By Peter Gellert
MEXICO CITY — Severe floods in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas have left more than a 250,000 homeless and have taken the lives of between 500 and 3000 people.
Torrential rains began on September 7 and have continued since. Thirty eight of the state's 111 municipalities, accounting for almost half the population, have been severely affected.
Among survivors, outbreaks of intestinal disorders, dengue, conjunctivitis and cholera have been reported. The Catholic charity Caritas reports that 600,000 residents are without access to drinking water. Although health minister Juan Ramon de la Fuente claimed the threat of epidemics was under control, he acknowledges that health risks will remain latent for several months.
While the disaster is the result of intense natural weather conditions, it does not explain the whole picture.
The severe damage caused to roads, highways and bridges — which have left 30% of the affected communities without humanitarian aid — is in part the result of the use of inferior construction materials. Graft and corruption in public works projects is notorious in Mexico.
The destruction of thousands of homes and peasant farms is also the indirect result of the uncontrolled felling of trees in what was once the dense Chiapas rainforest. In the past 14 years, deforestation has claimed 90% of the once lush foliage.
Domestic and foreign timber companies are the main culprits, but many indigenous communities have been forced to cut timber due to the absence of employment opportunities and other sources of fuel.
As in last year's hurricane on the Pacific coast, much damage occurred to make-shift homes in precarious locations. The lack of urban planning and rampant corruption in granting building permits contributed.
The disaster, the worst in many years, has moved Mexican society. Throughout the country, social organisations and NGOs of every stripe, the churches and political parties have launched public campaigns to collect and distribute aid.
The federal government has sent assistance, and deployed some 14,000 soldiers from the conflict zones of Chiapas to the affected areas. President Ernesto Zedillo has made several visits to survey the damage.
On September 23, a federal program was announced to provide land and construction materials to those who have lost their homes and temporary jobs to 25,000 peasants.
Natural disasters in Mexico tend to put the spotlight on the conduct of authorities and the workings of the political system, and the Chiapas floods are no exception.
Gabriel Gutierrez, state president of the centre-left Party of the Democratic Revolution, charged that the government has "falsified statistics to obtain international aid, raising the number of victims. On a national level, it uses other figures to show that the government is fulfilling its role. On the local level, it is giving out information with electoral purposes in mind, saying everything is under control, so elections can be held."
NGOs, opposition political parties and the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) have also charged that humanitarian aid is being used by the government and the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to their partisan advantage, including in election campaigns in Tapachula and Ciudad Hidalgo.
"We're concerned over the use of public resources to support the official party. Aid for flood victims is being diverted for electoral purposes, even to areas not affected.
"For example, in Frontera Hidalgo, PRI candidates are delivering food packages that were originally intended for flood victims in Pijijipan. In all municipalities along the coast and the mountains, PRI candidates are distributing food packages", Gutierrez explained.
The army, which is occupying all disaster areas and even shelters, has been accused of using distribution of humanitarian aid to obtain sexual favours from young women flood victims and of selectively delivering food packages to PRI sympathisers.
The Zapatistas charge that aid has been stolen on a mass scale, specifically that federal government disaster funds had been diverted into Chiapas Governor Roberto Albores' private bank accounts.
Demonstrations have been held by housewives in Suchiato and Tapachula demanding food and charging that humanitarian aid had not arrived.
Criticism has been so widespread that Zedillo took to the airwaves on September 14 in a statewide radio broadcast. He said the government would guarantee that no government aid would be used for political ends and any such abuse would be punished. Outside official circles, skepticism reigned.
The EZLN summed up the views of many when they said: "The great magnitude of the tragedy caused by heavy rains in the south-east is not just due to meteorological conditions.
"The incapacity of the Chiapas government to deal with natural disasters has multiplied the destructive effect of the water. Poor construction (but charged for as if it were good), lack of a contingency plan, indifference to citizen demands for aid when the rain began, and politicians more concerned with advancing their public relations image than governing, are the responsibility of those who say they are at the head of government in Chiapas and those in the central government who put them there."