By Edgardo Ayala
TECOLUCA, El Salvador, Nov 30 2023 – For decades, poor fishing and farming communities in southern El Salvador have paid the price for the electricity generated by one of the country’s five dams, as constant and sometimes extreme rains cause the reservoir to release water that ends up flooding the low-lying area where the families live.

“Certainly there is climate injustice: richer people or sectors of the country, who live in urban areas, benefit more from energy, while poor families, who live on the banks of the rivers, take the hit.” — Ricardo Navarro
Dozens of communities located in the Bajo Lempa area in southern El Salvador suffer year after year from flooding during the May to November rainy season, when the river overflows its banks and floods corn, beans, and other crops, as well as affecting fishing and other livelihoods.

The ecoregion is the lower stretch of the Lempa River basin, which runs through three Central American countries: it originates in Guatemala, crosses part of Honduras, and then enters El Salvador, where it meanders from the north until flowing into the Pacific Ocean in the south of the country.

The Lempa River basin covers 18,240 square kilometers, shared with Honduras (30 percent) and Guatemala (14 percent). In El Salvador, it stretches across slightly more than half of the territory of just over 21,000 square kilometers.

An estimated 5,000 families live in the 900-square-kilometer Bajo Lempa area. They are dedicated to subsistence farming and fishing and non-intensive cattle ranching, although there are also some families from other regions of the country, with more money, who have acquired land to grow sugar cane.

Celina Menjívar (R), a resident of San Bartolo, one of the ten settlements located in the Bajo Lempa area near the mouth of the river on the Pacific Ocean, participates in a neighborhood meeting. She makes the case that the Salvadoran government ought to reimburse local families for the crops they lost as a result of flooding from an upstream dam. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

“In the 32 years that I have lived here, I have been affected just like the rest by many floods,” Celina Menjívar told IPS. She is a farmer in San Bartolo, one of the settlements or communities of Bajo Lempa.

“I plant corn, sesame, and cushaw squash (Cucurbita argyrosperma) on a small family plot, but when the floods come, everything is lost, and in the end we are left with nothing,” said Menjívar, 41.

In addition to subsistence farming, a group of some 50 families set up a cooperative for the organic production of cashew nuts, which they were able to export to the United States, France, and the United Kingdom after achieving certification as organic producers.

An aerial view of the state-owned 15 de Septiembre Hydroelectric Power Plant, the largest in El Salvador. The reservoir discharges when rainfall exceeds its storage capacity, causing the Lempa River to overflow and flood dozens of farming and fishing communities in the Bajo Lempa area. Credit: CEL

But rising production costs and competition from cheaper prices, especially from India, have hampered exports in the last two years. The cooperative is therefore looking to promote new products, such as pistachios and peanuts.

“We have made an effort to ensure that the farmers can at least sell their cashew seeds” on the domestic market, the cooperative’s administrative coordinator, Brenda Cerén, told IPS.

Impact on the Most Vulnerable

Most of the residents of Bajo Lempa were part of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrillas, who settled on the riverbanks after receiving land in the region as part of the demobilization process at the end of the civil war in 1992.

El Salvador’s bloody civil war (1980–1992) left some 75,000 people dead and 8,000 missing in a country that currently has 7.6 million inhabitants.

“Most of the flooding is not due to the rains per se, but to the discharges from the reservoir,” said Menjívar, referring to the state-owned 15 de Septiembre hydroelectric plant, the country’s largest, located upstream between the departments of San Vicente and Usulután, in central El Salvador.

Manuel Mejía is one of the former guerrilla fighters who received a hectare of land in Bajo Lempa in southern El Salvador, to settle there as part of the demobilization process of the rebel forces at the end of the 12-year Salvadoran civil war in 1992. Now, when the area is flooded by the overflowing river, he says everything is lost, even household goods. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Another resident of San Bartolo, Manuel Mejía, added: “When there are floods here, everything is lost: crops, livestock, even household goods, everything.”

Mejía, a 77-year-old former guerrilla fighter, told IPS that this year’s rainy season did not produce flooding because the storms began late, and this meant that the drainage channels, located along the road leading to the area, did not fill up and were able to handle the rainfall at the end of the rainy season in November.

Increasingly unpredictable and extreme rainfall periods, due to climate change, generate intense storms in short periods of time, and, as a consequence, the reservoir’s capacity is easily exceeded and water releases are authorized.

Hence, the poor families of Bajo Lempa pay the cost of the dam’s ability to generate electricity for other parts of the country, including those that generate the most income, such as industrial groups and real estate consortiums, whose business activities are among those that have the greatest impact on the environment.

Part of the levee that has been undermined by the force of the waters of the Lempa River, near the Rancho Grande community in the Bajo Lempa, a coastal ecoregion located in the municipality of Tecoluca in southern El Salvador. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

This situation falls under the category of climate justice, or, actually, climate injustice: vulnerable groups are more heavily impacted by extreme weather events fomented by others, whether at the national or global level.

“Certainly there is climate injustice: richer people or sectors of the country, who live in urban areas, benefit more from energy, while poor families, who live on the banks of the rivers, take the hit,” environmentalist Ricardo Navarro, director of the Salvadoran Center for Appropriate Technology, told IPS.

The Center is a local affiliate of the international NGO Friends of the Earth.

A light rain that falls for two or three days generates releases from the dam and the overflowing of the Lempa River, which floods the settlements. But of course, the most tragic floods have been caused by tropical storms or hurricanes, such as Hurricane Mitch in October 1998.

The Lempa River flows through three Central American countries: it originates in Guatemala, crosses part of Honduras, and then enters El Salvador, where it meanders from the north until it flows into the Pacific Ocean in the south of the country. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Mitch, a category 5 hurricane, the most lethal, caused such heavy rains that the hydroelectric dam filled in a matter of 36 hours and went from discharging 500 cubic meters per second to 11,500 cubic meters per second, according to a study on flooding in the Lower Lempa.

“During Mitch, I lost 40 heads of cattle; they drowned,” Luis Avilés, a farmer from the Taura community, told IPS.

“Where we live is like living with a chronic illness; year after year we have this anxiety: wondering whether it will flood a lot this year, if I’ll lose my crops, not knowing whether to plant or not,” said Avilés, 53.

The Lempa River flows through three Central American countries: it originates in Guatemala, crosses part of Honduras, and then enters El Salvador, where it meanders from the north until it flows into the Pacific Ocean in the south of the country. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Embankment on the Verge of Collapse

A crucial issue in the impact of the floods is the damage that has been suffered over the years to the levee built with Japanese aid funds years ago and which has not been repaired since then, residents of Bajo Lempa told IPS.

The elevation made of different materials on the river bank to contain the overflowing waters runs 18 kilometers along the right bank of the river, from the Cañada Arenera community, in the municipality of San Nicolás Lempa, to the community of La Pita, near the river’s mouth.

“We are in the most vulnerable area of the riverbank, the one that receives the strongest impact of the Lempa, because up there it makes a turn and then it flows down with force,” said Avilés, standing on the damaged infrastructure: a wall of rocks tied together with wire, about four meters higher than the level of the river.

Drainage ditches can be seen alongside the road leading to Bajo Lempa in southern El Salvador, to drain the water that accumulates with the rains and floods that occur almost every year in this coastal region of El Salvador. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

This segment of the five-kilometer-long levee is indeed the most damaged; the flow of the river has been undermining the base of the wall more and more.

“This wall protects the communities of Santa Marta, San Bartolo, Rancho Grande, Taura, Puerto Nuevo, Naranjo, and La Pita, and if it were to collapse, it would be a great tragedy,” said Avilés, also a former guerrilla fighter.

The deterioration of the stone embankment is clearly visible along its five-kilometer length.

The production of cooking bananas is one of the most profitable in the coastal area known as Bajo Lempa, although floods frequently swamp crops and ruin the harvests on family farms. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

The rest of the dike is not a stone wall but an earthen elevation about two meters high, and it is also damaged.

The repair and maintenance of the embankment is one of the main demands of the inhabitants of Bajo Lempa, but it has never been efficiently addressed by any of the past governments.

Brena Cerén, administration coordinator, shows part of the organic cashew nut production just out of the ovens of the cooperative set up in San Carlos Lempa, in the Salvadoran municipality of Tecoluca. Cashew nut production in the coastal area of the country has a growing market in the United States and European countries. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Compensation for Damage

Avilés said it is obvious that the country needs to generate electricity “because many sectors, factories, industry, and homes depend on it, but we should also consider the cost that we pay down here,” referring to the energy produced by the 15 de Septiembre power plant.

This dam and the other four in the country are managed by the state-owned Comisión Ejecutiva Hidroeléctrica del Río Lempa (CEL). For this reason, he and the other people interviewed argued that the government should take responsibility for the damage and losses caused to the families of Bajo Lempa and create an indemnity or compensation fund.

Avilés said that last year, when there was light flooding, he lost his crop of plantains or cooking bananas, which he had planted on a two-hectare plot. He went to claim compensation from CEL for the 15,000 dollars he had invested.

“They told me that they had nothing to do with it, that the dam was above us and the flooding was below,” he said.

Sugarcane monoculture, practiced by families that have invaded and grabbed land in the coastal area of Bajo Lempa, in southern El Salvador, has damaged the fragile ecosystem of the area as it encourages the intensive use of agrochemicals and the burning of sugarcane fields, which often reach the crops of riverbank communities. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Environmental activist Gabriel Labrador, of the NGO Salvadoran Ecological Unit (UES), told IPS that these families have every right to demand an economic compensation fund for losses and damage.

“It is an injustice—the discharges, the vulnerabilities to which people and territories are exposed—which is a systematic practice that is unjust and ends up burdening the most disadvantaged people with more damage and losses,” he said.

Meanwhile, the residents of Bajo Lempa, already accustomed to the floods, know that they have no choice but to continue fighting, despite the adversities.

“It would be fair for CEL to say, ‘We are going to help you, at least with 50 percent of what was lost’, but it doesn’t give anything. However, we have no choice but to keep working hard,” said Menjívar.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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By Antonio Guterres
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 30 2023 – Resolution 2712 was approved in a context of widespread death and wholesale destruction unleashed by the conflict in Gaza and Israel.

According to Israeli authorities, more than 1,200 people were killed — including 33 children — and thousands were injured in the abhorrent acts of terror by Hamas on 7 October. Some 250 people were also abducted, including 34 children.

There are also numerous accounts of sexual violence during the attacks that must be vigorously investigated and prosecuted. Gender-based violence must be condemned. Anytime. Anywhere.

According to the de facto authorities, more than 14,000 people have been killed since the start of the Israeli military operations in Gaza. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have also been injured, with many more missing. In Gaza, more than two-thirds of those killed are reported to be children and women.

In a matter of weeks, a far greater number of children have been killed by Israeli military operations in Gaza than the total number of children killed during any individual year, by any party to a conflict since I have been Secretary-General – as clearly indicated in the annual reports on Children and Armed Conflict that I have submitted to the Council.

Over the past few days, the people of the Occupied Palestine Territory and Israel have finally seen a glimmer of hope and humanity in so much darkness.
It is deeply moving to see civilians finally having a respite from the bombardments, families reunited, and lifesaving aid increasing.

Resolution 2712 “demands that all parties comply with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law, notably with regard to the protection of civilians, especially children.”

It is clear that before the pause, we witnessed serious violations. Beyond the many civilians killed and wounded that I spoke of, eighty percent of Gaza’s people have now been forced from their homes.

This growing population is being pushed towards an ever-smaller area of southern Gaza. And, of course, nowhere is safe in Gaza. Meanwhile, an estimated 45 percent of all homes in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed.

The nature and scale of death and destruction are characteristic of the use of wide-area explosive weapons in populated areas, with a significant impact on civilians.

At the same time, rocket attacks on population centres in Israel by Hamas and other groups have continued – along with allegations of the use of human shields This is also inconsistent with international humanitarian law obligations.

I want to stress the inviolability of United Nations facilities which today are sheltering more than one million civilians seeking protection under the UN flag.

UNRWA shares the coordinates of all its facilities across the Gaza Strip with all parties to the conflict. The agency has verified 104 incidents that have impacted 82 UNRWA installations – 24 of which happened since the adoption of the resolution.

A total of 218 internally displaced people sheltering in UNRWA schools have reportedly been killed and at least 894 injured. In addition, it is with immense sadness and pain that I report that since the beginning of the hostilities, 111 members of our UN family have been killed in Gaza.

This represents the largest loss of personnel in the history of our organization. Let me put it plainly: Civilians – including United Nations personnel – must be protected.

Civilian objects – including hospitals – must be protected.

UN facilities must not be hit. International humanitarian law must be respected by all parties to the conflict at all times.

Security Council resolution 2712 calls “for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip …to enable …full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access.”

I welcome the arrangement reached by Israel and Hamas – with the assistance of the governments of Qatar, Egypt and the United States. We are working to maximize the positive potential of this arrangement on the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

The pause has enabled us to enhance the delivery of aid into and across Gaza. For example, for the first time since 7 October, an inter-agency convoy delivered food, water, medical supplies, and shelter items to northern Gaza – specifically to four UNRWA shelters in Jabalia camp.

Prior to this, minimal or no assistance had reached these locations – even as tens of thousands of people had crowded there for shelter. Also, for the first time, supplies of cooking gas entered Gaza where people waited in lines that extended for two kilometres.

In the south, where the needs are dire, UN agencies and partners have increased both the amount of aid delivered, and the number of locations reached.

I express my appreciation to the Government of Egypt for their contribution in making this assistance possible. But the level of aid to Palestinians in Gaza remains completely inadequate to meet the huge needs of more than two million people.

And although the total volume of fuel allowed into Gaza has also increased, it remains utterly insufficient to sustain basic operations. Civilians in Gaza need a continuous flow of life-saving humanitarian aid and fuel into and across the area.

Safe and unimpeded humanitarian access to all those in need is critical. Humanitarian partners carried out several medical evacuations from north to south Gaza, including to transport dozens of premature babies as well as spinal and dialysis patients from Shifa and Al-Ahli Anglican hospitals.

Several critically ill patients have also been evacuated for treatment in Egypt. Hospitals across Gaza lack the basic supplies, staff and fuel to deliver primary health care at the scale needed, let alone safely treat urgent cases.

The medical system has broken down under the heavy caseload, acute shortages, and the impact of hostilities.

Security Council resolution 2712 calls for “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas and other groups.” The arrangement announced on 22 November has so far led to the release, over 5 days, of 60 hostages – 29 women, 31 children – held by Hamas and other groups since 7 October.

Outside the arrangement during the same period, another 21 hostages were released.
This is a welcome start. But as I have been saying from day one, all hostages must be released immediately and unconditionally.

Until then, they must be treated humanely and the International Committee of the Red Cross must be allowed to visit them. The arrangement also saw the release of 180 Palestinian prisoners and detainees from Israeli jails, mostly women and children.

Security Council resolution 2712 “calls on all parties to refrain from depriving the civilian population in the Gaza Strip of basic services and humanitarian assistance indispensable to their survival, consistent with international humanitarian law.”

Much, much more is required to begin to address human needs in Gaza. Water and electricity services must be fully restored. Food systems have collapsed and hunger is spreading, particularly in the north.

Sanitary conditions in shelters are appalling, with few toilets and sewage flooding, posing a serious threat to public health. Children, pregnant women, older people and those with weakened immune systems are at greatest risk.

Gaza needs an immediate and sustained increase in humanitarian aid including food, water, fuel, blankets, medicines and healthcare supplies. It is important to recognize that the Rafah border crossing does not have enough capacity, especially taking into account the slow pace of security procedures.

That is why we have been urging the opening of other crossings, including Kerem Shalom, and the streamlining of inspection mechanisms to allow for the necessary increase of lifesaving aid.

But humanitarian aid alone will not be sufficient. We also need the private sector to bring in critical basic commodities to replenish completely depleted shops in Gaza.

Finally, Security Council Resolution 2712 “underscores the importance of coordination, humanitarian notification, and deconfliction mechanisms, to protect all medical and humanitarian staff, vehicles, including ambulances, humanitarian sites, and critical infrastructure, including UN facilities.”

A humanitarian notification system is now in place, and is being constantly reviewed and enhanced, including through plans for additional civil-military experts to support coordination.

I welcome the adoption of resolution 2712 – but its implementation by the parties matters most. In accordance with the resolution, I will revert to the President of the Security Council with a set of options on effectively monitoring the implementation of the resolution.

I have already established a working group composed of the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, the Department of Peace Operations, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and the Office of Legal Affairs to urgently prepare proposals in this regard.

So far it is clear that implementation has been only partial at best, and is woefully insufficient. Ultimately, we know that the measure of success will not be the number of trucks dispatched or the tons of supplies delivered – as important as these are.

Success will be measured in lives that are saved, suffering that is ended, and hope and dignity that is restored. The people of Gaza are in the midst of an epic humanitarian catastrophe before the eyes of the world.

We must not look away. Intense negotiations are taking place to prolong the truce – which we strongly welcome — but we believe we need a true humanitarian ceasefire.

And we must ensure the people of the region finally have a horizon of hope – by moving in a determined and irreversible way toward establishing a two-State solution, on the basis of United Nations resolutions and international law, with Israel and Palestine living side-by-side in peace and security.

Failure will condemn Palestinians, Israelis, the region and the world, to a never-ending cycle of death and destruction.

IPS UN Bureau

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Excerpt:

Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations

 
Remarks to the UN Security Council on the implementation of resolution 2712 on the Middle East, 29 November 2023