-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">
</A> -Cui Bono?-
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Meager U.S. Response to Africa Floods
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 12:19:05 -0600 (CST)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Organization: ?
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Mar. 9, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
GLOBAL WARMING? MEAGER U.S RESPONSE TO DEADLY
FLOODS IN AFRICA
By G. Dunkel
Mozambique, one of the 10 poorest countries in the world,
has been devastated by floods since early February. Some
300,000 people have lost their homes, cattle, crops and
livelihood. Maputo, the capital and a city of a million
people, has been cut off from the rest of the country by
the floods.
Thousands of people are clinging to treetops and small
patches of high ground. If helicopters don't get to them,
they are going to drown.
Health experts have run out of medicine and supplies and
because roads have been cut, they can't be resupplied
unless there is a massive airlift. They warn that even if
the waters quickly recede, malaria, cholera, typhoid and a
whole host of other water-borne diseases are going to put
millions of people, particularly children, at risk.
Mozambique is the worst hit, but Botswana, Zimbabwe and
northern South Africa are also suffering from major floods.
What is particularly disheartening for the people of
Mozambique is that after years of war, which started in the
late 1960s, first against the Portuguese colonialists and then
against a proxy for South Africa's apartheid regime called
Renamo, they had managed to pull the country and the economy
together. For the past two years, Mozambique's economy has had
one of the fastest rates of growth in the world.
U.S. REACTION TO THIS CATASTROPHE
The official U.S. response has been meager: 140 tents,
6,900 blankets, 6,000 water cans and 160 rolls of plastic.
Not much more than a small truck load. It certainly doesn't
address the deep needs for medicine, health providers and
repairing the roads, wells, water systems and public
buildings that have been washed away.
Few newspapers have given much coverage to this tragedy,
although the flooding has been going on for three weeks as
of this writing.
Many climatologists believe that the warming trend in the
climate, often called "global warming," is responsible for
the increasing volatility of the weather. There is more
energy in the atmosphere, which means more wind, more rain
and more drought.
While the degree to which industrial pollution contributes
to global warming is disputed, there has been enough
agreement to adopt some international conventions, such as
the Kyoto Protocol. But the United States government has
spent much more effort obstructing these agreements than it
has to the suffering of the Mozambican people.
- END -
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