apologies for those who've already got this. RADIOTHON IN SUPPORT OF EL SALVADOR EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS Sunday February 11th, 2001 Friends, This is a notification of our upcoming radiothon to raise funds for Friends of the Earth El Salvador/ CESTA to help with their relief work following the recent earthquake. The details are: Sunday, 11 February, from 9.30am 12 noon on Community Radio 3CR (855AM). To donate on the day, please call 3CR during these hours on (03) 9419 8377. Funds raised will be for immediate disaster relief (water, food, medicine, tarps and other shelter) in the urban and rural communities where CESTA is active. Please see the note below for details on this. Friends of the Earth in Melbourne will be collecting the funds. Donations over $2 are tax deductable. Credit card donations can be made by calling FoE and asking for Tristy, Ila or Cam (please call FoE between 10am and 6pm, Monday to Friday 9419 8700). Cheques, payable to Friends of the Earth, can be sent to FoE at Box 222, Fitzroy, 3065 (or via our office at 312 Smith st, Collingwood). We would greatly appreciate any advertising/ networking you can do between now and the 11th to let your networks know about this event. A short, announcement style version of this notice is given at the very end of this message. We see this radiothon as being practical community-to-community solidarity. We greatly appreciate the support of 3CR staff, management and programs in making this possible. For further details, please contact Cam Walker at FoE Melbourne. Many thanks for your support on this one, FoE Melbourne. ------- Excert from letter from Ricardo Navarro, of CESTA/ FoE El Salvador: Dear Friends: As you probably heard, last Saturday the 13th of January at 11:35 a.m., we had during 40 seconds an earthquake of 7.8 magnitude in the Richter scale. It was really strong and long to the extent that it was felt in all of Central America and in the South of Mexico. During the earthquake I was in the office and managed to get outside and I could see how a nearby mountain was starting to collapse and buried 2 neighbours. CESTA had for a long time a campaign to avoid the mining of stone in that mountain, as a matter of fact, we accused the General Attorney many times of being irresponsible for not acting as the law demands. The last time we accused the General Attorney publicly, was 3 months ago and last Saturday nature proved we were right. Now we are hoping the whole mountain does not collapse. Sunday afternoon I went to a place where there had been a landslide that buried 300 houses. This was a case of special interest to us because we have had a campaign for more than 8 years, to save that mountain where the landslide took place. The construction industry and the government had more power and starting damaging the mountain until it collapsed killing more than 300 people. That Sunday they had recovered 120 corpses and as I started to look at the situation I found out that one of the corpses was the brother of CESTA's Vice Executive Director (Silvia Quiroa). When I started writing the report, I was informed that one of the members of our Staff, that had not been reported (Abelino Dur=E1n) had died in the hospital because his house had fallen on him. Other 3 members of our Staff that we have not heard of, we assume it is because of telephone problems, since this has been very usual. Other CESTAs members are still waiting to find some of their relatives. At least 5 members of our staff lost their houses. Our building suffered damage, valued around US$ 25,000. In the communities where CESTA runs campaigns and projects the situation is more difficult, since they are areas of low economic resources. The community more damaged is probably Tecoluca, where almost all families that were living there (1,300) lost their houses completely. Other communities in the country suffered similar damages than ours. We can still feel tremors. Today at 5:00 a.m. there was one of 4.5 magnitude, then others not as strong at noon and at 5:30 in the afternoon. Faced with all this, CESTA has accused the Central government of being co-responsible of the tragedy that is affecting the people, and together with the victims we are going to take our government to the tribunals. This has generated a lot of reaction from our government, there has been several ministers and members of Congress rejecting our accusations, but the victims, when they are interviewed, agree with us. There is a lot of discussion in the press around this and that will keep us very busy in the near future. CESTA is also in a state of emergency, and most of our staff is involved in channelling food, medicines and relief aid to the communities where we work. As you can see the situation is very difficult, but we continue. Ricardo was one of the founders of CESTA, and is the chairperson of Friends of the Earth International. Centro Salvadore F1o de Tecnologia Apropiada (CESTA) CESTA was founded in El Salvador in 1980 and joined FoE International in 1991. Today, CESTA has some 3,100 members spread among 27 local groups. Every three months, CESTA publishes a Spanish-language magazine called ECONCIENCIA, as well as numerous books and pamphlets on more specialised technical subjects. CESTA's core national campaigns focus on solid wastes, marine issues, and sustainable transportation. The organisation participates in the following FoEI campaigns: Climate Change, Forests, Sustainable Societies Program, and Wetlands. CESTA also has four "ecocentres" where appropriate technologies are developed and put into practice. One centre has an urban focus, another is a permaculture school where workshops are given on a permanent basis, while others focus on forest and marine issues. CESTA Apartado 3065 33 Calle Poniente 316 SAN SALVADOR EL SALVADOR Tel: 503 2 200 046/206 480 Fax: 503 2 203 313 E-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (Spanish only) Web: www.tao.ca/~cesta or http://www.foei.org/members/Member_El_Salvador.htm -------------------- SHORT VERSION FOR COMMUNITY ANNOUNCEMENTS, ETC: Radiothon in support of El Salvador earthquake victims Sunday, 11 February, from 9.30am 12 noon on Community Radio 3CR (855AM). To donate on the day, please call 3CR during these hours on (03) 9419 8377. Funds raised will be used by Friends of the Earth El Salvador for immediate relief efforts in a number of urban and rural communities. For further details, please contact Friends of the Earth Melbourne: 9419 8700. ------- -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
