Mexico Furor Over Gas Blast Is Quickly Over

La vida no vale nada (Life is worthless).

--From a lyric sung by the late Mexican crooner Jose Alfredo Jimenez.

Survivors of the explosion and fire that killed 499 people Nov. 19 in suburban San Juan Ixhuatepec are learning that life is not worthless. But the value of life can vary, depending on where you live.

The tragedy at San Juan Ixhuatepec, a suburb of Mexico City, occurred when a liquefied gas storage plant owned by Pemex, the government energy company, exploded and touched off a fire storm that destroyed hundreds of homes.

Two weeks later, an even greater industrial disaster, in Bhopal, India, captured headlines around the world, raising questions about industrial safety standards in the Third World. American lawyers, some of them well known, hurried off to India in search of clients to bring massive lawsuits.

No Famous Lawyers

In Mexico, the furor raised by the explosion at San Juan Ixhuatepec died relatively quickly. The debate over safety subsided. No famous lawyers came to Mexico.

Earlier this month, the government began paying $10,400 in each of the 499 death claims, a sum calculated on the basis of a formula tied to the minimum wage of $5.05 a day.

In addition, the attorney general’s office of the state of Mexico has accepted 1,231 claims for injury and property damage. The first 39 injury checks, totaling $145,000, were distributed on Jan. 15. This is an average of $3,717 per check.

The contrast between these amounts and the huge sums sought in connection with the Indian disaster, plus the different levels of indignation and consternation raised in the two countries, offer some insight into the way Mexico deals with tragedy.

For one thing, there is a widespread perception that little can be accomplished by suing the Mexican government, in this case by suing Pemex.

An American lawyer familiar with the system of justice in Mexico observed the other day that “if the accident had been due to some machine produced in the United States, or to some American company operating there, you can bet your boots there would have been lawsuits based on product liability.”

In India, there have been exhaustive public explanations of precisely what occurred at Bhopal, but no one is quite sure yet about what happened in Mexico, and the truth will probably never be known.

On Dec. 22, the federal attorney general’s office announced that the explosion “was preceded by a massive gas leak that presumably was ignited by a burner in the Pemex facility.”

At the time, this was called a preliminary report, but a spokesman at the office of the attorney general for the state of Mexico, where San Juan Ixhuatepec is located, said later that the report was final.

“That was it,” the spokesman, Carlos Amayoa, said. “Pemex is guilty. What else is there to investigate?”

There are other questions still to be answered. There is no certainty about the number of victims. The national Social Security hospital system said recently that it treated 1,300 victims, of whom 64 remained hospitalized. Hugo Morones, a government spokesman, said all the patients were treated free of charge.

In the same week, though, the governor of the state of Mexico, Alfredo del Mazo, said in a public speech that 101 victims remained in hospitals around the area.

Moreover, a citizens’ committee formed by local residents says there are about 2,000 people of San Juan Ixhuatepec who are still unaccounted for.

Marcelo Morales, a spokesman for the group, said a census taken by neighbors has failed to locate these people. He said he has heard unverified reports of “clandestine burials” at a nearby cemetery.

Earlier, members of the citizens’ committee called for an investigation into the death of Santiago Rivera Morales, a self-appointed spokesman for the people of San Juan Ixhuatepec who was beaten to death in December. He had said that corrupt officials were hampering the relief effort.

Humberto Lira, the attorney general for the state, rejected charges that Rivera’s killing was politically motivated. Lira’s spokesman, Amayoa, called it a common crime.

Another who complained was the parish priest of San Juan Ixhuatepec, Father Agustin Abel de la Cruz Lopez, who said much of the aid earmarked for the victims was disappearing. He also said Pemex officials had been lax in looking out for the safety of the people living near the storage depot.

Before the end of November, the priest mysteriously disappeared from his parish, only to reappear a month later in another church in the state of Mexico. He told reporters that his removal had not been voluntary, that he moved because he had been ordered to do so by church authorities.

The annoyed reaction of the government to criticism about the way it has handled the tragedy of San Juan Ixhuatepec is reflected in the words of Mario Ramon Beteta, head of Pemex.

In a speech in Guadalajara on Jan. 22, Beteta said it was a form of cannibalism for Mexicans to criticize Pemex, an agency that through its petroleum sales abroad has brought in more than $16 billion and kept the Mexican government afloat.

The government reports that donations to its special relief fund totaled about $3.6 million, including about $30,000 from the United States. But much of the aid did not go directly to the special fund. U.S. Ambassador John Gavin, for example, gave $25,000 from the embassy’s contingency fund directly to the National Family Welfare Agency. Tracing all the gifts and contributions has proven to be impossible, even for Mexican authorities.

In its official report, the Interior Ministry estimates that more than $3 million has been spent in the combined government relief effort. The state of Mexico has given 167 families new, furnished houses in a low-cost housing complex called Valle de Anahuac. Each is valued at $8,000.

By U.S. standards, the amount of money received by people filing death and injury claims may be small, but by Mexican standards the amounts are considerable, particularly in such an impoverished place as San Juan Ixhuatepec.

The case of “Baby Juanito” is illustrative. Juanito, as the nurses at the National Orthopedic and Trauma Hospital have named him, was burned over 37% of his body in the explosions and fire of Nov. 19. After more than two months of intensive treatment, the child is ready to be released. But to whom?

Juanito may be 2, even 3 years old, but no one knows who he is. The press refers to him as “the child with the enigmatic smile.” He does not talk. Doctors do not know whether his inability to communicate is a result of his limited years or a result of the shock he suffered from the explosion and fire.

He lies naked in a crib in the pediatric burn ward, his scalp and left arm swathed in bandages, his big brown eyes questioning visitors. There is no sign that he has recognized any visitor as a relative, although he has a faint smile for virtually everyone.

When Mexican television reported the plight of Juanito, the switchboard at the Televisa television network was jammed with nearly 100 callers in a matter of a few minutes. Many callers said they were relatives of the child; others wanted to adopt him. But so far, no claim to kinship has been proved, and the government is proceeding cautiously.

“The problem,” Morones, the government spokesman, said, “is that Juanito will probably be the beneficiary of a claim filed in his behalf for having lost both his parents.

“We know that a lot of the people who want him are simply acting out of charitable human motives. But there are many others who aren’t, and how do you decide which is which? The money he is going to get is a fortune for some people.”