US embassy cable - 05TEGUCIGALPA2121

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 TEGUCIGALPA 002121 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR WHA/PD, IIP/T/ES, IIP/G/WHA, OES, S/CT, AND WHA/CEN 
EMBASSIES FOR PAOS, IOS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OIIP, PREL, PGOV, SENV, PTER, KPAO, HO 
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON HURRICANE KATRINA AND TERRORISM, 
OCTOBER 13, 2005 
 
 
1. On 10/13 the San Pedro Sula-based liberal daily "Tiempo" 
ran an op-ed by Sergio Ramirez entitled "Obscure Waters." 
"In his splendor days, Henry Kissinger was once asked if the 
United States should be compared to Rome. He responded that 
it should be comparable to Carthage, a distant empire, 
difficult to reach, seen then from Europe like a mirage from 
the other side of the Mediterranean Sea. The sense of the 
distance is certainly what has created a mental defense 
shield for the United States, an immense territory protected 
by the vastness of two seas." 
 
"The wars that the U.S. have always fought are distant wars. 
Korea, Vietnam, Iraq are for the North American common 
citizen other peoples' territories and countries which they 
don't know anything about. They (North Americans) end up 
hating the wars fought far away when they feel overwhelmed 
by the number of corpses of soldiers who return in lead 
coffins, wrapped in the flag." 
 
"The average U.S. citizen has been removed from catastrophe, 
or from the simple threat of catastrophe, except in the 
climax of the cold war when the nuclear warheads aimed at 
their territory, and until then they had only the slightest 
concern that something could end badly. But that threat 
ended up dissipating and with it the idea that the national 
security was necessary until the terrorist attacks of 
September 11, 2001. Therefore, it was made brutally evident 
of the internal vulnerability of a great nation protected 
efficiently by afar, but badly defended from inside." 
 
"Badly defended from the brutality of terrorism, and now, 
after the destruction of New Orleans, badly defended from 
the brutality of nature. The catastrophe continued to be far 
from reality of the United States when hurricane Katrina 
swept the gulf coast of Mexico, and the first person who 
didn't understand the situation was their very own president 
Bush and his immense bureaucratic apparatus, supposedly 
remodeled to face internal threats." 
 
"The reverend Jesse Jackson said on television that Afro- 
Americans who lost their houses and their income in New 
Orleans should not be evacuated towards states such as Utah, 
or Oregon, as the federal authorities proposed because they 
were going to feel maladjusted in places different from 
their own culture." 
 
"This is another kind of distance. The United States is well- 
viewed from outside, but is a sum of indifferent communities 
on the inside, and it is not necessary to go very far to 
prove the abysses of difference between them. The unhappy, 
abandoned people from New Orleans are the best proof, a 
proof that will multiply itself in the measure the obscure 
waters of tragedy continue to lower down." 
 
     2. "Tiempo" published an op-ed by Juan Zarandona 
entitled "New Orleans-Amsterdam."  "The gravest issue during 
Hurricane Katrina was not that aid came little by little, or 
late as is asserted by mass communication. Truly the gravest 
issue was the rupture of the dikes.  How is it possible that 
a grand city like New Orleans, situated below ocean level 
was protected by such weak defenses? How is it possible that 
half a million inhabitants were allowed the luxury of 
living, without efficient protection from the flooding 
Mississippi?" 
 
"Holland, with 34,000,00 square km, all of it beneath sea 
level, has 16 million inhabitants. Situated opposite the 
coast of England and bordered by the North sea on the west. 
Two hundred kilometers of dikes protect Holland's territory 
from the sea. In many places, the base of the dikes reaches 
80 and 100 meters wide, while they are often more than 30 
meters tall. In addition to this, an extensive road joins 
the north and south.  The maintenance of this stronghold is 
a national priority, on which depends the life of Holland's 
citizens." 
 
"Prior to the disaster, any Dutchman would have thought New 
Orleans to be secure from the river and the estuary. 
Although the Mississippi is not the North sea, neither is it 
merely a brook. In school we all learned that it was one of 
the most plentiful rivers in the world." 
 
"In a city as thriving as New Orleans, how could it not have 
enough money for the maintenance and improvement of its 
dikes? This is the question Europeans are asking, especially 
in Holland. Nevertheless, many people in New Orleans knew of 
this problem." 
 
"This is why many of its inhabitants in their exodus from 
the city, hours before the tragedy, took one last look at 
the birthplace of Jazz.New Orleans was no Amsterdam." 
 
"The inhabitants of Sacramento, California have been made 
aware of what might happen to them, following Katrina. The 
dikes of the Sacramento River resemble those of New Orleans 
far more than the Dutch dikes. We expect that the ugly 
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California, forgets about 
homosexuals and goes about putting sacks of sand where they 
belong." 
 
Williard