Haiti Earthquake Coverage

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: Haiti Earthquake Coverage

Here is an on-topic question (after having wasted everybody's time with unrelated popular culture):

A lot of the problems faced by Haiti seem to stem from weak and/or corrupt government (as is the case, I think, in many poorer post-colonial countries). At least, a strong government could enforce land use policies and try to educate its citizens; a less corrupt government would better marshall what resources Haiti does possess. I have wondered for many years what the solution can be. If the problem is bad government, how can the developed world assist countries like Haiti in a lasting way without resorting to some form of the colonialism that helped create the problem in the first place?

Have you considered that there probably is no answer? I doubt there is an answer.

[aaron]

Re: Haiti Earthquake Coverage

Here is an on-topic question (after having wasted everybody's time with unrelated popular culture):

A lot of the problems faced by Haiti seem to stem from weak and/or corrupt government (as is the case, I think, in many poorer post-colonial countries). At least, a strong government could enforce land use policies and try to educate its citizens; a less corrupt government would better marshall what resources Haiti does possess. I have wondered for many years what the solution can be. If the problem is bad government, how can the developed world assist countries like Haiti in a lasting way without resorting to some form of the colonialism that helped create the problem in the first place?

Your question was discussed on NPR a bit. I think Haiti has been a money-sink for some time and world aid agencies were discouraged before the earthquake. The government sounded pretty corrupt (I only half-listen while driving).

Somebody mentioned the fact that agriculture and farming are unprofitable because of cheap imports. So, the locals can't even make a living growing food. The U.S. government finances & subsidizes agribusiness to the detriment of small farms across the planet. Then, the U.S. government provides aid to the same people that have been driven out of business by U.S. government policies. First, destroy the local agriculture, then control the population with food & threat of starvation.

[oddlots]

Re: Haiti Earthquake Coverage

Does anyone know what the Aristide story was? I can't remember anymore but I seem to recall that he became the target of American ire for his apparent socialism.

So "strong government" doesn't seem to be an option that's tolerable.

I don't mean to suggest that Haiti's problems are caused by the US but it does seem kind of naive to think that the west is capable of the sort of disinterested involvement that in theory would be required to bring some normality to such a troubled place.

My impression of the overarching theme of US involvement in the southern half of the Americas is not one of solving any real problems at all. The intent seems to be to not let "threats" develop. If this means keeping these countries destabilized and unable to solve their problems, well, that's another way of spelling success.

Kind of reminds me of Pakistan's attitude toward Afghanistan honestly.

I don't of course mean this to reflect whatsoever on the hugely admirable "banking" (as Blankfein would have it) going on in Haiti at the moment. But things get more complicated after triage.

[BiscayneSunrise]

Re: Haiti Earthquake Coverage

Does anyone know what the Aristide story was? I can't remember anymore but I seem to recall that he became the target of American ire for his apparent socialism.

So "strong government" doesn't seem to be an option that's tolerable.

I don't mean to suggest that Haiti's problems are caused by the US but it does seem kind of naive to think that the west is capable of the sort of disinterested involvement that in theory would be required to bring some normality to such a troubled place.

Aristide was a Catholic priest involved in liberation theology, i.e socialism. After the fall of the Duvalier regime in 1986, the various political factions were vying to become the next dynasty. Aristides political activism led him to the presidency. Like most populist socialist leaders, his presidency just led a different set of elites sucking the lifeblood from the economy and to an even more precipitous decline in the Haitian fortunes.

A military coup overthrew Aristide and it was the Clinton administration using considerable diplomatic and military force convinced the military to return Aristide to power. (Colin Powell, a military officer with roots in Jamaica and highly respected by the Haitian military was personally appealing the the Haitian generals at the same time the USAF C-130's were enroute to Haiti with airborne troops ready to overthrow the military junta.)

As a matter of interest and trivia, Aristide was booted out of the priesthood by the Vatican and is now a college professor in S Africa. The current president of Haiti was Aristides' prime minister.

[ciaoant1]

Re: Haiti Earthquake Coverage

Haiti was a nation of farmers, but thanks to the strings attached to U.S. aid, government policies made profitable farming unprofitable. So the farmers were pushed to the cities to provide a cheap manufacturing labor force. All those people you see on the TV in their shattered shantytowns? We helped put them there. With exploitative loans and yes, even a classic CIA-backed coup, we"we' obviously meaning "the oligarchs" helped create this mess.

The noble "international community" which is currently scrambling to send its "humanitarian aid" to Haiti is largely responsible for the extent of the suffering it now aims to reduce. Ever since the US invaded and occupied the country in 1915, every serious political attempt to allow Haiti's people to move (in former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's phrase) "from absolute misery to a dignified poverty" has been violently and deliberately blocked by the US government and some of its allies.

Aristide's own government (elected by some 75% of the electorate) was the latest victim of such interference, when it was overthrown by an internationally sponsored coup in 2004 that killed several thousand people and left much of the population smouldering in resentment. The UN has subsequently maintained a large and enormously expensive stabilisation and pacification force in the country.

Haiti is now a country where, according to the best available study, around 75% of the population "lives on less than $2 per day, and 56% – four and a half million people – live on less than $1 per day". Decades of neoliberal "adjustment" and neo-imperial intervention have robbed its government of any significant capacity to invest in its people or to regulate its economy. Punitive international trade and financial arrangements ensure that such destitution and impotence will remain a structural fact of Haitian life for the foreseeable future.

It is this poverty and powerlessness that account for the full scale of the horror in Port-au-Prince today. Since the late 1970s, relentless neoliberal assault on Haiti's agrarian economy has forced tens of thousands of small farmers into overcrowded urban slums. Although there are no reliable statistics, hundreds of thousands of Port-au-Prince residents now live in desperately sub-standard informal housing, often perched precariously on the side of deforested ravines. The selection of the people living in such places and conditions is itself no more "natural" or accidental than the extent of the injuries they have suffered.

As Brian Concannon, the director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, points out: "Those people got there because they or their parents were intentionally pushed out of the countryside by aid and trade policies specifically designed to create a large captive and therefore exploitable labour force in the cities; by definition they are people who would not be able to afford to build earthquake resistant houses." Meanwhile the city's basic infrastructure – running water, electricity, roads, etc – remains woefully inadequate, often non-existent. The government's ability to mobilise any sort of disaster relief is next to nil.

The international community has been effectively ruling Haiti since the 2004 coup. The same countries scrambling to send emergency help to Haiti now, however, have during the last five years consistently voted against any extension of the UN mission's mandate beyond its immediate military purpose. Proposals to divert some of this "investment" towards poverty reduction or agrarian development have been blocked, in keeping with the long-term patterns that continue to shape the distribution of international "aid".

The same storms that killed so many in 2008 hit Cuba just as hard but killed only four people. Cuba has escaped the worst effects of neoliberal "reform", and its government retains a capacity to defend its people from disaster. If we are serious about helping Haiti through this latest crisis then we should take this comparative point on board. Along with sending emergency relief, we should ask what we can do to facilitate the self-empowerment of Haiti's people and public institutions. If we are serious about helping we need to stop trying to control Haiti's government, to pacify its citizens, and to exploit its economy. And then we need to start paying for at least some of the damage we've already done.

Here's Naomi Klein, the author of "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," speaking Wednesday night at the Ethical Culture Society to warn us against it happening again (video):
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madr...saster-capital

[oddlots]

Re: Haiti Earthquake Coverage

Aristide was a Catholic priest involved in liberation theology, i.e socialism. After the fall of the Duvalier regime in 1986, the various political factions were vying to become the next dynasty. Aristides political activism led him to the presidency. Like most populist socialist leaders, his presidency just led a different set of elites sucking the lifeblood from the economy and to an even more precipitous decline in the Haitian fortunes.

A military coup overthrew Aristide and it was the Clinton administration using considerable diplomatic and military force convinced the military to return Aristide to power. (Colin Powell, a military officer with roots in Jamaica and highly respected by the Haitian military was personally appealing the the Haitian generals at the same time the USAF C-130's were enroute to Haiti with airborne troops ready to overthrow the military junta.)

As a matter of interest and trivia, Aristide was booted out of the priesthood by the Vatican and is now a college professor in S Africa. The current president of Haiti was Aristides' prime minister.

thanks again.

cough - doesn't really fit my prejudices too well does it.

[Rajiv]

Re: Haiti Earthquake Coverage

Also the reasons why Aristide was expelled. From a biography

In particular, Aristide denounced the Duvaliers, a family of Haitians who had been in power since the late 1950s. Until the family was overthrown in 1986, both François "Papa Doc" Duvalier (1907–1971) and his son Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" (1951–), ruled the country through military might. "Papa Doc" created a private army, known as the Tontons Macoutes, whose sole purpose was to rid the country of all opposition. Anyone suspected of opposing the Duvaliers was bullied, kidnapped, or murdered. The army also swept the streets, robbing and killing at random. The people of Haiti lived in constant terror. The majority of them also lived in squalor, since the Duvaliers and their followers, who made up about ten percent of the population, controlled all the wealth.

The Duvaliers, and the military governments that came after them, felt threatened by Aristide. He was a charismatic man, whose kind heart was apparent to the hundreds of people who crowded his church services. He was also being heard across the country, since his sermons were broadcast on the Roman Catholic station, Radio Soleil. As a result, the number of Aristide's followers was growing by the thousands. In addition, Aristide's sermons were starting to become more radical, as he called for the masses to rise up and claim their rights. Although the tiny priest did not condone violence as a means for change, he did not discourage it, either. As a matter of fact, Aristide was known for quoting a certain passage from the Bible: "And he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one" (Luke 22: 36).

The military rulers demanded that the Catholic Church stop Aristide from stirring up the Haitian people. When church leaders were unable to do so, the Tontons stepped in. Several attempts were made on Aristide's life, and on September 11, 1988, his church was attacked while he was saying mass. More than a dozen people were killed, over seventy were seriously wounded, and St. Jean Bosco was burned to the ground. Two weeks later, Aristide was expelled from the Salesian Order and the Vatican (the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Rome) ordered him to transfer out of Haiti.

Following the attacks, Aristide's followers became more loyal than ever. They viewed him as a true holy man, a prophet who would lead them out of their misery. And because he had escaped death over and over, they called him "Mister Miracles." When news got out that Aristide was going to be transferred, tens of thousands of Haitians stormed the streets in what would become the largest demonstration in Haiti's history. They physically blocked access to the airport, forcing Aristide to remain in the country. Aristide stayed and continued to help the poor, even though he had no official church. He helped create a medical center, ran a halfway house for young runaways, and established workshops so that people could become skilled craftsmen.

Read more: Jean-Bertrand Aristide Biography - life, family, children, parents, death, history, school, young, son http://www.notablebiographies.com/ne...#ixzz0cnKwy5ym

[KGW]

Re: Haiti Earthquake Coverage



Uh-oh. . .Now the Haitians have to worry about REAL sharks in the waters.

[ocelotl]

Re: Haiti Earthquake Coverage

I've personally made a relationship to better grasp the magnitude of the damage in Haiti.
First assumption was to compare with the most at hand disaster I've been through, and it turns out to be Mexico City September 19th 1985 Earthquake. In population, Haiti can compare with the 15 million inhabitants that we were at that time here. In physical damage and casualties, it may turn to 10 times our earthquake, and in Economy size, I'm calculating Haiti economy before the earthquake to be a tenth of the size of Mexico City economy by 1985.

I cannot imagine a succesful effort to rebuild Haiti other than organizing and training Haitians to do the rebuilding themselves, and even then, we are talking about a months long ewmergency and years long rebuilding.

[KGW]

Who is in charge of the airport?

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org...se.cfm?id=4176

Doctors Without Borders Plane with Lifesaving Medical Supplies Diverted Again from Landing in Haiti

Patients in Dire Need of Emergency Care Dying from Delays in Arrival of Medical Supplies
Port-au-Prince, January 19, 2010 – A Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) cargo plane carrying 12 tons of medical equipment, including drugs, surgical supplies and two dialysis machines, was turned away three times from Port-au-Prince airport since Sunday night despite repeated assurances of its ability to land there. This 12-ton cargo was part of the contents of an earlier plane carrying a total of 40 tons of supplies that was blocked from landing on Sunday morning. Since January 14, MSF has had five planes diverted from the original destination of Port-au-Prince to the Dominican Republic. These planes carried a total of 85 tons of medical and relief supplies.

“We have had five patients in Martissant health center die for lack of the medical supplies that this plane was carrying,” said Loris de Filippi, emergency coordinator for the MSF’s Choscal Hospital in Cite Soleil. “I have never seen anything like this. Any time I leave the operating theater I see lots of people desperately asking to be taken for surgery. Today, there are 12 people who need lifesaving amputations at Choscal Hospital. We were forced to buy a saw in the market to continue amputations. We are running against time here.”

More than 500 patients in need of surgery have been transferred from MSF health center in the Martissant neighborhood to Choscal Hospital with more than 230 operated on since Thursday. MSF teams have been working since the first hours after the earthquake and these cargo shipments are vital to continue their ability to provide essential medical care to victims of the disaster. In five different locations in the city, MSF has given primary care to an estimated 3,000 people in the capital and performed more than 400 surgeries.

“It is like working in a war situation,” said Rosa Crestani, MSF medical coordinator for Choscal Hospital. “We don’t have any more morphine to manage pain for our patients. We cannot accept that planes carrying lifesaving medical supplies and equipment continue to be turned away while our patients die. Priority must be given to medical supplies entering the country.”

Many of the patients have been pulled from the rubble of collapsed buildings are at grave risk of death from septicemia and the consequences of “crush syndrome,” a condition where damaged muscle tissue releases toxins into the bloodstream and can lead to death from kidney failure. Dialysis machines are vital to keeping patients alive with this condition.

Another two planes carrying a total of 26 MSF aid workers were diverted to Dominican Republic. MSF has successfully landed five planes with a total of 135 tons of supplies into Port-au-Prince. Another 195 tons of supplies will need to be granted permission to land in the airport in the coming days in order to continue MSF’s scale up of its medical relief operation in Haiti.

More than 700 MSF staff are working to provide emergency medical care to earthquake survivors in and around Port-au-Prince. MSF teams are currently working in Choscal Hospital, Martissant Health Center, Trinite Hospital, Carrefour hospital, Jacmel Hospital, and are establishing a 100-bed inflatable hospital in the Delmas area. They are running exploratory assessment missions to other locations outside the capital as well.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Who is in charge of the airport?

A Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) cargo plane carrying 12 tons of medical equipment, including drugs, surgical supplies and two dialysis machines, was turned away three times from Port-au-Prince airport since Sunday night despite repeated assurances of its ability to land there.

I wonder why -- both what's the official excuse and what's the real reason (if that differs, which ThisCynicalCow presumes it does.)

[jpatter666]

Re: Who is in charge of the airport?

I wonder why -- both what's the official excuse and what's the real reason (if that differs, which ThisCynicalCow presumes it does.)

I'll ask, but there probably *is* an explanation. My wife (who has been to Haiti multiple times and volunteers as a medical translator in the Dominican each year) tells me the the capital is essentially leveled and with so much aid trying to reach the country I imagine there are constant screwups in priority.

She posted this recently - FYI and snide comments to /dev/null.

Myths of Disaster Relief



One of our jobs as aid workers is to address myths about disaster relief among the American public. Feel free to link to this note on your FB page to get the word out.

Myth #1. "Collecting blankets, shoes and clothing is a cost-effective way to help"
The cost of shipping these items from around the country – let alone the time it takes to sort, pack and ship them – is prohibitive and entails much higher cost than the value of the goods themselves. World Vision has relief supplies already stocked in disaster-prone countries as well as in strategically located warehouses around the world. World Vision had supplies pre-positioned in Haiti in preparation for hurricane season, which allowed the agency to respond immediately to last week’s earthquake.

These supplies are designed to meet international standards for humanitarian relief and are packaged up and ready to deploy as soon as a crisis strikes. Cash donations are the best, most cost-efficient way to help aid groups deliver these life-saving supplies quickly, purchase supplies close to the disaster zone when possible and replenish their stocks in preparation for future disasters.

Myth #2. "If I send cash, my help won’t get there"
Reputable agencies send 80 percent or more of cash donations to the disaster site; the rest is invested in monitoring, reporting and other activities that facilitate transparency and efficiency in their operations, as well as in sharing information with those who can help. Donors have a right and a responsibility to ask aid groups how they will be using those donations, and what will be done with donations raised in excess of the need. Transparent and effective organizations will readily provide that information.

Myth #3. "Volunteers are desperately needed in emergency situations"
While hands-on service may feel like a better way to help in a crisis, disaster response is a highly technical and sensitive effort. Professionals with specialized skills and overseas disaster experience should deployed to disaster sites. Volunteers without those skills can do more harm than good, and siphon off critical logistics and translations services. Qualified disaster professionals ensure that help is delivered effectively, safely and efficiently.

Myth #4. "Unaccompanied children should be adopted as quickly as possible to get them out of dangerous conditions"
Hearing about the specific needs of children often sparks a desire to adopt children who seem to have lost their families. However, early in a crisis, children need to be protected, but should remain in their home countries until authorities can confirm the locations of their family members and explore adoption possibilities within their own communities and cultures. International adoption may be the best solution for some children, but it is too early to know for sure in the first weeks of a crisis.

Myth #5. "People are helpless in the face of natural disasters"
Even in the poorest countries like Haiti, people often reveal a great deal of inner strength and often show a resourcefulness that can save lives... While support and aid are necessary, the Haitian people are by no means helpless.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Who is in charge of the airport?

I'll ask, but there probably *is* an explanation

Thanks. .

[jpatter666]

Re: Haiti Earthquake Coverage

Didn't find out anything beyond what was already on the nets as regards to the Doctors without Borders plane.

For what it's worth, looks like my wife will be heading to Haiti this coming week to help structure the financial assistance.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Haiti Earthquake Coverage

Didn't find out anything beyond what was already on the nets as regards to the Doctors without Borders plane.

For what it's worth, looks like my wife will be heading to Haiti this coming week to help structure the financial assistance.

Thanks for the update. I wish your wife well in her efforts.