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Proceso 972
October 17, 2001
ISSN 0259-9864
 
 
 
 
 

INDEX

Editorial:  A useful imagination exercise
Politics:  A feeling of hate against the United States people?
Economy:  The garbage treatment problem
 
 
 
 
 
 

EDITORIAL

    Let us picture for a while the president of the world’s first economic and military force, which has been the target of a vicious and repulsive terrorist attack, that has left behind thousands of victims and has humiliated the pride of a nation that considered itself invulnerable. After these events, the president calls all of his intelligence services to ask them why they did not alert anyone, and to demand that, as soon as possible, they give him an explanation of how this attack happened. In a brief period of time, these intelligence services start to discover a complex and wide net of fanatics, sympathizers and collaborators. They also discovered sponsoring sources all over the world, and technology and communication experts.

    Once the key aspects are identified, and so the main branches of this organization, the president informs his colleagues and all of them figure out an action plan. The objective is the apprehension of the responsible ones and their collaborators, in order to hand them to an international penal court, where they will be prosecuted and punished, according to the international rights’ agreement. The events lead also to the investigation of other terrorist activities. Finally, the governments of other powerful nations also decide to examine the international right items, in order to put it up to date in reference to that subject, and they compromise themselves to promote it and defend it.

    In this circumstances, a massive military attack would have not been necessary, and the deaths of innocent and defenseless people would have been avoided. In other words, the army of that powerful nation would not have been necessary and, in the worst of the cases, it would have been nothing but an instrument to make the apprehension of the terrorists possible. Since it would have not been necessary to use the armed forces,  the money for weapons and equipment would have been saved.

    Therefore, the gigantic company dedicated to the production of war weaponry would have to reduce its activities in a considerable amount, and the money saved by avoiding this expense would have been destined to promote the economic development of the poorest populations in the third world, as well as in some international relations based on respect and solidarity. If the president of this powerful nation would take this course of action, he would be immediately subjected to an enormous amount of pressure by the public opinion, all kinds of politicians, and the media, who all together would demand massive and definitive military actions.

    Then it would have been the time for the army to start the action and take control of the situation. Since the enemy is a net, emerged out of the foundations of a wide movement, it had to be provided of a face and a name. The revenge wish needs to identify the enemy against who the hate and the aggression will be both aimed at. If this president does not respond to these demands, it would be most probable that he was deposed or murdered.

    Putting it differently, the response that has been given to the September 11th terrorist attack, mostly obeys to the United States domestic policy’s exclusive needs, rather than to the rational demands of a real fight against terrorism. An evidence is that a little more than a week after the massive bombarding, the main problem of the Pentagon was to make the war more “visible” for the United States’ public opinion, despite that the generals describe its results as “satisfactory”. The problem for these war lords is that their public opinion does not share the same optimistic appreciation of the operations that have been carried out until now.

    Most people think that the operations are neither a success nor a failure, and this “half way” means an implicit mediocre appreciation of the maximum political action of the United States. After all, its president is not as good as he seemed. Consequentially, whatever the next step is, the Pentagon will have to figure out how he will be observed by the United States. The visibility of the war is now a priority, its effectiveness is in second place. Therefore, by the demand of a public opinion anxious to exorcise its own demons with a war, the war itself will have to turn into a show.

    When it comes to react with exclusively military terms to what a very complex ethnic, religious, social, and political challenge is, the war lords have achieved to impose themselves over both the society and politics. The military adventure represents, in addition, new profits for the already productive and powerful apparatus dedicated to produce war weaponry. This is an opportunity to test new weapons and, most of all, the used material will have to be replaced.  Their value: thousands of millions of dollars. It is possible that the army finds the United States’ public enemy number one and his henchmen; however, the net will go on existing as well as the movement out which it emerged from.

    In fact, to dismantle it is actually harder than it was imagined. Therefore, if the generals achieve their goal, they would only be resolving a part of the problem and probably not even the most important one. By the way, the United States would be even more alienated to the Islamic world, which is a considerable amount of the world’s population, and it will not know what to do with the remains of Afghanistan. However, the public opinion will be satisfied with itself, with its president and with its nation, because it would have given the terrorists “what they deserve”.

    It has been demonstrated that the most respectful states of the human rights are less prone to suffer internal or external terrorist attacks. Instead, those whose international relations are not concerned about the human rights issue, nor by the international legislation in general are the ones prone to suffer this kind of attacks. In the same way, it is important that those people who are prone to be convinced to commit terrorist acts know that, if they are captured, they will be prosecuted by all means. Therefore, a safe measure to reduce terrorism is the total respect of the human rights, and the practice of real democratic procedures all over the world, between the states and inside of each one of them. There is still a lot to be done in the field of the human rights respect, mostly with the free determination, racism, ethnical and political representation inside the states, and both the cultural and the economic differences.

    Therefore, the violations to the human rights or the violations to the basic principles of the Men’s Universal Rights Declaration are some of the main causes for the existence of terrorism. The way to resolve the problem is very clear. Is less spectacular than the military answer, it is less convincing in a short term, however, in a long term basis, it is much more efficient to accomplish that terrorism stops being a serious threat for humanity itself. If to all this is added the right of all the countries to a sustainable economic development, and their economic, social, and cultural rights are promoted as well, terrorism would lose its reason to exist.

    Because of the magnitude of the September 11th terrorist attacks against the United States, the citizens of this country, who are not yet over the astonishment and the desperation, frequently ask themselves why there is so much hate in the world against “America”. To tell the truth, only someone who is a prisoner of the most inveterate hate instincts can spend so much time preparing such a cruel attack against innocent civilians. That is why the question about knowing the roots of this hate has its justification, mostly when people know, from the deepest fibers of their being, that they have not done any harm to others, but that, on the contrary, they are willing to welcome them regardless of where they come from, their religion or their color.

    In this sense, it is understandable that the United States’ people find it difficult to come up with a satisfactory answer for such a crucial question. It cannot be possible that the nation who is considered the crib of freedom, respect and the acceptation of the others, foreign people, mostly, is the victim of its own openness. With a fair measure of reason, many describe the terrorist action as a manifestation of a superlative level of ungratefulness and a lack of consideration of the magnanimity of such a generous land.

    In regard to this matter, many people predict a radical transformation in the American way of life. It is not only experimenting —in the worst way— the meaning of the word insecurity, but also, from this day forward, it is probable that it will start feeling a certain distrust about foreign people, of those who do not speak English fluently or with the same accent, and specially Arabians. In addition, it is also probable that the freedom concepts and the human rights start to have a different meaning in their imagery.

    Some human rights organizations talk of some 700 people arrested in the United States, because of the federal investigation about the terrorist acts. However, they also point out the fact that most of the cases, are arrests that are not necessary legal and that do not have much to do with the democratic principles. In addition, according to a survey made by an Arabian-American institute, 45% of the Arabian-American know someone from their community that has been assaulted; and a 69% said that ever since the attacks the racial discrimination problems have increased. The odd thing about this is that not even the American press, known by its wide investigative capability, has not paid much attention to this issue. Will that be a sign that something is changing in this land of freedom and respect for the rights of others?

    However, on the other hand, if the September 11th tragedy can lead to the former idea, there is no doubt that it is convenient to search a little more deeper in order to answer to the question about the possible hate against the American people. In the first place, despite that the latest information could indicate the opposite, it does not seem completely right to talk about a generalized hate in the world against the United States. To evoke these terms in order to explain the terrorist aggression to the American people is a mistake and it is completely baseless. Confusion has to be avoided. The American people and the United States Government are not the same thing. A difference has to be made, as there is a difference established between the Afghan population and the Taliban government.

    It is evident that many countries of the world can consider to ask the different American governments about the decisions that they have made and keep making about their destiny. In the chest of history are recorded the multiple interventions that the Latin American countries have suffered because they did not respect the orders that came from Washington. There are also witnesses, the victims of the corrupt and bloody regimes  many times supported and sponsored by the United States.

    On the other hand, the unilateral attitude that George W. Bush is displaying to conduct the present government, in order to face the world’s different problems, is also well known. His opposition to the articulation of the International Penal Court; his anti-missile shield program; his denial to ratify the Kyoto protocol, because he considered that such protocol did not favor the United States’ economic interests, urged by an energetic crisis; his absence at the Racism Conference at the United Nations; all of those aspects are an evidence that the United States government is not necessarily compromised with issues such as democracy, freedom of the interdependency of the countries. Those usually are empty discourses enhanced, when it is convenient, to defend the capitalist business elite’s economic interests.

    However, despite of all that, the American people cannot be blamed. No one can make them responsible for the unilateral attitude and the mistakes of its governments. On the contrary, such conduct would damage the world’s still unsettled debate about issues such as solidarity or the necessary ethic regulation for politics.

    The world’s most powerful governments usually establish relations with the poorest and weakest countries through an arrogant and an anti-democratic attitude, without considering issues such as dignity and the human rights. Terrorism —although it cannot be justified—, usually finds in such attitudes and in the external impositions, a way to strengthen its social presence in the humiliated countries. The leaders of the most powerful nations know that very well, despite the hypocritical silence that they keep about such issues.

    An alternative that is left for humanity is that the world’s society, with values such as solidarity and respect for the differences and dignity, obliges the political leader of the most industrialized countries to match its actions with the democratic discourse. It is an urgent debate in which the United States has to participate, in order to contribute with the construction of the world’s new social order.

    In this sense, when the feeling of hate is evoked against the American people to explain the September 11th terrorist acts, people do not only follow the game of a perverse and criminal logic that blames on the countries the responsibility for the actions of their governments —over which most of the times they have very little or no control at all— and that justifies the barbarian actions, but they would also be consenting an answer of hate that would allow an eventual racist behavior of the United States against the foreign people, specially against the Muslim/Arabians. In addition, they would be losing the opportunity to establish a dialogue between the countries about the alternatives to control and supervise the performance of their governments.

    In summary, maybe this crucial and important question that the united States citizens ask themselves, about the reasons for the terrorist attacks, helps them to pressure their government, so that he treats the rest of the countries with more respect, coherence and responsibility. The incoherence of calling itself the defender of democracy, at the same time that it uses the most anti-democratic methods to defend its interests, is not helping to consolidate such peace, democracy and freedom that we all want for the world.

    The contamination caused by solid waste, industrial residues and the domestic sewage has been one of the world’s main environmental problems. In El Salvador, this problem can be clearly identified in San Salvador’s metropolitan area, where a third part of the population and most of the country’s industries are concentrated. In San Salvador’s metropolitan area only 60% of the total garbage is collected, and it does not receive any kind of treatment, just like the domestic sewage. In addition, only 9% of the industries treat their residues.

    This is the context where different options for the garbage that is generated in San Salvador have been discussed, starting with an incinerator plant installed during the 20’s, passing by the practice of throwing the garbage out in the open (which is still an every day practice), the former mayor’s, Mario Valiente (1994-1997), proposal of an incinerator plant, and ending with the sanitary filling and the transference and recycling plant, proposed and implemented by the administration of the present mayor, Hector Silva.

    It is precisely this last garbage treatment program that has awaken a serious controversy among the municipal governmental representatives, gathered at the Mayors’ Council of the San Salvador Metropolitan Area (COAMSS, in Spanish) and the institutions of the central government, specifically at the Ministry of the Environment and the Natural Resources (MARN, in Spanish). The disagreement is due to the MARN’s refusal to issue an environmental permit for the installation of a transference and recycling plant, to treat garbage generated by the city of San Salvador. This decision was reached after that a sanitary filling was installed at the Nejapa municipal territory. The treatment for the organic waste would be performed here, which —by the way— represents a more serious  environmental danger than a recycling plant.

    This context is a reason to think about the ambiguous attitude that the MARN has shown to treat the environmental issue. It is also an invitation to make a more serious consideration about the solid waste subject, not only to pay attention to the effects of the problem, but also to attack its causes through a reduction of the waste production (and the pollution sources).

    As a result of the Rio Summit, in 1992, the government assumed the compromise to create and implement a national policy of a sustainable administration of the natural resources and the environmental protection. This lead the way to the creation of the Environmental Executive Secretariat (SEMA, in Spanish), to the formulation of an environmental agenda, a national environmental strategy, to the creation of the MARN, and to the approval of the Environmental Law. Without a doubt, all of them were important institutional and juridical achievements. However, until this day they have had very little impact, despite the future projects that the MARN has or might have.

    Several obstacles derived from political and economic difficulties can be perceived inside the MARN’s organizational performance, and this leads to the implementation of measures aimed to change certain environmentally unsafe activities. The sweet waters of the sugar refineries, the industrial and the craftsmanship residues, the sewage that receive no treatment from the National Administration of Aqueducts and Sewers (ANDA, in Spanish), are very realistic problems, but at the same time very complex ones, and also very expensive to resolve.

    At least as far as it concerns the new economic activities and the interventions about the environment, the MARN is having a decisive influence through the environmental impact studies and the demands for environmental permits for the investment projects. Precisely, the refusal to issue this permit has been the mechanism through which the construction of the transference and recycling plant has been stopped. Paradoxically, this mechanism has not been used to stop negative environmental impact projects. For instance, the construction of access roads to the El Espino hacienda (at the downtown zone of the Acelhuate river, and one of the last forest areas close to the city of San Salvador), the deforestation of a part of this hacienda for the enlargement of a private university, and the installation of open air garbage disposals (also at the shore of the water bodies that supply this liquid to the population in Santa Ana, Metapan, and San Antonio del Monte, among others).

    Although it cannot be denied at a first glance that the solid waste treatment project could have a negative environmental impact, it cannot be denied either that at the same time it will also eliminate the accumulation of garbage, which is in many cases disposed of at the shore of the rivers or at high water infiltration areas. That it why the MARN’s opposition to this project is difficult to understand. Although it could need improvements and adjustments, it is a reasonable option for the solid waste problem, specially if it is considered  —that in this case— it could be worst not to do anything at all about it and continue to throw the garbage out in the open.

    This rejection is even more odd if two additional aspects are considered: first, that formerly the MARN did not object to the sanitary filling  —despite that as a solution it is much more questionable—; and, second, that the MARN bases its position on an ANDA report (that originally authorized the construction of the plant) in which this institution se backs down and says that the recycling and transference plant will contaminate the water mantles.

    The oddness of this position becomes less mysterious if it is remembered that San Salvador’s City Hall  —the main promoter of the project— and most of the city’s metropolitan area municipalities are in the hands of the political opposition. If the solid waste disposal project was totally implemented, the political opposition  —headed by the San Salvador Mayor (who is also the possible presidential candidate of the opposition)— would win an electoral image demonstrating that he is able to resolve complex environmental problems that do not even seem to be taken seriously by the central government. In fact, it is not the first time that the government’s party attacks this municipal project. It has to be remembered, for instance, the insistence of an ARENA deputy on discrediting the project, and create an ad hoc legislative commission (already dissolved) to investigate the details.

    In this context, the basis of the MARN’s attitude could be found not only through technical arguments, but also in political ones. However, that situation cannot cover up the fact that independently from the implementation of the solid waste disposal project, the government and the Salvadoran society must fight the garbage problem from its roots, that is, promoting a reduction of the amount of waste through three fundamental strategies: to reduce the production of waste, recycling, and reuse anything that can be reused.

    The solid waste’s adequate disposal is important and urgent, however it cannot be forgotten that it does not attack the causes that generate the problem. For that reason, the central government should formulate and implement viable solutions to face this challenge.