1. The Effects of an Earthquake

1. The Facts about the Earthquake

On 4 February 1976, in the early hours of the morning, the Central American Republic of Guatemala was struck by a savage earthquake, measuring 7.5 degrees on the Richter scale, which caused appalling loss of life and material damage. Of a total population of approximately 5,500,000, over 22,000 were killed, more than 77,000 injured and over 1,000,000 made homeless. It was the severest natural catastrophe in Central America during the twentieth century.

Almost the entire country was affected. Whereas the 1972 earthquake in Nicaragua had struck only the capital city, this catastrophe affected no less than sixteen of Guatemala's twenty-two provinces. In the province of Chimaltenango in the central highlands, inhabited mainly by Indian small farmers and rural workers, 41,677 out of 42,794 homes were destroyed. In the provinces of El Progreso and Zacapa in the eastern lowlands 10,737 homes out of 15,743 and 14,288 out of 20,989 respectively were destroyed. The poorer districts of Guatemala City were equally badly affected.

2. The Social Dimension

Despite the severity of the disaster, the residential, commercial and large industrial sectors of Guatemala City and the country as a whole were barely touched. The agro-industrial structure equally escaped the consequences. The vast sugar, cotton and coffee estates, producing the export crops which bring in Guatemala's foreign exchange, are concentrated in the coastal and south-eastern areas, the two areas least affected by the earthquake. The only significant damage for this sector was the destruction of wharf facilities at Puerto Barrios (from which bananas are exported to the USA), and the collapse of a large bridge on the main highway from Guatemala City to this same port.

In Guatemala City the social nature of the disaster was at its most striking. The numerous residential districts were virtually unaffected. The city is on a well-known fault line that has experienced innumerable earthquakes, major and minor, over the· past hundred years. All those who could afford it had constructed earthquake-resistant housing or industrial premises, and were thus largely unaffected. By contrast, many of the poorer districts were devastated. In the marginal squatter settlements of 'La Trinidad' and 'El Gallito' perched perilously on the edge of ravines, adobe huts plummeted down the slopes as the volcanic soil gave way. Many of the inhabitants were self-employed artisan workers, who lost their livelihood along with their homes. An estimated 45,000 artisans were affected.

Within days of the earthquake, the chambers of commerce and industry were able to announce that the productive sector had not suffered serious damage. Though 147 industrial establishments reported some adverse effects, they were rarely major. Productivity was halted above all by the national loss of electricity in the two days after the 'quake, and by the widespread fear caused by the continuing tremors in the days after 4th February. For management the problems were primarily social, since the labour force came predominantly from the affected areas. The prime concern of management could be seen in a large publicity campaign designed to normalise production as soon as possible. "Reconstruction without loss of production" was the prevailing slogan of the day ...

From today onwards we need more action and less tears. We need to get into shirt sleeves and to sweat, to sweat, work and reconstruct. From today onwards the national slogan is reconstruction without loss of production ... God is on our side, God is Guatemalan ...

But such propaganda ignored one major question. Production and reconstruction for whom, and at what cost? The earthquake occurred at a time of growing labour unrest, when workers were taking advantage of the degree of support for trade union freedom professed by President Kjell laugerud (under his predecessor, President Carlos Arana, virtually no independent trade union activity had been permitted). Groups had been organising within many industrial establishments, in attempts to gain legal recognition for labour unions. Unions members were protected by law against unfair dismissal only after the union's legal status (personeria juridica) had been officially recognised by the Ministry of labour; and in many cases management had dismissed organised workers before this legal status was granted. The pattern was repeated in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. In one textile factory 120 workers (all the unofficial union members) were dismissed in the week of the earthquake. In one food factory, management was reportedly assisted by the National Police in carrying out arbitrary dismissals. The pattern was to be repeated many times over the coming months. There can be no doubt that the earthquake had strong repercussions on the development of the labour movement in Guatemala. Labour unrest was by no means caused by the disaster, but was significantly accentuated by it. When arbitrary dismissal occurred on top of personal tragedy, the events took on greater political dimensions, and attracted a greater degree of popular and media support for the dismissed workers than had previously been the case (see Chapter III).

3. A Violent Response

The shanty towns of Guatemala City, destroyed by the earthquake, had been as miserable as any in Latin America. Many of them were on private lots whose owners had permitted temporary squatter settlement in makeshift huts but not the construction of stable housing. Moreover the owners, to keep their land assets as liquid as possible, had not permitted the establishment of services of any kind. There was no lighting, no drainage, no running water, no sanitation, in many areas no roads. Ironically, the location of the squatter settlements was the result of an earlier earthquake of 1917; the residential districts had taken up all available land on the city outskirts, leaving only the dangerous ravine areas for squatter settlement.

For the vast numbers of squatters in particular, the earthquake of February 1976 posed an insoluble problem. The ravine areas were a mass of rubble and fallen earth, and further settlement there was prohibited on safety grounds. There was nowhere for these people to go. While some families set up improvised tents and huts in the few public parks or by the roadside, others moved to vacant privately-owned lots. In normal times land invasions would be met with violence, and after the earthquake the response was little different. On 20 February 1976 Rolando Andrade Pena, a leading municipal official and prominent member of the FUR opposition party!, was machine-gunned to death, in the middle of Guatemala City. Though the assassination may have had wider political motives, it was widely believed that his murder was due to the support he had given to the invasion of private land. At about the same time, leaders of the squatter invasions were...