Earthquake wrecked more than buildings ON THURSDAY September 19 a terrible earthquake hit Mexico City killing over 5,000 people and leaving 1,000 buildings completely destroyed. As with all such natural disasters in Third World countries, the earthquake exposed the corruption and callousness of the government and its system.
The following interview was given to Gerry Foley in Paris on October 2 by Sergio Rodriguez, a leader of the Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT), Mexican section of the Fourth International.
MEXICO of state of siege. This plan gave control over the city to the army. What this meant in fact was that the soldiers came out with machine guns, not to help the wounded and the trapped but fundamentally to create an atmosphere of panic and intimidation to block the self-organization of the people.
To make matters worse, the police and army robbed the stricken population. The people had to flee without being able to take their possessions. So, the repressive forces carted off tape recorders, clocks, all sorts of things. There is a flood of specific complaints about looting by the police and army. The people are furious.
Ironically, three days before the quake, there was a military parade to commemorate Mexico's independence from Spain. They paraded, among other things, imposing antiriot armored cars that they have purchased from France and Switzerland. They even gave a demonstration of how these armored cars can knock down barricades in a matter of seconds. So, the people wondered why these marvelous machines were not brought out to move ruins and save lives. Moreover, the government seems to be seizing on the disaster to clear old low-rent neighborhoods where it wants to build lucrative new projects. The destruction of these old neighborhoods has not gotten much publicity because the buildings that fell down here in places such as La Colonia Guerrero and La Colonia Morelos are not high rises. But this represents a very grave social problem.
These are old neighborhoods, where the local people have lived for generations. Because of long occupancy, the rents are very low. Most of these areas are under dispossession orders, and therefore the people who have lost their homes will have a particularly hard time in getting any indemnity. But they will not find housing anywhere else at anything like the same rent. Masses of people are now camping out in these areas, or just sleeping in the street, demanding that the government rebuild their homes and that they be allowed to stay in their neighborhoods. In this situation, some government officials have said with a shameful cynicism that the problem of these neighborhoods has now been solved.
The government does not like these neighborhoods especially because the level of popular organization in them is very high. They have a system of mobilizing the people to prevent the police from coming in and arresting anybody. They ring a bell and everybody comes out. In the Colonia Morelos, this has effectively International Viewpoint 14 October 1985
Question. What political and social repercussions has the September 19 earthquake had?
Answer. It has exposed the corruption, callousness, and ineffectiveness of the government, the capitalists, and the imperialists in a glaring way, as such natural disasters always do in our country.
The quake was entirely predictable, although of course the government could not have known exactly when it would happen. Since Mexico City is in an earthquake zone, buildings are supposed to be designed to resist the strongest shocks. But it is obvious that a good part of the buildings that collapsed did not meet the legal requirements. It is notable in particular that a great many of the buildings that collapsed were owned by the Mexican government. A lot of the secretariat buildings tumbled - the Secretariat of Labor, of Trade, of Agriculture, of Foreign Relations, and so on. Secondly, a lot of the hospitals that collapsed were government hospitals, such as the Hospital Juarez, the Centroamerico, and so on. Also the public schools, primary and secondary schools. Finally, a very large part of the housing that collapsed were government housing projects, that is "low-rent" housing, such as the Unidad Juarez and the Taltelolco flats. More than seventy schools collapsed in Mexico City. It was only because the quake came at 7.19 am that kept things from being much worse. If it had happened an hour later, most of these schools would have been filled, and we would have seen a real slaughter of the innocents.
The earthquake also revealed to the Mexican people as a whole something that we and the National Antirepression Front had been saying for a long time. One of the government buildings that collapsed was the Procuraduria General de la Republica, which is the headquarters of the Policia Judicial, a political police body.
In the dungeons of the Procuraduria, they found many bodies of Colombians and Mexicans showing the marks of torture by the police. It also came to light that these people had been held in secret for more than two weeks. Also Mexican law obliges the police to bring prisoners before a judge within three days of their arrest. The Mexican government claimed that these people were drug traffickers but in the trunk of a police car was found the body of a prisoner's lawyer. He had been kidnapped by the police and kept in the trunk of a car for an entire day, before he was killed by the earthquake.
Moreover, the role that the police and army played in the disaster only rubbed salt in the people's wounds. In fact, they were sent in only after the level of organization of the people in the affected neighborhoods, especially the youth, frightened the government. Hardly an hour after the quake, the local people were in the streets taking control of the situation, organising groups to pull people out from under the rubble, to help the people trapped, in elevators, for example, to organize medical aid. More than a hundred thousand youth went into the streets immediately in Mexico City to aid the victims. This frightened the government, which feared losing control.
The government put into effect National Defense Plan II, a sort
kept the cops at bay.
Also, in some of the big projects, he large number of people who lived the roof apartments were not registered, had no leases. They will get no indemnities, and no one even knows how many of them are dead.
Q. You think that the government has understated the death toll?
A. Yes. They said between 5 and 6 thousand people died; we think that it could be well over 20 thousand. Just look at what happened in some of the housing projects, like the Tlaltelolco flats. One building collapsed outright, and seven more came down later. A thousand people lived in the building that collapsed immediately, of whom only fifty were saved. In another hard-hit project, the Unidad Habitacional Benito Juarez, two buildings of more than 13 stories collapsed. On each floor, there were at least eight apartments, so, you can get an idea of the numbers probably killed.
Q. But aren't the dead people missed?
A. Of course, but it will take a long time before it becomes clear what happened to them. The government is burying a lot of people in mass graves. You see, a building falls, people dig desperately through the ruins looking for relatives. They won't accept that they are dead until they see the bodies. But in the meantime a lot of the bodies have been taken to the baseball stadium.
There were more than 1,500 bodies all laid out there, with temperatures running at 30 degrees celsius during the day. They began to rot quickly. A dreadful odor started to hang over Mexico City, since the bodies were out in the open, with no more protection than plastic bags. If people did not come to identify the bodies within three days, or even two in many cases, they were dumped into mass graves.
Mexican TV had shown sickening pictures of hundreds of bodies being dumped unceremoniously in great ditches. This is one way the government has kept the deathtoll down.
Another is that the government moves very quickly to dynamite damaged buildings, without waiting to recover the bodies of those killed or even to be sure that there are no people still alive in the ruins. There have been complaints in specific cases where foreign specialist rescue teams have located signs of life and the Mexican army has rushed in to dynamite the building.
Q. What about foreign aid? Are there any scandals about misappropriation of foreign aid, such as hap-
International Viewpoint 14 October 1985
Centro Mexico, once Mexico's biggest hospital complex (DR)
pened after the earthquake in Managua, for example, which was supposed to be a major factor preparing the way for the revolution in Nicaragua?
A. The first thing is that the government delayed the arrival of foreign aid. The day of the disaster, Bernardo Sepulveda, the minister of foreign affairs, announced, that Mexico did not need any outside help because we had everything that was needed. That very day, vaccines and food, even clothing, started to go scarce. A number of governments were ready to send in machinery. But Sepulveda delayed this.
There were some lamentable cases. For example, two English helicopters capable of moving heavy loads returned to their bases in Belize because they were not given any tasks.
Another important problem is where the aid is being directed. The machinery is being used to do rescue work in the wealthy neighborhoods. None of these cranes and other equipment have been taken to La Colonia Guerrero or the other poor neighborhoods.
Moreover, the Mexican government has taken an outrageously discriminatory attitude toward foreign aid from the various countries. Immediately after the disaster, Cuba and Nicaragua offered help. The Nicaraguans launched a campaign to collect blood and plasma for the victims. Thousands of Nicaraguans gave their blood. The Cubans sent a planeload of supplies. They offered to set up three mobile hospitals, to send doctors right into the disaster areas to vaccinate rescue workers, etc. But the Mexican government refused. The government said this sort of aid wasn't needed. But precisely many of those killed were doctors, residents killed at the Benito Juarez hospital for example when it collapsed. And many victims are in unsanitary conditions. There are not enough beds.
So, the right started using this to claim that Cuba and Nicaragua weren't helping. They said, look Mexico is doing these countries a big favor by selling them oil at a discount, and when we find ourselves in trouble, they could not care less. Only the United States is helping.
But this is outrageous. At first the US offered only 22 thousand dollars in aid. That was an out-right kick in the teeth to the Mexican people. The PRT itself has given more than that. We contributed the salaries of all our six members of parliament to the relief effort. Then we got a
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Rescue worker in Mexico City (DR) two hour visit from Nancy Reagan playing the lady bountiful. And after that, they increased their offer to a million dollars, which is still derisory.
On the very day of the disaster, the IMF announced that it was stopping all loans to Mexico. This was so provocative, that a cartoonist did a drawing showing the IMF as a sort of Dracula taking the blood from a badly hurt earthquake victim. The fact is, this year Mexico is supposed to pay 1,200,000,000 dollars in interest on its foreign debt. So, we proposed that Mexico immediately declare a two-year moratorium on debt payments until the vietims can be provided for and the city rebuilt. We proposed this in parliament, and all but six of the government party deputies voted against it. Despite disaster and the hard-heartedness, not to say bloodthirstyness, of the imperialists, they remain tied to the IMF plans.
Q. What other measures has the PRT proposed for meeting the needs created by the earthquake?
A. We proposed a ten-year freeze on rents, because the landlords have launched feverish speculation now that so much housing has been destroyed. Already for some time they have been raising rents every year by as much as 100 percent, although the law limits annual increases to 10%. A large proportion of renters now are paying 50% of their incomes for rent, and obviously the other half is not enough 26 to meet their basic needs. So, we think a ten-year freeze is very reasonable, just to keep things from getting totally out of hand.
We propose help for people who have lost their jobs or will not be able to work again for some time, like government workers whose buildings have collapsed. In some cases, also whole factories collapsed, like the Topeca garment factory, with a thousand women workers inside. More than 150,000 people have been left homeless. A lot of families have lost their bread winner, so that large numbers of women and children have been left without an income.
We have raised the call for expropriating the luxury hotels and luxury building projects, condominiums, which are standing empty, and for moving the homeless people in there while their homes are being rebuilt. There are a great number of luxury hotels in Mexico for rich tourists and such. They could be used to house people who have lost their homes. And that would put more pressure on the government to rebuild their homes. In some cases, PRT members have joined with homeless people in occupying such buildings. Of course, a lot of our own members are now homeless as well.
Immediately after the quake our party put out a statement, placed it as a paid advertisement in the newspapers, calling on our members and supporters to participate in the rescue and relief work. We turned our headquarters into centers for collecting food, clothing, medicine to aid the victims. In the Chamber of Deputies, we proposed forming a multiparty commission to investigate the repercussions of the quake. That gave us an important opportunity, because we were able to get into all the areas to see the conditions under which the people were working.
We channelled aid to the poorest neighborhoods, turning it over directly to the community associations and tenants organizations. Some of our members are in the leadership of the neighborhood associations in Taltelolco, Colonia Morelos, La Colonia Roma, La Colonia Doctores, which were some of the hardest hit neighborhoods. Our idea is to organize the people directly so that they channel the aid themselves and get what they need, so that it won't be channelled through the Mexican govemment.
The government has set up a bank account for aid. Now, historically, such accounts have been a means for functionaries enriching themselves. Furthermore, the government says this money is for rebuilding schools and hospitals. As important as that is, the first thing people need is some place to live. We are proposing a parallel bank account directly controlled by the victims themselves.
We are calling for a return to the provision of the Federal Labor Law that sets rents at 10% of wages and for an end to all removal orders. We argue that people who have been living in apartments and paying rent for up to forty years have paid the value of these places and should have owners' rights.
Do you think the repercussions of the quake will have a serious effect on the stability of the government?
A. Well, they have come in a context when the government was rapidly losing credibility already. There was the general economic crisis gripping the country and creating absolute destitution. And there was the discontent revealed in the recent elections, in which only 55% of the people voted. It was obvious that very large sections of the population were losing their confidence in elections, which are rigged by the ruling PRI party. Among those who did vote, the left and the non-PRI right made big gains.
The Mexican government is caught in the contradiction that it remains tied to the plans of the IMF, while at the same time it has to try to give the people enough to head off an explosion. But one of the conditions of the IMF is reducing public spending. And rebuilding Mexico City is going to require an enormous investment out of the public treasury, which runs directly contrary to the IMF's demands. We think that, while it may make some maneuvers, the government will remain tied to the IMF, and that is going to create a much more explosive situation.
We think that the way to face up to this situation is for us to participate in the process of organization and self-organization of the masses, and to explain that it was the whole system of economic and political domination that created the conditions that led to the horrors caused by the September 19 quake. At the same time, the response of the Mexican people showed the answer. It demonstrated the capacity of the Mexican people to mobilize and take their fate into their own hands. It showed that they can organize, without any need for the police, the army, or the government. What happened even led some observers to say that the Mexican people had taken power. The mobilization of the Mexican people themselves to cope with the disaster has pointed the way to the solution, the way along which we intend to advance. International Viewpoint 14 October 1985