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TechnoratiStorm-Hit Haitians Starve on Rooftops
200,000 Marooned in Mud As Storm Devastates Haiti
More than 120 people have died, thousands are homeless and agriculture and transport networks have been washed away, prompting calls for emergency international aid.
![[An aerial photograph shows the flood devastation in Gonaives, Haiti. (AP Photo)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/Haiti-Flood_51394a.jpg "Haiti-Flood_51394a.jpg")
"There are a lot of people who have been on top of the roofs of their homes over 24 hours now," the interior minister, Paul Antoine Bien-Aime, told Reuters. "They have no water, no food and we can't even help them."
Haiti, vulnerable because of its flimsy dwellings and soil erosion, has been the worst affected by the tempests that have battered the Caribbean and US Gulf coast. Parts of Cuba have also been devastated, prompting Fidel Castro to compare the impact to a nuclear attack.
Tropical storm Fay started the crisis three weeks ago. Hurricane Gustav wreaked havoc last week by uprooting trees and triggering floods and mudslides that killed dozens.
Tropical storm Hanna struck on Tuesday with 65mph winds, killing at least 61 people and flooding the northern Haitian city of Gonaives with two metres of water. Corpses and the carcasses of donkeys and cows - flies swarming over them - bobbed down streets turned into rivers.
"I saw 10 bodies float in the flooded streets of the city," the police commissioner, Ernst Dorfeuille, told the local Radio Metropole.
Gonaives lies in a flat river plain between the ocean and deforested mountains that run with mud even in light rains.
With roads impassable and winds too strong for helicopters, UN peacekeepers reached the city on inflatable boats. They found hundreds of survivors clinging to rooftops, begging for water and food - women on balconies waved empty pots and spoons.
"I lost everything, even the baby's clothes," Jezula Preval, one of 1,500 people huddled in the a desolate shelter nicknamed the "Haiti Hilton", told the Associated Press. She gave birth to a healthy boy on Tuesday, after floodwaters swallowed her house.
Patients in a flooded hospital had crowded into an upper floor room. At the church about 100 people huddled on a balcony, waiting for the water to recede.
"There is no food, no water, no clothes," said the pastor, Arnaud Dumas. "I want to know what I'm supposed to do ... we haven't found anything to eat in two, three days. Nothing at all."
The UN soldiers secured a warehouse in preparation for food distribution, but could not impose order on the chaos. "It is a great movement of panic in the city," the interior minister said from an inflatable speed boat.
The US embassy in Port-au-Prince declared a disaster situation, freeing $100,000 in emergency aid, a spokeswoman, Mari Tolliver, said. She said hygiene kits, plastic sheeting and water jugs for up to 5,000 families were being sent from Miami.
Some officials feared that the toll of casualties and damage would be on a par with tropical storm Jean, which left 2,000 dead in 2004.
Cuba was also counting the cost yesterday. Officials said the onslaught from Gustav in the western province of Pinar del Rio and the Isle of Youth was equivalent to the past 14 storms combined. "There are severe damages to the electrical system. It's practically on the floor," said the vice- president, Carlos Lage. "In terms of buildings and homes, roofs are generally gone. The island is exposed to the sky."
Effective organisation minimised loss of life in Cuba, but could not save property. State media reported that 503 schools and 100,000 homes were affected. Some 3,306 tobacco curing barns were destroyed, along with thousands of tonnes of tobacco leaves, coffee and grapefruit.
Castro, the former president, said the damage was immense. "The photos and videos transmitted on national television reminded me of the desolation I saw when I visited Hiroshima."
Forecasters do not know if Ike, a category four storm advancing from the east, will make landfall. With winds of 140mph it could be disastrous. Ike is the third major hurricane of the Atlantic season, which runs from June to November.
31 Comments so far
Show AllYou're going to hate me for this.
"They have no food...." All the cats drowned ?
News flash: Our Canadian government has been sending millions$ every disaster.
Like mentioned tonight in the news, the money and food do not reach the poors and the needy. It is stopped at Haitian government level. Corruption is everywhere. Containers of clothes sent to NGOs are stopped and sold by militia for their own profit.
Most people do not remember but Haiti was invaded and occupied by the US between 1915-1934. Woodrow Wilson got us in, and FDR was secretary of the navy and had a prominent role. It was a brutal occupation. But the sugar barons and National City Bank who controlled the Haitian National Bank and it's railroads were happy,
http://www.leftgatekeepers.com/articles/Recalling1915-1934OccupationOfHaitiByBobFeldman.htm
FDR personally led US Marines into Haiti to overturn the only independent black republic besides Abyssinia, although it was unstable. FDR claimed responsibility of the atrocities that were reported in the media , but later denied responsibility.
In 1920 President Harding said "Practically all we know is that thousands of native Haitians have been killed by American Marines, and that many of our own gallant men have sacrificed their lives at the behest of an Executive department in order to establish laws drafted by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy...
In 1925, Haiti was lush, with 60% of its original forest covering the lands and mountainous regions. Since then, the population has cut down all but an estimated 2% of its original forest cover, and in the process has destroyed fertile farmland soils, contributing to desertification. Erosion has been severe in the mountainous areas. Most Haitian logging is done to produce charcoal, the country's chief source of fuel.
And of course we have another Democratic President (just saying this is not all Republican mess) in Clinton, and according the Chomsky "[he] sent the Marines to "restore democracy,"........... [but with] crucial conditions that Clinton imposed for Aristide's return: that he adopt the program of the defeated US candidate in the 1990 elections, a former World Bank official who had received 14% of the vote. We call this "restoring democracy," a prime illustration of how US foreign policy has entered a "noble phase" with a "saintly glow," the national press explained. The harsh neoliberal program that Aristide was compelled to adopt was virtually guaranteed to demolish the remaining shreds of economic sovereignty, extending Wilson 's progressive legislation and similar US-imposed measures since.
As democracy was thereby restored, the World Bank announced that "The renovated state must focus on an economic strategy centered on the energy and initiative of Civil Society, especially the private sector, both national and foreign." That has the merit of honesty: Haitian Civil Society includes the tiny rich elite and US corporations, but not the vast majority of the population, the peasants and slum-dwellers who had committed the grave sin of organizing to elect their own president. World Bank officers explained that the neoliberal program would benefit the "more open, enlightened, business class" and foreign investors, but assured us that the program "is not going to hurt the poor to the extent it has in other countries" subjected to structural adjustment, because the Haitian poor already lacked minimal protection from proper economic policy, such as subsidies for basic goods. Aristide's Minister in charge of rural development and agrarian reform was not notified of the plans to be imposed on this largely peasant society, to be returned by " America 's good wishes" to the track from which it veered briefly after the regrettable democratic election in 1990.
Matters then proceeded in their predictable course. A 1995 USAID report explained that the "export-driven trade and investment policy" that Washington imposed will "relentlessly squeeze the domestic rice farmer," who will be forced to turn to agroexport, with incidental benefits to US agribusiness and investors. Despite their extreme poverty, Haitian rice farmers are quite efficient, but cannot possibly compete with US agribusiness, even if it did not receive 40% of its profits from government subsidies, sharply increased under the Reaganites who are again in power, still producing enlightened rhetoric about the miracles of the market. We now read that Haiti cannot feed itself, another sign of a "failed state."
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20040309.htm
So do not talk to me about mans global warming causing Haitis problems. It is our imperialism and the puppets we install in Haiti, and conditions we impose that devastate their economy and environment that have caused their problems.
jclientille, I'm afraid the US considers such efforts unworthy of it's status as a superpower.
What's a few poor starving fellow humans more or less?
$100,000 for Haiti,
$10,000,000,000 for Israel
Mud pies in the dirt
_____ vs. _____
Meat pies on golden plates
.
_____ ¿ Guess who ? _____
Namaste
Everyone seems to have missed something....how about the"deforested mountaintops"....causing mud everywhere. The article mentions this. This is what is happening and also happened in New Orleans....natural barriers to floods like forests are being wiped out by opportunist logging company's, etc. Part of the problem is environmental devastation to these poorer countries...and ours too actually!!! The Corporate swine exploit every resource and the poor people suffer the consequences. Land is being left raped and then the floods come! Now the rich swine won't even pay for what they did. We the people, are left to take care of it ourselves. This is what Bush & Co. mean by killing big government. Sure....we take care of everything that THEY perpetrated upon us. That way we all go down together while THEY rise to the top and live. Great!!! Nice plan. I am furious and getting more furious!!! This whole system needs washing away!
The elites have us where they want us. Everyone working a shit job for many hours of the day, fragmented, isolated and of course the news is censored so most Americans don't even get the truth about anything. I am furious as well but, while I can vent all day long about how messed up the world is, where are the large groups of people needed to change everything that we see is wrong? Everyone is so complacent, self-centered, worried about their own ass, "getting ahead", etc., etc. Where are the people who are willing to revolt the current system we have here in this country? How do ordinary common folks band together and change their plight? Everyone here in this country just seems to have given up and I'm not sure what it's gonna take to have a change. The current politians are puppets of the elites- there are many more of us than them. Somehow, some way something's gotta give and I mean in a big way. Unfortunately, I don't think it will be in my lifetime.....people are still just too afraid I guess.
Sometimes deforestation is caused by the people themselves who cut down trees for fuel to boil water to cook the dry grains they depend on for food. This seems to be one of the main reasons for desertification along the southern Sahara.
I do not know how it came to pass that the population so exceeds the supply of fuel. Logging may have been one of the underlying causes.
I am certainly not condemning the people. They have little choice. It is just that the solution may be different depending on the cause.
Joe
Which corporations or rich were there in Haiti cutting down forests?
Southern US slaveholders.
and they somehow caused a CAT-4 hurricane in 2008? When do you think slavery ended in the US?
Here is a progressive group seeking contributions for storm-related Haitian relief:
http://www.demaction.org/dia/organizations/quixote/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1113479&t=emailweb...
Jeevee
I suggest not trusting the ARC because they allegedly threw away thousands of blood donations during another grave crisis.
I wrote "I agree with your description of how Haiti got the way it is." I do not see an edit option. I meant I agree with Usan's 3:50 post.
Joe
Jeevee
Instead of merely criticizing other (demonic) organizations, why doesn't someone tell us ordinary citizens, WHAT CAN WE DO?
You can start with "Doctors Without Borders". They are reputable, non-partisan and responsive to situations everywhere.
Joe
I think it was Thom Hartman's book, "The Last Hours of the Ancient Sunlight" that had a really great description of how lush and beautiful Haiti used to be and how it's the perfect example of what the end result of our civilization is... he described how, after Columbus showed up, it changed over time to it's current state: a bunch of mud with nothing keeping it from all just drifting into the ocean.
I wonder, has Mr. Hope mentioned this situation?
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" -Epicurus
Describing Haiti as a bunch of "mud" is a bit unfair.
I have been to Haiti - Port-au-Prince to Cap Hatien, and in-between. It still has much beauty - the highest mountains in the Antilles, lush valleys and mountain slopes, (particular in the northern parts), and beautiful beaches.
While I am sure that is a bit of a generalization for dramatic impact, and I recall it being based on what it looked like in an aerial photo or something. But, of course, I haven't been there... cool that you got to go.
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" -Epicurus
This is a Made in USA genocide going on in Haiti. The US is responsible for the coup, the UN occupation, and much of the Global Warming that puts countries like Haiti in disaster's way. And instead of sending money to help Haitians out, the US is sending a Billion to Georgia to help foment more war with Russia! Just to have sent the money spent on police and military overkill in the New Orleans area would have been a great saver of Haitian lives, but NO, the US only knows uniforms, bombs, torture, and war.
Send food, medicine, computers and contraceptives.
I know you didn't mean it this way, but remark would appear rather racist to a Hatian. And I can't figure what you mean by the computers part.
Haiti's misery has nothing to do with it's population - there are plenty of affluent nations with much higher population densities.
It has to do with neoliberal economic trade policies, World Bank/IMF "structural adjustment", and US (and earlier, French) imperilaist domination of it's affairs - particularly the US orchestrated overthrow of it's elected president Aristide, and of course, plain old western racism. Haiti never had a chance to develop it's economy under these forces.
"Haiti's misery has nothing to do with it's population - there are plenty of affluent nations with much higher population densities."
Cities have higher populations still. But they suck limited resources from other places. Haitians don't have any resources. How can they support their population?
Computers have given overpopulated countries like India a leg up.
global population is for sure a problem, and i think i'm reading too much into your comment, but this needs to be said because what you insinuated could sound like eugenics:
can't afford to support your population? (ie poor people everywhere)
well..stop having kids!
reminds me of how the US began to sterilize its poor minorities a couple decades back
I agree with your description of how Haiti got the way it is.
Joe
Me too! For an example, just look at how differently Haitians "refugees" coming by boats are treated , from Cuban "refugees"! It's ridiculous. Haiti has much more poverty adn crappy govt, thanks to US policies, as said above.
Centuries of occupation, exploitation, persecution, and installed dictaters. An economy possibly so screwed up that even neo-liberalism can't screw it up any more. Quite possibly the west's gold standard of evil for the benifit of the few. USA, FRANCE, and CANADA. I've never seen a distribution of wealth for Haiti. Probably too embarrassing to publish. The final solution will add new names to the list. FAY, GUSTAV, HANNA, and IKE.
I did not know this. Centuries of occupation, exploitation, blah blah blah produce CAT 4 Hurricanes? Wow. You learn something new each day reading this site.
Why can't someone fly small planes and helicopters there and drop food and water? Or are they all tied up shooting wolves and bears? If the US governement won't, how about Cuba, Venezuela, the UN, NGOs or private citizens? Let's see who will step up to the plate.
As for the future - I would like to see someone like Jimmy Carter organize a group of architects and builders to design and build hurricane-resistant and flood-proof houses for Haiti and other vulnerable places like Bangladesh and the Gulf Coast. Then of course, perhaps, we should stop interfering in their government so Haiti can find a way to prepare for disasters and not always be the sorriest place in which to be poor.
Joe
While not as badly hit as Haiti, Cuba suffered badly from Hurricane damage. She has her own wounds to tend.
Crafty
This is the only thing I have seen, so far, on any left-leaning blogs , about the hurricane in -Cuba and Haite. That is shameful. It would suit the candidates well to mention it, but they barely even mention New Orleans, Miss. , etc. The hurricane was not as bad this time, but FEMA and teh Red Cross are still asking for "donations" adn doing telethons--we already fund FEMA with OUR TAXES!! This should NOT have to be a "charitable cause"! Charity and "faith based initiatives" are just an excuse for govt to excuse itself from its responsibilities to its citizens. All those rich people in St. Paul, and the best they could come up with was $3 million?? WE have given these people (including most of our politicians) GIANT subsidies and tax cuts. NO alone needs $60 million.I say we take it out of Dubya's ass! We need to STOP the Cuban embargo (something neither candidate sems wiling to do), and STOP taking out elected leaders in Haiti (whether they mesh with our govt's capitalistic plan or not!) and make these rich-ass, susidized Americans pay their fair share, for a change! This is a disgrace.