New Orleans asks: Where is the
great U.S. Army?

MADRID, September 2 (PL)—"Where is the great American army that could have come to evacuate people or help them?" is the question being asked in New Orleans, according to Spanish deputy Lourdes Muñoz of Santamaría, a victim of Hurricane Katrina.

The parliamentary member from Spain was trapped in New Orleans together with her husband and 10-year-old son as they were enjoying their summer vacation. She denounced the complete lack of attention by the U.S. government for the refugees in that city’s Convention Center.

Just as there is no government attention, neither is there control in the Center, and refugees there are asking themselves where the great U.S. Army is that could have come to evacuate people or help them, Muñoz said in a telephone call to the Spanish embassy.

Thanks to a public telephone in the Monteleone Hotel that was miraculously working, the deputy was able to contact the Spanish consulate and later the Spanish minister of foreign affairs, Miguel Angel Moratinos, in Madrid, who transmitted her message.

She explained that at the Convention Center, there were two or three dead people and that nobody had picked up the bodies in spite of requests to do so. Acting as sort of a spokewoman for the group, the deputy warned "whether or not they come to get us, we’re getting out of here."

Moratinos stated that the Spanish government is doing everything possible and staying in permanent contact with U.S. authorities so that the evacuation could be done as quickly as possible.

At the Monteleone Hotel in the city’s downtown area, another couple and their 18-year-old son waiting to be evacuated were the first to contact Spanish consular officials, according to the embassy.

They stated that there is no power or water at the hotel, food was running out, and the little that remained was being taken by some workers for their families. The deputy said that the situation was anguishing and desperate for the 10,000 refugees at the Convention Center.

"The police come by and once and a while the Army does with a truck, but there is no organization here, no running water. We can’t eat or drink and people are beginning to get dehydrated," Muñoz said.

She explained that "everything is totally unorganized, chaos," and that people were sitting on the ground surrounded by garbage. "It’s like the image of a Third World country," she affirmed.

After emphasizing that the Spanish embassy in Washington had communicated with the U.S. Secretary of State about where they were and that there had been meetings, she added that "the U.S. government does not want to come get us."

Five buses arrived Thursday night at the Convention Center to begin taking people who were there, and authorities claimed that buses would come every 20 minutes, but that did not happen, she said.

The Convention Center has become completely chaotic, where the law of the strongest will survive is prevailing. In this situation, she warned, some desperate people were planning to hijack passing buses.