Nine full days after the quake and tsunami which hit much of
Chile on
February 27, it is still very difficult to get exact facts and
figures.
Much of this is due to the time needed for a proper evaluation of
the
situation, but there is also a substantial aspect of protecting
backsides
from criticism and/or make political capital of what was or was not
done.
This paper, based as much as possible on declarations made by
those
directly in charge or involved, cannot be taken as gospel. Its
main
purpose is to develop the section in my previous note dedicated to
the
role and consequences of the catastrophe as far as the armed forces
are
concerned. However, this also has to be put in the more general context
of
events.
I am making this further effort because I am already seeing
the latter day
Roubini clones already coming up with obscure papers proving
that they
predicted it all, and getting media coverage both in Chile and
abroad. I
have been complaining about the lack of preparation towards
natural
catastrophes for as long as I can remember, but interestingly not a
single
Chilean or foreign journalist has sought my views (or recognised
my
warnings).
SILLY POLITICS Before all this happened and Mrs.
Bachelet was preparing
for an apotheosis of an exit with a popularity rating
even Saddam Hussein
only ever dreamt of, it was clear that this success was
due to her ability
to do nothing and get involved in as little as possible.
The phenomenon is
well known in the corporate world with executives rising to
the top by
smiling and being nice, staying out of internal and external
conflicts,
and thus be unfettered by heavy loads keeping them on the
seabed.
Unfortunately, this attitude might work in normal times, but it
becomes
totally out of place when there is a major crisis. You do not get
any
bonus points for doing nothing in a crisis.
With the outgoing
president and her entourage eyeing a comeback in 2014,
if it is true, as it
most probably is, that her advisers and some
ministers insisted that it was
“aesthetically” unacceptable to leave
office with soldiers keeping order in
the streets, this is unacceptable.
Despite the shortcomings, which will be
mentioned later, the armed forces
are the ones nearest to having the
infrastructure and personnel to deal
with such a major event.
If they
did not want them to be involved, then they should have made
efforts to
develop the alternatives. This they obviously did not. When the
previous
ONEMI (national emergency office) head was fired, to be replaced
by his
deputy, several retired generals and admirals applied for the job,
but were
rejected in favour of a political crony.
A law destined to upgrade the
institution, like much of the legislation
needed to modernise the country,
has been sleeping in congress for years.
Its budget is minimal (the natives
regard any protection against
hypothetical risks a waste of money and
resources), and even when
something is done, it is not done properly. In one
affected municipality,
emergency equipment was bought in 2007 but never
installed. An offer of
Russian dual purpose Beriev fire-fighting and light
transport seaplanes
was rejected (”what will we do with them for the rest of
the year?”). I
could go on for pages, but most of us living in Chile have had
(belatedly)
an earful of what was not done and what was done wrong. Let me
just
mention the absence of an emergency communications network,
including
satellite phones, an older model of which a visiting Ms.
Clinton
ceremonially gave to president Bachelet. At the lower end of
technology,
radio hams had been asking for years for help with which to buy
the
batteries and autonomous generators they would need in an emergency.
No
money ever came. Let me not even start about the shameful situation of
the
fire service, having to beg hand-me-down vehicles from European towns
and
getting their wives to mend their hoses as if they were socks. Many
years
ago, a major plan to provide cheap insurance for lower-cost housing
was
announced, and quickly torpedoed by the insurance industry
itself.
STRATEGIC PLANNING “National Security” and “Territorial
Integrity”,
together with “New Threats” are part and parcel of the seminar
and
academic paper circuit these days, but if you look at Chapter IX of
the
latest National Defence Book, there is a single reference to
“natural
catastrophes”. You need a magnifying glass to find it, and it is in
an
extract from another publication.
National Security is to protect
against anything which affects the normal
functioning and infrastructure of a
country, much beyond “integrity of
borders”. Thus, in a country prone to
natural disasters and particularly
earthquakes, they have to be part and
parcel of strategic planning. Some,
including the military themselves, might
not like that role, in which case
a sufficiently strong civilian alternative
has to be found. However, for a
medium-sized economy with limited means, it
would be silly to duplicate
resources. The exception is in terms of
specialist manpower for prediction
and evaluation, which should consist of
highly trained civilian experts.
Whether they work (preferably) in a separate
civilian entity, or in
military offices, is an administrative
detail.
Based on such premises, the equipment of the armed forces has to
take into
account the fact that natural catastrophes, and in particular
earthquakes
occur in Chile with more frequency than wars with Peru (I do not
mention
Argentina because there never was a war between the two countries) .
It is
therefore obvious that even if you buy all the surplus F-16s that
shady
characters lurking in Santiago back alleys can offer, they jointly
can
less transport water supplies than a single medium-sized
helicopter.
Transport aircraft with short landing capabilities, and larger
lift
helicopters have been wanted for years, but it turns out they have
to
borrow two from Brazil for the quake, on top of field hospitals
from
Argentina, Cuba and Peru, and two USAF Hercules.
Nobody even
mentioned the shortage of heavy trucks for the army, whose
purchase has also
been part of the traditional Latin American novel (Cien
Años de Pláticas) . I
will be polite enough not to mention the
Israeli-equipped Condor AWACS, which
was supposed to provide
communications in times of national
emergency.
The above blame does not solely rely on the armed forces,
because the
Finance ministry, despite assigned funds being available, has
often
delayed, cancelled or reduced purchases in order to keep up the
cosmetics
of public finances, over and above urgent needs. Unless you all
developed
amnesia as a result of the quake, you can do me the courtesy to
remember
that I have mentioned all these points in papers and the few
interviews I
have been tolerated to give.
ORGANISATIONAL SHORTCOMINGS
A number of anecdotes are coming out, not
just in the press but from the
mouth of those directly in charge such as
the Defence Minister and military
chiefs. The list given below is a
mixture of all the above, and the only
aspect I can vouch for personally
from various experiences is the “office
hours” profile that much military
activity has taken. When one of the
commanders in chief, (the army one)
said a few years ago that his institution
was “Chile’s largest
corporation”, the concept should not have been taken so
for granted.
Defence, like diplomacy, even without war or catastrophes, is
not a 9-6
Monday to Friday job. The whole of the officer corps cannot
disappear on
holiday during February, leaving much lower rank subordinates in
charge
(sometimes even their secretaries are away simultaneously).
It
is now officially told that no helicopter could be found for the
president to
go South on the morning after the quake because transport
difficulties
stopped pilots getting to the base. Apparently they do not
live on the base,
which can be excused, but why not have a couple of them
on duty at the base
round the clock 365 days a year? Also a helicopter
fully serviced and fuelled
(another story says that the lack of power
obliged hand-pumping of fuel which
takes longer. Why aren’t there any
emergency generators for such things?).
The fact that one of the
(insufficient) numbers of sea sensors, unluckily the
one closest to the
epicentre, was not working is also inexcusable. They
should be checked
daily. Yes, daily, including week ends and the month of
February.
One paper reported that the duty officer at the unfortunately
named (SHOA)
navy oceanographic service could not communicate properly with
Hawaii
because of language difficulties. It seems that communications
problem
also existed in Spanish. The Defence minister himself reported that
the
newly appointed Joint Chief of Staff, speaking to SHOA on the
telephone,
could not make heads or tails of what the guy at the other end was
saying,
so he passed the phone (actually, he passed the buck) to
president
Bachelet standing next to him. Whether true or not, the protocol
and
bureaucracy are bad enough in normal times, but this is not a ball at
XVII
th century Versailles. Many people have said and rightly, that a
seaside
quake of 8.8 should automatically mean a tsunami alert.
A
CLIMATIC PEARL HARBOUR The Navy’s main base at Talcahuano,
near
Concepcion, suffered heavy damage and is 80 % destroyed. It is, or
was,
the HQ of the submarine fleet and other smaller craft, but in
particular
it was the home of the prime naval shipyard in the region,
servicing not
only the Chilean fleet, but also refitting and building vessels
for
overseas customers. That business is lost, even though
official
communiqués say that an Ecuadorean submarine in refit and an
Icelandic
patrol ship being built only suffered minor damage, as did a
Chilean
oceanographic research ship.
How will the navy service its
fleet in the meantime, as it could take at
least 3 years and maybe longer to
put ASMAR back on track? The only local
alternative is the privately owned
ASENAVE yard in Valdivia, further South
from the earthquake zone.
Unfortunately, that yard is up river and out of
reach in its present shape
for frigates, though submarines can access it.
There are yards near Buenos
Aires and in Brazil, but the navy may not want
to have one of its “historical
enemies” nosing too close to its vessels in
Argentina, whereas the Brazilians
are expensive and with not exactly a
high reputation. Vessels may have to be
sent to Britain or Holland with
all the cost that it involves, on top of the
U$ 1.3 bn damage to ASMAR
(some of it covered by insurance).
The sea
wave also broke the moorings of two out of service vessels (a
destroyer and a
frigate), which drifted in the bay for a while, but the
two Scorpene
submarines appear to have had a lucky escape. The Simpson
sailed out and the
Carrera, which was initially pushed back to shore by
the second wave, was
heroically pulled back by a tug, quite a performance
in the midst of what was
going on.
The base still has 40 personnel unaccounted for, though it is
not clear if
they were swept away or have gone AWOL.
THE AIR FORCE,
FIDAE ETC. Though other services are participating, the
air force is now at
the centre of the air relief effort. This raises the
question of the outlook
for the FIDAE show, scheduled to start the week of
March 22. Initially,
communiqués were sent out to exhibitors declaring
“business as usual”, but as
the installations are being used for
organising and despatching relief
supplies, and many foreign visitors are
understandably somewhat nervous
regarding travel to Chile, the decision is
being kicked over to the next
administration. I can only insist that a
cancellation would give a negative
image, and put at risk the fair’s
future, unless it is totally unavoidable.
It is also wrong to leave the
decision for the last minute, because there are
many people and goods that
need to be moved. The Brazilian competitor LAAD is
already bad-mouthing
FIDAE in order to attract business for
itself.
THE ARMY We have not heard of any substantial damage to
army
installations, and to the extent that they have more personnel (60 %
of
all armed forces) than anyone else, are bearing the main brunt of
land
operations, curfew supervision, etc.. The boast of the former CiC
general
Cheyre, that he could have had 7,000 troops on the ground, within 3
hours
of the quake, has to be taken with a pinch of salt. By the way, one of
the
construction companies whose building collapsed in Santiago is part of
the
consortium building the new army HQ.
Nevertheless, with two army
generals overseeing the state of exception on
the ground, an army general at
the helm of the new joint chief of staff
post, and the probably choice of
general Izurieta as Undersecretary for
Defence, the army has reached its aim
to re-establish the rank seniority
it was disputing with the navy. The
latter, between the tsunami alert
controversy and the destruction of its
prime operating facility, is now on
the defensive.
WHAT LESSONS AND
WHAT ACTION? In really modern countries, rather than
short-term cross
accusations and rumour, the urgency would be to organise
relief and
reconstruction, and after heads had cooled down and more
information is at
hand, organise and independent commission of inquiry to
apportion blame and
recommend action. In Chile, that is not possible,
because of the simple fact
that there are no “independent” people of any
kind. Everyone has a personal,
political, professional or ideological axe
to grind. Such a commission would
order Ms. Bachelet to appear before it
and name the “group of generals and
admirals” she claimed had advised her
not to declare a curfew, because this
is contradicted by the statement of
the new joint chief of staff, nominally
in charge of coordinating such
matters, who says he at least was never
consulted.
It has been once again proved that the approach to security
(about which I
have also written many times) is a cultural matter inherited
through El
Andalus from the fatalism of the Levant, and will be very
difficult to
change. This goes hand in hand with the reluctance to spend
money on
protection which shows no immediate return or media advantage (how
many
votes do you get by inaugurating an insurance policy?).
The
country’s military defence has shown its vulnerability, to the extent
that we
now know that you can paralyse communications and transport by
hitting some
power stations (or just transmission lines), the
installations of the three
mobile phone companies, and a few bridges. The
country is all
yours.
HUEVADA DE LA SEMANA Would it have been different if the quake
had
happened under Piñera’s watch?. Well, nobody has dared to mention that
the
mayor of Concepción for the past 10 years, Jacqueline Van
Rysselberghe,
belongs to the rightwing of the UDI party. Before her, both her
father and
grandfather had also been mayors of Concepcion at one time or the
other.
From March 11. the lady (an Opus Dei psychiatrist) will become
intendente
(Prefect) of the whole BioBio region of which Concepcion is the
capital.
Mayors are the first line of inspection, defence and relief in case
of
emergencies. The father had a court case against him brought by
the
municipality for some financial fraud, but proceedings were dropped
as
soon as the daughter became mayoress.
As for the
intendente-designate of Santiago, he is a partner in another
construction
firm with a collapsed building. Mind you, the system is of
equal opportunity.
The family of a senior executive at the Central Bank
control the building
company which is responsible for not one, but several
collapsed apartment
blocks.
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