the cameras,
before being whisked away.
Nail in the coffin
On the last day of the poverty party in New Orleans, the IDB concludes
that more funds will be destined for Central America to open the
countries to more foreign investment, that will strengthen the economic
model … that has created more human created disasters - poverty
- than any Hurricane Mitch every will.
Hear No Evil
Not discussed in New Orleans was the debt "crisis". Lament poverty,
of course. Curse high infant mortality rates, yes. Wipe a tear for
they who work for $1 a day, sort of. But discuss the economic model
that created the foreign debt and forces the poor to pay for it
…
1 2
3 4 5
|
