STATES OF EMERGENCY - Patrick Lagadec

G. Esteva : Victims can organize themselves 217G. ESTEVA: Although this may sound like a paradox, the most criticalperiod was not the first week, even though there were tremendous rescueproblems. The most critical point for us came during the first half ofOctober. Most of the victims had been tenants whose rents were frozen by a1942 decree. They paid only a nominal rent for their very modestapartments. But this definitive right no longer applied to a pile of rubble. Thelandowners and the authorities, who had already tried thousands of ways inthe past to evict people in order to renovate the center of Mexico City, saw anopportunity there to achieve their ends. The door to real estate speculationwas wide open. The landowners had the law on their side - tenants had rightsto a dwelling, but not to a lot covered with a pile of rubble. The inhabitantsof these neighborhoods sensed the manoeuvre. Attached as they were to theirenvironment, they took steps to avoid being thrown out of theirneighborhoods. They stayed on the sidewalk, in the street, in the courtyard,to hold on to their places. Many of them were actually risking their lives,because there was a danger of buildings collapsing. But they didn't want torun another risk, that of losing their homes. The landowners and theauthorities tried to do just the opposite, to make them leave by offering themhousing elsewhere.The conflict was really very harsh, and there was no clear solution.Property owners and the authorities had the law for them; the victims hadhistorical and cultural logic. The problem wasn't a simple one for theauthorities. To kick out the victims, they would have to use the army - whichwas unthinkable, because national and international attention was focused onthem. So the government went against its own ideological orientation towarddenationalization and decided to expropriate the lots. That was both a solutionand a problem for the tenants. They hadn't been kicked out, but now theywere faced with a single landowner who was taking charge of the rebuildingprocess.Shortly after that episode, there was a second very difficult moment, whenthe question of foreign aid, both governmental and non-governmental, wasraised. The fact was that during October, and for various reasons, twoinitiatives - ours and that of the government - coincided to stop this flow ofaid. We wanted to stop the aid because it was actually harming the victims.We've often cited the following example to illustrate the situation: Mexico'sFAO representative received an order from his boss in Rome the day afterthe quake to give $750,000 to the Mexican victims. The representativeimmediately set up a committee, which dug out an old project for creatingsoup kitchens in Tepito (one of the areas hit). The operation had two goals: tomeet nutritional needs until the victims could return to their normal way oflife, and to provide nutritional education. The people in Tepito reactedviolently to this proposal, with two arguments:- "For twenty-five years, we in Tepito have been eating escamoche [theirword for restaurant leftovers, which they prepare right in the street]; and for