Venezuelan Flood Victims Embrace U.S. Equipment, Aid

Flood survivors ran into mud-caked streets and stared at the sky when the U.S. Army helicopter roared into town and hovered over a baseball field. By the time the Chinook CH-47 landed, Luisa Estebez was inside the stadium crying.

“We have no mattresses. We have no food. We have no water,” said Estebez, a 66-year-old homemaker in this farming town on the Caribbean coast. But help had arrived.

U.S. soldiers are playing an important role in helping Venezuela get through its worst natural disaster in a hundred years. Leftist President Hugo Chavez has always been suspicious of the United States, but now he’s welcoming the U.S. troops with open arms.

Washington has been quick to extend a helping hand to Venezuela--one of America’s main oil suppliers--despite Chavez’s earlier refusal to let the United States use Venezuelan airspace for anti-drug flights and despite his growing alliance with Cuba’s Fidel Castro.

Dozens of countries have rushed aid to Venezuela after mudslides and floods demolished entire neighborhoods in Caracas, the capital, and towns along the country’s northern coast Dec. 15. Official estimates place the death toll between 5,000 and 30,000.

George Weber of the Red Cross said Tuesday in Caracas that he believed the death toll could be as high as 50,000.

Few countries’ contributions have matched that of the U.S. It has sent about 120 soldiers, along with $25.5 million in aid, Black Hawk helicopters, C-130 cargo planes and a C-5 Galaxy cargo plane.

In announcing the aid last week, President Clinton said the assistance “is not only the right thing to do. It also promotes our interest in ensuring stability in a nation that is a key partner in the hemisphere.”

As Chavez visited a center for flood victims last week, he received a call on his cellular telephone from Clinton. “I thanked him, of course, in the name of all the Venezuelan people for all the help he has sent us,” Chavez told Associated Press.

Venezuelan relief experts say the U.S. assistance, especially the helicopters, has been key to reaching isolated communities. The U.S. also sent several water purification machines to provide drinking water.

On Monday’s mission to Rio Chico, a town of 15,000 people located 80 miles east of Caracas, U.S. soldiers airlifted water pipes to a remote mountain village where officials plan to rehabilitate an abandoned water system.

Thousands of residents in the area have been left without running water since the floods caused a wall at the region’s main reservoir to collapse. The floods also devastated the town’s livestock, drowning hundreds of pigs, horses and cows.

When the U.S. helicopter appeared overhead in Rio Chico, several hundred people rushed to the baseball stadium.

“It’s an honor that the Americans have come to help us,” said Erika Tovar, 24.

But while Chavez has eagerly accepted U.S. aid in the mudslide disaster, some doubt it will change his suspicion of the United States.

Chavez, a former army paratrooper who staged a failed military coup in 1992, often speaks of the need to reduce U.S. dominance in the world.

“Chavez’s heart is with Castro, not with Clinton,” political scientist and Chavez critic Anibal Romero said.