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Haiti, Six Months After the Earthquake
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - July 12 marked the six-month anniversary of the devastating earthquake here in Haiti that killed as many as 300,000 people and left much of the country in ruins. Up to 1.8 million people are living in squalid tent cities, with inadequate sanitation, if any, no electricity and little security, or any respite from the intense heat and the worsening rains. Rape, hunger and despair are constant threats to the people stranded in the camps. Six months ago, the world seemed united with commitments to help Haiti recover. Now, half a year later, the rubble remains in place, and misery blankets the camps, layered with heat, drenched by rain.
After landing in Haiti, we traveled to one of the more than 1,350 refugee camps, Camp Corail. It is right near Titanyen, which was used as a dumping ground for bodies during the first coup against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and which, after the earthquake, was used for makeshift mass graves.
Corail is on a flat expanse of white gravel, with orderly rows of tents. During the day, the camp becomes searingly hot, with no trees for protection.
Corail resident Romain Arius told me: "In the situation we're living here in the tents, we can't continue like that anymore. We would ask them as soon as possible to give us the real houses that they said they were going to give us so that our situation could improve."
Soon after we left, we heard that a storm collapsed at least 94 tents and sent hundreds of residents fleeing to find shelter.
Haitians are angry, questioning where the billions of dollars donated in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake have gone. The Disaster Accountability Project found that of the 197 organizations that solicited money following the earthquake, only six had publicly available reports detailing their activities.
From the "international donor community," the wealthier nations, more than $9 billion was pledged, but to date, only Brazil, Norway and Australia have paid in full. Most of the U.S. pledge of $1.15 billion is now being held up in Congress.
Patrick Elie, a longtime Haitian democracy activist and Haiti's former secretary of state for public security, spoke with me, about land ownership and the earthquake's enormous toll:
"Land tenure in Haiti is in total chaos. This is also the result of the behavior of the Haitian elites over centuries. They appropriated land, especially after independence and the end of slavery, which would have been common property. And now, there is a lot of discussion about who owns what piece of land."
Elie said that in this time of emergency that gives the government the power of eminent domain, the key question is whose land will be seized-communal land that peasants have used for centuries, or the vast tracts of land owned by the elites.
I also spoke with Sean Penn. The two-time Oscar-winning actor came to Haiti after the earthquake. Having just been through a medical crisis with his own teenage son, who underwent major surgery, he was horrified at the stories he was hearing about the amputations being performed in Haiti without anesthesia. Penn founded the J/P Haitian Relief Organization (jphro.org) and has been in Haiti for five of the past six months, managing a refugee camp at the Petionville Club golf course with 55,000 Haitians displaced by the earthquake. Sitting in a large tent, Penn was frustrated. Comparing the U.S. resources being spent in Afghanistan (which he called "a ludicrous exercise") with the U.S. spending in Haiti, he said, "You have a war here, you've got a surge coming with storms, but no face to hate, no country to rail at, no natural resources, and the faces here are black."
Penn says J/P HRO will be in Haiti for the long haul: "We plan to adapt, to adjust. I think our next major new push for us will be rubble removal and working with partners to get people returned into neighborhoods and to again work with partners. Take camp management into community management and advocacy."
Patrick Elie advocates for popular Haitian leadership in the reconstruction: "We are a people who can fend for ourselves. We have a vision of where we want to go. So we do need friends, but we don't need people to think for us, or to pity us."
According to The Washington Post, only 2 percent of promised reconstruction aid has been delivered. The hurricane season is upon Haiti, and millions there are counting on all of us making good on our pledges.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
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Show AllHow reassuring that former President Clinton is in charge knowing that before the earthquake he had been promoting Haiti as America's sweatshop.
Right after the earthquake when donations were pouring in we Americans congratulated ourselves on how generous we are. Six months later not much to show for all that generosity. Instead the tenets of disaster capitalism have set in, which for desperately poor societies include allowing (better, enabling) a thinning of the population so as to eliminate the sick, the old, the disabled, the unskilled and the rebellious. All this with little or no media coverage. Not just in Haiti, here in America too - New Orleans, post-Katrina; Detroit, post-auto industry collapse with many other heavily black/brown communities to follow, should natural or manmade catastrophes bring them down. What's it about? Extreme class war, that's what. And the answer? Our rising up en masse and changing the world.
This is exactly why I did not donate to this cause. It seems like this always happened; the middle people cause red tape so that it does not get distributed as promised. It happened during the aftermath of Katrina. And now it is happening again in Haiti.
I am heartbroken about what is going on there and wish that my health allowed me to go there and give donations in person. They need the stuff directly, just as what Sean Penn did. He is part of the solution.
I too learned the hard way (from Hurricane Katrina) not to donate to the "mainstream" charities such as American Red Cross. I did donate to Doctors Without Borders, though I have no idea if the money got where it should have in Haiti. (I remember reading how frustrated the doctors were that the U.S. military was not letting them into the neighborhoods because it was too "dangerous".)
In addition, I donate to the Haiti Clinic (http://haiticlinic.org), a nonprofit in Florida that has been providing medical care in Haiti for some years now. I know the doctor who runs it, and I know for a fact that the money goes directly to help the Haitians.
It sickens me that millions of dollars in donations were made to help the Haitians, but none of the aid is getting through.
I initially donated to Doctors Without Borders too, and I don't know how to check how good a job they are doing. I haven't heard anything bad about them. They did phone spam me, and when I requested they not call me at home (a number I do not give out when I make donations), the person argued with me and suggested if nothing else I would be keeping her employed. I hung up rather than point out I was hoping to employ some doctors in Haiti...
I thought Amy Goodman's coverage of Haiti this week has been outstanding, and her interview with Sean Penn particularly interesting. I did go make a donation to his charity after that. And to DemocracyNow! as well.
The Sean Penn interview is at:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/13/sean_penn_on_haiti_six_months
and his charity for Haiti is:
http://jphro.org/
Not to worry, the IMF and the WTO will hear about the need and devote all the resources needed to aid and rebuild.
Australia, Norway, and Brazil should be proud of their integrity. Those countries that haven't, like the US, should be headlined by internet, tv, and newspaper sources. How much was pledged, those responsible for the delay...and why, and then given a date when the funds will be transferred in full to Hatian authorities. If it's not, those who are still sitting on it should be immediately sent to Haiti and not allowed to leave until they've done the work, using their hands, influence, and staying in tents...or the money's sent. Yeah, I think the entire Congress needs a 'vacation'. I'm tired of dealing with a broken government, whether it's Haiti, Katrina, the Gulf, the wars, unemployment. Send 'em all on their fat asses in an AF cargo plane and wave goodbye.
Haiti is Nafta to Slick Willie Clinton.
Democracy Now! is the best offering of the "Progressive" Media. But to "progressives" Haiti is but another human tragedy which have no connection to any of the other crises facing humanity.
The stream of crises, unconnected to each other, never connected to the deeper crisis that is the root cause of these many crises: the 30 year decline and now collapse of U.S. capitalism.
This never fact of life is never mentioned or explored. Every crisis is due to either a greedy, evil person or corporation. Or perhaps President Bush is the fault, so all we had to do is elect Obama President and give the Democrats control of Congress.
Instead of understanding of root causes, from Democracy Now! all we get, when we consider the whole range of crises discussed, is the notion that "The Sky is Falling".
But we are facing the SYSTEMIC FAILURE of the CAPITALIST SYSTEM with many specific symptoms and crises! CAPITALISM IS FOREVER UNABLE TO MEET THE BASIC ECONOMIC NEEDS OF THE VAST MAJORITY OF HUMANITY.
Read the full Perspective article from the World Socialist Web Site, home page http://www.wsws.org
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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jul2010/pers-j13.shtml
Six months since the earthquake
American imperialism and the Haitian catastrophe
13 July 2010
The six-month anniversary of the earthquake that destroyed much of Haiti was observed Monday, with media coverage admitting there has been virtually no progress in rebuilding the devastated country or rehousing the 1.5 million made homeless by the worst natural disaster of the new century.
The US government gave only the most perfunctory notice to the anniversary. Obama mentioned Haiti in passing in the course of a brief press appearance with the visiting president of the Dominican Republic, the country that shares the island of Hispaniola.
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continued
So, it is true that the NWO is depopulating the Earth. It is obvious. Katrina and rebuilding effort, Haiti rebuild effort, BP (largest supplier to the Pentagon) kills the gulf coast economy and then puts them on their pay-role (as long as they agree not to sue or to talk to the press). Get them totally dependent. Soon the gloves will come off and Social Security checks will be reduced to below usefulness.
But things are looking good for the British as the demand for luxury items goes up. Communist China can't get enough Rolls-Royces.
The second American Revolution, or will Iran step up to the rescue and reduce the wealthy through depopulation? Could happen,