PRESS BRIEFING BY USG FOR HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS ON SITUATION IN CENTRAL AMERICA FOLLOWING HURRICANE MITCH

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING BY USG FOR HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS ON SITUATION IN CENTRAL AMERICA FOLLOWING HURRICANE MITCH

The devastation wrought by Hurricane Mitch was not just a natural disaster, but one which had been severely aggravated by the man-made marginalization of millions of Central Americans living in extreme poverty, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Sergio Vieira de Mello, told correspondents today at a Headquarters press briefing.

He said that what was most impressive about his recent trip to the region was that many people saw beyond the tragedy towards the opportunity for a new beginning, a vision that was not restricted to government leaders alone. Yet, the rehabilitation effort could not simply be a reconstruction of what was there before. Rather, it must address the errors, omissions and the inequalities of the past. Survivors of a once prosperous agricultural village in a southern province of Honduras, upon touring a river bed where schools and a church had once stood, said they would reconstruct and start again. Not one of them had asked for help; they only asked that he not forget what he had seen.

Before outlining relief efforts, the Under-Secretary-General shared his outrage at the killing of yet another colleague and humble servant of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Angola, Elias Sayala. Mr. Sayala, who was from a poor Angolan family, took pride in working for the WFP. He was the eighth WFP staff member to be killed this year. It was encouraging to hear several countries in the General Assembly this morning welcoming the adoption of the Statute of the International Criminal Court, which would bring such crimes under its purview. He expressed his sympathy to his family and to the WFP Executive Director, Catherine Bertini.

He said that during his visit, from 8 to 13 November, to El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua he met with hurricane victims, heads of Government, as well as those leading the relief effort. The main purpose of the trip was to express solidarity on behalf of the Secretary-General and also to review the United Nations response in the short, medium and long term.

The United Nations had invested a great deal since the late 1980s in Central America, he said, and was still very much present in Guatemala in support of the peace process there. It was only natural that the Secretary-General, who for years had been personally involved in bringing peace, stability and prosperity to that part of the world, would request him to travel to Central America on his behalf.

Hurricane Mitch, which struck from 28 October to 3 November, was an unprecedented phenomenon, he said. It had hovered over an island off the

Atlantic coast of Honduras for two days. Then, instead of returning to the high seas, it had moved inland to Honduras, where it zig-zagged for three days and converted itself from a hurricane into a tropical storm. In place of winds of up to 290 kilometres per hour, it flooded Honduras and neighbouring countries with record rainfalls. More than 10,000 persons were killed and 10,000 were believed to be missing. More than one-half million people were homeless, bringing to nearly 3 million, the number of people who had been affected.

Continuing, he said that Honduras was the hardest hit, with 60 per cent of the casualties occurring there; 30 per cent in Nicaragua; and the remainder in Guatemala and El Salvador. Moreover, 70 per cent of the agricultural production in Honduras, the major source of income, had been destroyed. Housing and infrastructure had also been severely affected, and half of all roads and bridges had been destroyed. In the wake of such destruction, international solidarity had been exemplary.

The countries from the continent, in particular, Mexico and also the United States, Canada, Panama, Colombia and Argentina, had donated logistical support, such as helicopters, which were essential for carrying assistance to the remotest areas, he said. The European Union, namely the British and the Dutch, were also very active in donating ships, helicopter carriers and ground units to assist along the Honduras and Nicaragua border. Spain, Norway, and Japan were among the other active participants. All had displayed remarkable international support, which was not just rhetorical, but was practical and concrete.

The United Nations was also very active, he went on. The WFP immediately diverted large food stocks to the hurricane victims. Also present was the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO), through the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Their work and their appeals for assistance had been excellent.

Adding to the damage was the demographic and population pressure on the land, a well known phenomenon in those countries which had led to large scale deforestation, he said. Some 100,000 to 150,000 hectares of forests were destroyed yearly in Nicaragua alone, and the cultivation of marginal lands, without any policy of soil conservation, had further provoked the immense mud slides which had taken entire villages with them. The flooding was also aggravated by a lack of adequate watershed management. The poorest segments of the population, with restricted access to land, lived in high risk areas, such as on the river banks and in shantytown valleys. The poor, as usual, thus bore the brunt of the disaster.

Indeed, he said that the hurricane had revealed the extreme vulnerability of large parts of the population, as well as the pressing need for sustainable environmentally responsible policies that focused on social equity and poverty alleviation, rather than macroeconomics and infrastructure.

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Regional leaders had expressed their intention to follow a new course of action that would remedy past ills. Central America was a disaster-prone region, with climatic anomalies a regular feature. However unprecedented, Hurricane Mitch, unfortunately, had not represented a unique and isolated phenomenon. It was essential that everyone be better prepared and protected the next time.

Rehabilitation efforts had to start as soon as possible, he said. Clearly, the emergency was not yet over, and for many victims, it would last for months to come. Stagnant waters and damaged sanitation systems had greatly heightened the incidence of water-borne diseases and the threat of epidemics of dengue fever, cholera and malaria. Many whose homes had been destroyed would continue to live in shelters before being resettled elsewhere, and those who had lost their livelihood would likely be dependent on food aid for some time to come, perhaps for six months or longer.

He said that the major concern expressed throughout the mission, with the exception of Guatemala which was seeking another formula, was the need for debt relief. He particularly sympathized with appeals from Honduras and Nicaragua for "breathing space" in order to focus their meagre resources on national reconstruction, rather than repayment of major debts to both intergovernmental organizations and bilateral lenders. Such appeals would continue to be made to the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund and bilateral lenders. Already, several financial institutions had announced their intention to grant relief to those countries so that they might focus on rehabilitation and reconstruction.

As he was leaving for the region last Sunday, he said he noticed that barely six days after the hurricane, the story had been relegated to a single column on page 11 of a leading United States newspaper. He would appeal to correspondents to keep the story in the news. The Central American people -- who for years had suffered as pawns of surrogate confrontations in the cold war and were slowly but surely building solid democracies and consolidating peace -- deserved that. The Guatemalan need for additional resources, perhaps in the form of "soft loans", was also discussed with its President in order that it might avoid diverting resources from the implementation of the peace settlement to reconstruction.

Considering the geographical location of Belize, a correspondent asked about the damage there. Mr. Vieira de Mello said that Belize, as well as Mexico, was also affected, but to a lesser degree.

In addition to the show of solidarity and debt relief initiatives, what about other long-term assistance to the region? another correspondent asked.

The Under-Secretary-General said that was being worked on. Later in the week, at the request of the Secretary-General, he and the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), James Gustave Speth, were

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convening a meeting of all United Nations agencies that were directly or indirectly involved in Central America. Multilateral financial institutions had also been invited. Medium and long-term rehabilitation and reconstruction priorities would be reviewed in a preliminary fashion, in an attempt to divide efforts among the international actors on the ground.

That meeting, he continued, would be followed by a meeting in December in Washington, D.C., at which United Nations resident coordinators in the area would have an opportunity to submit to the Inter-American Development Bank and other financial institutions more concrete rehabilitation and reconstruction proposals. People on the ground needed time to recover from the shock of the emergency phase in order to focus on the medium and long-term phase.

Another correspondent, noting that poverty had made it very difficult to respond to the disaster, asked if there was anything the governments could do next time in advance to mitigate the damage of such a powerful storm. That had been discussed with all the Governments in the region, Mr. Vieira de Mello replied. Firstly, the UNDP and his office must assist in devising an early- warning system. The capacity was there, but centres such as those in Miami and Guatemala, needed to be reinforced. Additional efforts were also required in that regard.

Towards that goal, he said that both the UNDP and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) would join forces to improve national and regional capacity. Elements which had further aggravated the situation, such as lack of education and of the provision of alternative energy sources in order to prevent deforestation, also had to be addressed, as well as water management policies. The poor should not return to the river banks, but must be given alternative land for cultivation and be reabsorbed into the labour market. Those far-reaching projects required political resolve on the part of the leadership, as well as a careful management by international actors.

Another correspondent asked the Under-Secretary-General to respond to criticism that certain countries had failed to provide opportunities to Central American countries to join the free market. Mr. Vieira de Mello said he was asked to convey to major western markets, especially to the European Union and North American countries, the hope of the Central American countries that their exports, which would necessarily fall sharply in the next two or three years, would be facilitated and that trade terms would be as sympathetic as possible.

He said that in order for future programmes in Central America to be effective, bilateral support should be well coordinated. Efforts were under way to bring together all of the actors, including from UNDP and financial institutions, in order to maximize the impact of international resources, reach agreement on priority areas and involve the relevant governments so that they could elaborate the much needed poverty alleviation and social justice policies. * *** *