 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 9 - 15 March 2000 Issue No. 472 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 9 - 15 March 2000 Issue No. 472
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Focus Books Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Debts engender disasters
By Gamal Nkrumah
The sprawling southern African country of Mozambique recently hit the headlines when it suffered its worst natural disaster in living memory -- a month of incessant torrential downpours combined with two devastating cyclones, Eline and Cynthia. The floodwaters rose too quickly for men and women to cope, and some 500 people lost their lives. Tens of thousands more were marooned in trees and on rooftops as three major rivers, the Limpopo, the Save and the Zambezi, burst their banks. The hundreds of thousands who live in their valleys are now at the mercy of nature -- and the humanitarian relief agencies -- after a third of the staple maize crop, plus up to 70 per cent of other grains, was destroyed.
The disaster would have strained the resources of any country let alone one as poor as Mozambique. It will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild the country. The worst of it is that things need not have been this way. As it was, the floods were allowed to reign unchecked for three weeks before the aid began to come. "I'm happy that what was given to us was given with all heart from people who are trying to help," President Joaquim Chissano said in a televised interview. But the urgency of the situation forced him to be blunt. "It is true that this help came slowly in small quantities," he added. "I am happy that this help came, but I would say it has not been enough."
After the storm? It is high time that an international rapid response unit be set up to stand in preparedness for natural disasters in impoverished countries on the Mozambican scale.
The International Federation of the Red Cross has appealed to donor nations to contribute more funds and relief supplies. Meanwhile, the usual suspects made all the usual excuses. "We have mobilised the United Nations system and have also begun very seriously raising money," UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters in New York last week, with his customary diplomacy. "We have got some response, but the response could have been better."
A deluge of media coverage has captured the tragedy in graphic detail -- those who escaped the worst, and those who died. The entire 150,000 people who made up the population of Xai-Xai, the provincial capital of the worst-affected Mozambican province, Gaza, were ordered evacuated, but few had moved out when the Limpopo River burst its banks. Xai-Xai along with several other towns have now been swept from the map, and survivors have not been able to provide names for all the missing. The death toll is expected to climb well into the thousands once the water recedes.
Nor does the tale end there. Food, medicines and clean water are now scarce and medical experts fear that without concerted action and substantial international humanitarian assistance, Mozambique's health workers will simply not be able to cope with the inevitable epidemics of cholera, malaria and typhoid.
Even at the best of times, medicine is rarely available in the now water-logged rural backwaters, and medical facilities are practically non-existent. Moreover, with fewer than 70,000 telephones in the country, and some 70 per cent of these in the capital, communication is hardly easy. These problems can all be traced to a single origin -- the country's enormous foreign debt. Servicing that debt ensures that little foreign exchange trickles through to fund essential education, health and infrastructural development.
Mozambican children and their mothers desperatly need relief assistance
(photo: Reuters)
Now over a million people are homeless, and turning the tide of misery left behind by the fast-rising waters will doubtless mean overhauling the impoverished country's entire economy. Thousands of flood victims have not eaten for days. "We've got families that are not going to be able to hang on much longer," warned World Food Programme (WFP) spokesperson Michele Quintaglie. The WFP estimates that at least 300,000 people are desperately in need of help to avoid starvation.
Worse, the flooding and erosion have unearthed thousands of landmines. Mozambique, of course, is no stranger to tragedy of the more obviously man-made kind. A brutal 16-year civil war ended in 1992, when the ruling FRELIMO government signed a peace accord with the rebel RENAMO forces. RENAMO is now a model opposition party, and the success of the country's multi-party democracy has been highly commended by Western governments.
Until last month, Mozambique had made considerable headway in both the economic and political spheres, even though it is desperately poor. Indeed, it last year became the world's fastest growing economy. But even if such double-digit growth rates were to be sustained, it would still take two decades to achieve a per capita income comparable to that of other African countries like Ghana and Uganda.
Even as the Western powers loudly cheer Mozambican democracy, development aid has dried to a trickle, though recently there has been talk of speeding up the disbursement of loans. The country's gross domestic product is estimated at around $16.8 billion, but its 20 million people are saddled with an impossible millstone -- some $8.3 billion of external debt.
Meanwhile the international media seek to lay the blame for the latest calamity to beset the nation on nature, and nature alone. But Mozambique's current crisis is every bit as man-made as the civil war that preceded it.
This is a disaster which would have strained the resources of any country, let alone one as poor as Mozambique. President Chissano is now urging Western powers, banks and international financial institutions to write off the debt load which costs his government some $1.4 million in interest payments each week.
According to Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs, the $350 billion owned by the world's 52 poorest countries would cost the wealthiest nations a mere $71 billion to write off -- one third of one per cent of the annual income of the richest nations. Spread over a period of 20 years, this would amount to one lonely cent a day. Yet despite that, the powerful lending nations are still mercilessly calling in their debts. An estimated 21 million children die each year because of the obligations this practice lays upon the governments of the Third World.
Meanwhile, the usual "relief mechanisms" spring slowly into action. Land travel is virtually impossible in flooded Mozambique and helicopters and boats are generally acknowledged to be the most efficient mode of transport in flooded areas. Yet, the entire relief operation has focused on the use of helicopters and aircraft. As many as 60 helicopters and aircraft are expected to be in operation by the end of the week, but those coordinating the relief operation has not figured out that they may not have enough fuel for flying. The international airport serving Maputo, the Mozambican capital, is ill-equipped to service this large number of aircraft, and cargo craters are already piling up on its runway.
The disaster forced the countries of southern Africa to work more closely together. Mozambican, South African, Zimbabwean and Botswanian officials met in Pretoria last week to discuss ways to help flood victims and coordinate relief activities. Some of Africa's poorest countries, Lesotho and Zambia, have sent aid and committed their only cargo planes to deliver food and medicine. Even Europe and the United States are finally stirring into action. An estimated 900 US rescue and medical personnel, helicopters and boats are expected to head towards southern Africa this weekend to help Mozambique and four other flood-stricken countries in the region -- South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana -- cope with the disaster. Poul Nielson, European Union Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, flew to Mozambique to inspect the scene, and to discuss with officials and aid agencies various measures to coordinate relief supplies. "The catastrophe was much bigger than anyone anticipated," was Nielson's initial comment. Doubtless it is with such bland intentions to shirk responsibility wherever possible that the road to hell is truly paved.
