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Hurricane Stan Wreaks Havoc on Central America and Southern Mexico |
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Tuesday, 11 October 2005 |
Posted: October 11, 2005
During the past week, Hurricane Stan has dumped unprecedented rainfall on northern Central America and southern Mexico, leaving approximately one thousand dead and hundreds of thousands homeless, in addition to causing billions of dollars of destruction. The entire country of El Salvador has been declared a national emergency; in southern Mexico, 464 counties in Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Chiapas were declared a state of emergency; in Guatemala, over 100,000 have been affected with mudslides burying entire communities in the Lake Atitlan area.
How You Can Help: Make a Donation
If you’d like to make a tax-deductible contribution, please send your donations to Grassroots International, 179 Boylston Street, 4th floor, Boston MA 02130. Grassroots International is a non-profit organization working to advance political, economic and social rights and support development alternatives through grantmaking, education and advocacy. They have agreed to channel funds to Equal Exchange’s affected partners free of all administrative charges. To place a donation on your charge card, go to the following link: https://secure.campagne-online.com/registrant/startup.aspx?eventid=2775.
Please write HURRICANE STAN on your check.
We have received personal letters from at least four of our trading partners located in these three countries asking for assistance – at this point for emergency food and medicine. As soon as the immediate crisis has passed, additional funds will be needed for longer term reconstruction efforts.
At Equal Exchange, fair trade means having direct and long-term relationships with our trading partners. In addition to buying the farmers’ products at fair prices, we also try to accompany the cooperatives through whatever successes and challenges they face. Sometimes this means promoting their success at a cupping competition or celebrating the inauguration of a new processing plant. Unfortunately, right now accompaniment means supporting those cooperatives whose members have been devastated by Hurricane Stan.
The following are some excerpts from the cooperatives about the situations they are facing:
 Sixto Bonilla, General Manager of CESMACH, in southern Chiapas: “In the Sierra, we are having a very hard time. There are mudslides and communication is impossible. We are organizing groups of assistance to try and send some basic goods and medicines that we’ve been managing to acquire. Despite this, there are many very remote communities that we have not yet been able to reach… If you know of any foundation or organization that could help us in any way to meet the basic necessities, clearly that would be welcome.”
In a follow-up letter, Sixto wrote: “Practically all the roadways between the main cities and the communities are cut off. In the case of Jaltenango, there is no access because the bridges have fallen down. In the Sierra, it is even more complicated because in addition to the fallen bridges, it is impossible to get to any of the communities. Even the closest ones like Nueva Independencia, Nueva Colombia or Laguna del Cofre are now impossible to reach because the rivers are very full and the mudslides are tremendous. We have collected some basic goods (grains and beans mostly) that we will try to send as quickly as the rains stop and there is access again. Our biggest concern is for the communities that are further away and are in even steeper areas which tend to suffer landslides; these are the poorest communities and are not prepared to withstand this type of problem.”
- FIECH, another trading partner in southern Chiapas tells us that 120 communities along the coast, the Guatemalan border, Soconusco, Motozintla and Tapachula have been affected, causing hardship on approximately 10,000 people living there. Large parts of Tapachula, one of the principal cities located near the Guatemalan border, were washed away by flood waters and the city was completely isolated for four days.
 Manos Campesinas, our trading partner in Guatemala wrote: “The South Coast has been flooded completely, leaving dozens of dead persons, and thousands of families who have lost everything: their homes, their personal belongings, their villages, their relatives. There are many families who are without communication, without ground access, and until today without air access.”
“The highlands (Huehuetenango, San Marcos, Quetzaltenango and Solola) have sufferered enormously from the rains, the flooding and the landslides. The main roads are inaccessible, which makes it difficult for help to get there. Many villages are without any communication. The main worries of the people are drinking water and food. Due to the obstructions on the roads, there is no traffic of water, food or gasoline. The supermarkets and smaller shops are already empty, and the flow of water and electricity to the houses is very irregular. Like wise, telephone and cellular serves are deficient.”
“As for the communities in which Manos Campesinas works, in most cases we haven’t managed communication with the people there… APECAFORMM, (the cooperative where Equal Exchange buys its coffee) in San Marcos is completely without communication, but we have heard on the radio that there are huge landslides in that area. We cannot estimate where those landslides have been and what places have been affected by them.”
“On top of the possible victims and damages to houses and infrastructure, we foresee that many coffee trees will be damaged or will have disappeared, as the coffee trees normally are on the mountain slopes, which are the places where the landslides tend to happen.”
- In El Salvador, five uninterrupted days of torrential downpours caused mudslides, landslides and river flooding in many areas of the country. So far, the hurricane has caused the deaths of 62 people and the evacuation of another 50,000. In the coffee cooperatives that Equal Exchange trades with, 95 families have been evacuated. (40 families in El Pinal and Las Colinas) to schools and other temporary shelters. Some coffee farms in these cooperatives have been destroyed due to mudslides and landslides. During the same time, the Santa Ana volcano erupted and caused the evacuation of hundreds more families and the destruction of many more acres of coffee lands due to volcanic ash.
Farming families in Central America and southern Mexico are facing dire conditions. At Equal Exchange, we continue to look for ways to support our partners as they live through this crisis and attempt to rebuild their communities and farms. On behalf of these farmers, we gratefully appreciate any help you can provide. |
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Farmer Partners 
