All too slowly, the rest of the world is coming to terms with the sheer scale of the disaster Hurricane Mitch has visited on the peoples of Central America, already among the most marginal and impoverished on the planet. This is reckoned to be the most deadly Caribbean/Atlantic hurricane in 200 years (its tail-end last night assaulted Ireland). Perhaps 24,000 people are dead or missing, millions are homeless and much of the economic, communications and physical infrastructure in Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador has been destroyed. In Honduras, three-quarters of this year's agricultural production has been lost, including bananas and other fruit, coffee and tobacco. Thousands of workers are being laid off. The catastrophe sets them back a generation.
There is an immediate need for a huge relief effort. People have been stranded without food and shelter for many days, without helicopters to rescue them. Disease is a mounting problem. All the usual requirements in such emergencies, such as blankets, medicines and food, are in desperately short supply, despite heroic efforts by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to mobilise resources. The Irish organisations among them have been utterly commendable in their efforts to provide such aid and to raise awareness about the catastrophe. Unfortunately, there is, so far, all too little evidence that governmental and United Nations aid will be organised on the scale required - much less that longer term needs for rebuilding will be met by the international community.
This disaster thus cruelly exposes the vulnerability of these societies compared to more advantaged ones in the region. It invites comparisons that underline their different levels of development and the priorities accorded to relief. While Mexico has mounted one of its biggest airlifts, the level of aid so far from the United States has been risible. This mirrors the collapse of interest in the region's problems after the end of the Cold War, which put them so high on Mr Reagan's security agenda.
Despite the predominance of US firms in the region's economy, its government has so far demonstrated a lamentable unconcern. If one compares the loss of life and damage to that visited on southern US states by recent hurricanes, the contrasts can readily be seen.
On a wider plane, shortcomings of the international system for dealing with disaster relief are also cruelly exposed. It is disordered and chaotic. While it makes much sense to give NGOs the leading role in immediate response and consciousness-raising, this cannot provide a long-term solution to such problems. The UN agencies do not have the capacity to respond or follow up on the scale required. They must rely on governments to provide the necessary resources. As yet, there is no real sense or obligation for them to do so, unless under the pressure of public opinion.
Rather than despairing about the international role when confronted with such a disaster, it is important not to lose hope or determination about it. The very exposure of its impact through the media and the NGOs helps to reinforce an international sense of obligation to respond immediately and in the long term. This is a continuing test of the real need and possibility for a global ethics of humanitarian relief and development. Among the most urgent issues to be confronted is the burden of international debt such vulnerable states and societies face. Basic structured inequalities and deep-seated local corruption among their governing elites rule out as facile, calls for immediate cancellation; but once these problems have been addressed the justice of the case is incontrovertible.