Chile’s Earthquake: Analysis & Proposal for Autonomous Reconstruction

analysis | March 16, 2010 by | Comments Off

This piece originally authored by Profesor J:

Once again, catastrophe has struck the people living in the lands controlled by the Chilean state. Some have been natural catastrophes, while others come from the model of society we’re forced to live in.

Mapuche communities were attacked by savage guests from the Iberian peninsula; thousands died in the defense of their ancestral territory. This was a great catastrophe. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are another type of catastrophe. Later, in 1973, catastrophe struck in form of a military genocide, which killed thousands of people, tortured and disappeared just as many, and forced more than a million people into exile.

After the military came the civilians, who kept robbing the public treasury?when an earthquake hit Tocopilla in the northern Chile, a good part of that city was destroyed. The government acted so inefficiently that thousands of people went out in the streets to express their anger. The population was able to break the chains of dependency from the institutions that called on them to wait as the authorities stole money designated for construction. This was the moment for the people themselves to take advantage of the solidarity coming from neighboring cities and put forward a program of developed solutions, but the independent mayoral candidate rejected that proposal, instead running on the platform of the bureaucratic Left; what obvious mattered at the hour of the vote. The population turned their backs on him.

Later, in the middle of the Bachelet government came the eruption of the Chait?n volcano in the Palena region, which was a disputed territory between the Chilean state and Argentinian state, with Chile eventually ?winning? the battle and the region’s inhabitants becoming Chilean citizens, as one would change a T-shirt. When the Chilean authorities arrived in the damaged region, they were greeted with insults and Argentinian flags. Finally, the population was ?transferred? back to the defeated region.

Now, with the arrival of the current earthquake, the whole world has been surprised by the authorities’ completed lack of foresight, leaving hundreds dead, hundred wounded, just as many missing, and thousands of people without homes.

Sad and moving. Let’s look at the factors that have determined the current situation:

The authorities’ ignorance and apathy has to be pointed out; living in a region with a lot of seismic activity requires a series of measures and strategies which were notably absent. Being caught by surprise is different for those who have never experienced an earthquake.

When the tsunami hit it killed hundreds of people and disappeared entire towns, despite Bachelet saying otherwise. Later the Defense Ministers said that it was the Navy that didn’t give the announcement. The Marines are quiet, as they got what the wanted: the militarization of the Mapuche region.

On the ?looting?

There isn’t looting or pillage; what is happening is that the population has organized itself to get basic goods and food from large grocery stores that would otherwise rot. The main business newspaper, El Mercurio, says that this isn’t looting done by delinquents, but rather that ?the desperation for food and water have brought attacks on businesses.? Watch the video produced by the very same newspaper that shows the population taking goods in an orderly way, not running or pushing, but carefully taking turns with those behind them and passing goods outside. Take at look at the ?delinquents,? who are really middle-aged women, elderly, and common people, not characters in sleeveless t shirts. http://emoltv.emol.com/actualidad/indexSub.asp?id_emol=4283

Faced with the number of people going into grocery stores, the police decided not to intervene, legitimizing their activity; later, President Bachelet herself called on the grocery stores to give away their products. Conclusion: the people themselves have set the precedent for how people should behave; distribute what’s there, without exclusion or closed doors.

Nevertheless, the mayor of Concepci?n, Jacqulein van Rysselberghe? niece of German Nazis who fled to Chile after the Second World War, fanatic admirer of Pinochet and the military, distinguished member of the Independent Democratic Union (UDI), a party formed by the fascist militia Patria y Libertad, and ally of the president-elect Sebesti?n Pi?era?couldn’t allow this expression of popular will and demanded that the government establish a curfew and put soldiers on the streets, which added to people’s suffering. It must feel like heaven for his fascist and antidemocratic woman, as the legions march under her balcony toward the ‘barbarian regions,’ the poor neighborhood that have been destroyed. She ought to extend her right hand as tears well up in her eyes.

A crisis in the model of construction for houses, bridges, and highways.

High-rise construction, and the processing of materials used for it, have been a big boon to the real-estate companies, construction companies, and cement producers. A lot has been said about the benefits of building cities horizontally, towards the outskirts, ensuring that there are productive resources that can be controlled by the population, sources of food, self-managed social services, and alternative energy for new community-controlled neighborhoods. Nevertheless, the business lobby, along with the political parties?who merely compete for power while remaining profoundly linked to the same predatory business interests?have always diverted the apparatus of the state and public funds towards investments, technical support, and laws that benefit high-rise and cement construction, such as highways and bridges.

It’s absurd that bridges fall in a region of earthquakes; they ought to move with seismic activity, not oppose it. Universities and technical institutes with architecture, engineering, and civil construction departments haven’t developed programs of study, research, or the practice of using materials suited to this situation.

Communications

Communications are down in almost the whole country; transmission and repeater towers, poorly constructed due to ?cost savings measures,? have fallen, as have cables, and antennas. This text is being finished at 11.30 a.m. on Monday, March 1st, fifty-six hours after the quake. The situation still hasn’t improved, leading some people to believe that the government and the military aren’t interested in restoring services in order to keep people from realizing the magnitude of the damage as this could lead to people organizing to challenge the control of public space by institutions so inefficient that only a ?Pinochet solution? could cover up their mistakes and contain people’s anger.

Telephones, TV, cell phones, and radios are not only down in the South, but in the center of the country as well. There are many neighborhoods in Santiago and Valparaiso without communications, a continuation of already deficient state-run and private infrastructure.

Traveling from one city to another requires taking alternate routes, as bridges are down and many of the highways look like crumpled paper.

Energy and Water

Electricity has been down except for few rich neighborhoods in Santiago; perhaps its only by chance, but every thinks that these neighborhoods have been preferred over the common neighborhoods, the poor and peripheral neighborhoods where darkness is the trend. Maybe their waiting for people to come out and protest so they have an excuse to put soldiers in the streets as well. At any rate, the residents of Santiago haven’t remained quiet, heading out in different neighborhoods to get food and basic goods from grocery stores. Towards the south, darkness and a lack of communication accompany the fear and anger of the population. That’s why there aren’t radios or TVs, or even why it’s impossible to charge a cell phone. This text is being written from an internet cafe in downtown Santiago.

It’s becoming clear that it’s no longer possible to depend on private or state electrical infrastructure, and that it needs to be developed at the neighborhood level using alternative energy.

The situation around gasoline is a crisis. The companies have announced that there is only enough gasoline for one week and the gas stations have raised the prices to take advantage of the ?bonanza? of lines of vehicles that extend for blocks.

The enormous hydroelectric dams that have destroyed the environment haven’t helped a bit. They claimed that these dams would power extensive parts of the country. The results are plain to see: the connections are broken in multiple location, and the companies will loose millions, both for the repairs and lost earnings.

People have been discussing if it makes since to pay the higher bill statements; the idea of not paying the next month’s bill has been circulating, serving as a moral and economic sanction on the business class and government institutions for not paying attention to people. An earthquake is one thing; imprudence, robbery, and lack of planning are quite another.

The situation with water is similar; in many regions it’s been cut off, while in others it comes out dirty and in different cities you can see people going all over the place to find this precious liquid.

Food and basic goods

Grocery stores and supermarkets are closed from the center of the country to the south, having let much of their frozen goods go bad before giving them to people in need. People go around like ants from one spot to another, looking for somewhere to buy bread, water, or some other product. Small stores have blocked their doors with grating to make sure desperation doesn’t surpass respect for private property. Fruit and vegetable markets haven’t been happening, and it seems that hunger will be pushing people even farther to find solutions.

Health

Many hospitals in the South have collapsed and in Santiago attention to patents has been suspended to evaluate the damages.

Proposal for Autonomous Reconstruction

The population will have to start taking survival into their own hands:

Where possible, alternative energy modules will be installed; accompanied by dialogue about their importance, they’ll augment people’s understanding and interest in alternatives to privately- and state-run energy. The debate is open and talked about everywhere. Similar efforts could be undertaken with water, gas, and communications.

People will also learn to value existing community gardens; perhaps people will start their own.

In some places neighbors have been staring bonfires and getting to together to have tea and prepare food together. We’ll have to see if this happens in other places, and be ready to propose it if we have the opportunity.

Given the pressure of the thousands made homeless by the earthquake, it’s possible that the people who have setting up tents and temporary housing in open spaces are learning that life in community is much happier and healthier than they previously thought. Support should be organized for nearby encampments.

Professionals, students, and interested people can support from the outside in the following ways:

-Setting up autonomous health clinics that emphasize medicinal and herbal remedies with health professionals, medical students, and people knowledgeable about health.
-Setting up care and recreations spaces for children with teachers, students, and neighborhood residents.
-Starting community gardens
-Finding and utilizing sources of alternative energy.
-Getting together to make direct links with agricultural producers in the countryside in order to secure sources of food.

The Ecological Network of Chile has started a solidarity network to gather food and basic goods, as well as communications infrastructure to be sent to southern Chile. The Popular Economy and Social Ecology (Ecosocial) Network has joined this campaign. The contact for the Ecosocial Network is Jaime Yovonovic (Profesor Jota), coordinator of the Free University of Chile (http://ulibre.org); he can be reached at redecosocial@gmail.com.

The importance of this solidarity network is its focus on communications and actions among the people directly affected by the situation and organizations in solidarity, without wasting time making demands on the state or political positioning. Instead, it goes straight to the root: solidarity, cooperation, and mutual aid among ‘those at the bottom’, stimulating autonomous forms of self-organization of those affected. Forming horizontal alternative networks will make permanent links between communities and outside groups.

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