1:00 A.M. EDT
MODERATOR: Everyone please feel free to have a seat. Make yourselves comfortable. The more the merrier. Well, thank you, everyone, for joining us this afternoon at the Washington Foreign Press Center. It's my pleasure to welcome Mr. Adolfo A. Franco who is the Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean at the U.S. Agency for International Development. As you know, Mr. Franco is going to speak today a bit about U.S. disaster assistance to the countries of Central America in the aftermath of several of the natural disasters that have taken place in that region.
Mr. Franco was sworn into his current position in January 2002. And prior to that, he worked for the House International Relations Committee. I've given everyone a copy of his very noteworthy bio, so I won't take up too much of our precious time today to go into that.
But why don't we begin with some opening remarks and then we'll follow that with questions. Everything is on the record. And so, if you have any following questions about, maybe, some other issues slightly outside of the realm of disaster assistance, that is welcomed, as well.
MR. FRANCO: Well, thank you. Thank you very much. I'm delighted to be back at the National Press Center and have this opportunity… This is English first, then Spanish?
QUESTION: (In Spanish.)
MR. FRANCO: (In Spanish.) Start off with Spanish, sure, and then go to English?
MODERATOR: Well, I think we should start with English just because we are going to do a transcript and our transcribers don't speak Spanish.
MR. FRANCO: Okay. And then afterwards, we said that we’ll do as Gutierrez did and as I was told. I'd be happy to do some Spanish.
MODERATOR: Yes. I think that we'll do some pull asides at the end of the official briefing and that can be done all in Spanish.
MR. FRANCO: Okay. Well, I'm delighted to be here again and thank you for that nice introduction. The only other person that says notable is my mother. (Laughter.) Both are appreciated on the resume. But it's great to be here and have a little opportunity to talk about what the United States Government and President Bush, specifically, are doing to address the natural disasters that have afflicted the Caribbean and Mexico and Central America.
Let me start at the beginning because the President has been very engaged in this issue and is extremely concerned about disaster and disaster mitigation issues in the region. We are -- the United States Agency for International Development, the channel of the United States Government that he directs and we work for that provides that assistance to the region.
First, let me say of course, as you all know, this has been an unprecedented year in terms of hurricanes and natural disasters in the region. I believe we're up to 14 with this recent being Hurricane Beta to affect Nicaragua. So it's been for USAID a monumental challenge that, I believe, and we can certainly talk about this, that we've risen to the occasion. Now our agency -- I manage the Latin American Bureau where these disasters have actually occurred -- our agency's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, actually the people that are the development and disaster experts that actually travel and assess the damage and carry this out. It's an operation, as you may know, similar to any emergency relief effort office. This is what these people, professionals do for a living and that's what they do all year long throughout the world.
So we are -- this is not a startup operation; this is a constant monitoring and ongoing effort that we work on throughout the year on preparedness and then mitigation issues. I should say mitigation, preparedness and then finally relief efforts, which we've done. Now the most recent storms -- I wanted to say that Hurricane Stan has been the most problematic in terms of loss of life, the most serious of the more recent storms, and that of course has affected principally, Guatemala.
We've had estimates of up to 475,000 people that have been affected by the storm in Guatemala and the death toll there, which is not complete, is 669 individuals. We've had over 1,100 communities in Guatemala affected, 35,000 homes damaged or destroyed, and we have over 31,000 people displaced. For as small a society as Guatemala is, this is a very large number of individuals and significant damage.
In response to this, I mentioned our Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, which of course, dispatched a team (actually prior since we knew the disaster was about to hit) to the hurricane hitting Guatemala, and we have in the course of the last approximately three, three and a half weeks since the storm, provided over $7 million in assistance. This includes reprogramming money that we had in the field in Guatemala and provided of that 7 million, $3 million in emergency grants with our partner organizations, which are largely the CDC, the Center for Disease Control, SHARE, World Vision, Catholic Relief Services. We've also made a $2 million contribution to the UN's World Food Program, WFP Guatemala.
So our response was quick, effective. I've been in contact, of course, with our ambassador and our mission on the ground and the Government of Guatemala, as well as the Guatemalan ambassador here. We've also employed and Guatemala deployed -- this is the United States Government response -- assets from our Southern Command, which is in Miami. That included the deployment of a 58-person joint task force team from Miami and neighboring Honduras. We have provided over a period of time, which are still on the ground till this week, nine helicopters for transport of relief supplies and emergency relief. So our effort there has been, I think, actually quite extraordinary.
In terms of Stan as well as in terms of El Salvador - neighboring El Salvador was also affected. The death toll there is 69 individuals and 26,000 people displaced.
We have provided additional assistance in addition to our ongoing programs of $1.2 million to the Government of El Salvador for emergency relief supplies. We have also engaged the Pan-American Health Organization in its efforts for disease control particularly.
For the more recent storm, which is Wilma, and Mexico, which was also affected by Hurricane Stan, so Mexico has had a double-whammy, we use that expression with Wilma more recently. But first of all, with Stan we had 1.5 million people affected in Mexico and 370,000 people displaced, which is a large, large number of people. Of course, Mexico is a much larger society.
Our response there was $200,000. That was the disaster declaration declared by Ambassador Garza in Mexico. You might ask why the sum for Mexico was smaller -- the numbers were quite large in Mexico. The answer is Mexico's ability to respond to the crisis and its emergency preparedness is superior, far superior to that of the Central American countries, which are smaller societies. But we did provide $100,000 to the Mexican Red Cross; provided logistical assistance to the Government of Mexico. Subsequent to that, with Hurricane Wilma, which more recently on the 22nd, 23rd of October, we added an additional one million people affected and 300,000 displaced. We estimate 700,000 homes damaged and a critical infrastructure, the tourist infrastructure as you all know, in Cancun and Cozumel is greatly affected. We've provided through our Office of Disaster Assistance an additional $400,000 principally channeled through the Mexican Red Cross. We're continuing to assess the situation in Mexico. Ambassador Garza is visiting the area and as you know President Fox is as well. So this is an ongoing assessment in Mexico, particularly on the infrastructure and the displacement problems, which are quite severe.
Hurricane Stan, as I said, also affected a little less Nicaragua. We had provided to our normal -- as you might know, an Ambassador -- one our Ambassadors in the region can declare a disaster. Our Ambassador issued a disaster declaration and we provide automatically $50,000, which we did to the WFP for emergency food assistance as a consequence of Stan.
More recently, the affected storm in the region over the last few days, of course, has been Beta. Most of that has been affecting Nicaragua with very heavy, very heavy rains and flooding. But mostly, as you, of course know, it entered from the Atlantic side and affected in Nicaragua an area that is not greatly populated – the Bluefields / Puerto Caressas area. We are providing $150,000. I spoke to Ambassador Stadthagen this morning. We have a seven-member team. I assured him we're looking into the situation. He agrees this is, fortunately, an area that is both forested and lightly populated. In disaster litigation, we know that deforestation greatly aggravates mudslides and the natural disasters. So this is an area that was able to absorb some of the impact. But we have a helicopter that we have dispatched to the region to assess the damage. There is significant flooding and there is flooding also in Managua. So, there are heavy rains in that area and we will continue to assess the situation. We are providing about $118,000 in commodities mainly food and hygiene kits, plastic sheeting and water to Nicaragua today.
In Honduras -- we have no death reports yet confirmed from Nicaragua, but that is also an ongoing exercise -- we do have, as a consequence of Beta, confirmation of two dead in Honduras. We are anticipating -- we are in contact with our Embassy in Honduras; Ambassador Ford, made a disaster declaration in Honduras today. As I mentioned earlier, that will instantly mean a $50,000 contribution for emergency supplies: blankets, mats, transportation, things of that kind. It's unclear at this point whether we will require or if additional assistance will be required in Honduras. There was a good effort -- this was part of our earlier -- my earlier comments about preparation -- of evacuation. Eleven thousand people were evacuated, which mitigates the death toll and the damage.
With that, I think those are the salient points. I might add that also Cuba, of course, was affected by Hurricane Wilma with extensive damage in Pinar del Rio, western Cuba, flooding, extensive flooding in Pinar del Rio and Havana. So the two provinces of Cuba that were most affected were Pinar del Rio and Havana province.
The United States offered Cuba – when I say Cuba it means the people of Cuba, not the Government of Cuba -- assistance, as we have in the past, and that assistance, for the first time, has been accepted by Cuba. As a consequence of that, we are now working on deploying an assessment team to Havana, which will be the first time we would have done this in 47 years. If that does take place, we need to make very sure -- I want to be very clear here -- that the assistance that we would provide to Cuba, as we have in the past, has been to the Cuban people.
Therefore, the purpose of an assessment team arriving in Cuba, if it is given unfettered access in Cuba, is to assess the damage and to quantify the costs of the damage; what the appropriate U.S. Government contribution should be to address the needs of the Cuban people; and lastly, most importantly, the channels that would be deployed and used to ensure that that assistance reached the people of Cuba. And that means be free movement and the free access through nongovernmental organizations so this assistance reaches ordinary Cubans that have been affected by the disaster.
With that, I think that's my opening statement.
MODERATOR: Okay. Do we have any questions from our audience? Please state your name and your media organization for our transcript.
QUESTION: I'm with the Mexican News Agency, Notimex. (In Spanish.)
MODERATOR: I'm sorry, could you please say the question in English for the sake of the transcript?
QUESTION: Okay. I have a question -- well, actually, I have three questions. The first one is, I don't know if you can just for the purpose of the issue summarize the total amount of aid that the U.S. has give this fiscal year to Mexico and Central America through these natural disasters.
And the second one has to do with Cuba. I wonder if you can clarify this. After the Department of State announced that the Cuban Government had finally assessed these offers made by the U.S. Government, I think that same day or maybe a day later, there was an official response from the Government of Cuba saying that basically the Government of Cuba has not assessed any offers. Although, now you are saying that these - the aid that the U.S. Government is offering - is not going to toward the Cuban Government, but to the Cuban people. So it seems like maybe we're talking about two different channels. Just to be precise about what is the current situation, maybe you can clarify a little bit.
MR. FRANCO: Let me start with the second question, which is the more -- The other one, it's a number and I'll try to add it up here quickly for you.
With respect to the Cuba situation, what was offered, which is a routine offer in a disaster situation, what was offered to Cuba was no different than what we have offered elsewhere in disasters, and that is two things: an assistance, a disaster declaration where we would provide assistance to obviously affected people, as we have in Central America; and an assessment team. And there were -- I think there might have been some misunderstandings in the press about this -- but the Cuban Government responded to (the offer), and I understand the situation is, that it would accept an assessment team to come into Cuba. That's my understanding from the Cuban Government's announcements that it would accept an assessment team to come in and assess the damage in Cuba. I think that's an accurate statement, and that is, from our perspective, we would like to send an assessment team to Cuba and I believe Cuba would -- is willing to receive an assessment team. I'll talk about those conditions in a second and what that implies, if that does actually happen.
Well, you're absolutely right about this. I think because we offer assistance to the Cuban people, I think the Castro government quickly said that it was not asking for nor would it receive assistance. Nevertheless, it is willing to receive an assessment team. Well, the only reason we send an assessment team to a country is ultimately to provide, or our goal is to provide, assistance. So we -- it's a little bit confusing on this, but we would not send an assessment team to a country where we did not contemplate the need for assistance. For example, we're not sending an assistance team to Panama. Why? Because we don't contemplate, at this juncture a need for disaster assistance in that country. We have sent assessment teams to all the other countries I just articulated. So, our offer to Cuba was that we know there was a storm. There was a disaster declaration declared by our Interest Chief, Michael Parmly, in Cuba and Cuba has accepted, in principle, an assessment team. What we're working out at the current juncture, so there is no misunderstanding since this is not a country with which we have full-fledged diplomatic relations or normal relations, is the purpose, scope and independence of that assessment and that is what is ongoing currently.
With respect to assistance as being provided in addition to our normal assistance, which of course we are a development agency involved in a host of activities other than disaster. What has been offered for the entire Central America and Mexico region in the last month and a half of all the disasters jointly is in -- I'd have to add these two numbers together. We've broken them up into two budgets here, but I don’t know, Jessica if we can add those together.
QUESTION: So these two numbers, the --
MR. FRANCO: Yeah, of the four million something -- four million, eight hundred.
QUESTION: Okay.
MR. FRANCO: If you add those to up, which is in excess of, you know, it’s about 13 or 14 million dollars.
QUESTION: And I guess because most of this aid was a result of all the damage caused by the hurricanes in this area.
MR. FRANCO: Correct.
QUESTION: I wonder if -- we're talking about a bigger number than the last fiscal year in this whole department.
MR. FRANCO: I'd have to go back and compare it but my instincts tells me -- and I can tell you almost with certainty that yes, this is a larger number than last year. And for the simple reason is we've had more storms this year, we've responded to every one of the storms and the Guatemala package was considerable. Now what -- I'm talking about Mexico and Central America, we did provide considerably more assistance to the Caribbean, through a one hundred million dollar supplemental last year. Was that last year? Yes, last year. But that was a consequence of the devastation in the island of Grenada. I am now talking a little bit of ancient history – last year.
Ninety-five percent of all the housing in Grenada was destroyed. There was significant, which I personally oversaw, damage in the city of Gonaives in Haiti. There was significant damage in Jamaica and the Bahamas. For the first time we provided, certainly under this Administration, assistance to the Bahamas. So last year's hurricanes greatly affected the Caribbean islands in areas -- unlike Nicaragua, for example, in the case of Grenada, it is the totality of Grenadian society that was affected. In Nicaragua, fortunately, that's not the case. Including Guatemala, with the great devastation, we sent a large package. The City of Guatemala was largely unaffected by this.
So the large package last year affected entire countries, the entire country of Jamaica, the entire country of Grenada, the entire country of Haiti and we provided assistance to the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas. And that was a supplemental appropriation by the Congress for this effort. But for Central America and Mexico it's greater this year than what we did in those storms that affected that region last year.
QUESTION: Finally, just on a part, I don't want to monopolize the conversation, but just a follow up on the issue of Cuba. Do you say that right now you're trying to like have a common agreement with the Cuban Government about -- under what conditions this assessment team will operate in Cuba.
MR. FRANCO: Yes.
QUESTION: And the question is, if you have any idea about how quickly or when this issue could be resolved, because obviously it seems like you have these issues in front of you because maybe there are some concerns from both parties. I guess that the Cuban Government has some issues that they want to be sure and you have also some issues.
MR. FRANCO: Yes. I can tell you that we hope that this will be resolved quickly if an assessment team is actually to go to Cuba because we are talking about an emergency situation. When we're talking about emergency responses, you know, it's not unlike a fire or something. If the fire trucks arrive in two weeks, it becomes somewhat of a moot issue. There might be a reconstruction issue, but we are talking about a disaster issue, which, you know, I articulated the things we were providing to Mexico and Guatemala and these countries, which are sheeting, water, things that people need currently. And that is a different exercise than the reconstruction exercise. So to answer your question, that if an assessment for disaster purposes is to take place, it needs to take place as quickly as possible. And of course the storm hit, you know, not that long ago, it's been a few days but time is now passing. So we hope that this -- if it is going to happen, it happens on a timely basis.
Now, I can only speak to the concerns of the United States Government. I cannot -- I can only speculate as to what Cuba's motives are and I won't for these purposes because it would be speculation and it would be inappropriate. For the United States, I made it very clear, an assessment team needs to have the ability to assess and that means it needs to have unfettered access to the areas that have been affected by the storm. We know -- all of us know where those areas are because radar tracks it and we know where the damage has been. Obviously, the damage is not in Orienté on the extreme east of Cuba. It's in the extreme west of Cuba. So it has to have access to those areas.
The purpose of a team going to Cuba is not to engage in a dialogue with the Government of Cuba, not to open a channel to Cuba, but it is to do a job, a professional job. If that's what it is. The individuals that would be going were based in Costa Rica or based in our Foreign Disaster Office in San Jose that's in charge of the Caribbean and Cuba. So, these are a team of professionals who do this. These are career people. This is not a diplomatic mission. This is not a mission to discuss anything with Fidel Castro, other governments, other than to assess damage.
To do that, we need to have the same ground rules that we would have in Guatemala, Honduras, or any place else and that is the team has to go and be allowed to -- Cuba is a closed society. It had to be given independent access to the areas affected by the hurricane.
QUESTION: You said something of calling attention. You think that the fact -- the reason why you decide to send this assessment team over to Cuba --
MR. FRANCO: We offered, we have not decided.
QUESTION: Well, okay but -- but the reason why you failed -- compelled to offer this help is because in Cuba there is a necessity or an urgency to have this assessment in order to know the extent --
MR. FRANCO: The extent of the damage and to quantify it.
QUESTION: Okay. Did you have these -- did you feel compelled to have this assessment. My guess is maybe you feel that there has been some really severe damage in Cuba or among the Cuban people caused by the hurricanes. And the question is if, at this moment, you going to wait and see or do you have some numbers about how much help the U.S. Government will need to offer to the Cuban people in order to help with the jobs of reconstruction or things like that because -- I don't know, but I have this sensation that we're not talking about just few houses or that, you know, lose their roof and things like that. Maybe we're thinking about entire communities that suffer major damage in their infrastructure.
MR. FRANCO: I think that that's absolutely correct. We have a sense through a number of channels, people in Cuba and of course we have an Interest Section in Havana that was affected. The Interest Section itself was affected by the hurricane, the actual building. And we have CNN and we have press reports and we know the damage is extensive. And you're absolutely right. To be able to assess what the needs are, the type of disaster assistance, which varies from place to place -- I can tell you in Guatemala, as you know, there were horrible landslides, mud landslides where people lost their lives. That's a very different -- that's a very different situation and the devastation in San Miguel, Cozumel, which was largely an infrastructure thing, there were no mudslides. The type of response, emergency response that is necessary, varies. And to be able to analyze that and to assess that -- and these again are people who do this for a living -- you need to go into these areas and access it.
I'm not a disaster specialist but everything we have indicates that the damage in Cuba is probably greater than what most of the press is reporting. Even to date it suggests that because of the amount -- we've seen the storm, we've seen the amount of rain and it has affected not only rural Pinar del Río but it has affected the capital city extensively with flooding. So the damage there is great. What the details are in that damage, until you get there and see it and that's what we want the assessment team to do. We've only asked this, and I hope we can resolve this, is that the assessment team of people who just do this disaster are just allowed to do their job without any preconditions, in terms of their access to affected areas.
MODERATOR: Do you have any other questions?
QUESTION: Can we have it in Spanish now?
(Laughter.)
MODERATOR: Well, if you have any questions that you prefer to do in Spanish we can save that for a specific pull aside rather than something that would be for the general audience.
QUESTION: Is it possible for you to repeat your statement from English to Spanish?
MR. FRANCO: Can we take one Spanish question now?
MODERATOR: Well, we can if someone is capable of maybe translating, even if loosely to English.
MR. FRANCO: Okay.
QUESTION: I am very interested in the situation in Cuba. (In Spanish.)
MR. FRANCO: (In Spanish.)
QUESTION: (In Spanish.)
MR. FRANCO: (In Spanish.) Do you speak Spanish?
MODERATOR: I understand a little.
MR. FRANCO: Okay. (In Spanish.)
MODERATOR: Thank you.
MR. FRANCO: Thank you.
