November 14, 2005
HURRICANE STAN RELIEF FUND Update #6
www.rightsaction.org

"Parts of Guatemala are facing a starvation "timebomb" in the aftermath of Hurricane Stan, ... .  "We suspect that by the end of the year most people's food will have run out".

"The severity of the hurricane hasn't been fully grasped yet," he said.  "Compared to Hurricane Mitch [in 1998], the impact on Guatemala is much worse." ... The situation in Guatemala "is a timebomb waiting to go off... the fuse is lit"."
-- BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation)

"A comparison of the maps of poverty and the areas affected by Stan reveals that most of the municipalities with the greatest vulnerability to hunger are also those hardest hit by Stan."

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Rights Action distributes a short article from the BBC and a summary of news (compiled by the Guatemala Human Rights Commission, www.ghrc-usa.org).

This information confirms what we have insisted on in previous Hurricane Stan Updates: the brutal and deadly impact of Hurricane Stan can only be understood in the context of the unjust and bad development model, and that many of the worst impacts or legacies of Hurricane Stan are yet to be acknowledged.

From our Guatemala office, Rights Action is working with our partner groups to provide food, water, medical and shelter assistance to Hurricane Stan victims, and to transform the bad development model so that people and communities do not live in vulnerable and impoverished life conditions.

BELOW:

* BBC article: "GUATEMALA FACES HUNGER 'TIMEBOMB'"
* Summary of news about Hurricane Stan
* How to make tax-deductible donations to Hurricane Stan relief work

Please re-distribute, re-post, re-publish this nformation.  If you want on-off this elist: info@rightsaction.org.

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GUATEMALA FACES HUNGER 'TIMEBOMB'

[Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/4426240.stm.  2005/11/10]

Parts of Guatemala are facing a starvation "timebomb" in the aftermath of Hurricane Stan, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned.  Hundreds of people were buried by landslides after a week of intense rains in early October.  But Trevor Rowe of the WFP says there are fears even more may die from malnutrition unless they get help soon.  "We suspect that by the end of the year most people's food will have run out," he says.   "We're talking about subsistence farmers, who live a hand-to-mouth existence." 

AID SHORTAGE
Many farmers had lost many or all of their crops, or even lost their land altogether, he told the BBC News website.  "There's concern they will be facing a severe hunger crisis" if international aid is not forthcoming, he added.  The WFP has launched an appeal for $14.1m (£8m) to help feed 285,000 people over a six-month period.  Mr Rowe said only $4.5m had been raised so far, from three countries: the US ($3.5m), Norway and Switzerland.  "The severity of the hurricane hasn't been fully grasped yet," he said.  "Compared to Hurricane Mitch [in 1998], the impact on Guatemala is much worse."

ANOTHER NIGER?
He said even before Stan arrived, Guatemala had chronic child malnutrition of 50%, with 80% in some areas.  "The bottom line is that these people will not be in a position to cope by the end of the year.  "Without the necessary food aid to help them these people are severely vulnerable.  "What we want is to avoid what happened in Niger," he said, referring to the famine in West Africa that was predicted by the WFP and others, but only got international attention and donations when pictures of starving victims appeared on TV in July, when it was too late for many.  The situation in Guatemala, he says, "is a timebomb waiting to go off... the fuse is lit".

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[News as summarized by the Guatemala Human Rights Commission, www.ghrc-usa.org]

COMMUNITIES REMAIN WITHOUT AID
Although President Óscar Berger has declared an end to the emergency, communities throughout Guatemala continue to face the devastating effects of Tropical Storm Stan without government or international aid.  "Nobody has come to see us here, not even the mayor or the media - nobody," said Abelardo Robledo Diaz, of Nueva Esperanza, San Marcos.

In Palo Blanco and Independencia, Ocós, San Marcos residents are still in dire need of clothes, provisions, heath care, and medicine.  A group of volunteers who visited the area reported that children and adults have respiratory infections, fungus, and diarrhea.  Local government officials have reported a severe shortage of clean water.

As of October 25, the National Coordinating Committee for Disaster Reduction (CONRED) counted 669 dead, 844 disappeared, 1,158 communities affected, and over 9,000 houses destroyed. . . .

CONRED'S WEAKNESSES EXPOSED
Experts and officials have criticized the National Coordinating Committee for Disaster Reduction (CONRED) for an inadequate warning system, a lack of prevention, and poor organization in confronting Tropical Storm Stan.  Critics say CONRED failed to learn the lessons from Hurricane Mitch in 1998 that could have prevented the high mortality rate of Stan.  . . .  Sergio Cabañas, former undersecretary of CONRED, said that the communities themselves have been better organized than the emergency response organizations.  "The aid flows only when . . . the population takes charge of the distribution.  CONRED is only prepared for the emergency," he said.

LAND OCCUPATIONS AND PROTESTS EXPECTED
A study by the Secretary of Strategic Analysis (SAE) and the Ministry of the Interior predicts social unrest in the areas affected by Tropical Storm Stan, in the form of protests, roadblocks, and land occupations.  They expect people to protest high gas prices and inadequate aid.  The Guatemalan army has fifteen vehicles patrolling the highways and fifteen watch stations in order to maintain order in affected areas. . . .

EXHUMATIONS PLANNED IN PANABAJ
The Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG) plans to exhume the bodies buried in Panabaj, Sololá in a mudslide caused by Tropical Storm Stan on October 5.  José Soasnávar, a forensic anthropology expert, maintained that the bodies could not stay where they were because families need to identify their relatives and give them a proper burial.  The exhumations will allow the relatives to move through one stage of the grief.  The anthropologists' have promoted the plan as a response to the families who have approached them, asking for help to recover the bodies of their loved ones.  Soasnávar explained that exhumations do not present a health risk, according to the Pan-American Health Organization manual on the treatment of bodies in a disaster.  On October 17, community members in Cua, San Marcos, asked Human Rights Procurator Sergio Morales to intervene so that the area would not be declared a mass cemetery.

POOREST MUNICIPALITIES WERE HARDEST HIT
Forty-one municipalities in the southwestern region identified by the Programming and Planning Secretariat (SEGEPLAN) as priorities in addressing extreme poverty are also among those most affected by Tropical Storm Stan.  Hugo Beteta, head of SEGEPLAN, said a comparison of the maps of poverty and the areas affected by Stan reveals that most of the municipalities with the greatest vulnerability to hunger are also those hardest hit by Stan.  In the departments of San Marcos, Quetzaltenango, and Sololá the percentage of people living in poverty ranges from seventy-eight to ninety-nine percent in some areas.

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HOW TO DONATE:  TAX-CHARITABLE DONATIONS (IN THE U.S.A. & & CANADA)

For a summary of the work Rights Action is doing, and the community-based groups we are channeling your donations to, see HURRICANE STAN Update #5 (write to info@rightsaction.org, or go to www.rightsaction.org)

Credit card donations: www.rightsaction.org (Make donation on behalf of "Hurricane Stan Relief")

Make check to "Rights Action" (write "Hurricane Stan Relief" on memo-line) and mail to:
- UNITED STATES: Rights Action, Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
- CANADA: Rights Action, 509 St. Clair Av. W., box73527, Toronto ON, M6C-1C0

Bank to bank transfers: contact info@rightsaction.org

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