Hurricanes happen. Ever the "Accidental Tourist", they amble about seeking overnight accommodation according to a criteria that is mysterious and seemingly unfair. When they check out, they leave behind scenes of devastation. But most of the time, people rebuild fairly quickly. Governments declare disaster areas, money pours in, and television news footage is filled with chirpy stories about the indomitable human spirit.
This is not, however, what has happened in Central America in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch. Money has poured in, but it seems at this moment that almost no amount will be able to repair the devastation. More than 10,000 people were killed in Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala in November. Almost 19,000 people are still missing and three million are homeless. Honduras has declared an epidemic of cholera and malaria. The estimate of what it will cost to rebuild these countries' infrastructures - bridges and roads and water-delivery systems - now stands at a staggering $4 billion.
The real monster in the closet for these countries is their foreign debt. Most peoples' eyes understandably glaze over at the sound of "foreign debt", but it is a tangible obstacle to recovery for this region. Honduras, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, owes $4.1 billion; Nicaragua owes $5.9 billion. For Nicaragua the load is so great that some 40 per cent of income from exports is needed to cover debt payments.
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank issued a joint statement early this month saying they would set up a debt trust fund to allow rich countries to help pay the countries' debts. They said Honduras and Nicaragua might qualify for debt relief, but no decision was made.
Hurricanes happen. But the reason that Hurricane Mitch devastated Central America has far more to do with the winds of politics than the winds of weather.
The region has been of strategic importance to the United States for most of this century. Beginning in the 1920s, American fruit companies Dole and Chiquita dominated the life and economies of these countries, often covertly running their governments and creating an economic dependency. Many say the countries were run as personal fiefdoms for these companies' owners.
With Fidel Castro an expansionist threat in nearby Cuba, Central America was seen as the area where the United States could not lose ground without severe consequences. Thus the CIA routinely controlled national elections and installed strongmen at the top.
This was the background for the covert war against the Nicaraguan communist-allied Sandanistas that the US began in 1980. Almost all of Honduras and El Salvador's military budgets were paid for by the US in the 1980s. Honduras was a US staging base for the war. In return for allowing the US to establish bases all over the country, Honduras was paid handsomely.
This dependence on US aid did not result in the creation of real jobs or the establishment of long-term economic planning. Corruption was rampant. (Honduras was recently rated the third most corrupt nation in the world. Locals complain they cannot even get electricity turned on without la mordidita, a little bite, a little bribe.)
Like most areas where the US military gets involved, things got messy, with allegations of right-wing assassination squads. (A recent 211-page CIA report noted dryly, "CIA reporting to Congress in the 1980s underestimated Honduran involvement in abuses.")
In the midst of this, the US established Joint Task Force Bravo in 1984, a division of the US Southern Command, which oversees all military activities in Central America. With 2,000-plus personnel, one of its jobs, according to a Bravo fact sheet, was to "deter Nicaraguan aggression".
By 1992, however, the Cold War was over and the US dropped Central America like a hot brick. President Bill Clinton had little interest in the area, contrasted with his predecessors Reagan and Bush. With the party over, the downsizing began. Between 1992 and 1994 there were 1,130 US military personnel assigned to Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras. By 1995, personnel was down to 710. On the eve of Hurricane Mitch it stood at 499 soldiers.
The abrupt departure of the US left Central America scrambling to determine its future. But in the last year some developments began occurring that would portend a new era, and not a necessarily good one, for the region.
The matter at hand concerns Panama. In compliance with the 1977 Panama Canal Accords, the US is being forced to leave the country, closing all of its military bases. An agreement to allow the US to remain collapsed in April over wording that would have allowed the base and its 2,000 soldiers to engage "in other missions" besides anti-drug efforts.
This was language the Panamanians appropriately interpreted as giving the US a legal basis to intervene militarily in the region at its discretion. For the first time in 80 years, the US Southern Command base was moved to Miami. The military was not happy.
Now enters the problem of Honduras. Its constitution does not allow a permanent foreign presence. It is only by an informal agreement that JTF-Bravo, and Soto Cano Air Force Base, is allowed to remain. In April a State Department spokesman told the New York Times that Honduras might be an acceptable alternative for Panama for a drug interdiction base.
The US has dramatically increased its military and police assistance to Honduras, even before Hurricane Mitch, giving an estimated $843,000 in 1997 and at least $2,954,000 this year, according to the Center for International Policy. If all US bases are closed in Panama by the end of 1999, as planned, Soto Cano will be the only US airfield on the Latin American mainland.
So along came a Hurricane called Opportunity. Hillary Clinton arrived at Soto Cano on November 16th to announce the number of US troops in the region would quadruple from 1,300 to 5,600 and aid would hit $250 million. In the two weeks after Mitch more than a few people noticed the army was busy building housing; not for the homeless but for incoming soldiers.
Hurricane Mitch devastated Central America, and much of the US military aid has been both important and heartfelt by those who approved and delivered it.
But it must also be acknowledged that the relief effort has comported well with strategic military planning, not all of it humanitarian. This matter of mutual interest was apparent to the Honduran government. Two days after news broke in Nicaragua that a landslide had killed 2,000 people, the Honduras official death toll jumped from 600 to 5,000.
Many aid workers and journalists who were there (including this one) thought the Honduran figure inflated. On December 1st, the Honduran government revised the figure downward by 1,350, blaming a local governor, who subsequently said she had never even reported death figures to the government.
It is not cynical to suggest that US humanitarian aid has more than one purpose in Central America. Just realistic. For their part, most Hondurans can only hope that the return of the US military has a better outcome for this impoverished land than the exercises of the 1980s.
With the US roaring back into the region, Central America can continue along a path of dependency. But it must remember that the consequences of that dependency are more devastating than any hurricane.