Tag Archives: accident

Francis Drake’s Sack of Santo Domingo: A Case of Terrorism?

1586_Santo_Domingo_compressed

Santo Domingo, sacked by Francis Drake in 1586. Note the small harbor protecting only a handful of ships.

We believe that we live in an age of terrorism. But terror is as old as humankind. Just ask the unsuspecting population of Santo Domingo on the island of Hispaniola which on January 1, 1586, woke up to Francis Drake (c. 1540 – 1596) and his marauding mercenaries ransacking their city. Santo Domingo, founded in 1496, is the oldest colonial city in the New World and at that time as the seat of a real audiencia still was a Spanish administrative center for the Caribbean. But it long had lost the political and strategic centrality it enjoyed during the years of the Conquest, and its pivotal role in the Transatlantic trade had been passed on to nearby San Juan, Puerto Rico, as I have discussed in a different post. When Francis Drake arrived, Santo Domingo was well past its prime.

IMG_1764compressed

The Fortaleza Ozama, built 1502-1505, with its modest size was no match for Drake’s forces.

Drake’s men took the city by surprise, both by shelling the Fortaleza Ozama and by entering the city through the poorly defended gates on the land side. The pirates plundered and vandalized the city, burned down parts of it, and started to destroy stone buildings and monasteries to extort a ransom. He set up his headquarters in the cathedral where he looted the altars, destroyed all religious art, plundered the tombs, taking anything that was of value, and quite literally defecating on all things Catholic. Finally, a ransom of  25,000 ducats was negotiated–an extraordinary sum that only could be amassed by forcing citizens to surrender gold and jewels. At the nearby Casa del Cordón Drake installed a scale to weigh the exact amount of gold and jewels that were turned in by citizens.  Drake and his men left again a month later, turning their attention to Cartagena which was sacked and plundered in a similar fashion.

IMG_1200J_compressed

Catedral de Santa María la Menor: Drake housed in a chapel to the right of the main altar.

Drake left behind not just a city that was a smoldering ruin, he also left behind a humiliated and traumatized city. To be sure, most of the churches and houses were restored, but the Spanish did not update the defense installations as they did in San Juan, Cartagena and other strategic points in the Caribbean. Simply put, the Spanish stopped investing into Santo Domingo. Very little of importance happened here after 1586, and the Spanish colonial Baroque architecture and culture of the 17th and 18th centuries which flourished in Mexico and South America completely bypassed Santo Domingo.

IMG_1693_Puerta de la Misericordia (2)

The Puerta de la Misericordia, built in 1543 and expanded in 1568, could not stop Drake’s attack on land.

In a modern definition, terrorism involves non-state actors fighting enemy states, their representatives, institutions, and populations in asymmetrical warfare. In that sense, Robespierre‘s Reign of Terror in post-revolutionary France in 1793-94 does not qualify: this is just a case of a despot savagely abusing his own people. We have seen many since: from Stalin and Hitler to native sons “El Jefe” Trujillo and “Papa Doc” Duvalier who more recently traumatized the two nations that now share the island of Hispaniola.

Obviously, we have to see Francis Drake’s savage pillaging in the geopolitical context of the time: England challenging the Habsburg hegemony (the Habsburgs ruled Spain, Austria, and the Low Lands and controlled the Empire), supporting the Dutch in their wars of liberation against the Spanish, taking an active role in fighting Catholicism, and striving to become a maritime and colonial power in its own right.

In fact, Francis Drake, Sir Francis Drake if you are British, was sailing to the West Indies in something of an official mission. His acts of piracy in the Caribbean clearly were part of an English strategy to weaken the Spanish control over the Caribbean and the Transatlantic trade. But his fleet of 30 ships was financed by merchants who clearly had an interest in developing a trade network in the Caribbean, and his mission was not to take land and plant the English flag. His mission was to plunder and destroy, to take ransom, in short to inflict terror. Drake may have been the original of the “Pirates of the Caribbean.” He ushered in a century of piracy that left the Caribbean an unsafe, violence-filled space.

Like most explorers and navigators of the time, Drake also was a privateer, entrepreneur and free agent who worked for himself first and foremost. This agency is also an attribute of modern terrorists. Like many terrorists today, Drake had the implicit support by a state actor, the English crown, and had the financial backing of his own commercial network. Most importantly, the trauma of this humiliation he inflicted on Santo Domingo more than four centuries ago lives on today.* That is the very definition of terror.

IMG_1561 (2)

Iglesia de San Francisco, constructed 1544-1556. The Franciscan convent in Santo Domingo was mostly destroyed by Drake, then partly restored, damaged again in earthquakes in 1673 and 1751, abandoned in 1795.

* Note added 5/22/14: Gabriel García Márquez in his novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold (NY: Vintage Books, 1983, p. 98) describes the Palace of Justice in Riohacha on Colombia’s Caribbean coast with this apparently random phrase: “decrepit colonial building that had been Sir Francis Drake’s headquarters for two days.” This is the only overt historical reference in the book and indicates how Drake’s terror lives on in the collective memory in the areas he affected.

Why the Crash of a Mozambican Plane in Namibia Matters

On November 29, 2013, flight 470, an Embraer 190 of Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (LAM; Mozambique Airlines), crashed in a remote area of Namibia en route from Maputo to Luanda, killing all 33 on board. This event barely registered in world media. And maybe this a good thing.

Of course, we know the pattern of Western under-reporting about Africa: an event in Africa does not exist in the Western media unless it is related to atrocities or terrorism or it directly impacts Western interests. On the same day a police helicopter crashed into a pub in Glasgow, Scotland, killing eight. That accident was on top of the news in the US for two days.

Aside from the loss of human life, the accident is tragic because Africa urgently needs to expand its air transportation infrastructure in order to develop economically and become more competitive in international business. A report by Mathias Haufiku and Fifi Rhodes on the allAfrica.com web site explains the connection: “The accident took place at a time that African countries are working hard to shed off the negative reputation of accident-prone African airlines, the majority of which are still banned from flying over European Union airspace due to stringent EU safety standards. Currently there are only five African countries and their airlines, which are permitted to fly over European airspace, of which Namibia is one.”

The African Airlines Association (AFRAA) claims that the EU bans most African carriers by deeming them unsafe in order to block African airlines from competing in highly profitable routes connecting Africa and Europe and thus to give European carriers an unfair competitive advantage. For example, the European Union withdrew landing rights not just from LAM but from all airlines based in Mozambique in 2011. In other words, EU restrictions hit an entire country due to perceived deficiencies in its regulatory system, not just a single airline that happens to have an outstanding safety record–until last week that is. As a consequence, LAM had to give up its Maputo to Lisbon route. Today, a TAP flight to Lisbon is the only direct flight to Europe.

This is one of the reasons why it is difficult for African airlines to be competitive on the global market–aside from lack of capital and a very small domestic customer base of businesses and affluent individuals. Governments often protect their airlines through regulatory schemes–which removes the pressures to be competitive. But heavy regulation also turns out to be a huge impediment for air travel. National airlines like LAM still have monopolies which make air travel very expensive.

LAM

Embraer ERJ-190AR of Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique at Nampula airport (2012).

Mozambique tried to escape this vicious cycle. LAM leased a Boeing 737-500 and purchased a brand-new Embraer 190–the very plane that crashed last week–in November 2012 to bring the total of planes operated by LAM to seven. At that occasion, Paulo Zucula, the Mozambican Transport and Communications Minister, announced that Mozambique’s air space was being liberalized. Just two months before, his deputy Manuela Rebelo had stated that the liberalization of Mozambique’s air space had to wait until LAM  could “receive new equipment as it is currently unable to withstand competition.” But Zucula insisted that the two new planes now satisfied this criterion and that LAM was strong enough to compete in the market. But this now is very much in question.

Reliable, safe, and inexpensive air transportation is essential for Africa’s economic development by enhancing trade relations, helping to cultivate personal ties, and promoting tourism. Distances in Africa are vast, road infrastructure often poor, and rail infrastructure spotty to largely non-existent. Air travel still is the domain of a privileged few in most African countries which has a negative impact on the mobility and productivity of their populations.

On a trip to Mozambique in 2012 I had the option of a bus ride of over 48 hours on partly unpaved roads or an expensive two-hour plane ride on LAM from Maputo to Nampula–and back to Maputo. My decision was quick and easy, and the credit card took care of the rest. But for the middle class in Mozambique, this would not have been a likely choice as the ticket was expensive even by Western standards. The flights were highly uneventful–on-time departures, professional service, perfect take-offs and landings. But then I had no idea how well the pilots were prepared for emergency situations and how well the plane was maintained.

Regardless of the cause of this plane crash, airplane safety standards in many African countries are still not up to acceptable standards, and even though the cause of the crash has not been determined at this writing this crash may have “cast fresh doubts over Africa’s aviation safety record.” But many African countries have made great efforts to improve the safety of their air transportation systems. And the US government has tried to improve the air transportation infrastructure in a number of African countries through its “Safe Skies for Africa” program, launched by President Clinton.

Most African airlines are still not ready to be exposed to competitive pressures, including competitive pricing which is a prerequisite for developing a mass market. This is why the 2012 launch of Fastjet, the first African budget carrier with a hub in Dar es Salaam and Western capital support, is a real opportunity for Africa.

Unfortunately, the crash of LAM 470 creates a setback, in terms of demonstrating a sustained safety record in Africa, in terms of capacity to raise capital for new and innovative airlines,  and in terms of developing a market for airline seats, both domestic and international. LAM always could boast an impeccable safety record. This has changed now, with potentially serious consequences for the viability of LAM and for air transportation in Africa. This is why it is perhaps a blessing in disguise that this accident went largely unnoticed in the Western world.

 

Update 12/22/13: The preliminary investigation indicates that the pilot locked himself into the cockpit when the co-pilot had temporarily stepped out and intentionally crashed the plane. While this may point to a problem with pilot screening and training, this does not change the basic thrust of my argument.