CHILE: Quake Survivors Don’t Want to Be Forgotten

May 19, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Daniela Estrada

SANTIAGO, May 18  (IPS)  – ”The situation is critical,” said activist Iván Salazar, referring to the slow progress in providing emergency housing to people left homeless in his native Cauquenes, one of the Chilean towns hit hardest by the devastating Feb. 27 earthquake.

”If Cauquenes was in the Santiago metropolitan region, the problem would practically be solved by now,” Salazar, who belongs to a group of people from that town, Cauqueninos Unidos, that is planning a demonstration Thursday in downtown Santiago along with other organisations, told IPS.

”The places reached by the media have received aid, which is why we decided to hold a protest outside the seat of government,” said Salazar, who lives in the capital but travels regularly to visit his family in Cauquenes.

His home town in the region of Maule, 350 km south of Santiago, was one of the hardest hit by the 8.8-magnitude earthquake that rocked six regions in central Chile and unleashed a tsunami that wiped away entire fishing villages.

According to the most recent government report, released May 15, 521 people were killed by the quake and tsunami.

”The help has been slow to arrive, overly centralised and top-down,” Salazar complained. ”We haven’t seen much government support for grassroots and citizens’ groups. Sports clubs, cultural centres, local residents’ organisations haven’t been called on to work with the authorities. Organised civil society has not been actively participating. That has slowed things down.”

Not only people in Cauquenes are protesting the slow pace of aid. On May 12, a woman in Penco, in the region of Bíobío, 500 km south of the capital, partially burned down the temporary house she was given, to protest its poor quality.

But the government of right-wing President Sebastián Piñera, who took office on Mar. 11, announced Monday that it had already reached the goal of delivering 40,000 emergency housing units, before the Jun. 11 target date, while it reiterated the promise to continue working to provide permanent solutions for the families left homeless.

Half of the small, wooden temporary houses were built by A Roof for Chile, a non-profit organisation founded by Jesuit priest Felipe Berríos in 1997 that was granted 27 million dollars collected in the ”Chile Helps Chile” Telethon held in early March.

The government, which estimates that some 400,000 homes were destroyed or badly damaged throughout this country of 17 million people, is carrying out programmes like Manos a la Obra (Hands to Work), Aldea (Village) and Impermeabilidad (Waterproofing).

The first programme, which has a budget of 15 million dollars, purchases building materials for reconstruction in the 239 districts hit by the quake, of a total of 345 districts in the country.

The second brings electric power to the emergency homes, as well as street lighting, community bathrooms, perimeter fencing, gravel streets and social centres to the temporary new ”aldeas” or villages.

In the central regions of Valparaíso and Bíobío, 77 emergency communities have been built for more than 3,400 families.

The third programme provides waterproofing for the houses by covering them with polyethylene sheeting.

But Father Berríos, who announced Monday that he was leaving A Roof for Chile to get involved in humanitarian work in Africa, said he feared there would be social unrest because those left homeless by the quake have gradually been forgotten and the problem has faded from the headlines — a view that has been expressed by other critics as well.

There is also concern that the low-cost temporary homes will become permanent housing.

”The emergency is not over,” Rodrigo Jordan, head of the Fundación Superación de la Pobreza (Foundation to Overcome Poverty), a non-governmental institution that receives financing from the state, told IPS.

The Foundation, along with the Catholic Church’s Caritas Chile, launched the campaign ”Por un Chile entero”, which is collecting money until Jun. 4 for 1,500 families in six towns in dire need of assistance: La Estrella, Marchihue, Constitución, Pencahue, Quirihue and Curanilahue.

”The campaign is aimed at making sure people don’t forget about the people left homeless by the earthquake,” especially since things are practically back to normal in the capital, for example, Jordan explained.

He sees the protests as a reflection of ”a desperate situation because the families not only lost their material belongings but also their chances for a future,” given the loss of thousands of sources of jobs.

In Constitución, he said, post-quake unemployment is estimated at 40 percent.

”The earthquake and tsunami not only destroyed the homes and belongings of thousands of Chileans, but also plunged them into poverty. When you visit the emergency camps or ‘villages’, you see that the families are poorer than they were before,” Jordan said.

”The public apparatus has been overwhelmed by the magnitude of the catastrophe,” Salazar said. ”The problem is not a lack of will, but that the government institutions haven’t asked for help or opened up to other organisations to work with them to make the response more timely, agile and appropriate.”

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Haiti Asks Expat Professionals to Return and Help

May 13, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

A. D. McKenzie

PARIS, May 13  (IPS)  – Members of the Haitian diaspora responded with ”massive and spontaneous” aid immediately after the Jan. 12 earthquake, with thousand of professionals leaving jobs abroad to go and assist their compatriots, according to a government minister.

Now the Haitian authorities are hoping that even more expatriates will return to settle in the Caribbean country as it undertakes its immense reconstruction programme.

”We are asking skilled Haitians living abroad to return because we need to fill the void in the professional sector,” said Edwin Paraison, minister for Haitians living abroad, as he visited Paris at the start of a European tour this week.

”We were touched by their massive, spontaneous and generous reaction after the earthquake,” he added. ”But we have to focus on long-term efforts as we move ahead.”

The aim of his tour is to promote the government’s mobilization plan to entice professionals back, with offers of good salaries, housing and transportation, Paraison said.

”We know that people get accustomed to a certain standard of living abroad so we have to facilitate their return by providing definite benefits,” he told IPS in an interview. ”We have to think of things that will make their lives easier in Haiti.”

He said the government was also launching a public awareness campaign so that Haitians who had remained in the country would not feel that they were being displaced by those who opted to return.

”We have to admit that there might be some small problems with feelings of resentment, but we cannot escape the fact that we need to replace the function of those who lost their lives in the earthquake,” he said.

Calling Paris the ”capital of the Haitian diaspora in Europe”, Paraison met with groups based in France as well as with French officials, including immigration minister Eric Besson. Repatriation will need coordination from various parties, he said.

An Anglican priest by training, Paraison is also focusing on faith-based communities to spread the word, and he held talks with various congregations here. He was scheduled to meet with groups in Switzerland and Spain as well, ending with a diaspora conference in Barcelona.

Paraison’s visit coincided with events in Paris commemorating the abolition of slavery. Several associations also held demonstrations and a march on Monday, calling on France to pay reparations to its former colonies who suffered from the slave trade.

In the case of Haiti, protesters with the activist MIR (Mouvement International pour les Reparations / International Movement for Reparations) said there was a special obligation as the Caribbean country bore a heavy financial and human toll in its violent break from France two centuries ago.

Following its independence, Haiti was forced to pay France 90 million gold francs in exchange for recognition of the country’s new status and also as reparation for ”lost lands and income” in the slave revolt that led to autonomy.  The country had to borrow heavily from international banks to pay the sum plus interest, sinking ever deeper into poverty. The payments to France were completed only in the mid-1940s.

In 2004, then Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide calculated the value of the sum Haiti had to pay as 21 billion US dollars at current rates.

Paraison told IPS that Haiti was open to whatever France wanted to do in the area of cooperation and assistance, but he added that his main concern was ”mobilizing the diaspora” and appointing a permanent representative for Haitians living here.

Metropolitan France is home to about 75,000 Haitians, among the 4-million strong expatriate community, according to figures from the Haitian embassy in Paris. Those living abroad comprise 83 percent of all Haitian professionals, resulting in a severe ”brain drain” for the country, said ambassador Fritzner Gaspard.

Most expat Haitians are based in the United States and Canada. A significant number live in the Dominican Republic and other Caribbean countries such as Cuba and Jamaica, while others have settled in Europe, Africa and other regions.

Even if a small minority of these people return to Haiti, their contribution would boost the reconstruction efforts, as the country lost more than 20,000 professionals among the estimated 300,000 victims of the earthquake, Gaspard said. In addition, the ”anguish and difficulties” following the disaster have forced countless others to emigrate, he told IPS.

Haiti is now working with the United Nations to offer incentives to skilled Haitians, with part of reconstruction contracts being reserved for such workers.

At the International Donors’ Conference held in New York at the end of March, international institutions and 48 countries pledged 5 billion dollars in short-term assistance and an additional 10 billion dollars for Haiti’s long-term reconstruction needs.

If some of these funds can be used to pay ex-pat Haitians for their skills and services, and to provide a decent level of living, even more will be tempted to return, said Mackendie Toupuissant, president of the Platform of Franco-Haitian Associations (PAFHA).

”There is a really strong willingness to return,” he told IPS. ”We have cases of people who have already gone back, not necessarily to Port au Prince but to other areas. Sometimes it was a lifelong project that was speeded up by the events of Jan. 12, and sometimes they had certain skills that they wanted to contribute, particularly in the construction sector.”

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CHILE: Business Tax Hike – Short-term or Permanent?

April 21, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS

Daniela Estrada

SANTIAGO, Apr 21  (IPS)  – Chile’s right-wing President Sebastián Piñera is seeking congressional approval of a plan to finance the reconstruction of the country in the wake of the devastating Feb. 27 quake, which includes a temporary tax on business that the centre-left opposition would like to make permanent.

”That will be the struggle over the next few weeks: whether this will be a short-term measure focusing on reconstruction or a deeper reform,” political scientist Robert Funk, assistant academic director at the University of Chile’s Institute of Political Affairs, told IPS.

”But the government is in a better position on this argument,” he added.

Above and beyond the current circumstances, Funk believes it is necessary to increase tax revenue in order to establish ”a modern, development-oriented state,” as demanded by society and required by Chile’s recent admission to the 30-member Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), known as the ”rich countries club”.

Piñera, of the right-wing Coalition for Change, presented on Apr. 16 a plan for financing the reconstruction of the areas of the country hit by the devastating quake, one of the strongest ever recorded, which left 500 people dead and thousands homeless, mainly in the southern and central regions of O’Higgins, El Maule and Bío-Bío.

The new president took office on Mar. 11.

The draft law will be sent to Congress in the first week of May, government spokesperson Ena Von Baer announced Monday.

The president caused some surprise by proposing a three-point increase in the tax on business û a move that had been continuously rejected by the right over the last two decades of government by the centre-left ”Concertación” or coalition of Parties for Democracy.

In 2011, the tax would go up from the current 17 percent to 20 percent, but it would be reduced to 18.5 percent in 2012 and would return to 17 percent by 2013. Some small and medium-sized companies would be exempt.

The government also proposes increasing the tax on the mining industry, under a flexible scheme which companies could voluntarily adhere to. It is also seeking a permanent increase in the tobacco tax, from 60 to 67 percent.

In addition, the plan would incorporate a two-year surtax on real estate assets worth more than 190,000 dollars.

Finance Minister Felipe Larraín has insisted that the tax hikes, which would bring in one-third of the funds necessary for reconstruction, are ”exceptional” and that most are temporary and are merely due to the emergency situation.

The government estimates the public and private cost of reconstruction at 30 billion dollars, 21 billion of which are due to infrastructure loss.

The public sector is to provide 8.43 billion dollars, and under the government plan this would be achieved over the next four years.

To collect that revenue, Piñera also proposed budget reallocations, private donations, small sales of ”non-essential” public assets, emissions of internal and external bonds, and the use of part of the billions of dollars in windfall copper profits socked away in a rainy-day savings fund.

The plan also includes benefits extended to companies, such as accelerated depreciation, which offers business faster write-offs for what they spend in 2011 and 2012, leading to lower taxes.

The parties of the centre-left Concertación have said they plan to vote in favour of Piñera’s measures.

However, some leaders of the opposition coalition said the current circumstances provide a chance to discuss permanent tax reforms.

There has also been self-criticism within the opposition coalition, because the initiative emerged from the right-wing government and not the Concertación.

”We never managed to do this, and it is embarrassing that the right is today proposing a tax reform that our ministers weren’t even capable of carrying out,” Senator Guido Girardi of the Party for Democracy, which forms part of the Concertación, said on Monday.

Funk said the tax increases proposed by Piñera actually challenged the president’s own political base. ”Within the right itself, they are saying the current administration looks like the ‘fifth’ Concertación government,” he said.

Piñera, a business tycoon with a fortune estimated at 2.2 billion dollars, has been constantly accused of setting up a cabinet that looks more like a board of directors, consisting of managers and executives, while multiple conflicts of interest have been denounced by the opposition and the media.

Funk said these extremes are a result of Piñera’s ”pragmatism.”

”What has characterised this government is the scant importance it puts on ideology, on political parties,” he said.

A week ago, the government sent Congress another draft law aimed at drumming up revenue to mitigate the effects of the earthquake. The bill would create a national reconstruction fund and establish incentives for donations.

But the initiative has drawn criticism from legislators and activists. In a column, Álvaro Ramis, the head of the Chilean association of non-governmental organisations, ACCION, complained about the absence of civil society, for example, on the board that will administer the reconstruction fund.

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Filed Under: Economic Policy, Finance, Latin America, Politics, Report Tagged With: , ,

Haitian-Dominican Relations Warming After Quake

April 20, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS

Garry Pierre-Pierre*

SANTIAGO, Dominican Republic, Apr 20  (IPS)  – Angela Solis de Pena remembered the story that her parents told her of a Haitian man who tried to rape a Dominican woman; after the woman escaped the man chased her and hacked her to death.

”I was petrified of Haitians,” Solis de Pena said. ”It made me think of them differently for a long time.”

Now a 34-year-old administrator of a preschool here in Santiago, Solis de Pena said she doesn’t know whether the story was true or not. What she does know is that it made her fear and loathe Haitians, and it was not until she went to college and began reading the Bible and interacting with Haitian students that she realised that perhaps that tale was stretched a bit.

Four months after the Jan. 12 earthquake that destroyed Port-au-Prince, there are signs that the almost 200 years of tensions between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which share the island of Hispaniola, may be reaching a seminal moment for the better.

On that January day when the earthquake struck, the Dominican Republic rushed in tonnes of food, water and supplies to help Haitians. It also opened its borders to international aid workers coming into Haiti and gave university students with ties to Haiti conduits to go back and help their families without any penalty. In addition, the Dominican people and officials organised fundraisers and donated money to the Haiti relief effort.

That reaction surprised many who are all too familiar with the history of bad blood on both sides.

”I think that the Dominicans realised that we are people like them and that this could have happened to them,” said Chilet Regis, a chemist who has lived in Santiago for more than 10 years. ”I know they will be compensated for helping Haiti.”

According to Dominican officials, the country has already benefited, with its Gross Domestic Product surging 6.0 percent these past three months, compared to the same period in 2009. More than ever, it now serves as a place where people shop for goods en route to provide aid to Haiti.

Beyond the recent thaw in relations, other more subtle changes have been occurring for the last 15 years. Haitian high school graduates with no social connection to enter the country’s prestigious State University system began to look at the universities in the Dominican Republic as an alternative.

The Haitian students excel despite limited Spanish in the beginning of their freshmen year. Dominicans, who had thought of Haitians as illiterate manual labourers, began to see Haitians in a different light.

”You know they really challenge us to excel in education,” said Solis de Pena. ”People were amazed that Haitians could come here and in some instances are at the top and we had to work hard to keep up with them.”

Solis de Pena said she believes that about 70 percent of Dominicans have a positive view of Haitians and that number is expected to rise. Though her views are thoroughly unscientific, a score of Haitian university students here agreed; they report few humiliating experiences at the hands of Dominicans.

Many will quickly tell you that Dominicans are colour-conscious, but they respect people who have money and are educated.

But the majority of Haitians living in the Dominican Republic are not part of the Talented Tenth. Instead, they make up the bulk of the manual labour force of the country and their lot is far from good.

Many Dominicans complain that the ”construction” workers have depressed local wages by accepting work for considerably lower salaries than Dominicans. Haitians working in the sugar cane camps or bateys also live in subhuman conditions, according to international human rights observers.

The animosity between the Dominican Republic and Haiti dates back to the 1800s when Haitian president Jean Pierre Boyer invaded the Dominican Republic and ruled the eastern part of Hispaniola for more than 25 years. The reign was brutal and to this day, Dominicans have never forgotten that period.

Some Dominicans say that stories of Haitian atrocities are taught in school because officials don’t ever want them to forget that part of their history. Some say that Dominicans have an innate fear and resentment of Haitians because of that period. Even while the Dominican Republic has made strides that are the envy of Latin America, Dominicans feel a certain shame at having been ruled by Haiti, a country that has now earned the moniker of ”the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere”.

For its part, the Dominican Republic, under the presidency of Rafael Trujillo, ordered the massacre of thousands of Haitians and has still refused to give Dominican citizenship to children born of Haitian parents, some three generations removed.

Such a strained history will not be mended easily, but Haitians and Dominicans interviewed say that a change is coming.

During a recent conversation with a group of Haitian students in Santiago, all of them voiced frustration at the Haitian government for failing to lift the country out of its miseries. While they acknowledged that they receive fair treatment from Dominicans, they say that the other Haitians could be better treated.

They say that unless Haiti gets its act together, the relationship between the two countries, and above all, universal respect for Haitians will not be sustained.

”It’s impossible for improved relations,” said Wolf Perceval. ”Haiti has to advance. Our basic problem is that we’re struggling for survival. That can’t be a good thing.”

For instance, the students harshly criticised the Haitian government’s rush to reopen schools, arguing that the government should have taken this time as a healing period for children who remain traumatised three months after the quake.

”They’re talking about opening schools,” said Judith Despiot, a nursing student. ”This is not the time to study, this is a moment to recuperate our mental health, our mindset. People are still dying and they can’t concentrate on studying.”

It has always been young people at the vanguard of positive change. For Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the youth have taken the first steps toward reconciliation.

*Special to IPS from The Haitian Times.

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This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Environment, Foreign Affairs, Latin America, Politics, Report Tagged With: , , ,

QUAKE-HIT TIBETANS WANT DALAI LAMA TO VISIT & CONSOLE THEM

April 20, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics Net Sites

B.RAMAN

Tibetan monks and others, who have survived the April 14,2010, earthquake in the Qinghai Province , the birthplace of His Holiness  the Dalai Lama, have appealed to President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabo to allow His Holiness to visit the quake-hit areas to supervise the rescue and relief efforts and to "offer salvation for our dead and prayers for the victims."

2. Their petition, which has been carried in the Chinese language by boxun.com, a web site run by a group of Chinese political dissidents and exiles, states as follows: "Dear President Hu and Premier Wen. When we suffered the enormous natural disaster of the earthquake, your Party and government immediately dispatched officials and soldiers and forces from all areas of society to rescue us, the victims, and we in the disaster area are extremely thankful for the government’s help. But we are masses with a religious faith and for generations upon generations we Buddhists have believed in Gwalya Rinpoche the Dalai Lama. At such a time as this when we have suffered such a terrible blow we are in urgent need of the Dalai Lama to come to our disaster area and provide salvation for our dead and comfort for our wounded souls. President Hu and Premier Wen, we request that in your gracious benevolence you may satisfy the wishes of the people in the disaster area. We Tibetan victims in our tens of thousands plead with the Party and central government to set aside your grudges against the Dalai Lama for the sake of the people in the disaster area. We only wish the Dalai Lama to come to the disaster area to offer salvation for our dead and prayers for the victims. There is no other purpose to this than that of religious faith. It is only by means of the Dalai Lama visiting here to pray for our comfort that the wounds in our souls may be healed, and aside from this there is no better means. "  (http://news.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2010/04/201004160551.shtml  )

3. Over 11,000  Tibetans have been injured by the quake. The deaths of  many of them have pushed the total number of fatalities to 2000. It could go up further as more injured die. Despite the deaths of a large number of Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns, the surviving monks and nuns have mounted a massive rescue and relief effort on their own without depending on the rescue and relief campaign of the Government. They were among the first to reach the quake-hit areas before Government officials could reach there. They have been complaining that while the rescue and relief efforts of the Government and the Chinese Red Cross have been highlighted by the Chinese and international media, the stupendous efforts of the monasteries and monks have not received the attention they deserved.

4. Apart from the massive human tragedy, Tibetan Buddhism and culture have also suffered damages due to the destruction by the quake of a number of monasteries and Tibetan cultural heritage sites in the area and the deaths of a large number of monks and nuns. No estimate of the monks and nuns killed are available, but their number is believed to be high.

5. Among the historic monasteries which have suffered damages  are the 1300-year old Thrangu monastery, one of the most historically important monasteries of the world, a center for retreat for several previous incarnations of the Karmapa Lama – the head of the Karma Kagyu school of Buddhism— and the Mahakala shrine. The quake-hit areas have historic and spiritual  links with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Karma Kagyu school of Buddhism  headed by the Karmapa Lama.

6. His Holiness the Dalai Lama  and his officials have appealed to the Chinese to allow His Holiness to  visit the quake-hit areas, but it is certain the Chinese will not allow him. Nor will the international community exercise pressure on Beijing to allow His Holiness to visit the areas. It is important for international broadcasting stations broadcasting programmes in the Tibetan language, including the external services of All India Radio, to broadcast the prayers of His Holiness to the people of the area. ( 20-4-10)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )

Copyright © 2010 B. Raman – South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG).

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In Latest Quake, Poorly Built Schools Haunt Gov’t – Again

April 19, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS

By Mitch Moxley

BEIJING, Apr 19, 2010 (IPS) – Collapsed buildings, homes turned to rubble, students killed or trapped in the wreckage of schools and dormitories – last week’s 7.1-magnitude earthquake in western China’s remote Qinghai province offered chilling reminders of the Sichuan earthquake that killed almost 90,000 people in 2008.

In Qinghai, where the death toll from the Apr. 14 quake has surpassed 1,700 with hundreds still unaccounted for, a far smaller and less dense population means the final casualty total will not match that of the devastating quake two years ago.

But with schools lying in ruin and the bodies of students still being pulled from the rubble, criticism of shoddy construction is once again being levied on Chinese authorities.

In Jiegu, the hardest hit city, 56 children and five teachers were crushed in collapsing schools or dormitories, according to ‘China Daily’ newspaper. In one incident, 22 children died when a vocation school toppled, and 20 more were missing in the wreckage of a primary school.

Gu Guohua, a seismologist, said in an interview with state-run China Central Television (CCTV) that 90 percent of the homes in Jeigu had collapsed. He described the houses – made of wood, mud and brick – as being of "quite poor quality."

In nearby Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, 70 percent of school buildings collapsed, according to China National Radio. "The death toll may rise further as lots of houses collapsed," said Wu Yong, commander of the Yushu military area command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, according to ‘Global Times’ newspaper.

In the 2008 Sichuan quake, thousands of students were killed in collapsed schools. Subsequent investigations revealed that poor design, faulty construction and ignored or under-enforced building codes were rampant. Both quakes occurred along the Longmenshan fault, which runs underneath the mountains that divide the Tibetan plateau and Sichuan plain.

In another echo of the Sichuan quake, there was concern about the stability of a cracked dam, forcing many residents to flee to nearby mountains. Yushu is home to the headwaters of the Yangtze, Mekong and Yellow rivers, all of which are used to produce hydropower.

Across Qinghai the Chinese government has undertaken an aggressive military-led relief effort, and over the weekend soldiers, medics and volunteers flooded Jiegu. President Hu Jintao flew to Jiegu on Sunday to console victims. "There will be new schools! There will be new homes!" Hu wrote on a blackboard in a tent occupied by orphaned children, according to the state Xinhua News Agency.

Chen Zhao Yuan, a professor of civil engineering at Tsinghua University who specialises in seismic buildings, said that local governments in high-risk zones have not done enough to prepare for major earthquakes, and that building codes are routinely ignored.

"Sometimes code and implementation are two very different subjects," Chen told IPS. "Seismic prevention code requires that all buildings should still be standing after any major earthquake, but obviously this is not the case in our country. Most of the farmers build houses by themselves; they know nothing about the building code. So it’s the local governments’ job to supervise them, but obviously they haven’t done a good job."

After the Sichuan quake, the central government in Beijing began paying closer attention to at-risk zones.

In July 2008, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine jointly published updated codes and standards for buildings’ seismic design. Schools and other crowded public buildings were all targeted for improved earthquake protection.

In Xinjiang province, 350,000 people moved into new earthquake-resistant homes in 2009, according to Feng Peng, an associate professor at Tsinghua’s School of Public Policy and Management. But he says that both levels of government need to work more closely together in order to better protect these areas.

In 2008, Feng visited Wen Chuan, Sichuan, and found that buildings that were constructed according to the country’s building codes were still standing. Those that were not were in ruins. "The central government and local governments need to make sure that the buildings are built according to the building codes, and to make sure that no one cuts corners," Feng said in an interview with IPS.

Liu Xila, a professor of civil engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said the problem is education and enforcement. "We need to promote earthquake knowledge to people in earthquake vulnerable areas. Most of these people don’t have the proper knowledge of what to do during an earthquake," Liu said.

Tsinghua’s Chen agrees. He said that along with better-enforced building codes, people in at-risk areas should be given earthquake survival training, including non-scheduled safety drills. "From what happened in the Wen Chuan (Sichuan) earthquake and the Yu Shu (Qinghai) earthquake, we can tell that most of the people – children and adults – didn’t know how to react," Chen said. "Only the ones who did survived."

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This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Development, Environment, Report Tagged With: ,

CHILE: Rebuilding Smiles

April 17, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS

Daniela Estrada

SANTIAGO, Apr 17  (IPS)  – Alongside crucial emergency relief efforts, numerous organisations are offering free movies, concerts, plays, comedy performances and other cultural events aimed at lifting the spirits of people suffering the after-effects of the earthquake and tsunami that struck central and southern Chile on Feb. 27.

”People are going through an extremely difficult time,” said Jorge Brito, the director in the city of Talca of Caritas Chile, a Catholic humanitarian organisation that has helped to head up the delivery of emergency aid to the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the massive earthquake, which measured 8.8 on the Richter scale.

Talca, the capital of the region of El Maule, located 250 kilometres south of Santiago, was one of the cities hardest hit by the earthquake, considered the most devastating natural disaster in the country’s history in terms of the area encompassed by the damage. The quake claimed 486 lives, while some 80 people are still missing.

Although emergency aid has been gradually trickling in, this is only a ”transitional period,” Brito commented to IPS, because a great many families must now ”start over from zero” after their homes were destroyed. For people facing this situation, living in makeshift housing in cold, rainy weather as the southern hemisphere winter approaches, the emotional anguish can be overwhelming, he said.

This is why Caritas helped sponsor the ”Caravan of Comedy” that set out in late March, taking a group of 30 Chilean comedians, including Juan Carlos ”Palta” Meléndez, Natalia Cuevas and Ronco Retes, to towns and cities in El Maule such as Curepto, Curicó, Licantén and Talca, bringing sorely needed comic relief to hundreds of people.

”It was a way to relieve tension. People laughed out loud,” Brito recounted. Caritas is now working on a major sports event it plans to hold in the same area in June.

The numerous cultural initiatives that have sprung up in the aftermath of the earthquake involve a wide range of sectors, including the government, the armed forces, non-governmental organisations, religious institutions, the business sector, universities, artists, students, athletes, public figures and anonymous volunteers.

The Ministry of Education and CorpArtes Foundation have joined forces for the ”Chile Anima a Chile” (Chile Cheers Up Chile) initiative, which will entertain 24,000 people with a travelling exhibition of 3-D animated films between Apr. 10 and May 9.

A modern semi-trailer truck transformed into a mobile movie theatre with 40 seats and its own power generator will travel to 30 cities from Curicó, 200 kilometres south of Santiago, to Los Ángeles, located in the Bío-Bío region, 513 kilometres south of Santiago.

Circus performers have also brought back smiles to thousands in the midst of the national catastrophe, which will cost the country upwards of 30 billion dollars, according to the Finance Ministry.

Free performances have been offered by the international organisation Clowns Without Borders, as well as Chilean circus troupes like El Circo del Mundo, La Bandita Alegre and the Puppet and Clown Museum theatre group.

The Chilean Forum for Children’s Rights, made up of six non-governmental organisations including the Chilean chapter of SOS Children’s Villages, has also organised free puppet shows for kids. Around 120,000 school-aged children in Chile are still unable to attend classes because their schools were damaged or destroyed.

Four cable and satellite television companies have teamed up with the government to help entertain 30,000 children and teenagers in cities like Constitución, Dichato, Iloca, Navidad, Pichilemu, Talcahuano, Tomé and Vichuquén, in the regions of O’Higgins, El Maule and Bío-Bío.

The Telmex, Movistar, DirecTV and VTR companies are financing the ”Smile Chile: The Road of Happiness” programme, a travelling show in which tents are set up to screen children’s movies and hold contests and games hosted by popular TV performers.

For their part, the bands of the Chilean Army and the Carabineros militarised police have spread out through the country to bring music to families surviving on government aid and the solidarity of neighbours.

Nationally renowned artists such as singer Fernando Ubiergo and the Folkloric Ballet of Chile have also toured the country’s disaster areas to give free performances, while 15 popular Chilean singers and bands including Nicole, Sinergia and Kudai joined together to record the single ”Yo voy contigo” (I Will Go With You), donating their royalties to the earthquake relief effort.

The Pablo Neruda Cultural Centre and Student Federation of the Universidad Austral de Chile (Southern University of Chile), based in the city of Valdivia, jointly organised the ”Happiness Bus” initiative to bring musical performances and toys to the children of Coliumo and Dichato, coastal towns that were devastated by the tsunami triggered by the quake.

On Apr. 9, the administration of right-wing President Sebastián Piñera, who took office Mar. 11, issued a report on the government aid provided to earthquake and tsunami victims.

The authorities reported that 11,000 emergency housing units had been set up, with the goal of reaching a total of 40,000 by Jun. 11, while 14,000 tents have been distributed.

The government has also launched a programme called ”Manos a la Obra” (Let’s Get to Work), providing eight billion Chilean pesos (around 15.5 million dollars) for the purchase of reconstruction materials for the residents of the 239 towns hit by the disaster.

”We need to lift people’s spirits. They have to know that they are not alone, that someone is listening to them, because the magnitude of the problem surpasses any effort to overcome it,” said Brito, who also stressed the need to continue bringing cultural events and entertainment to the devastated towns and cities.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2010.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Culture, Environment, Latin America, Report Tagged With: , , ,

HAITI: Displaced Fear Expulsion from Makeshift Camps

April 8, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS

Ansel Herz*

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Apr 8  (IPS)  – For decades, the Saint Louis de Gonzague school has groomed some of Haiti’s most elite political players. Francois Duvalier, the iron-fisted dictator who ruled Haiti for 14 years, sent his son to the school. About 1,500 children of Haiti’s wealthiest class attend each year.

Within days of the January earthquake, the sparse concrete grounds of the Gonazague secondary school became home to nearly 11,000 Haitian families, driven out of destroyed neighbourhoods in central Port-Au-Prince.

Now the school’s director wants to reopen the school. The government encouraged schools to resume classes on Monday, calling it another small step towards normalcy.

The potential reopening of the school has inspired anything but calm among internally displaced people at Saint Louis de Gonzague. They have been threatened with expulsion by force.

”Everyone is nervous right now. If they force us to leave it will be second catastrophe,” said Elivre Constant, smoking a cigarette in the middle of the crowded camp. ”A lot of people here don’t have anywhere to go. They have kids. They won’t be safe.”

Constant, a member of the camp’s organising committee, said she heard police would come within days to move people out. ”The headmaster threatened us with tear gas,” she said.

The Huffington Post reports that Father Patrick Belanger, the director of the school, has destroyed latrines built by the camp’s committee and prevented aid agencies from distributing food inside the camp for the past month.

But life has settled in here.

At night, vendors sell candies, drinks and meats in a market near the camp’s entrance. A few men wait beside a big white tent to have their hair cut by a barber inside. Motorcycle taxis ferry people in and out of the camp’s inner areas.

Dcotors Without Borders operates a huge field hospital and warehouse situated near the rear of the camp. Orderly lines queue outside the gate each morning for medical care.

”We agree that a country without education is unacceptable, but if they push us out they need to move us to a place where the conditions exist to live, a normal place,” Bernard Saint-Fleur told IPS. His family came to Gonzague the day after the quake destroyed their nearby home.

Father Belanger and Mayor Wilson Jeudy of Port-au-Prince’s Delmas district have reportedly offered new land for the camp’s residents. But camp-dwellers say the area only has enough space for 500 people.

A volunteer-run school for children inside the camp has formed. A statement circulated by International Action Ties, a small U.S.-based NGO operating in the Delmas area, asked, ”Why shut down one school serving many for free, to reopen one that is private, and only services far fewer students?”

In March, IPS reported on the forcible removal of a smaller camp by a Catholic priest from the garden of Villa Manrese. The garden, once crowded with makeshift shelters, is now empty but for three grey UNICEF tents. A free school serving dozens of students has been erected.

Former occupants of the camp moved their makeshift shelters into the surrounding hillside amidst the rubble. They said that food distributions were being well-coordinated by the priest and local organisers. But they fear the heavy rains ahead.

Haiti’s constitution recognises rights for every citizen to ”decent housing, education, food and social security”.

And the United Nations guiding principles on the rights of internally displaced people include ”the right to be protected against forcible return to or resettlement in any place where their life, safety, liberty and/or health would be at risk.”

But there are further unconfirmed reports emerging each week from the disaster zone of IDP camps being torn down by private landholders.

A U.N. donors’ conference last week pledged some 10 billion dollar in aid to Haiti, but many NGOs and activists are now questioning both the reconstruction plan and the likelihood that nations will follow through on their financial commitments.

*Ansel Herz blogs at http://mediahacker.org.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2010.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Human Rights, Latin America, Report Tagged With: , ,

CHILE: Restoring National Heritage in Wake of Quake

March 23, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS

Daniela Estrada

SANTIAGO, Mar 23  (IPS)  – The major earthquake that recently shook Chile – the fifth most powerful in the world since 1900 – and the subsequent tsunami not only destroyed thousands of homes, but wreaked havoc on historical monuments, museums, theatres, churches, parks and heritage zones.

”The country has to make an effort to save whatever is salvageable,” Magdalena Krebs, director of the National Centre for Conservation and Restoration, an agency that forms part of the government’s Office of Libraries, Archives and Museums (DIBAM), told IPS.

According to preliminary assessments, more than 100 historic monuments and 30 heritage zones were damaged, mainly in the central regions of O’Higgins, El Maule and Bío-Bío, between 80 and 500 km south of Santiago.

There are no estimates yet of the cost of reparations to cultural sites after the damages caused by the Feb. 27 quake, which measured 8.8 on the Richter scale and rocked six of Chile’s 15 regions, leaving a death toll of around 500. In addition, more than 100 people are missing, largely as a result of the tsunami triggered by the tremor.

The biggest concern among local officials today is the start of the southern hemisphere autumn and the arrival of the rains in the central and southern parts of this long, narrow South American country of 17 million people.

Authorities and experts involved in protecting the national heritage have asked the new right-wing President Sebastián Piñera to include the issue on the agenda of the recently created Office for National Reconstruction, under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning.

”We must evaluate the damage and then request emergency funds for protection and restoration, which could come from two sources: regional and city governments or the reassignation of budget funds that the Finance Ministry is carrying out,” said the executive secretary of the government’s Bicentennial Commission, Julio Dittborn.

Chile is celebrating the 200th anniversary of its independence this year. Although emancipation from Spain was not achieved until 1818, Sept. 18 is Independence Day because the formation of the first national government junta on that day in 1810 marked the start of the independence process.

”We want to make a coordinated effort among the different state agencies and institutions, while getting the private sector and international bodies involved, in order to salvage and restore as much as possible,” said Krebs.

National monuments hit hard by the earthquake include the church in the village of Guacarhue, in the O’Higgins region, the executive secretary of the government’s Council of National Monuments, Óscar Acuña, told IPS.

The church, which was built in 1779, was designed by the famous Italian architect Joaquin Toesca. Only some parts of the walls might be salvaged, Acuña said.

In the same situation is the Hacienda San José del Carmen de El Huique, an old manor house that was converted into a museum by the army in the same region.

Other heritage zones, like Chanco, Lolol and Cobquecura, in the regions of O’Higgins and El Maule, also sustained severe damage, as did the historical centre of cities like Rancagua, Talca, Curicó, Linares and Concepción. And in the capital, attempts are being made to restore the historic Yungay neighbourhood.

”We are talking about architecture that used clay, basically adobe,” and buildings that go back to before the days of anti-seismic building codes, Acuña said.

The official said the impact of the quake is ”a call to search for techniques to do a better job in reinforcing churches,” which have been weakened nationwide because of the earthquake. One example is the San Francisco church in Santiago, which suffered some damage, even though it was recently restored.

In Santiago, the museums of modern art and natural history, the municipal theatre, the former national Congress building, and the main buildings at the University of Chile and the Catholic University, among others, all suffered splits, cracks or partial collapse.

Because of the temporary closure for repairs, the municipal theatre has had to reschedule and relocate events, like the Cavallería Rusticana opera, to other theatres.

One good piece of news is that the 93 million documents in the national archive remain intact, thanks to the strong vaults, DIBAM reported.

There is concern about the situation in the popular Radal Siete Tazas National Reserve located 130 km south of the capital, in the region of El Maule. The waterfalls or ”tazas” dried up after the quake, although the latest monitoring indicates that the falls might return to their normal state.

On Mar. 15, the architects’ association, which has sent members around the country to assess the impact of the quake, issued an urgent call to those in charge of municipal works and construction projects to avoid the indiscriminate demolition of heritage sites.

”The earthquake has cause devastation to an extent never before seen in the history of Chile, with the exception of the (1960 quake in the southern city of ) Valdivia, where the damage was more concentrated,” the president of the architects’ association, Patricio Gross, told IPS.

”Uninhabitable does not necessarily mean it has to be demolished; such buildings are perfectly recoverable in many cases,” said the architect, who added that it is necessary to sit down and think calmly about how to rebuild cultural constructions that have well-defined identities.

He also called for strict respect for studies that indicate that some villages and towns cannot be rebuilt in the same spot, because of the risk of tidal waves.

Experts see the destruction as an opportunity to amend the law on national monuments, dating to 1970 and reformed in 2005, and the 1990 law on cultural donations that was amended in 2001, in order to create incentives for the private sector to get heavily involved in the reconstruction effort.

”At this moment, the most important thing is to protect the buildings from the change of season, from the rain. And in second place, to coordinate public and private resources to recuperate the national heritage and work with the community to raise awareness that this task is up to all of us,” said Acuña.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2010.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Environment, Latin America, Report Tagged With: , ,

CHILE: Cracks Exposed in Readiness Plan

March 16, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS

Daniela Estrada* – Tierramérica

SANTIAGO, Mar 16  (IPS)  – Inadequacies in technical equipment, specialised human resources, institutional coordination, land zoning and citizen awareness were all laid bare by the major earthquake and subsequent tsunami on Feb. 27 in central and southern Chile.

”Unfortunately the bridges of communication between the scientific world and the political decision making world are fragile and not very clear,” Jaime Campos, director of the Montessus de Ballore International Earthquake Research Centre, at the University of Chile, told Tierramérica.

”That is one of the major lessons that we must learn,” Campos said.

The seismologist, along with other Chilean and foreign scientists, in the early 1990s detected two ”seismic gaps” in which earthquakes of great magnitude could occur due to the interaction of the South American and Nazca tectonic plates, whose border runs through Chilean territory.

The latest publication of data about this was released in 2009.

It is precisely one of these ”mature” zones – in seismological terms – that encompassed the central cities of Constitución and Concepción, where the February quake was most intensely felt, reaching 8.8 on the Richter scale.

The temblor triggered a tsunami that swept through several coastal towns in the regions of El Maule and Bío-Bío, located 200 to 500 kilometres south of Santiago, the capital of a country that is accustomed to praise as one of the most advanced in Latin America in terms of economic and social development.

Following the quake, which claimed 500 lives and left thousands of homes in rubble, mistakes and poor coordination between the naval Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service (SHOA) and the National Office of Emergencies (ONEMI) meant a delay in issuing a tsunami alert to protect the population.

ONEMI attributed the government’s slow response to a breakdown in the communications network resulting from the quake.

Campos acknowledged that ”An earthquake of magnitude 8.8 puts any emergency system in extreme tension and hurts its ability to react. The damage zone was enormous, nearly 500 kilometres, and severely affected all of the country’s communicational support.” He also pointed out that Chile is one of the world’s countries with the most seismic activity.

Research by scientific institutions in the United States and Chile indicates that the force of the tremor shifted Concepción more than three metres to the west. Also moved were Santiago (27.7 centimetres) and the Argentine cities of Mendoza (13.4 cm) and Buenos Aires (2 to 3.9 cm).

Campos said that better technological infrastructure and, especially, a critical mass of scientists could have mitigated the damage caused by the second strongest earthquake suffered by this country, the first being the 1960 quake that registered 9.5 on the Richter scale in the southern city of Valdivia.

The national Seismological and Volcanic Network, created as part of this year’s bicentennial celebrations of independence from Spain, is to begin full operations in 2012.

Meanwhile, ONEMI has undergone a modernisation process in recent years, which proved insufficient, however.

”There is a notable lack of experts and specialists” able to operate the new technology that is available and to disseminate their knowledge among decision-makers, the educational system and the population of 17 million, said Campos.

”This is a problem common throughout Latin America, because our countries set aside few resources for the training of that kind of expert human capital,” which is costly and provides few political benefits in the immediate term, he said.

However, the western stretch of South America is highly exposed to natural catastrophes like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.

In the area of technology, Campos underscored the experience of Japan, which ”has a network of sensors throughout its national territory, connected in real time to a strong communication system, which does not collapse as a result of earthquakes.”

The information generated by those sensors ”is channelled through a central processing point, where in a few seconds it identifies zones in which there have been severe ground movements and where the areas of maximum damage are located,” he explained.

If Chile had a system like this, it could have meant less time in discovering all of the sites in the country affected by the earthquake and the tsunami.

According to Campos, the information that SHOA utilised, generated by a system of buoys set up by the United States in the Pacific Ocean to measure changes in wave action, is not the most appropriate for this region.

”Countries of Latin America, like Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Chile, need a robust system that uses instruments to detect strong earth movements, in order to quickly assess which is the area with the greatest damage, and based on that information start organising the necessary aid to help the people who were affected,” said the seismologist.

Latin America should develop technical capacity and its own experience to create a system that is adapted to the region’s specific problems, Campos said.

Inadequate urban planning is another problem revealed by the quake, according to experts.

Although national laws require communities to have regulatory plans that include analysis of at-risk zones, the threat of temblors is not always dealt with by the authorities, the real estate and tourism markets, or the communities themselves, architect Libertad Burgos, of the private consultancy Infracon, told Tierramérica.

”The responsibility is shared” and has to do with the ”lack of general awareness” about the extreme degree of vulnerability of Chilean territory, she said. In 2007, Chile experienced a quake in the northern city of Tocopilla and in 2008 the eruption of the Chaitén volcano in the south, which forced an entire city to relocate.

Like Campos, Burgos believes that the emergency network needs more resources for equipment and especially training.

For Paulina Acevedo, of the non-government Citizen Observatory, the catastrophe ”left in evidence two realities: the slowness and lack of coordination of the authorities, and the great social inequality that characterises this country,” because the people most affected were the poor, who live in precarious homes in zones with limited access routes.

Chile does not have ”any type of seismic awareness about the geographic characteristics of the territory and what are the best ways to react in an emergency. I’m not just talking about seeking refuge in a doorway, but also storing water and how to handle food in a hygienic way,” the activist told Tierramérica.

(*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2010.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Environment, Latin America, Report Tagged With: ,
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