Haiti's Earthquake Updates: February 09 - 14, 2010
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UPDATES: February 14, 2010
Haiti: A Victim of Naked Imperialism By Ghali Hassan
As Haitians began the grim task of burying their loved ones after the January earthquake, the U.S. military used the pretext of providing "humanitarian aid" to invade and occupy a defenceless Haiti. It is clear Western "humanitarianism" has nothing to do with humanitarian aid, but much to do with U.S. imperialist domination. In order to understand Haiti's current crisis, a brief history of the colonisation of Haiti is instructive.
US Brags Haiti Response is a 'Model' While More Than a Million Remain Homeless in Haiti By Bill Quigley
Despite the fact that over a million people remained homeless in Haiti one month after the earthquake, the U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, Ken Merten, is quoted at a State Department briefing on February 12, saying "In terms of humanitarian aid delivery...frankly, it's working really well, and I believe that this will be something that people will be able to look back on in the future as a model for how we've been able to sort ourselves out as donors on the ground and responding to an earthquake."
Caricom as Haiti's 'Advocate' By Rickey Singh Will we join the campaign for French compensation?
WITH all the reporting on the dislocation and enormous sufferings of Haitian earthquake victims and the blame-shifting for what's not going right, citizens of the Caribbean Community should know that Caricom has received a mandate from what functions as a government in Haiti -- amid the rubble in Port-au-Prince -- to act as its "international advocate", or "voice" in the daunting task ahead for national reconstruction..
Beyond Disaster Aid to Solidarity By Beverly Bell
People have all kinds of things to say about where Haiti should go from here, and how it should get there. It's an old story, that of being sure what's best for the Haitian people, trying to remake Haiti in one's own image.
US Military Censors Haitian Press By Christine Wicker
Three weeks after the earthquake, the Haitian press has just had its first serious run-in with the US military. Homère Cardichon, a photographer working for the daily Le Nouvelliste, had his camera confiscated by US marines yesterday while covering a demonstration by disgruntled residents outside the US embassy in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Tabarre.
UPDATES: February 13, 2010
Quake-hit Haiti mourns its dead By Aljazeera
Thousands of Haitians have spent a day of mourning in the capital's main square to mark a month to the day since Haiti was shattered by a devastating earthquake.
Haitians Believe 'Hidden Forces' Stymie Rebuilding -- and They're Right By Christine Wicker
Many Haitians believe unseen forces demand a sacrifice of life force in return for riches. That Vodou belief equips them to understand Haiti's situation far better than their putative rescuers, who operate within a myth that doesn't match Haiti's reality nearly as well, writes Elizabeth McAlister, associate professor of religion at Wesleyan University.
A Haitian-Free Rebuilding Plan? By Stanley Lucas
Over the past 25 years, rampant political violence and an almost totally corrupt business and economic system have kept Haiti's Diaspora from being able to engage in any meaningful efforts to improve their country. There are more than two million Haitians living in the U.S., another one million in the Dominican Republic and 700,000 in Canada. Their engagement with Haiti has been limited to sending $1.8 billion in remittances to family and friends each year, which accounts for almost 20% of Haiti's GDP. Most have been marginalized from doing business because they are not a part of the corrupt business elite in Haiti. Known as the Groupe de Bourdon and linked to the Preval Government, this Groupe has had a stranglehold on the economy. Others have been marginalized for their efforts to promote democracy, good governance, political participation and accountability in-country.
Haiti and the Ugly Side of Debt Relief By Bob Lloyd
In 1803, the slave rebellion in Haiti defeated Bonaparte and 1804 saw the birth of an independent nation. But just 20 years later, France exacted reparations for the loss of its colony totaling $20 billion in today's currency. Between 1957 and 1986, the Duvaliers ruled Haiti with US backing ending in the popular overthrow of Baby Doc, the son. By the time he fled the country, the foreign debt amounted to over $750m. Since then, the debt continued to rise through interest and penalties. Meanwhile the Duvalier family seems to have over $900m in western bank accounts, the subject of a trial currently before the Swiss courts.
Haiti Speaks... (YouTube)
"Haiti Speaks" features Josue Renaud, haitian pyschologist, Catholic Charities worker, president of the New England Human Rights Organization, with journalist Ashley Smith. Together Josue and Ashley let us know what's happening on the ground in Haiti...
The Many Buildings and Rebuildings of Haiti By Alexis Madrigal
Haiti's infrastructural history is complex. Built and rebuilt several times over, the story of the nation's roads might not hold the human interest of the revolution or the political intrigues of the early 20th century, but it provides vital context for understanding the development of the Haitian economy and social structures. Patrick Bellegarde-Smith is a professor of Africology at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and renowned Haitian scholar. He's the written and edited several books on the nation including Haiti: The Breached Citadel and Invisible Powers: Vodou in Haitian Life and Culture. We conducted an e-mail interview with Bellegarde-Smith about the nature and history of the human-built environment in Haiti. It's presented here in slightly edited form.
Africans reach out in solidarity with Haiti
In the broad international mobilization to help the stricken people of Haiti, Africa is not lagging behind. Government officials, religious leaders, students, artists and many other Africans responded to the news of the devastating earthquake of 12 January with an immediate outpouring of support and solidarity. They sent messages of condolence and compassion and donated money and goods.
'The pain is too heavy - words cannot describe it'
Atop the rubble of destroyed churches, in parks and on sidewalks, tens of thousands of Haitians -- some on crutches and in wheelchairs -- prayed Friday in a national day of mourning, one month after an earthquake killed more than 200,000 and left this Caribbean country struggling for survival. Leaders of Haiti's two official religions -- a Catholic bishop and the head of the Voodoo priests -- joined Protestant ministers for a prayer service in the shade of mimosa trees near the shattered National Palace. A Muslim preacher also attended.
Haiti: The politics of rebuilding By Aljazeera
Just weeks after the earthquake that took more than 200,000 lives and devastated Haiti's capital city, a new normalcy is taking shape in Port-au-Prince. The shock of so much loss has barely worn off, but the mountains of rubble are slowly being cleared. And where landmarks like the national palace and the cathedral once towered a new architecture has appeared.
More Pain for Devastated Haiti: Under the Pretense of Disaster Relief, U.S. Running a Military Occupation By Arun Gupta The rapid mobilization of U.S troops in Haiti was not primarily done for humanitarian reasons; we're likely to see a neoliberal economic plan imposed, at gunpoint if necessary.
Official denials aside, the United States has embarked on a new military occupation of Haiti thinly cloaked as disaster relief. While both the Pentagon and the United Nations claimed more troops were needed to provide "security and stability" to bring in aid, according to nearly all independent observers in the field, violence was never an issue.
Benighted Journalists Assail Haiti By Joe Emersberger
Decent people in North America have tried to help Haitians after the devastating earthquake that struck on January 12, but the corporate media has left them unequipped to do one of the most helpful things they can do - oppose their governments' efforts to inflict more harm on the victims under the cover of disaster relief. If it seems paranoid to claim that Canada and the US will use the earthquake to further set back development and democracy, it is only because the criminal role they have played in Haiti has been very effectively hidden.
Actor, Activist Danny Glover: Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide "Mystified" at US Resistance to His Return Democracy Now!
Actor, activist and TransAfrica Forum chair Danny Glover joins us just after returning from South Africa, where he met with the ousted former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Glover reports Aristide wants to come back to his country five years after his ouster in a US-backed coup, but the Obama administration hasn't dropped the US stance of blocking Aristide's return to the Western hemisphere.
Forgiveness for Haiti? We should be begging theirs By Naomi Klein The very idea of Haiti as debtor needs to be abandoned. We in the west should pay arrears for years of violations
If we are to believe the G7 finance ministers, Haiti is on its way to getting something it has deserved for a very long time: full "forgiveness" of its foreign debt. In Port-au-Prince, Haitian economist Camille Chalmers has been watching these developments with cautious optimism. Debt cancellation is a good start, he told al-Jazeera English, but: "It's time to go much further. We have to talk about reparations and restitution for the devastating consequences of debt." In this telling, the whole idea that Haiti is a debtor needs to be abandoned. Haiti, he argues, is a creditor – and it is we, in the west, who are deeply in arrears.
Poverty, Profit and Disease: Haiti and Health Care By Helen Redmond
It is no exaggeration to say the forty-five second, 7.0 earthquake that rocked the capital of Haiti on January 12th and reduced hospitals and clinics to rubble set the country on a trajectory back to a medical stone age. Forty-five seconds. The earthquake destroyed the health care infrastructure in Port-au-Prince and shut down basic services critical for the delivery of health care: the electrical grid, transport, water and sanitation systems. The country didn't have much of a health care system to topple. Haiti lacks modern medical resources: state-of-the-art hospitals and clinics; sufficient numbers of trained nurses, doctors and other medical staff; medical devices, diagnostic technology and medicines.
Uncertain Ground: Haiti's Earthquake and Its Aftermath By Mark Schuller
On January 12, a 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti, just outside the capital of Port-au-Prince. The damage is beyond human comprehension. Since then, groups have lurched to deliver emergency aid while the survivors have done an amazing job sharing what they have. As of today (February 8), the situation is still fragile: Haitian people are still traumatized, survivors' own food and water are running out, and despite the critical need for aid coordination there is no evidence of that happening.
Haiti Debacle: Why Good Intentions Must be Probed
The attempted kidnap of 33 Haitian children by 10 missionaries from the United States raises serious ethical questions within the aid industry. What message does kidnapping children in the name of Christianity give to the world? Does it imply that their parents and Haitians in general are beyond recovery to better manage orphans if supported?
Haiti: Aristide as an Ally The Haitian Blogger reports that some Fanmi Lavalas members have asked President Preval to allow Aristide to return and to be an ally in the rebuilding of Haiti, calling the move "a good opportunity to address the question of regime change in Haiti and the US and UN involvement in human rights abuses in Haiti..."
Keeping the Lid On: Haiti, Aristide and Ideology By William Blum
It's a good thing the Haitian government did virtually nothing to help its people following the earthquake; otherwise it would have been condemned as "socialist" by Fox News, Sarah Palin, the teabaggers, and other right-thinking Americans. The last/only Haitian leader strongly committed to putting the welfare of the Haitian people before that of the domestic and international financial mafia was President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Being of a socialist persuasion, Aristide was, naturally, kept from power by the United States — twice; first by Bill Clinton, then by George W. Bush, the two men appointed by President Obama to head the earthquake relief effort. Naturally.
Western NGOs not serving Haiti's needs
If the Haitian state managers and functionaries siphoned off between 2 per cent and 10 per cent of aid dollars that would be corruption. Yet when aid organizations pocket that amount or more for "administrative and fundraising costs," we call it the cost of doing business. It is high time for Canadians to seriously question the usefulness of Western-based NGOs as instruments for economic and social development in Haiti and elsewhere. They have been used as tools by Western governments to undermine and destroy the capacity of successive Haitian governments, particularly that of exiled former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the Fanmi Lavalas movement.
U.S. Attempts to Erase Haitian Nationhood By Glen Ford
Proud Haiti has been reduced to a de facto "protectorate" of the United States – a grotesque form of non-sovereignty in which the subjugated nation is "protected" by its worst enemy. Namibia under white-ruled South African administration comes to mind, although in Haiti's case the United Nations does not even pretend to be on the side of the oppressed, acting instead as agent and enforcer for the superpower.
Haiti calls on voodoo priests to help battered nation heal
By Brian MacQuarrie
To the outside world, their faith has long been shrouded in mystery, ministering as much to the dead as the living, and associated with images of animal sacrifices and human skulls. But in postquake Haiti, the practitioners of voodoo have taken on a more practical role, enlisted by the government to help count the dead, tend to the injured, and soothe the psychologically damaged.
UNASUR Summit Pleases Haiti President
Haiti's President Rene Preval returned to his country, satisfied with the accords in the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) Summit, to create a $100 million fund and an action strategy to support the country's reconstruction.
Can Capitalism Save Haiti?
Absolute horror continues in Haiti. The inhuman — response by the international community the U.S. especially — has been directly responsible for thousands of deaths, whether it be those who were buried alive under rubble, or who died by infection or other untreated injuries.
Battle Begins Over Who'll Get Lucrative Haiti Cleanup Contracts
By Martha Brannigan and Jacqueline Charles
As Haiti begins digging out from under 60 million cubic meters of earthquake wreckage, U.S. firms have begun jockeying for a bonanza of cleanup work. It's unclear at this point who will be awarding the cleanup contracts, but there is big money to be made in the rubble of some 225,000 collapsed homes and at least 25,000 government and office buildings. At least two politically connected U.S. firms have enlisted powerful local allies in Haiti to help compete for the high-stakes business.
Haiti, Forgive Us By Amy Goodman
The tragedy of the Haitian earthquake continues to unfold, with slow delivery of aid, the horrific number of amputations performed out of desperate medical necessity, more than a million homeless, perhaps 240,000 dead, hunger, dehydration, the emergence of infections and waterborne diseases, and the approach of the rainy season, which will be followed by the hurricane season. Haiti has suffered a massive blow, an earthquake for which its infrastructure was not prepared, after decades—no, centuries—of military and economic manipulation by foreign governments, most notably the United States and France.
27 Days After the Quake: Haiti by the Numbers By Bill Quigley
890 million. Amount of international debt that Haiti owes creditors. Finance ministers from developing countries announced they will forgive $290 million. Source: Wall Street Journal. 644 million. Donations for Haiti to private organizations have exceed $644 million. Over $200 million has gone to the Red Cross, who had 15 people working on health projects in Haiti before the earthquake. About $40 million has gone to Partners in Health, which had 5,000 people working on health in Haiti before the quake. Source: New York Times. 1 million. People still homeless or needing shelter in Haiti. Source: MSNBC.
If Obama can do it then why can't Haiti's Preval? By Kevin Pina
Haiti's monument to the constitution is a tall black shiny obelisk that sits on Rue Capois down the street from the Le Plaza Hotel where most of the upscale journalists including CNN stay while in Haiti. Jean-Bertrand Aristide inaugurated the monument in 2002 during a very different time in Haitian history. It would have been unthinkable to have nearly 20,000 US Marines in the country authorized to shoot to kill even during a national crisis such as this. One frail and elderly woman forced to live among hundreds of thousands of people in makeshift camps that have sprung up throughout the capital since the January 12 earthquake explained, "If Titid [Aristide] were here it would be different. They wouldn't need all those soldiers. He would come down here with us...to be with us and we'd have food and water. He would work with us with his own hands to clean this mess up."
Fidel Castro Sends Message to Cuba's Medical Brigade in Haiti
The leader of the Cuban Revolution, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro, sent a message to the members of the island's Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade for emergency situations, and also to the graduates and fifth and sixth year students from the Cuba-based Latin American School of Medicine (LASM), who are currently providing health services in Haiti.
Haiti Needs Sunlight and Accountability on Relief and Reconstruction Effort By Mark Weisbrot
Last month actors and human rights advocates Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte, along with the Reverend Jesse Jackson sent a letter to Congress and the Obama administration calling attention to "serious mistakes that have unnecessarily delayed the delivery of medical supplies, water, and other life-saving materials." The letter was also signed by some 90 scholars and Haiti advocates. (Disclosure: I also added my signature). The letter asked for, among other things, "A public announcement as to what measures our government will take going forward to make sure that the mistakes of the first two weeks are not repeated."
Haiti Beyond the Cleanup By William Fisher
Haiti experts are warning that unless the international community comes up with new, more imaginative and more inclusive approaches to reconstruction and development in the earthquake-ravaged nation, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country can look forward to more of the same.
