Honduran government officials estimated that at least 7,000 people have been killed by the hurricane that swept the region beginning October 27. Those left homeless range from 600,000 to 2 million people. On top of this disaster, the Casita volcano in Nicaragua unleashed a mountain of mud over the weekend of October 31-November 1 that buried more than 1,500 people. The death toll is expected to climb to more than 22,000 people in the two countries.
So far, very little aid has been proffered from Washington and other governments in the developed capitalist countries.
Meanwhile, Honduran government officials met with representatives of the International Monetary Fund to discuss the "structural adjustment" of Honduras' $4 billion foreign debt - that is, how can the wealthy barons in the United States maintain their loan shark operation and continue to squeeze the interest payments on this debt from the Honduran working masses in the wake of this catastrophe.
As much as 70 percent of Honduran agriculture has been wiped out, which accounts for half the country's $3 billion annual economic output.
The results of Hurricane Mitch will be similar to those wrought by Hurricane Georges, which hit the Caribbean just a few weeks ago. It is imperialist plunder that has fostered underdevelopment in the semicolonial and colonial world, wreaking horrendous consequences when a natural disaster hammers those regions. The shoddy roads, dilapidated housing, insufficient health care and communications are not caused by volcano eruptions or tropical storms but by a criminal system of class exploitation and imperialist domination. And the bourgeois governments in these nations prostrate themselves before their imperial masters in United States, who don't give a damn about the social devastation of millions of workers and peasants.
In contrast to Washington's contempt and stinginess, a team of 14 Cuban doctors arrived in Honduras on November 3 to help with the hurricane relief. The Nicaraguan government rejected Havana's volunteers but accepted 3,000 pounds of medical supplies from Cuba, reflecting the regime's fear that Cuba's internationalism could rekindle the revolutionary embers that were dampened after the fall of the workers and farmers government that came to power there in 1979. The toilers in Nicaragua got a taste of power when they took destiny into their own hands. Indeed, the U.S.-backed President Arnoldo Alemán was greeted with jeers, catcalls, boos, and shouts of "we need food and where is the aid?" when he visited the region of León.
This is a stark example of why the billionaire class and their puppets in Latin America are terrified of the selfless solidarity of the Cuban people and their revolutionary government. When Hurricane Georges hit Cuba, the workers and farmers there organized in a calm and disciplined way to take preventive measures, and they had access to health care and other needed resources. Their internationalism shows how workers in power with a communist leadership offer the moral high ground, standing in contrast to the dog-eat-dog values of capitalist society exemplified by Washington.