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Nine Months After the Quake – A Million Haitians Slowly Dying
"If it gets any worse," said Wilda, a homeless Haitian mother, "we're not going to survive." Mothers and grandmothers surrounding her nodded solemnly.
We are in a broiling "tent" with a group of women trying to raise their families in a public park. Around the back of the Haitian National Palace, the park hosts a regal statute of Alexandre Petion in its middle. It is now home to five thousand people displaced by the January 2010 earthquake.
Nine months after the quake, over a million people are still homeless in Haiti.
Haiti looks like the quake could have been last month. I visited Port au Prince shortly after the quake and much of the destruction then looks the same nine months later.
The Associated Press reports only 2 percent of the rubble has been removed and only 13,000 temporary shelters have been constructed. Not a single cent of the US aid pledged for rebuilding has arrived in Haiti. In the last few days the US pledged it would put up 10% of the billion dollars in reconstruction aid promised. Only 15 percent of the aid pledged by countries and organizations around the world has reached the country so far.
With other human rights advocates from CCR, MADRE, CUNY Law School, BAI and the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, I am huddled under faded gray tarps stamped US Aid. Blue tarps staked into the ground as walls. This is not even the hot season but the weather reports the heat index is 115.
The floor is bare dirt, soft from a recent rain. Our guide works with a vibrant grassroots women's organization, KOFAVIV, which is working with women in many camps, and she encourages residents to tell us their stories.
Anne has seven children. She would really love to have a tent. She and her family live on a small plot of dirt eight feet by eight feet. Sheets are tied to pieces of wood to keep out the sun. Plastic sheeting covers the ground. When it rains everything they have is soaked. She begs every day for food.
Therese has three children, 12, 11, and 9. She has lived in the camps since the quake. A few weeks ago when she went to get a bucket of water, some men grabbed her and raped her. Before the quake she worked as a street vendor but has no money to buy supplies to sell. She prays all day every day for help.
Caroline lived with her husband and three children in an apartment in downtown Port au Prince. The quake took her husband and left the rest of the family homeless. She was raped in the first camp she settled in. When she moved she was raped again and fought back with KOFAVIV. She and other women set up their own security with whistles and flashlights to protect each other. They push the police to arrest. Her life is now in danger because the rapists know who she is and she is vulnerable.
We hear from dozens of other mothers and grandmothers - Alana, Beatrice, Celine, Marcie, Rene, Wilda and others. This is what they tell us.
There is no electricity at all in the camps. Some have lights on poles that work some of the time. Many have no lights at all.
There is no food. The children are terribly hungry. The food aid program was terminated in April and nothing took its place. The authorities cut off the food so people would leave the camps, but where is there to go?
Water is hard to find. For the people in Petion park, water is delivered by truck to a central site a block or two away in the middle of several camps. Thousands of people line up twice a day to get water before it runs out. In another camp we visited Sunday, Camp Kasim, there was no water at all for hundreds of families and none scheduled to be delivered until Monday at the earliest. Boys and girls surged around a pipe several blocks away trying to capture some water in Oxfam marked buckets.
People are coughing, sniffling, and their eyes watering. Quiet babies are the norm. Many have skin rashes and vaginal infections. There are several volunteer clinics but usually only the very sickest are seen because so many people need help. The biggest camps now have some toilets but not enough. Drainage is a big problem especially now during the rainy season.
Children cannot be kept in the suffocating tents. They play in the muddy paths. They would love to return to school but there is no money.
Security is a huge problem. Less than a dozen of the thousand plus camps have official security at night. During the day the police may come around or maybe the heavily armed MINUSTAH UN forces will patrol. But at night security forces vanish. With little or no light at night, tens of thousands of unguarded sheet structures and canvas walls offer thieves and gangs an inviting target. Violence against women and girls is widespread. Women who go to the latrines at night are attacked. Some women talk of carrying rape babies. Others will do anything for the crudest abortion. When they go to the police and ask them to investigate, officers demand money for gas. Even those who pay the police usually end up frustrated. There is a sense of impunity.
There are an estimated 1300 "camps" of homeless people in Haiti. Homeless people live literally everywhere. People are camped in the middle of many streets. Shanty structures are built right up to the edge of streets. Every park, every school yard, every parking lot appear to have people living under sheets or lean to tents.
The most fortunate families live in modest plastic tents. The newest tents are royal blue with red flags with yellow stars on them - donated in the last week from China. Less fortunate families, and there are many of them, live under faded sheets stretched between wooden poles made from tree branches. Within the camps there are dirt paths - some only inches wide. Tents and sheet shelters are side by side - inches apart.
Evictions are starting. Churches are pushing people off their property. Schools which are reopening are turning off the water to the people camped in the ball fields. Some in authority are openly saying that people must be forced out the camps. But only 13,000 temporary structures have been built and they are far away from family, school, jobs and healthcare. There is no place to go.
The UN, which effectively runs Haiti with the Haitians and the US, holds meetings nearly every day to coordinate responses to dozens of issues like security, food, water, reconstruction, and gender violence. Human rights advocates in Port au Prince complain that no meetings are conducted in Kreyol, the language of the Haitian people.
Yet there is hope. The Haitian mothers and grandmothers we heard from are fighting for their lives. KOFAVIV and BAI and other grassroots human rights groups are speaking out, demonstrating, educating the people in the camps, and working together for social justice.
During a torrential downpour Saturday, dozens gathered on folding chairs under the front porch overhang of BAI to work on how to get the US, the UN, Haiti and the NGOs to do their jobs.
Together the people have a chance. As one woman who works against violence told us, "If there is one woman and one man, maybe the man will win. But if the woman uses whistles to alert other women and gets other women to show up, maybe the man will see he is going to lose and will run away."
Meanwhile, Wilda and a million other Haitians are slowly dying from starvation, illness, lack of security and neglect. Nine months after the quake.
Bill wrote this article from Port au Prince with help from Laura Raymond and Sunita Patel.
36 Comments so far
Show AllI'm afraid it's more sinister than that. There are resources, including very cheap labor, but it's taking a little time for the fascists to get organized to exploit it -- and that's why no aid has been delivered yet; it will, to the fascists, when the time is right. In the meantime money to many NGOs is being put in the bank for the interest.
It all comes down to how to make maximum profit and siphon off the most money to the capitalists.
The world's attention mirrors the attention here. An article about gay rights generates more interest than the Haitian's problems.
It's amazing how everyone wanted the US out of Haiti and now wants to blame us for being gone as the violence escalates.
Its also strange to call the US out when so many other country's have done far less and not lived up to their "pledges" nearly as much.
Time to stop the play acting and call things by their proper name.
This isn't about the US, it's about the Haitians. You're so bloody self centred.
and quit your whinging and carrying on like you're the victim here, it's embarrassing
Anyway, take away the amount spent on military and how much has the US actually done?
Well said. It's always about his team (the poor, courageous, self-sacrificing, heroic, etc. military).
The US Army sprayed bacteria in New York City in the fifties with no legal authority. They came back ten years later and performed another operation. That little mess is coming to light now.
So I ask you, what do you think the US was REALLY doing in Haiti? Wait 40 years and you might find out. I fear for the Haitian people.
The military have contingency plans for just about anything imaginable. They have scientists anxious to 'test' things (weapons, bacteria, psyop techniques, etc.) on human groups which are in a stress state due to some catastrophe. They study this shit. These planners are worse than the kid that likes to pull the wings off of flies. Of course a large portion of the soldiers know nothing about these dr. strangelove plans and are even used as guinea pigs only to die slowly later on from from DU or agent orange or some other heinous military weapon by-product.
This is how you can tell mightymite is a propagandist. When he addresses these blatant injustices he always ridicules them as an anomaly, not a military modus operandi. He won't admit this stuff has never stopped going on. And I'll bet he knows a lot more than he'll ever tell.
http://www.corbettreport.com/
These planners /are/ the kid that likes to pull the wings off of flies. They just "grew up."
Oh Frank, how can you even ask such a question? From its inception this country has been drenched in blood.
There aren't many places or times that haven't been.
Certainly it has.
How blind can you be? The US sent in military to secure sites of interest to the US. They were not there to help Haitians. Same procedure as in New Orleans, Irak, Af-Pak. The US actively blocked access of aiplanes with food and equipment, deliberatley creating a very small bottleneck in the stream of supplies. the Haitians were denied by the US any help or sustenance. The US military was in there to protect their man, Preval, who also did nothing but collect graft.
Remember, the US military was also in there not too long ago, in order to reverse a legitimately held democratic election and dump the elected man, Aristide, in Africa. The US is working to prevent the creation of a system of governemnt and economics that might challenge all the neocon ideology that's impoverished Haiti and is now impoverishing the US.
Full-bore dopes. Clinton is king of Haiti now, and he'll make sure nothing good happens there. He'll let them all die in the mud.
You can drop the delusion that the US is the most generous and the most helpful to other poor benighted countries begging to be taught "democracy".The US has a history of going into countries and ripping up the system in place in order to set up capitalist-miltarist garrison slave states under the thumb of the worst the US has to offer. Farm and factory slavery on a global scale. Some democracy. Nothing the US has touched since 1944 has ever been improved. Nothing. Not ven Israel, the only country that actually gets billions of your precious tax dollars to keep their arms industry prosperous.
Gaaahhhh!
The US is not out of Haiti: The aid is out of Haiti.
Had the US done less - not blocked the airport, not militarized the response - more aid would have gotten into Haiti, and in a more timely manner, so that less would be needed altogether.
Compare the circumstances with those of Chile, where Michelle Bachelet had the strength and the experience to refuse most American "services."
The U.S. can't solve everyone's problems, but Haiti is right on our doorstep and in dire straits. Also, the cost of solving Haiti would be about what we spend on our military for one day.
It would go a long way if the US stopped causing problems.
just sayin'
And for this one the ball is in France's court. They're the ones who left Haiti destitute and broken.
Because Haiti has no 'strategic resources', the U.S. won't supply any aid. The only aid the U.S. government supplies anymore is of a military kind. The U.S. did send in an aircraft carrier and troops to protect the wealthy propertied class, but it ends there. Unfortunatley I see the Haitian situation as a preview to what America will look like once the corporate state is complete.
"Haiti has no 'strategic resources'"?
Consider this:
(http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17287)
Haiti, a new Saudi Arabia?
The remarkable geography of Haiti and Cuba and the discovery of world-class oil reserves in the waters off Cuba lend credence to anecdotal accounts of major oil discoveries in several parts of Haitian territory. It also could explain why two Bush Presidents and now special UN Haiti Envoy Bill Clinton have made Haiti such a priority. As well, it could explain why Washington and its NGOs moved so quickly to remove-- twice-- the democratically elected President Aristide, whose economic program for Haiti included, among other items, proposals for developing Haitian natural resources for the benefit of the Haitian people.
In March 2004, some months before the University of Texas and American Big Oil launched their ambitious mapping of the hydrocarbon potentials of the Caribbean, a Haitian writer, Dr. Georges Michel, published online an article titled ‘Oil in Haiti.’ In it, Michel wrote,
… .[I]t has been no secret that deep in the earthy bowels of the two states that share the island of Haiti and the surrounding waters that there are significant, still untapped deposits of oil. One knows not why they are still untapped. Since the early twentieth century, the physical and political map of the island of Haiti, erected in 1908 by Messrs. Alexander Poujol and Henry Thomasset, reported a major oil reservoir in Haiti near the source of the Rio Todo El Mondo, Tributary Right Artibonite River, better known today as the River Thomonde. [8]
Contrary to what is being posted Haiti DOES have resources.
They have not yet been exploited. Those resources are one reason Aristide was toppled. He tasked his government to inventory all of Haitis deposits of ores, minerals and oil in a white paper wherein poilicies were to be implemented so as to take control of these resources from the Foreign multi-nationals and Local Cabal of thugs that controlled them and turn them over to the people.
Aristide still has the overwhelming support of the people and his support still so strong, the Governmnet of Haiti has banned his political party.
Supporters are regularly rounded up or executed.
So why the delay in bringing aid into the country? Contrary to what Mightymight suggests, the USA did not send its troops in to provide aid to the people. They sent them in to ensure there would not be an uprising and to ensure its current Government remained in power.
That task accomplished they left with a much smaller international force now providing that same "security".
Those in Haiti not receiving aid are the poorest of the poor and the strongest supporters of Aristide, SOCIALISM and the Lavalas party.
The powers that be must BREAK their spirits.
Remember what Kissinger said...
"In order to control nations one must control the Oil and in order to control the people one must control the food supply".
What WOULD happen if those poor of Haiti were not focused every day on getting enough food to eat? What would happen if they did not have to rely on FOREIGN aid to eat?
They would rise up, kick the bastards out and bring back Aristide.
Haiti also has plenty of farmland, and was self-sufficient in rice, other staples, and pork until "free trade" imported rice-dumping drove Haitian farmers off their land. Presumably much of the farmland is now overgrown so that these agricultural resources will require large amounts of labor to put back into production.
99 percent of the Hatian land area is completely unaffected by the earthquake.
This is not a natural disaster, it is an economic one called global Capitalism.
Right. But it may be even more sinister than that. If the US Army was/is doing things in Haiti like it has done in New York city, San Francisco, Guatemala and even in Los Angeles in cahoots with the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), the Haitians have cause to worry.
http://www.corbettreport.com/
Excellent points GWN,
Bring back the most popular political figure in Haiti, Jean Bertrand Aristide!!!
After all he was democratically elected.
Too bad the Clintons don't approve, the Bush's don't approve, Obama doesen't approve.
Aristide, like Chavez, has been portrayed as some sort of corrupt dictator figure in the Corporate Media Oligopoly.
I wish somebody would control Kissinger's food supply!
Ask yourself this question honestly do any of us really believe if these starving homeless millions were blond haired and blue eyed Swedes would this be allowed to happen this way?
Yes.
there are tens of millions who went hungry in the USA last year
tens of millions had their jobs taken away
millions go to war
Good point Morticia.
Not to detract from the racism and imperialism of Anglo-Saxons and other white peoples, but when it comes to greed and power relations white folk are very cruel to other white folk as well. Push come to shove, they don't give a toss, although racism is rampant.
The Nazis killed millions of Christian white folks right along with Jews, Gypsies and everyone else who they deemed enemies. (communists, socialists, gays, undesirables etc.)
The British Empire is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Irish as a result of the Corn Laws.
The Catholic Church's Inquisition was a bloodbath and visited cruelty on thousands of white people (as well as non-white)
The cruelty during the 30 years war in Europe (as well as WWI) resulted in the deaths of several millions. And we can't forget the cruelty of the US Civil War.
And it continues
What exactly is the point of playing the race card here?
Swedes practice birth control, they control their own population growth according to their resources. Where is the family planning in Haiti and other overpopulated/poverty stricken areas of the planet?
Why is population control never mentioned in these discussions, especially since overpopulation results in people destroying their own ecosystems and their own futures?
And does race matter to Hutus & Tutsis or Watusis and Zulus or in Darfur, did it matter in the Rape of Nanking in China, did it bother Stalin in the Ukraine or Pol Pot in their agricultural "reforms", etc.
in this sort of world economy, think of being 'white' not as a 'get outa jail free card' but a 'MAY be able to make bail' card. push comes to shove, money or other elements of power are all that matter. if, dispite white privilege, you still have no money...you fall off the same ledge being told it's some black, brown, asian, woman or homosexual who pushed you.
I was in Haiti in June and it was stunning how little of the rubble had been removed. Where would it even go? I have no idea. There's enough to create a new island. That needs to be decided and acted upon.
Obviously human needs must be a priority but in terms of "rebuilding" - nothing can happen until the rubble is cleared away. It's literally everywhere, clogging the streets. People open up their street-side markets right under huge chunks of concrete hanging precariously by a piece of rebar. I could count the number of big pieces of construction equipment I saw each day on one hand.
It's insane that millions of construction workers are unemployed right now. Not one construction worker should be out of work, not one piece of equipment should be sitting idle.
Perfect time for a city along the lines of Bucky Fuller's Old Man River's city to be built. Plans are all in the public domain by now, all it would take is a bit of will. Haiti could turn into the new model of a green sustainable ECOnomy.
All it would take is a bit of will and a fraction of what we spend in Afghanistan
It could even start small, building new sustainable farming communities in areas unaffected by the earthquake. A bit of land reform would probably be necessary. As the rubble is torn down, the materials from tearing it down could be recycled into building the new structures.
But there was money to send them "Talking Bibles"
Oh man, on that last line-
The flight into Port-au-Prince was filled with white teenagers in matching church t-shirts. *SO* many 'Christian' groups swooped in.
To be fair, many religious-based groups do good work. Food For The Poor is a great Catholic-based group, for example, that had a presence past Leogane (the city actually above the epicenter) where most NGOs wouldn't/didn't go.. But there are many, many NGOs there to prosthelytize and talk about the endtimes. And they use a lot of electricity and resources in a desperately strained country and ultimately many do work that Haitians should be doing and want to be doing. Why spend the money to fly in a 15 year old from Arkansas? What do they have to offer? Send cash and hire a Haitian!
One example- a big hospital in P-a-P CLOSED after the earthquake! How is that possible? NGOs come in and give away for free what the hospital sold to stay open. So it closed down.
Many NGOs are getting better and learning and hooking up with existing Haitian infrastructure, but only after a bad start.
The organization I went with emphasizes sustainability and emphasizes letting Haitians run things. We're ALMOST to the point where we can install solar panels in the school we built!
Nor should one single engineer or electrician or laborer be idle. There is a desperate need for them all AT A LIVING WAGE.
If there really were a war in which this country was threatened I would be the first to sacrifice my loss of a raise in my pension, or social security benefits or roads or parks.
There is no such threat. My country (from which I would fain be disassociated) is doing things that I do not understand and for which I would gladly break all ties.
A clerk at a store, a former student of mine, asked me "What was Viet Nam all about?"
What could I say? What can I say now about the same question regarding Iraq or any of the other countries which my government, against my will, is determined to kill, starve, humiliate, and utterly leave in ashes?
This has been the most vicious, ruthless, insane empire in history. And, as far as I can tell, for absolutely nothing.
Oh, we have some next door neighbors, desperate for help which we could easily supply and never notice the minimal cost, but where is the John Wayne mystique, or Clint Eastwood saying "Make my day?"
There just ain't enough glamor in feeding a starving child.
Hundreds of injured Haitians were flown on military jets to Florida hospitals (although they were completely overwhelmed)
It's completely without basis to imply that the US did nothing to help Haiti.
That's perfectly fine. Bush and Clinton got to replenish their coffers a little with all those donations. The interest alone would be some pretty pocket change. Another quickly formulated American charity scam.