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The Crisis of the Viaduct in Venezuela: Crisis in a development model and its illusions of power

Viaduct 1 at the main highway between Caracas - La Guaira

By Frank Bracho

The collapse of the Viaduct Number 1 on the main highway in Venezuela has been an extremely upsetting event for the country. The loss of the highway’s key bridge that communicates Caracas and all of the country with their chief air and sea ports has been like an abrupt severing of a main national jugular vein. The highway, crossing the coastal mountain chain which separates Caracas from the Caribbean coastal Vargas state, has become automatically disabled as a consequence of the collapse of the bridge. Key activities have been dramatically affected by this event: The country’s external supplies (for some 26 million people) which, despite all of its “oil wealth”, continues to be a prolific importer of everything, including even the food it consumes (well-reputed economist Domingo Maza Zavala, also a Director of the Central Bank, has estimated a one percent drop as a result of the event); the flow of travelers into and out of the country; and an intense interurban traffic between the population of Caracas and the neighboring coastal population (between the two, more than six million people) –particularly affecting the people of Vargas state, which is highly dependant on Caracas economically, and especially through a massive beach-tourist trade.

But, beyond the immediate and directly palpable repercussions, the collapse of the Viaduct and consequent disablement of the highway – also known as the Caracas/La Guaira highway – entails the collapse of a technological model, a development model and a form of practicing politics. When the highway was built in 1953, during the dictatorship of Marcos Perez Jimenez, it was praised as an “engineering marvel on the scale of the Panama Canal”. And the Viaduct in particular was acclaimed as “the longest bridge in Latin America”, as well as “the longest in the world of prestressed concrete”. Its two large tunnels were praised as “conquering the Coastal mountain range”. Triumphantly it was pointed out that the previous number of hours on the nearly-declared defunct higher mountain old road had been shortened to only 30 minutes on the new route.

During all of this celebration, a few “details” were overlooked. The highway had been constructed over geological faults, in particular in the zone of the Viaduct, which in the end would manifest themselves decisively in the bridge’s debacle – a process that would start in a significant manner in 1987 and which hastened in recent weeks (some analysts also traced it to the big 1967 earthquake). The meteoric increase in vehicular traffic, personal transports as well as heavy cargo, was not foreseen – traffic catapulted by profuse individual transportation vs. collective transportation models– based on cheap gasoline that took over the oil-booming nation in later years . Meteoric vehicular increase that, with the passage of time, would turn the initially “liberating” bridges and tunnels into “intimidating” roads or contamination traps, as well as converting the highway into a frightening “guillotine” of frequent traffic accidents. The importance of the continous availability of adequate alternate routes in case of a major closure of the highway – such as occurred today (although it appears that General Perez Jimenez had some projects of this order in mind that never materialized), was not anticipated. The large chaotic population growth around the highway, driven by incessant immigrants from the interior of the country wishing to live closer to the “providing great capital” in a dominant centralist model, was not anticipated either, settlements that in the end would undermine the foundations or functional nature of the highway – as, in particular, occurred with the Viaduct by the drainage of water and anarchic human movement of earth on the hillside which supported the bridge (the latter worsened by the copious rains of last December). Nor the effects on this complex roadway of a lack of “maintenance culture”, particularly typical of a “new rich oil” country like Venezuela, but also of the type of civilization reigning worldwide which tends to favor growth and that which is new, over quality and maintenance of that which is old; lack of maintenance that would have a bearing not only on the deterioration of the Viaduct, but on other critical aspects of the structure, such as its tunnels and drainage to protect the subsoil of the road –with risky consequences that could be seen by all the users. And, lastly, surely not enough thought was given at that time to the fact that no human construction is eternal and that the Viaduct, as well as the highway, inexorably had a limited lifespan, which conclusion must be anticipated. In the case of the Viaduct, it appears that some construction engineers’ estimates – who knows what criteria was used with so many oblique factors at play ! - was of 46 years. Counting from 1953 until 1999, this coincides with the inauguration of the present government !

With all the previous accumulative process of almost 50 years and the poor management of previous administrations, it is clear that it would be unjust to exclusively blame the present government for the collapse of the bridge. But, it would also be inadmissible that this administration pretend to disavow its crucial responsibility in the present outcome.

Most of the “final red alerts” were visible to the present administration, throughout its now long period of 7 years (and six different occupants of the Ministry of Infrastructure). Furthermore, after all that has been brought out in the open with the exposure of the facts, the “executive” solution for “preventive treatment” was not very complicated: short of the government managing this directly, it could have, at least, assigned a mere 80 million dollars –the estimated cost of a new viaduct- to a competent private company (a little more than double the donation that was made to the new Bolivian President Evo Morales during his recent visit to Caracas, and less than 0.5% of the purchase of military equipment contracted from Spain last year and,... in any case, a very small sum of the sea of petrodollars in which the country has been swimming in the last years!), in order that the new Viaduct could be constructed in a timely manner. Despite all the political vicissitudes that the country has faced during the recent years, the nation had the right to expect timely government action on something so vital, especially during the last three years of greater stability and enormous oil income. The evasions of responsibility have been insensitive. Humble self-criticism and all out correction of this matter have been side-stepped in favor of a series of delaying, startling and inadmissible excuses. This has – unnecessarily – increased the political cost to the government.

The already over-abused resource of again blaming the last “40 years of the Fourth Republic” (and even Perez Jimenez) is of little value, especially in a case like this. Can the pilot of a plane about to crash entertain himself or the passengers blaming the pilot who flew the plane yesterday? Furthermore, once again, the country has the right to expect more from a government that calls itself revolutionary and had offered to do things differently.

High government officials have also stated that “the Opposition has wanted to celebrate the failure of the Viaduct”. Another unfortunate and untimely “dodging of the issue”. The government’s persistent indiscriminate use of the term “Opposition” to qualify any public protest or disturbance starts to sound Manichean when the fact that a large part of those concerned are neither with the government nor with the traditional opposition, since they deplore the sectarianism and question the competence of both to be at the height of the great challenges of the country, is disregarded. Additionally, many of those who criticize the deficiencies and incoherencies of the government of Chavez belong to the chavista ranks themselves. The aforementioned abuse of the term “opposition” for straight-away disqualifying purposes, is starting to sound insensible and has a political cost, because it starts to reveal a dangerous government alienation in relation to the fluid political reality of the country. Are the same mistaken readings to be repeated during this presidential election year as in the past parliamentarian elections, where the great abstention of the population clearly showed that a large number –if not the majority - of Venezuelans, of all social strata, are simply getting tired of so many things?

With regards to “wanting to celebrate”, this sounds truly reckless. Although we do not deny that there may be a sector interested in “adding fuel to the fire” or in taking advantage in an irresponsible manner of such a serious crisis, no one that lives between Caracas and the coast, not even the most virulent anti-Chavista or who believes himself more impregnable, can really feel joy or tranquility about such a large disaster affecting his fellowmen (it is difficult to find a Caraqueño that does not have a friend or acquaintance in Vargas state !) and affecting all of the surrounding environment !

Some are already calling the debacle of the Viaduct a kind of “Vargas II” in reminiscence of the shock of that terrible landslide that devastated and isolated Vargas state –again also with a number of social and economic spill-overs on Caracas in 1999…

By chance in the same year that, according to the earlier mentioned accounts, the serious problem of the Viaduct would begin to appear due to the expiration of its lifespan ! And the same year in which an energetic Commander Chavez, determined to triumph with the referendum for the Constituent Assembly that coincided with this calamity, as well as that the voters not be inhibited by the wave of rains that accompanied this catastrophe, uttered – emulating Bolivar – the following challenge: “If Nature opposes us we will fight against her and force her to obey us.” This statement originally pronounced by Simon Bolivar in 1812 before the ill-fated earthquake of that year, which, if well understood at that moment in the light of the clash of battle for independence, cannot be considered, in retrospective, as Bolivar’s most lucid and appropriate phrase, particularly for these times in which respect for the limits of Nature and the ecological conscience are an imperative matter for the survival of the world. Additionally, Bolivar, despite such a defiant exclamation, ended up losing the First Republic. In the same manner, the phrase cannot be considered as President Chavez’s most lucid and appropriate, 194 years later, upon the country learning the following day, horrified, of the magnitude of the Vargas tragedy – which, by the way, in good part was also due to the foolish disregard of Nature’s limits by many inhabitants of Vargas –in their disorderly settlement patterns in the coastal state (including the unrestricted construction on or near the natural riverbeds and unstable mountainsides). The magnitude of this catastrophe overshadowed Chavez’s winning of the referendum, before the more important news of the Vargas tragedy.

Curiously, the official announcement now of the collapse of the Viaduct coincided with another event that was planned as a celebration for the Government: The installation of the new “totally Chavista” National Assembly –elected with less than 20% of the electorate in the recent abstentionist parliamentarian elections. In this act the re-elected President of the Parliament, Nicolas Maduro, when he alluded to the Viaducto, centered on emphasizing that the “climatic changes world-wide were the product of imperialistic irresponsibility” as one of the causes of the problem, in echo of another repetitive argument that appears to have been adopted by the government to attack Bush during the last few years. Not without justification for a general discussion and in another context, but to apply it to the Viaduct, is definitely escapist and picturesque ! Additionally, when will the official spokespersons realize that this argument could easily ricochet against a government determined to convert our country, with its enormous oil plans, into the “next Saudi Arabia” of the world and “a great gas power”, inclusive in close collaboration with renowned U.S. transnational companies, which would contribute to a much larger emission of those same gases of disastrous greenhouse effects that are so attributed to the “imperialist petro-industrial” government of Bush. This same type of reproach was made to the first magistrate of the United States when hurricane Katrina struck, forgetting that, besides the aforementioned, Venezuela has large oil refineries on the same U.S. soil where the great disaster occurred, in another example of our conspicuous contribution to the warming of the planet and in the land of the Yankees itself! And, finally, disregarding that this entire pretension of the Venezuelan government of being “the new superpower in oil and gas” and great supplier of the world – even offering the United States “150 years of supply, if it behaves” and to Latin America “200 years!”, pretension at the expense of the soils, forests, waters, air and populations of our country that inevitably will be affected and contaminated, and therefore of vital interest to the fatherland, has not been the object of any serious and ample national debate.

Despite the intended festivity for the new Assembly and that expressed by Maduro, once again, as in 1999, the official celebration was totally overshadowed by the simultaneous shocking announcement of the indefinite closure of the Viaduct, and all of its effective or potential implications as some kind of “Vargas II”.

From all that has occurred, one could start to think that this government appears to have a special “karma” for great unfavorable events associated with Vargas state and the “revenge” of a neglected Nature…..on official celebration dates that end up frustrated or overshadowed. Is it not time to listen with greater humility and reflection to some insistent message from a higher plane, in order to correct what must be corrected before new events, unfavorable and much worse, can happen to the misfortune of the government and country?

Regarding the subject of disorderly population settlements along the highway and, in particular, the Viaduct, and to all that contributed because of the great neglect of previous governments, the present administration has made an even greater contribution. Its vague policy to facilitate legitimacy or “argue” that occupations or invasions of lands may be a “social justice recourse”, without precedence, has substantially encouraged not only the anarchical settlements along the sides of the Caracas – La Guaira highway, but also of other important thoroughfares in the country – among them the Coche – Tejerias highway, equally vital for the interconnection of the capital and the whole country, and already subjected to anarchical settlements along the highway, which includes the deforestation of the valuable protecting forests by totally unscrupulous invaders-resellers of lands! Not to mention the recent reckless disturbance and controversy that has been stirred up by the Metropolitan government of Caracas with regard to the same subject of the “occupations-invasions”, within the capital (forgetting that, besides the legal aspects, “all acts dictated by fear or violence, are automatically immoral” – as said by Gandhi).

The phrase “the people are God” proclaimed frequently by high government officials to ingratiate themselves with the popular support has been a great disservice when taken advantage of to validate irresponsible social attitudes (it is a fact that in Venezuela the deterioration of values has not been only a problem of the ruling elites, but of all the population) or when it has served to perpetuate populism, demagogy and patronage that has done so much damage to the country.

Days ago, when newspaper coverage was in full force on and about the Viaduct, we saw with astonishment how a hillside inhabitant came down to the highway to take advantage of a private communications media to denounce, in a calculated media show, “his protest because the government had not attended to the requests of his barrio that a bolas criollas court be converted to a sports court” (!) Such unconsciousness in the face of a major national crisis before his very eyes was unbelievable (a case of “fighting over a wash basin when the house is burning”). Can this type of people be God or can the inhabitants that are determined to construct in riverbeds or alluvial hillsides – putting adults and children of numerous families at risk and still disregarding the occasional warnings of some authorities – even if they were lacking the required vigor? This type of values cannot favor any government nor any country.

Afterwards President Chavez publicly commented that he thought it had been “human error” to allow settlements next to the Viaduct and the highway and that “what should have been there were forests”. A platitude and elemental recognition of what should have always been respected and should be respected in practice. But, the truth is that “Works are loves and not good reasons”. And, it is time that anarchic growth on risky or ecologically delicate grounds along the sides of vital communication roadways be declared a great problem of “national emergency” and that consequent and permanent actions be taken, in function with the security of the inhabitants, the roadways and their users.

With regard to the subject of the lack of maintenance, as we have said before, it is about a cumulative inheritance and a world-wide problem of the type of dominant civilization and prevailing public policies. In the United States, in the last few years, a grave unattended to decay of the public infrastructure has been denounced, worsened by the neo-liberal policies of the last governments, which have made cuts in public spending for maintenance and social items. This has resulted in qualified analysts warning Bush’s government that it should worry more about the capacity of “terrorist catastrophe” of some of the old decayed large water dams about to collapse close to population centers, than from any attempt from Osama bin Laden. Perhaps Chavez’ government should also heed these types of warnings. They would have to be reformulated for our environment in terms of a comparison between the reality of the growing collapse of our national infrastructure (with or without neo-liberal policies) and the often repeated danger of a military invasion. The most pressing “enemy” may already be at home.

Apart from the overwhelming daily phenomenon of holes in the streets and highways in the national territory, there exists a generalized deterioration of vital public infrastructure works and a consequent important vulnerability of the country which should receive urgent attention (apart from the inconvenience of an eventual military conflict – the possibility of which cannot be disregarded, but which we hope never takes place). This deterioration must be attended to, not only with greater public spending for its repair, but with much better management, honesty, systematically and permanently, and with the best resources in the country – more so than “covering-up” or inconvenient political sectarianism. Time is running out for such an imperative job.

To complete the previous picture, the Viaduct crisis has coincided with a very significant international event to be celebrated soon in Caracas: the World Social Forum. This is a magnum event that congregates the world’s civil society protest movements and diverse social movements determined to establish a different development model, another type of civilization, another type of world socially and ecologically sustainable in substitution of the present unjust, predatory and unsustainable model. The event hopes to gather 100.000 people, including several thousand foreign attendees.

The subject of the abrupt interruption of the highway from the Maiquetia airport to Caracas, will inevitably create a pressing situation for the transportation of the international participants and the general logistics of the event – already very pressured before the delay in the preparations and the other limitations that characterize the country – which we hope will not compromise the realization/success of the event.

But such adversity could also be an excellent topic for the Forum in relation to the ills of the dependency of great hegemonic works of infrastructure, made disregarding Nature’s constraints and the capacity of management, control and assimilation of the societies. And, in this particular case of the highway to the coast, about the ills of a voracious non-stop individual vehicular transport model (some have considered the problem of the voracious “vehicular explosion” more serious than the “demographic explosion”), based on a type of energy that has been placed in fundamental contradiction with the life and sustainability of the planet: the petroleum model. Model, by the way, spread from the United States to the rest of the world. And, model in counter-position with the models managed on a human and ecological scale, of social and environmental sustainability, that the World Social Forum has advocated.

This reflection in the Forum could contribute to thoughts that have started to emerge in Venezuela’s own national debate in relation to the Viaduct crisis - which
hopefully will grow in strength.

Reflections such as the following: Were the routes and the technology chosen for the construction of the highway the best to guarantee its sustainability? Was there sufficient and democratic consultation and discussion with the concerned population, as well as with the diverse technical points of view before deciding on the work? Were other transportation options seriously studied (for example a train to the coast or any other efficient public transportation system – and, in passing, with less use of contaminating energy, which would have lowered the great pressure of individual transportation that ended up impairing the roadway)? Were serious and responsible studies made on all the soil conditions where the roadway would be erected and the great impact of same before committing to this project? Was the necessity to maintain and develop alternate routes, fully functional in the eventuality that the highway could, some day, become inoperable because of unforeseen and foreseen circumstances, taken into consideration? As the informed reader senses and from what reality has shown, the answers to all of these types of questions lean towards the NO side.

And, moving forward to the present, regarding the solutions posed for the present crisis, are all the lessons of what has occurred being taken into account, in order to not repeat the same mistakes and take advantage of the debacle as an opportunity to establish more sustainable projects and plans, ecologically and socially responsible, in consultation with all of the interested and most qualified stake holders and parties? This question becomes of vital importance in relation to the project, already hastily announced, for a new highway, which, among other things, contemplates boring through the Avila subsoil (also a National Park) to make two large tunnels.

That “other world possible” that the Social Forum has proposed and that the present Venezuelan process has promised or is seeking, but, speaking humbly, is still far from achieving, could become even more imperative, thanks to the Viaduct crisis.

We should say to the attendees of the Social Forum: Welcome to Venezuela, where the undesirable and desirable are patently in sight, in the midst of great frustrations and dreams. Where at least the notion that everything can be questioned regarding the course the world has taken, has taken hold, not a minor achievement taking into account the critical and reflective anesthesia that reigns in so many other parts of the creaking Titanic in which the present prevailing “civilization” has been converted. Where, despite this notion, nevertheless there still exists a country – and this applies to the government, opposition and practically the whole population – which, among other things, still remains risky, irresponsible and dangerously dependent and addicted to a “wealth” that is destroying life on the planet: the oil “wealth” and, therefore, an illusory “wealth” inexorably unsustainable and unethical, sickening and alienating, and of vain power.

The slogan of the Forum, “Another world is possible” has called attention to the fact that the alternative of a post-petroleum world exists, with the accelerated development of renewable, more ecological, energy sources that do not destroy life nor the planet, on a par with more rational transportation systems, in the context of a new social and environmentally more responsible civilization, recognizing the richness of plurality, and with more decentralized, participatory and self-managed government systems which prevent every oppressive hegemony – from wherever it may come. All this will not take place overnight. But, before the increasingly serious problems facing the world, time is running out to attack them, in a concerted and timely manner, with vision and courage.

To the participants of the Forum and all which it represents, we should say humbly from Venezuela: “Help us with the great human and positive spiritual energy which has characterized, with such hope and stimulus, the previous large gatherings of the Forum (energy more precious than any oil !). With your great collective synergy, with that solidarity. With the experience of many of you in noble, worthwhile and successful alternate “struggles” in your respective countries and environments, in favor of a more genuine human well-being. Acting with this type of powerful conscience and activism the world can be changed, even “from the outside” or in spite of the lack of concurrence of alienating and suicidal established powers. In one way or another, we are in the “count down” towards a Great Change, very different from the inoperable and unsustainable present “order”. Circumstances demand it. It is the Cosmic design. It is the divine plan.

In the end, let us hope that we will all be able to say in retrospect –Venezuela and the world, after having traveled the present labyrinth in the less traumatic manner possible, that what we were destined to live were “birth pains” and not death, in favor of that New World.

Frank Bracho, January 21, 2006

 

Frank Bracho, Economist, Author, Former Ambassador & Advisor South Commission. Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.

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Petroleumworld 02/12/ 05

Copyright©2006 Frank Bracho. All rights reserved

 

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