The Wild Wild Left - Haiti

Haiti: Three Months: Up Date

TheMomCat — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 12:51:41 GMT

At the start of this year, MSF was operating four health structures in Port-au-Prince, providing, among other things, primary and secondary care, trauma and emergency treatment, and surgical and obstetric services. After the earthquake, as MSF rushed to respond to overwhelming medical needs, that number rose to 26-a number that included hospitals, post-operative care facilities, rehabilitation centers, and general medical centers. Following the consolidation of some facilities and a shift in priorities, MSF now manages 19 health structures along with 3 mobile clinics. MSF also runs 16 operating theaters and has more than 1,200 beds available at its various locations. Overall, since the earthquake, MSF has provided medical care to more than 92,000 patients and performed nearly 5,000 surgeries.

Healthcare In Haiti: A Catch-22

Since the devastating earthquake on January 12th, hospital services in Haiti have been provided to patients for free. No matter what your status or ability to pay, for three months after the earthquake you could feel certain that you could see a doctor and (hopefully acquire medications) for free. This was a fantastic service and was a great idea because it enabled the poor to have access to the healthcare services that they often go without.
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An efficient, self-sustaining and self-financing system for health care is very attractive but also very hard to achieve. Even the United States, the richest country in the history of the world, can't quite figure out how to do it. Significant resources have been donated for Haiti in recognition of the immense scale of loss and much of these resources have been used in part to subsidize the most basic goods and services (including health care) that people need but simply do not have the ability to pay for. Pulling this subsidy out now, three months after the worst disaster in the Western Hemisphere seems too abrupt. If there was a gradual lessening, rather than a complete elimination of the subsidy, perhaps there would be time for the market forces to kick in without kicking out all the people who lost everything.

Children of Haiti: Three Months After the Earthquake

It is clear that the humanitarian action taken over the past three months has averted a post-earthquake crisis. There have been no outbreaks of diseases or epidemics so far. Much however, remains to be done. With the upcoming rainy and hurricane seasons, the relocation of displaced people to safer shelters, along with the provision of basic services and the protection of children and women, remain a priority.
UNICEF, with its partners, will continue to support the relief operations and assist in the reconstruction and recovery phase. Children must re-main at the forefront of the reconstruction, recovery, and development processes. It is important that children's voices are heard, their rights are upheld, and their needs are addressed. UNICEF Haiti's three priorities for 2010 include:
1. Ensuring that children are in school;
2. Preventing and addressing the threat of under-nutrition in children;
3. Protecting the most vulnerable from violence, exploitation, abuse and neglect.

US Military Relief Operation in Haiti to End, Overall Effort will Continue

he senior officer who has been leading the U.S. military earthquake relief effort in Haiti says the formal operation will end around June 1. But Army Lieutenant General Ken Keen says American efforts to help Haiti recover from the quake will continue beyond that date.
General Keen ended his three-month assignment as U.S. commander in Haiti on Sunday, handing over command to a slightly lower-ranking officer. The change reflects the reduction in the number of U.S. troops involved in the relief operation that peaked at 22,000 in February, most of them on several Navy ships.
Now the ships are gone and just 2,200 troops remain on land. They are helping move quake refugees to safer locations and providing other logistical help to Haitian and international relief efforts for the current rainy season and the approaching hurricane season.

Progress being made in Haiti, but danger still imminent

Now, as things begin to settle, relatively speaking, the citizens and relief help face another challenge. This month marks the arrival of the rainy season, which precedes the summer Atlantic hurricane season.
But the Red Cross is working to head off any problems that may arise from rains.
Currently, volunteers are working to provide enclosed transitional shelters for 250,000 people who will be vulnerable to catastrophic flooding.
Furthermore, the Red Cross is establishing early warning systems that will include alerts and evacuation routes, training members in the community to act as liaisons while also becoming first aid equipped, pre-positioning medicine and other supplies and fashioning ditches and re-establishing old ones for drainage.
In their continued effort to prepare for further disaster, the Red Cross is also stockpiling food, water and other necessities for precautionary measures.

On an upbeat economic note

Rhum Barbancourt is recovering after Haiti earthquake

Reporting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti - - It has survived 19 coups, military rule, hurricanes and even a three-year embargo.
But in the Jan. 12 earthquake, Haiti's best-known export and one of its oldest businesses, Rhum Barbancourt, suffered a $4-million setback. Amber bottles and white oak vats - some containing rum as old as 15 years - crashed to the distillery floor.
It could take up to four years for production of one of the world's top rums to return to its pre-quake capacity, though the owner is hoping to resume bottling and shipping by early May. Travelers can now purchase the rum at the Port-au-Prince airport - though there's a three-bottle limit - after an almost three-month hiatus.
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The company also lost two employees, who died when their homes flattened. More than 25% of the employees saw their homes collapse, including Gardere's near the quake-destroyed Hotel Montana. Some homeless employees camped in a nearby soccer field along with 300 others.
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The company sells about $12 million a year, Gardere said - modest compared with Bacardi, which earned $805 million in fiscal 2009. The Haitian rum's biggest overseas market is the United States.

Up Date: I have to commend the bloggers at DKos headed by DallasDoc and TexMex who have tirelessly posted daily diaries there with up dates and information about the humanitarian efforts by the countless groups that are operating in Haiti. Thank you all for your efforts to keep Haiti in your hearts and in the news.

Helping Haiti's earthquake survivors: PIH is doing outstanding work!

Innovation of the Week: Providing an Agricultural Answer to Nature's Call

borderjumpers — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:02:14 GMT

Cross posted from Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

It’s hard to believe, but an estimated 2.6 billion people in the developing world—nearly a third of the global population—still lack access to basic sanitation services. This presents a significant hygiene risk, especially in densely populated urban areas and slums where contaminated drinking water can spread disease rapidly. Every year, some 1.5 million children die from diarrhea caused by poor sanitation and hygiene.

It is in these crowded cities, too, that food security is weakened by the lack of clean, nutrient-rich soil as well as growing space available for local families.

But there is an inexpensive solution to both problems. A recent innovation, called the Peepoo, is a disposable bag that can be used once as a toilet and then buried in the ground. Urea crystals in the bag kill off disease-producing pathogens and break down the waste into fertilizer, simultaneously eliminating the sanitation risk and providing a benefit for urban gardens. After successful test runs in Kenya and India, the bags will be mass produced this summer and sold for U.S. 2–3 cents each, making them more accessible to those who will benefit from them the most.

In post-earthquake Haiti, where many poor and homeless residents are forced to live in garbage heaps and to relieve themselves wherever they can find privacy, SOIL/SOL, a non-profit working to improve soil and convert waste into a resource, is partnering with Oxfam GB to build indoor dry toilets for 25 families as well as four public dry toilets. The project will establish a waste composting site to convert dry waste into fertilizer and nutrient-rich soil that can then be used to grow vegetables in rooftop gardens and backyards.

In Malawi, Stacia and Kristof Nordin’s permaculture project (which Nourishing the Planet co-director Danielle Nierenberg visited during her tour of Africa) uses a composting toilet to fertilize the crops. Although these units can be expensive to purchase and install, one company, Rigel Technology, manufactures a toilet that costs just US$30 and separates solid from fluid waste, converting it into fertilizer. The Indian non-profit Sulabh International also promotes community units that convert methane from waste into biogas for cooking.

On a larger scale, wetlands outside of Calcutta, India, process some 600 million liters of raw sewage delivered from the city every day in 300 fish-producing ponds. These wetlands produce 13,000 tons of fish annually for consumption by the city’s 12 million inhabitants. They also serve as an environmentally sound waste treatment center, with hyacinths, algal blooms, and fish disposing of the waste, while also providing a home for migrating birds and an important source of local food for the population of Calcutta. (See also “Fish Production Reaches a Record.”)

Aside from cost and installation, the main obstacles to using human waste to fertilize crops are cultural and behavioral. UNICEF notes in an online case study that a government-run program in India provided 33 families in the village of Bahtarai with latrines near their houses. But the majority of villagers still preferred to use the fields as toilets, as they were accustomed to doing their whole lives. “It is not enough just to construct the toilets,” said Gaurav Dwivedi, Collector and Bilaspur District Magistrate. “We have to change the thinking of people so that they are amenable to using the toilets.”

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NEW: Haiti 4 Haiti reconstruction watch blog

fairleft — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:46:19 GMT

What looks like an essential new blog, Haiti Relief and Reconstruction Watch, "will keep track of current efforts at relief and reconstruction with an eye towards ensuring that such efforts are oriented toward the most urgent and important needs of the Haitian people, and that aid is not used to undermine Haitians' right to self-determination." It's being done by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, whose co-directors are Dean Baker (he of the excellent blog on economic reporting, Beat the Press) and Mark Weisbrot. Very righteous and needed, if you think the key to reconstruction, heck construction, is democracy and sovereignty. The most recent two posts are . . .
Haitian Voices Missing, focusing on today's Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing on Haiti reconstruction, where the President of American Jewish World Service, Ruth Messinger, said that while she was happy the hearing was being held and that the witnesses to be called had important information to relay, (emphasis added) "I am disappointed that the witness list is devoid of Haitian voices. Haiti's reconstruction should be led by Haitians."

The previous blog post begins:

On Debt and the IMF
Thursday, 04 February 2010 14:36
In 2008 the United Nations Human Rights council named Mr. Cephas Lumina as an independent expert on the effect of foreign debt. Today Mr. Lumina called for an immediate cancellation of debt for Haiti and directly addressed the International Monetary Fund's decision to issue a $114 million loan:
"The extension of Haiti's loan programme in circumstances where the IMF acknowledges the country's high risk of debt distress, and particularly in view of the fact that the country's economy has collapsed and its debt service capacity is non-existent, runs counter to the IMF's own advice and is profoundly inappropriate."
. . .

Lumina and the blog then ask, understanding that the IMF has never done it before, why can't its latest loan commitment be turned into a grant? Great question, great idea!

By the way,

Haiti currently owes about US$890 million to international creditors. Approximately 70 per cent of its total external debt is owed to multilateral creditors, mainly the Inter-American Development Bank (41 per cent) and the World Bank (27 per cent).

In any case, follow along. I believe the Haiti Relief and Reconstruction Watch may help us all be vigilant this time, that the U.S. and the IMF don't stand in the way of Haiti's economic recovery and development.

Haiti: Ripples

TheMomCat — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:40:13 GMT

Conditions are improving, slowly, steadily, 3 weeks after the earthquake but we have a really long way to go. The rainy season is coming in a other month and there is a need to provide shelter and sanitation needs that must be addressed quickly.

After enduring delays in receiving urgent medical supplies and equipment, as well as continuous aftershocks that threatened already-damaged facilities, MSF staff are now treating patients inside an inflatable hospital.

Originally the plan was to keep the Inflatable Hospital open for 3 months. It was then extended to 6 months, now, the plan is to keep it open indefinitely and expand it from 100 beds to 200 beds by adding 4 more sections to the already existing 9.
The focus changes, the needs expand.

Haiti: Immediate and Long-term Health Needs

Every natural disaster unfolds a bit differently and the priorities in Haiti are evolving. In the beginning we saw large numbers of trauma and wounds and crushing injuries. We have for the most part passed the acute surgical phase that addressed those needs. Infected wounds and fractured bones are now a serious concern.

The concentration now is on wound infections, tetanus, communicable diseases and sanitation. Clean water and sanitation are essential to preventing the spread of disease and infections.

Medical facilities such as they are are now being hit with the second surge of patients

Doctors brace for second surge

At the Médecins Sans Frontières makeshift tent hospital in the poor district of Cité Soleil, there is a relative lull from the deluge of severe trauma cases that poured in in the first days.
But in a land where misery rarely takes lengthy holidays, medical personnel are bracing for a new flood of the dying and diseased.
"There is going to be a second wave," said Anne Khoudigcoff, a registered nurse and medical co-ordinator with MSF from Belgium.
"The people who couldn't get to us before, those who had fractured bones that broke the skin or open wounds that are now becoming infected, they are starting to come in."
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n the first five days, they treated 1,000 patients a day with crushed limbs and pelvises, head traumas and torn flesh. The four surgeons, four anaesthesiologists and 10 operating room nurses worked 24 hours a day, performing 130 operations.
Now they treat 250 patients a day, with less serious cases transferred to the Canadian team of 19 doctors and nurses and others working with Médecins du monde next door, treating about 400 daily.

Besides the inflatable hospital, there are other locations throughout Port au Prince, as well as, outside the city.

Haiti: As Situation Evolves, So Do Services

In Port-au-Prince, for instance, surgeons at the two school buildings now serving as the "New Carrefour Hospital"-the quake and its aftershocks rendered the original hospital unsafe-performed 40 operations on Wednesday. In the Carrefour Feuille neighborhood, where 9,000 people are living in temporary shelters, a team consisting of two nurses, a doctor, and an obstetrics specialist are running a clinic in a tent, tending to both people with injuries from the quake and also people afflicted with diarrhea and fevers.
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In area called Delmas 30, a post-operative "village" has been assembled in tents, a place people who were operated on elsewhere can rest and recover.
snipSimilar services are available in a former kindergarten known as "Mickey" that is now a 60-bed facility. There are another 30 beds in Bicentenaire, and a former secondary school in the Champs Mars area is now a clinic that will provide inpatient accommodations as well. Outside Port-au-Prince, in the hard-hit town of Jacmel, MSF is working with the local hospital to provide care in their building and in tents surrounding it.

MSF is also supplying clean water to these locations

One important part of recovery is addressing the psychological, post operative and nutritional needs.

Haiti: MSF Teams Adapting to Needs on the Ground

The wider and longer-term consequences of the disaster are also very much on the agenda of MSF teams. The psychological impact of the disaster is becoming more apparent in the symptoms being seen at MSF's general clinics; one, in Leogane, reported that approximately half of the people receiving treatment were suffering from mental trauma. Nutritional deficiencies are also becoming readily visible. Near MSF's hospital in Carrefour, where the medical staff has been running clinics for the people in the surrounding areas, teams are starting to provide supplementary feeding programs for some of the children.
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At the same time, MSF's efforts to expand its services are ongoing. The team that recently built MSF's inflatable hospital in Port-au-Prince is now working on a plan to create a post operative "village" in the city. The wards would again be made of canvas, thus alleviating the fears many people still have of being inside a building if another quake hit. The village will provide nursing care and wound dressing along with physiotherapy and psychological assistance for approximately 100 post-operative patients.

None of this could be accomplished without the wonder Haitian staff that is the backbone of operations here. Despite the loss of colleagues, their own family members and even persona injury, they have continued to take care of the sick and injured.

Haitian Staff Determined To Help Their People

PORT-AU-PRINCE - Haitian surgeon Dr. Philippe Brouard has worked with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) at Trinité hospital in Port-au-Prince since 2006. On January 13, the morning after the earthquake, he came to work at the trauma surgery centre only to find that most of Trinité had collapsed. Two of his colleagues and several patients had been killed. MSF had immediately evacuated surviving patients from the hospital and was treating them outside, while wounded people from the surrounding areas flooded toward what was left of the hospital. Dr. Brouard performed triage on that first day, identifying patients who needed urgent medical attention. By the second day, he was doing amputations in an improvised operating theater because the ones inside the decimated structure could no longer be used.
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Unlike Dr. Brouard, many other Haitian staff-members lost their homes and family members. Charles Joseph, a social worker at MSF's Martissant hospital, lost a cousin and his entire house in the earthquake. "Now we are in the streets with the children, my wife, everyone," he says. "I have come to work because this is a disaster and it is my business. It is everyone's business. If people from other countries can risk their lives and come here to cure people-me, as a Haitian, I must do the same."

Wednesday, January 26

Our driver Christobal and I had a moment to chat this morning before we got back on the road. I asked him - as I asked all our staff - about his experience during the earthquake. He explained that although his house had been destroyed, his wife and two young sons survived, and they now sleep in the street like everyone else. But he went on to tell me an incredible story.

The day after the earthquake, when he showed up at the MSF office, he learned that one of our expats (international staff) was buried alive after the house she lived in was destroyed. One of Christobal's colleagues had heard her muffled yell from deep in the basement, below the two floors that had crashed on top of her. Christobal with three other colleagues convinced the MSF head of mission to let them dig her out of the house with their bare hands. The alternative was to wait for a clean-up crew with a crane and truck but the probabilities of that team showing up were at best 48 hours, at worst, several days. They could not accept to wait that long when they knew they could roll up their sleeves and try their best to pull her out.
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Eventually, about five hours after they started, they made contact with the expat, and slowly pulled her out. She escaped with cuts and bruises and fortunately no broken bones. Her survival was a true miracle. But Cristobal and his colleagues' bravery, and potential self sacrifice trying to save her, is humbling. Not once did he or his colleagues think twice about risking their life to save hers. I don't know if I would have the courage to do the same. As he said to me this morning: "There is no tomorrow. There is only today, and living for today. Because we just don't know what can happen tomorrow."

The latest news is that the evacuations to the US will resume

U.S. to Resume Haitian Evacuations

By DAVID GAUTHIER-VILLARS, BETSY MCKAY And JENNIFER LEVITZ
PORT-AU-PRINCE-Five days after suspending medical evacuations of critically ill Haitian earthquake victims, the U.S. government said Sunday evening that it planned to resume them "in the next 12 hours."
"Patients are being identified for transfer, doctors are making sure that it is safe for them to fly, and we are preparing specific in-flight pediatric care aboard the aircraft where needed," said White House spokesman Tommy Vietor in a statement.
He said that Florida is identifying facilities to receive the patients and that some evacuees might be sent to other countries.

And some news we really didn't need to hear since the tremors continue

Haiti warned to brace for another big quake

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Haiti should be preparing for another major earthquake that could be triggered by the catastrophic one last month which killed up to 200,000 people and left the capital Port-au-Prince in ruins, experts say.
Teams of geophysicists, who have been tracking movements in the fault line that slashes across Haiti and into the Dominican Republic, came to the nation last week to measure changes in the Earth's crust after the 7.0-magnitude quake on January 12.
Increased pressure on the fault after the quake could unleash another of the same size or bigger, although scientists acknowledge they have no way of knowing exactly when or where it will hit.
"Faults are always waiting for the right moment but if another earthquake gives them a little kick they go before their time," said Eric Calais, a professor of geophysics from Purdue University in Indiana, who is leading the seismology project in Haiti.
Preliminary calculations by his group show the January 12 quake could be the "little kick" that sets off another temblor along the 186 mile fault where two regional tectonic plates have been scraping together for millions of years.
More than 50 aftershocks, including one measuring 5.9 magnitude, have shaken Port-au-Prince after last month's quake. The U.S. Geological Survey says the aftershock sequence will continue for months, "if not years", and "damaging earthquakes will remain possible in the coming months".

Cross posted from Docudharma

Haiti relief: chaotic, massively inadequate

fairleft — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 07:27:40 GMT

What do people want to know about Haiti? The overwhelmingly chaotic reality or the success stories being achieved by the international community led by the U.S.? Well, I'll provide the chaotic and inadequate (by a factor of about ten) reality as balance to your mainstream TV watching. Six reports and some extra stuff and thoughts at the end.

((Update: Consider donating to Doctors Without Borders, the UN, Partners in Health, Tex-Mex Shelter Box, and/or, larger picture here, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and Canada Haiti Action.))

1. AP reports -- in U.S. halts airlifts of Haiti patients, citing space -- that all flights carrying earthquake victims out of Haiti have been suspended. An American doctor warns 100 critically ill patients may die if they are not transported to U.S. hospitals within 48 hours:

The U.S. military has halted flights carrying Haitian earthquake victims to the United States because of an apparent dispute over where seriously injured patients should be taken for treatment.
An American doctor treating victims in Port-au-Prince warned that at least 100 patients needed to get to better hospitals or they could die, while the U.S. government said it was working to expand hospital capacity in both Haiti and in the U.S.
It was unclear exactly what prompted the Wednesday decision by the U.S. military to suspend the flights, or when it would end. Military officials said some states were refusing to take patients, though they wouldn't say which states.
"There has been no policy decision by anyone to suspend evacuee flights," White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said. "This situation arose as we started to run out of room." . . .
"We have 100 critically ill patients who will die in the next day or two if we don't Medevac them," said [Dr. Barth] Green, chairman of the University of Miami's Global Institute for Community Health and Development.

2. AP reported on Saturday afternoon - Latrines join food, water on Haiti's crisis list -- that about a tenth of the needed sanitation facilities are being provided Haiti's earthquake victims:

A lack of sanitation threatens to create killer diseases in the vast refugee camps where hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors have crammed in together, relief officials said Saturday, as the need for latrines increasingly joined food and water and shelter as major concerns.
Just one portable toilet serves about 2,000 people in a sprawling camp across from the collapsed National Palace, forcing most to use a gutter next to where vendors cook food and mothers struggle to bathe their children.
Nearly three dozen organizations are joining in a U.N.-led effort to build latrines and handle solid waste disposal, said Dr. Jon Andrus, deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization. Authorities also plan to build more permanent resettlement camps with plumbing and sewage and have identified some locations.
The results of these efforts aren't yet evident in many places.
"I haven't seen sanitation at any of the camps," said Dr. Louise Ivers, Haiti clinical director for Partners in Health. She fears "a mass outbreak of measles, which would really be potentially devastating for a camp where there are 10,000 people living."

The same article points out the pathetically tiny supply of tents provided quake victims:

Few tents have been supplied to the quake's survivors, exposing people to the elements. Signs begging for help in English - not Haitian Creole - dot nearly every street corner in Port-au-Prince.
It could take weeks to get the 200,000 tents needed for Haiti's homeless, said Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue, the culture and communications minister. Haiti now has fewer than 5,000 donated tents and coordinating the aid operation remains a problem.
Some Haitians are so fed up with the camps that they are making a risky return to their destroyed homes - often the only semblance of property they have left.
"The situation is only getting worse," said Josielle Noel, 46, who was among dozens of people pooling their labor to start rebuilding in the concrete slum of Canape Vert, an area devastated by the Jan. 12 quake. . . .

3. Friday morning, AP reported - in Haiti, food aid still falls short -- that food, water and shelter continue to be simply absent most places:

The newly homeless of the rubble-strewn Bizoton slum say they haven't gotten food, water or help with shelter in the two weeks since the earthquake.
"If it rains now, that's it," Wilson St. Ellis, 50, a father of eight, said Wednesday amid plastic sheets stretched here and there as flimsy shields against the elements. . . .
Food remains scarce for many of the neediest survivors despite the efforts of the United Nations, the U.S. military and dozens of international aid groups. Relief experts say the scale of this disaster and Haiti's poor infrastructure are presenting unprecedented challenges, but Haitian leaders complain coordination has been poor. . . .
The [U.N. World Food Program] says rising tensions and security incidents - "including people rushing distribution points for food" - have hampered deliveries. But since the massive relief effort's first days, other problems have also delayed aid - blocked and congested roads, shortages of trucks, a crippled seaport and an overloaded Port-au-Prince airport.
"The unblocking of the logistical bottlenecks is an absolute priority," the European Commission said Wednesday, describing a seven-day backlog of 1,000 relief flights seeking permission to land at the single-runway airport.

4. Friday night, the BBC -- in Construction slow on Haiti's 'tented villages' -- reports that more than two weeks after the quake, there are still no signs of tented villages promised by the Haitian government.

At least one million people were left homeless by the quake, which flattened most of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
Only aid workers have so far succeeded in the construction of a ''tented village'' for 3,000 refugees.

5. On Thursday, Paul Farmer, UN deputy special envoy to Haiti, stated in the Miami Herald's Inept government, past U.S. policy seen hampering Haiti relief effort that the effort to clear the rubble was one-tenth what it needs to be, that there were numerous other inadequacies in the relief effort, and cast blame in various directions:

. . . Paul Farmer, the United Nations deputy special envoy to Haiti, told the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on Thursday that there was a mismatch between relief efforts and Haiti's ability to absorb them.
"Where we are creating 4,000 jobs in cleaning rubble, we must create 40,000 jobs," Farmer said. "We must hasten our efforts to get tents, tarpaulins and latrines or composting toilets to Haiti."
Without better sanitation, he said, thousands of displaced Haitians are at risk for cholera and other diseases.
The inability of Haiti's government to respond and to speed the work of the aid organizations has its roots in years of corruption, the mushrooming of slums, deforestation and faulty U.S. policy, he said.
Farmer said the Bush administration had bypassed the Haitian government repeatedly to deliver aid and humanitarian services to the Caribbean country. The consequence was a poorly funded and inadequate public sector, he said. Over-reliance on private aid organizations also weakened the country's food security. As a result of these failed policies, the Haitian government is unable and underprepared to coordinate the relief and reconstruction efforts today, Farmer said. . . .
Farmer also took aim at aid organizations, saying they had stripped a share of available funds from the Haitian people.
"The aid machinery currently at work in Haiti keeps too much overhead for its operations and still relies overmuch on NGOs" - nongovernmental organizations - "or contractors who do not observe the ground rules we would need to follow to build Haiti back better," he said.

6. Bill Quigley, Loyola University New Orleans law professor and longtime activist with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, wrote on Friday from Port au Prince - in Hell and Hope in Haiti -- that there is no real government and that help hasn't really gotten to most of the city, but that Haitians are creating order and self-help communities on their own.

. . . Troops and heavy machinery are only seen in the center of the city.
After days in Port Au prince I have seen only one fight - two teens fighting on a streetcorner over a young woman. No riots. No machetes.
Hope is found in the people of Haiti. Despite no electricity, little shelter, minimal food and no real government or order, people are helping one another survive. . . .

The same article speaks to St. Clares, Port au Prince, activist Lavarice Gaudin:

What should outsiders do, I asked Lavarice Gaudin? Lavarice, who helps the St. Clares community feed thousands each day through their What If Foundation, said, "Help the most poor first. Some who labored their whole lives to make a one bedroom home will likely never have a home again. Haiti needs everything. But we need it with a plan. Pressure the Haitian government, pressure US AID to help the poorest."
International volunteers who work hand-in-hand with Haitians are welcomed. Others not so much.
Lavarice saw the Associated Press story that reported only one penny of every US aid dollar will go directly in cash to needy Haitians. "I can understand that they distrust the government, but why not distribute aid through the churches and good community organizations?"
"We hope this will help us develop strong leadership that listens and responds to the people." . . .

Lavarice touches on why the relief effort has been so chaotic and inadequate. First of all, the Haitian government is not being allowed to coordinate the relief effort - see Haitian President Preval bemoans lack of coordination in aid relief -- and where it does get involved, there is corruption and bribery. Also, the militarized U.S. response prioritizes security over relief - see Mark Weisbrot's Security Kills and Peter Hallward's Securing Disaster in Haiti, both from Counterpunch. Obsession with security also hampers the big NGOs from getting to the majority of the victims - see Tonya Golash-Boza's Struggling for Dignity and Survival in Haiti and Sasha Kramer's Letter From Port au Prince. Golash-Boza writes:

There are a lot of soldiers all over the city. It is unclear what is their function might be. They patrol the streets with big guns at the ready, yet I have not seen any soldiers engaged in the clean up effort. And, it is clear that the function of the US soldiers is security. Some soldiers protect food deliveries, but there are far too few deliveries. Food distribution is a major problem in Haiti, in part because of widespread concern over security issues. There are not enough armed guards to protect food shipments on the street, so they do not go out.
The international community has to include the Haitian community in the food distribution system. That is the best way to maintain security. Part of the reason Haitians have not been organized in distribution efforts is a lack of confidence in Haitian people to organize themselves effectively and to share resources. Despite this perception, which is fueled by mass media portrayals of Haitians as looters and desperate, I have seen plenty of evidence that Haitians are capable of organizing themselves and distributing resources. Unfortunately, the calm streets and civic organization of Haitians does not seem to be newsworthy for mainstream media.

Another way to look at the Haitian conundrum/crisis/dilemma is that it is the product of decades of neo-colonization informed by neo-liberal, 'government is the problem' thinking. The result, Haiti doesn't have but needs a functioning sovereign government that is not afraid of the Haitian people and puts their needs first. The U.S. certainly is not going to supply one. Hallward sum up:

. . . it's now clear that the initial phase of the U.S.-led relief operation has conformed to the three fundamental tendencies that have shaped the more general course of the island's recent history. It has adopted military priorities and strategies. It has sidelined Haiti's own leaders and government, and ignored the needs of the majority of its people. And it has proceeded in ways that reinforce the already harrowing gap between rich and poor. . . .

A final thought is how the U.S. response to Katrina echoes through the U.S.-led Haiti earthquake relief effort. It's the response of a government that has been so thoroughly privatized that the only relief coordinating agency we can provide is our military. Which doesn't work, but that is being ignored: hard to criticize the military here in the States.

Haiti response: pathetic or powerless?

fairleft — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:41:57 GMT

The only way this ['relief in the short term or a better life in the long one'] will really happen is if the Haitians have a functioning and legitimate state capable of providing for the needs of its people. The US military, the UN bureaucracy or foreign NGOs are never going to do this in Haiti or anywhere else.

-- Alex Cockburn

Alex Cockburn and myself -- in Haiti's neoliberal catastrophe, pre and post quake -- predicted the real ineffectiveness of the international and internal response to the quake. The short-term ineffectiveness was confirmed yesterday by Italy's civil protection chief, Guido Bertolaso. He called the US-led 20,000 troop effort in Haiti a "pathetic" failure, saying it was too reliant on military personnel:

"I think it has truly been a pathetic situation. It could have been run a lot better, "The Americans are extraordinary but when you are facing a situation in chaos they tend to confuse military intervention with emergency aid, which cannot be entrusted to the armed forces.
"It's a truly powerful show of force but it's completely out of touch with reality." Mr Bertolaso, who holds the rank of a government minister, also accused individual countries and aid agencies of conducting a "vanity show".
He said: "Unfortunately there's this need to make a 'bella figura' before the TV cameras rather than focus on what's under the debris."

Mr. Bertolaso. . . said that the American decision to send large quantities of troops, cargo planes and aid was commendable. "However, when confronted by a situation of chaos, they tend to confuse military intervention with what should be an emergency operation, which cannot be entrusted to the armed forces. We are missing a leader, a co-ordination capacity that goes beyond military discipline."
Mr Bertolaso compared the US response to Haiti to its reaction to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. "It's a truly powerful show of force, but it's completely out of touch with reality. They don't have close rapport with the territory and they certainly don't have a rapport with international organisations and aid groups," he said.
He accused many of the organisations involved in the Haiti operation of "putting on a vanity show for the television cameras instead of rolling up their sleeves", singling out Bill Clinton, the former US President, who had made a show of helping with water supplies "but went back after a day".
He hoped it would be "the last time the world acts in this way ... Unfortunately there's this need to make a bella figura in front of the television cameras rather than focusing on what's underneath the debris."

Cockburn's perspective is echoed by Gary Leupp, in his excellent Grappling with what Happened in Haiti:

President Preval, a former Aristide ally, seems not so much unpopular as powerless.

Leupp adds:

You wonder how many died immediately, suffocated by rubble, and how many over many hours through neglect. There is no infrastructure in Haiti. Unlike nearby Cuba, which is organizationally well-equipped to handle natural disasters, Haiti has no emergency aid network. There's not even a military; that was disbanded during the last invasion, the one that followed the U.S.-abetted uprising of thugs in 2004, the kidnapping of President Aristide (sent into exile in Africa), his replacement with Boniface Alexandre as a provisional president, and the subsequent election of Rene Preval. There's no way of knowing what's going on in that country, poorest in the hemisphere to begin with, now without power or water or meaningful news coverage.

And what's an ineffectual government to do other than postpone elections [update: "at least until November"]?

Postpone elections, Haitian minister urges

By the way, the one overwhelmingly popular political party is banned from participating in those elections, as The Globe and Mail delicately puts it:

The upcoming elections have already been marred by accusations that the political party of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted from power in 2004, has been unfairly banned from competing in next month's elections.
Supporters of Mr. Aristide, who has suggested he might return from exile in the wake of the quake, have threatened to boycott or disrupt next month's planned vote.

On corporate media coverage of the quake's aftermath, Leupp writes, "If people are moved to donate to earthquake relief, shouldn't they know why things are so messed up in Haiti? Aren't they owed some journalism?" In that 'why' direction, read the entire interview among Peter Hallward, Danny Glover, and Jesse Freeston (who is a Canadian pro-Haiti activist, which explains some of the Canada focus you'll read) excerpted below:

Peter Hallward: [Another reason Haiti is poor] has to do with the political steps they took to try and fight this neoliberalism precisely by electing a government that could represent a political alternative to neoliberalism. So, a popular movement develops in the 1980s to fight this tendency, elects a government on an anti-neoliberal agenda in 1990, and the story of Haiti ever since has been really driven by measures taken by the international community and the small Haitian elite to force that government, to force this popular movement, into accepting the neoliberal plan that directly resulted in the impoverishment of a great majority of its people.
Jesse Freeston: This has included US-backed coups against the Aristide government both in 1991 and 2004. In recent years, however, Canada has largely taken over the role of undermining Haitian democracy -- this according to Canadian independent journalist and author of Canada in Haiti Anthony Fenton.
Anthony Fenton: From the moment Aristide was reelected in 2000 until he left, fled, was kidnapped from Haiti in 2004, Canada played a deliberate role undermining him, following in lockstep with the US policy. They starved it of loans, starved it of being able to fulfill their democratic mandate. They empowered Haiti's elite and fueled a disinformation campaign. Then, in an unprecedented way Canada played a leadership role as a regional imperial power propping up an illegitimate regime from 2004 to 2006, imposing a neoliberal agenda that they had tried for so long to impose on Haiti. This is the new face of Canada -- this is Canada for the 21st century.
Jesse Freeston: Canada has also supported the post-coup criminalization of the Fanmi Lavalas party, but it has been the UN, headed by a Brazilian military, that has been largely tasked for policing social movements.
Peter Hallward: The main purpose has been to coerce the population into accepting the consequences of the coup. But remember: the coup in 2004 overthrew a government that had been elected with a massive majority -- it had at least 75% of the vote and won 90% of the seats in the Parliament. And, by all credible accounts, that government would remain and if it could be elected again tomorrow it would be. So, what the UN's main job has been is to provide a massive overwhelming military and police presence to basically force the population into accepting it, and, particularly in 2005 and 2006, that's what the UN did. It patrolled Port-au-Prince, treated the population like a hostile force, and on a couple of notorious occasions went in and attacked groups of people who were some of Aristide and Lavalas' most ardent supporters and killed dozens of them.

Shake, Rattle and Operate

TheMomCat — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:37:57 GMT

From MSF

Haiti: Treatment Continues Through Powerful Aftershock

On Wednesday morning, as Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams in Haiti continued to work through long queues of patients waiting for treatment and surgery, the country was shaken anew by a powerful aftershock. In Choscal hospital, where MSF has been running two operating theaters, patients were so alarmed by the tremors that they had to be relocated into tents outside the building. The surgeons stayed in the hospital, however, rotating in regular shifts, performing one operation after another.
In the week since the January 12 earthquake, MSF has established 10 operating theaters in the battered country. Seven are in Port-au-Prince hospitals-Choscal, Trinité, Carrefour and Chancerelle-and three others are outside the capital, in the towns of Leogane and Jacmel. Overall, MSF surgical teams have been carrying out an average of 130 operations per day. Simultaneously, logisticians are racing to find new facilities or rehabilitate damaged ones. Additional operating theaters are being prepared in Leogane and Grand Goave, west of the capitol, and inside Port-au-Prince, where a team expects to complete the construction of an inflatable hospital with two operating theaters by Friday.

Cross posted from Docudarma
In the meantime, vital medical supplies and equipment are still being diverted to the DR.

Six Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) cargo planes loaded with vital medical material like antibiotics have been redirected to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. This will delay MSF staff's ability to treat patients who urgently need it.

Haiti: US Profiting From Disaster With Conditional Aid?

Edger — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 08:34:17 GMT

Crossposted from Antemedius

As aid trickles into Haiti and news trickles out, and as the extent of the horror unfolding there following the earthquake becomes more widely known, decisions are already being made that will affect the kind of country surviving Haitians will live in that emerges from the disaster.

In this video from The Real News today independendent journalist Ansel Herz reports live from Port-Au-Prince on the role that the deployed US troops are playing, while author Peter Hallward weighs in on the role that the US has played in Haiti's recent history and shares his concerns that post-earthquake Haiti will further cement the domination of the Haitian people by foreigners.

Real News Network - January 19, 2010
Transcript here
Haiti: Guns or food?
Presence of US troops provides both hope of relief, and fear of continuing legacy of US domination

Ansel Herz is an independent journalist and web designer originally from the United States but currently based in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. His personal website can be found at www.mediahacker.com.

Peter Hallward is a Professor of Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex University in England. In 2007 he published the acclaimed historical account of post-1990 Haitian politics, Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment. He is the editor of the journal Radical Philosophy and a contributing editor to Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities.

Disaster capitalism at work?

As Benjamin Dangl wrote yesterday in Profiting From Haiti's Crisis:

US corporations, private mercenaries, Washington and the International Monetary Fund are using the crisis in Haiti to make a profit, promote unpopular neoliberal policies, and extend military and economic control over the Haitian people.
[snip]
Disaster Capitalism Comes to Haiti
As Noami Klein thoroughly proved in her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, throughout history, "while people were reeling from natural disasters, wars and economic upheavals, savvy politicians and industry leaders nefariously implemented policies that would never have passed during less muddled times." This push to apply unpopular neoliberal policies began almost immediately after the earthquake in Haiti.
In a talk recorded by Democracy Now!, Klein explained that the disaster in Haiti is created on the one hand by nature, and on the other hand "is worsened by the poverty that our governments have been so complicit in deepening. Crises-natural disasters are so much worse in countries like Haiti, because you have soil erosion because the poverty means people are building in very, very precarious ways, so houses just slide down because they are built in places where they shouldn't be built. All of this is interconnected. But we have to be absolutely clear that this tragedy, which is part natural, part unnatural, must, under no circumstances, be used to, one, further indebt Haiti, and, two, to push through unpopular corporatist policies in the interests of our corporations."
Following the disaster in Haiti, Klein pointed out that the Heritage Foundation, "one of the leading advocates of exploiting disasters to push through their unpopular pro-corporate policies," issued a statement on its website after the earthquake hit: "In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti's long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region."
The mercenary trade group International Peace Operations Association (IPOA) immediately offered their services to provide "security" in Haiti to its member companies, according to Jeremy Scahill. Within hours of the earthquake, Scahill wrote, the IPOA website announced, "In the wake of the tragic events in Haiti, a number of IPOA's member companies are available and prepared to provide a wide variety of critical relief services to the earthquake's victims."
Kathy Robison, a Fortune 500 executive, formerly with Goldman Sachs Companies, wrote of the earthquake disaster in Haiti. "The business leaders I have been meeting with have seen enough disappointment and suffering," she wrote. "What Haiti needs is economic development and the building of a true middle class. ... There is much we are planning as far as creating new and innovative ways of using international aid and government support to promote private investment."
On January 14, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced a $100 million loan to Haiti to help with relief efforts. However, Richard Kim at The Nation wrote that this loan was added onto $165 million in debt made up of loans with conditions "including raising prices for electricity, refusing pay increases to all public employees except those making minimum wage and keeping inflation low." This new $100 million loan has the same conditions. Kim writes, "in the face of this latest tragedy, the IMF is still using crisis and debt as leverage to compel neoliberal reforms."

A Quick History of the US Military in Haiti

wilberforce — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:31:44 GMT

1915- 1934: US Marines arrive & then occupation.

1917: The US wrote Haiti's 'Constitution'-- which mainly abolished the previous prohibition on foreign owned land. FDR claimed to have written it.

This document abolished the prohibition on foreign ownership of land-the most essential component of Haitian law. When the newly elected National Assembly refused to pass this document and drafted one of their own preserving this prohibition, it was forcibly dissolved by Gendarmerie commandant Smedley Butler. This constitution was approved by a plebiscite in 1919, in which less than five percent of the population voted. The State Department authorized this plebiscite presuming that "The people casting ballots would be 97% illiterate, ignorant in most cases of what they were voting for."
The Marines and Gendarmerie initiated an extensive road-building program to enhance their military effectiveness and open the country to U.S investment. Lacking any source of adequate funds, they revived an 1864 Haitian law, discovered by Butler, requiring peasants to perform labor on local roads in lieu of paying a road tax.

- Wikipedia

1921: The Haitian revolt, and the US military kills approximately 15,000.

1946: US backed coup.

1950: US backed coup.

1957- 1987: The Duvalier and Baby Doc era's :

Duvalier's paramilitary police, officially the Volunteers for National Security (Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale - VSN) but more commonly known as the Tonton Macoutes, named for a Vodou monster, carried out political murders, beatings, and intimidation. An estimated 30,000 Haitians were killed by his government.

From 1957-1971 Haitians lived under the dark shadow of "Papa Doc" Duvalier, a brutal dictator who enjoyed U.S. backing because he was seen by Americans as a reliable anti-Communist. After his death, Duvalier's son, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" became President-for-life at the age of 19 and he ruled Haiti until he was finally overthrown in 1986. It was in the 1970s and 1980s that Baby Doc and the United States government and business community worked together to put Haiti and Haiti's capitol city on track to become what it was on January 12, 2010.

http://current.com/items/91920...

1991: The US backs a bloody Coup against Aristide -- 5000 die, many disappear.

1993: The US military comes back, this time to put Aristede back in power. After this, Aristede launches widespread human rights abuses, his associates becoming involved in drug running, etc.

Arbitrary arrest, arbitrary detention, summary executions and police brutality became everyday reality.

2004: The US kidnaps Aristide:

On March 1, 2004, US Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), along with Aristide family friend Randall Robinson, reported that Aristide had told them (using a smuggled cellular phone), that he had been forced to resign and abducted from the country by the United States. He claimed to be held hostage by an armed military guard.[16]
Aristide later repeated similar claims, in an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! on March 16. He was pressured to resign from office by U.S. soldiers and James B. Foley, U.S. Ambassador to Haïti, on February 29. An aircraft provided by the U.S. carried Aristide and his wife, Mildred Trouillot Aristide, into exile to the Central African Republic. Goodman asked Aristide if he resigned, and President Aristide replied: "No, I didn't resign. What some people call 'resignation' is a 'new coup d'état,' or 'modern kidnapping.'
......
Some have come forward to support his claim saying they witnessed him being escorted out by American soldiers at gunpoint....

1/19/10: Wear Red For Haiti

davidseth — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:18:37 GMT

What's it all about? Join me below.

Wear Red for Haiti
Date: Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Time: 12:00pm - 11:55pm
Location: Everywhere (There's no specific place, it's a nationwide/worldwide event)

Description: Everyone should listen to this. It's called Together (A Song for Haiti) and was recorded by the High School of Recording Arts. The "first step" that they're talking about? It's exactly what you all are doing right now, coming together to show your support. By showing our support for these people, we WILL increase the donations given and we WILL make a difference in the lives of everyone affected by this quake.
>Show your support for the victims of the earthquake disaster in Haiti by wearing red on January 19. We're all one people and we all share this world, and we must stand up for one another when others begin to fall apart.
IF YOU HAVE A TWITTER, TWEET THE LINK TO THIS EVENT SO THAT ALL OF YOUR FOLLOWERS WHO HAVE A FACEBOOK WILL BE AWARE OF IT! TELL THEM TO CONTINUE TWEETING IT AS WELL!
If you are interested in donating money to the victims, you can do so in several different ways:
1. Text "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross which is also aiding in the efforts.
2. Obviously if you are aware of any charities sending money to the victims, these would work as well.
There is a long list of organizations participating in Haiti as of right now, so if you have the money to spare, please give what you can to help these people.

You all know what to do. Let's do it.

-----------------------------
simulposted at The Dream Antilles and dailyKos

h/t to Chesapeake at docuDharma

Haiti's neoliberal catastrophe, pre and post quake

fairleft — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:27:11 GMT

Haiti before the earthquake (all photos by Ruth Fremson, NY Times, 2005, preserved here)

The most depressing four paragraphs I've read recently were these by Patrick Cockburn on Friday (emphasis added):

Haitians are now paying the price for this feeble and corrupt government structure because there is nobody to coordinate the most rudimentary relief and rescue efforts. Its weakness is exacerbated because aid has been funneled through foreign NGOs. A justification for this is that less of the money is likely to be stolen, but this does not mean that much of it reaches the Haitian poor. A sour Haitian joke says that when a Haitian minister skims 15 per cent of aid money it is called 'corruption' and when an NGO or aid agency takes 50 per cent it is called 'overhead'.
Many of the smaller government aid programs and NGOs are run by able, energetic and selfless people, but others, often the larger ones, are little more than rackets, highly remunerative for those who run them. In Kabul and Baghdad it is astonishing how little the costly endeavors of American aid agencies have accomplished. . . . Foreign consultants in Kabul often receive $250,000 to $500,000 a year, in a country where 43 per cent of the population try to live on less than a dollar a day.
None of this bodes very well for Haitians hoping for relief in the short term or a better life in the long one. The only way this will really happen if the Haitians have a functioning and legitimate state capable of providing for the needs of its people. The US military, the UN bureaucracy or foreign NGOs are never going to do this in Haiti or anywhere else.
There is nothing very new in this. Americans often ask why it is that their occupation of Germany and Japan in 1945 succeeded so well but more than half a century later in Iraq and Afghanistan was so disastrous. The answer is that it was not the US but the efficient German and Japanese state machines which restored their countries. Where that machine was weak, as in Italy, the US occupation relied with disastrous results on corrupt and incompetent local elites, much as they do today in Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti.

Haiti before the earthquake

Those paragraphs predicted what the most reliable reports say is going on now: I See No Evidence of a Government Presence Here. The Haiti money problem is being solved, but the chaos prevents help, in time, to most Haitians trapped under rubble or dying of treatable injuries. Nothing at all is being done or will be done about the non-functioning, failed state, which derives whatever legitimacy of the bullet it has from UN enforcers with their own, neocolonial agenda. If anything the death-squad-aided government has just picked up new enforcers, U.S. ones, to add to the UN occupation force. Let's see how that goes (NOT fucking very WELL).

Haiti before the earthquake

Haiti long neo-colonial history continues: decades of the bloodsucking U.S.-backed Duvaliers, then a brief 1980s Aristide spring, and then back to continuing U.S. neocolonialism -- Aristide's U.S.-backed ouster in 1991, his restoration in 1994 on condition he impose neoliberalist "plan of death" on Haiti, a brutal U.S. economic embargo and Aristide's eventual ouster in 2004 -- featuring U.S.-backed death squads that still roam free today -- because he was not neoliberal enough, then U.S. puppet and Duvalieresque kleptocrat Gérard Latortue's incredibly harsh neoliberal regime. Finally, he was ousted and in the 2006 elections an Aristide ally, René Préval, was elected, but he has turned out to feeble, cooperating with the U.S. (that's now Mr. Obama, btw) neo-liberal "plan of death" program.

So who really rules Haiti, if not the failed state:

In fact, the U.S., UN and other imperial powers effectively bypassed the Préval government and instead poured money into NGOs. "Haiti now has the highest per capita presence of NGOs in the world," says Yves Engler. The Préval government has become a political fig leaf, behind which the real decisions are made by the imperial powers, and implemented through their chosen international NGOs.
The real state power isn't the Préval government, but the U.S.-backed United Nations occupation. Under Brazilian leadership, UN forces have protected the rich and collaborated with--or turned a blind eye to--right-wing death squads who terrorize supporters of Aristide and his Lavalas Party.
The occupiers have done nothing to address the poverty, wrecked infrastructure and massive deforestation that have exacerbated the effects of a series of natural disasters--severe hurricanes in 2004 and 2008, and now the Port-au-Prince earthquake.

Haiti before the earthquake

And what are the occupiers against? Aristideism: "land reform, aid to peasants, reforestation, investment in infrastructure for the people, and increased wages and union rights for sweatshop workers." I.e., the same thing they're against everywhere: more for you and me, less for the investor class. Let's finish with a little bit of hope, More Than Aid, Haiti Needs Allies:

Haitians, it is true, need all the help they can get, but, as Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine, warns, "crises are often used now as the pretext for pushing through policies that you cannot push through under times of stability. Countries in periods of extreme crisis are desperate for any kind of aid, any kind of money, and are not in a position to negotiate fairly the terms of that exchange." Desperation ought not to be abused by oligarchic governments to drown Haiti into more debt or hold that sovereign nation economically hostage. Desperation ought not to be abused to enforce even more draconian mandates that only promote further instability. Desperation ought not to be abused to enhance specific political policies that only service imperialistic ambitions. Unless one still believes in fairy tales, it's almost unthinkable to assume many foreign governments, who've already come bearing gifts, don't see this as an opportunity to accomplish all three.
. . . Only a courageous countervailing movement that stands strong for the dignities and humanities of Haitians-during the aftermath and beyond: when TV channels have moved on to the next circus, when people have stopped giving and relief organizations are running out of aid-would save Haiti from an even greater earthquake already rattling the ground beneath.

Haiti needs Aristideism, an end to neoliberalist economic brutality. That's what needs to be imposed on Haiti, Mr. and Ms. Hollywood Celebrities, what its common people have long voted for and courageously fought and died for.

Reports of violence in Haiti largely "disinformation" UPDATED

Inky99 — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:00:52 GMT

Not long ago I read an account, from someone on the ground, saying that the "information" coming out of Haiti regarding violence and looting were mostly lies. I couldn't remember where I'd read that, and honestly haven't had much time to go back and look for it.

It got me to thinking. Why would The Powers That Be spread such lies? Well, it's pretty obvious.

Naomi Klein is onto one of the reasons:

But as I write about in The Shock Doctrine, crises are often used now as the pretext for pushing through policies that you cannot push through under times of stability. Countries in periods of extreme crisis are desperate for any kind of aid, any kind of money, and are not in a position to negotiate fairly the terms of that exchange.
And I just want to pause for a second and read you something, which is pretty extraordinary. I just put this up on my website. The headline is "Haiti: Stop Them Before They Shock Again." This went up a few hours ago, three hours ago, I believe, on the Heritage Foundation website.
"Amidst the Suffering, Crisis in Haiti Offers Opportunities to the U.S. In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti's long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the image of the United States in the region." And then goes on.
Now, I don't know whether things are improving or not, because it took the Heritage Foundation thirteen days before they issued thirty-two free market solutions for Hurricane Katrina. We put that document up on our website, as well. It was close down the housing projects, turn the Gulf Coast into a tax-free free enterprise zone, get rid of the labor laws that forces contractors to pay a living wage. Yeah, so it took them thirteen days before they did that in the case of Katrina. In the case of Haiti, they didn't even wait twenty-four hours.
Now, why I say I don't know whether it's improving or not is that two hours ago they took this down. So somebody told them that it wasn't couth. And then they put up something that was much more delicate. Fortunately, the investigative reporters at Democracy Now! managed to find that earlier document in a Google cache. But what you'll find now is a much gentler "Things to Remember While Helping Haiti." And buried down there, it says, "Long-term reforms for Haitian democracy and its economy are also badly overdue."
But the point is, we need to make sure that the aid that goes to Haiti is, one, grants, not loans. This is absolutely crucial. This is an already heavily indebted country. This is a disaster that, as Amy said, on the one hand is nature, is, you know, an earthquake; on the other hand is the creation, is worsened by the poverty that our governments have been so complicit in deepening. Crises-natural disasters are so much worse in countries like Haiti, because you have soil erosion because the poverty means people are building in very, very precarious ways, so houses just slide down because they are built in places where they shouldn't be built. All of this is interconnected. But we have to be absolutely clear that this tragedy, which is part natural, part unnatural, must, under no circumstances, be used to, one, further indebt Haiti, and, two, to push through unpopular corporatist policies in the interests of our corporations. And this is not a conspiracy theory. They have done it again and again.

Then of course, there's the military angle.

America has been salivating over occupying Haiti for years now. Clinton managed to control Haiti without having to invade, or even fire a shot, and then the Bush administration managed to get rid of Aristide of course.

But now? They have a perfect excuse to go in there, you know, to "help", and never leave.

"We're from the United States and we're here to help you".

Chilling words.

At any rate, check out this blog post from someone on the ground, someone who isn't part of the corporate media or the government.

http://oursoil.org/content/ear...

Last night we (myself, Cat Laine, Paul Namphy, Wisnel Jolissaint, Lisius Orel and Baudeler Magloire) arrived in Port au Prince just before sunset. As we came into the city with our truck piled full of water, gas, shovels and food we got a flat tire. The news reports of looting have been so exaggerated that we were concerned that a mob of people might come take everything before we even made it into the city. I am pleased to report that, as per usual, reports of violence in Haiti are largely disinformation. Yes, we did hear shooting late last night, and yes we did see a fight over a mattress at a camp in the city but our overall impression has been sheer amazement at the solidarity displayed by communities.

Who are these people?

Our Mission
Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL) is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting soil resources, empowering communities and transforming wastes into resources in Haiti. We believe that the path to sustainability is through transformation, of both disempowered people and discarded materials, turning apathy and pollution into valuable resources. SOIL promotes integrated approaches to the problems of poverty, poor public health, agricultural productivity, and environmental destruction. We attempt to nurture collective creativity through developing collaborative relationships between community organizations in Haiti and academics and activists internationally Empowering communities, building the soil, nourishing the grassroots.

So there you have it. Again, the media lies. Again, our country is all about disaster capitalism, and the exploitation of human suffering.

UPDATE:

Now it's late at night and I have some time to get caught up on this.

Washington's Blog has a great piece on this. Check it out, and just check out his site anyway, it's amazing.

From there, I learned that the International Monetary Fund, the world's biggest loan shark, has decided that out of the generosity of its evil black soul it will give a nice $100 million dollar "loan" to Haiti. Isn't that nice of them? Ha. If you haven't already, read the book Confessions of an Economic Hitman to see what that is really all about. Okay, here it is in a nutshell:

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions
We speak with John Perkins, a former respected member of the international banking community. In his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man he describes how as a highly paid professional, he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then take over their economies.

These assholes are so confident they've already started dictating the terms:

To great fanfare, the IMF announced a new $100 million loan to Haiti on Thursday. In one crucial way, the loan is a good thing; Haiti is in dire straits and needs a massive cash infusion. But the new loan was made through the IMF's extended credit facility, to which Haiti already has $165 million in debt. Debt relief activists tell me that these loans came with conditions, including raising prices for electricity, refusing pay increases to all public employees except those making minimum wage and keeping inflation low. They say that the new loans would impose these same conditions. In other words, in the face of this latest tragedy, the IMF is still using crisis and debt as leverage to compel neoliberal reforms.

Translation: "neoliberal reforms" = "slavery to the IMF and The Powers That Be".

As Perkins explains in "Confessions of an Economic Hitman", once you've been conned by the IMF, you're screwed. You don't play ball, you become a "bad guy" and the military is sent in. Often, you're assassinated.

Great deal, huh?

And here's an article which describes exactly that which I was thinking about (and the title states it clearly):

The Militarization of Emergency Aid to Haiti: Is it a Humanitarian Operation or an Invasion?

The overall humanitarian operation is not being led by civilian governmental agencies such as FEMA or USAID, but by the Pentagon.
The dominant decision making role has been entrusted to US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).
A massive deployment of military hardware and personnel is contemplated. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen has confirmed that the US will be sending nine to ten thousand troops to Haiti, including 2000 marines. (American Forces Press Service, January 14, 2010)
Aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson and its complement of supporting ships has already arrived in Port au Prince. (January 15, 2010). The 2,000-member Marine Amphibious Unit as well as and soldiers from the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne division "are trained in a wide variety of missions including security and riot-control in addition to humanitarian tasks."
In contrast to rescue and relief teams dispatched by various civilian teams and organizations, the humanitarian mandate of the US military is not clearly defined:
"Marines are definitely warriors first, and that is what the world knows the Marines for,... [but] we're equally as compassionate when we need to be, and this is a role that we'd like to show -- that compassionate warrior, reaching out with a helping hand for those who need it. We are very excited about this." (Marines' Spokesman, Marines Embark on Haiti Response Mission, Army Forces Press Services, January 14, 2010)
While presidents Obama and Préval spoke on the phone, there were no reports of negotiations between the two governments regarding the entry and deployment of US troops on Haitian soil. The decision was taken and imposed unilaterally by Washington. The total lack of a functioning government in Haiti was used to legitimize, on humanitarian grounds, the sending in of a powerful military force, which has de facto taken over several governmental functions.

How convenient.

4:53

Sally Panic — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:19:14 GMT

4:53 is the official time noted that the earthquake that hit Haiti yesterday. Right around the time that TheMomCat and I were casually commenting here. Weird.

It is still unclear how many have been killed in the earthquake, which measured 7.2 on the Richter scale, but aid agencies fear thousands are dead.

My daughter and I said some special prayers last night as we snuggled in our warm bed. Empathy. I couldn't get the idea out of my head of what it must be like for the people there. What a dreadful deep dark night they were facing. Even though there weren't many photos out yet, I could only begin to imagine. Having been through Hurricane Ike here a couple of summers ago, I at least know the frustration and dismay that comes with no power, no communication, no relief. But we were fine. Can't even begin to compare. We were able to camp out in (and outside) our old funky but sturdy home, get in our funky little car and drive back and forth to The Pod for government issued emergency water and supplies, and listen to our Emergency Weather Radio. A walk in the park for us. I cannot comprehend this...

Bodies on the streets
Aftershocks rattled the city of 2 million people as women covered in dust clawed out of debris, wailing. Stunned people wandered the streets holding hands. Thousands gathered in public squares singing hymns.
People pulled bodies from collapsed homes, covering them with sheets by the side of the road. Passersby lifted the sheets to see if a loved one was underneath. Outside a crumbled building the bodies of five children and three adults lay in a pile.
snip
Haitian President René Préval told the Miami Herald that he had been stepping over dead bodies and hearing the cries of those trapped under the rubble of the national Parliament building, describing the scene as "unimaginable."
"Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed,'' he said.
Préval issued an urgent appeal for aid.
Tens of thousands of people appear to have lost their homes and many perished in collapsed buildings that were flimsy and dangerous even under normal conditions.
"The hospitals cannot handle all these victims," Dr. Louis-Gerard Gilles, a former senator, said as he helped survivors. "Haiti needs to pray. We all need to pray together."
msnbc source with pics and vids

This is a good short video from AP that gives a very quick overview of the small nation's history. video here: http://news.yahoo.com/video/wo...

Desperation is nothing new to a poor people who have been struggling in a mess of poverty, disasters, and political strife for decades.

Because of its location, Haiti's climate is tropical, its forests are lush and green, and its beaches are sprawling. All of this would seem to make the country an ideal spot for tourism. But years of political violence, corruption, deforestation, crime and natural disasters have severely hindered its development efforts.
Haiti also lies in the middle of the hurricane belt, making it subject to severe tropical storms during the Northern Hemisphere's summer season. Along with flooding, it also is vulnerable to periodic drought and occasional earthquakes.
In 2008, Haiti was devastated by four storms, which killed hundreds of people and wiped out 15 percent of the country's economic output. World Bank President Robert Zoellick estimated that the storms caused nearly $1 billion worth of damage.
Haiti is the hemisphere's poorest nation, with 70 percent of its 9.8 million people living on the equivalent of less than $2 a day. An estimated two million or more live in its capital Port-au-Prince, many of them in densely populated slums.
source

This catasrophe is all over the news and there's gobs of appeals for aid and relief in blogs, on my teevee and the tubes. However, I've heard very little about this other angle so far, except a brief spot this morning on msnbc from Debbie Wasserman Schultz (and Congressman Alcee Hastings of Miramar) renewing the call for granting "Temporary Protected Status (TPS)" to undocumented Haitians in this country to prevent their deportation.

Here's a long (sorry) quote from Human Rights First on the subject:

Under U.S. procedures, migrants who are interdicted on boats are not given access to lawyers and are not all screened to make sure that they are not refugees who are in danger of persecution if returned. While Cuban migrants are read a statement in Spanish notifying them that they may come forward and speak with a U.S. representative if they have any concerns and Chinese migrants are provided with a written questionnaire, Haitian and other migrants are not provided with any indication, written or oral, that they can express their fears about being returned. Even if a Haitian asylum seeker should voice a fear of persecution, the U.S. government does not require that translators be present on every interdicted boat so their fears may never be heard.
Since an influx of arrivals of Haitian asylum seekers by boat began in December 2001, the U.S. government has initiated a series of concerted steps that have subjected Haitians to blanket detention, have attempted to deprive them of any meaningful individualized assessment of their release, and subjected them to unfair expedited procedures. These steps include:
* The initial blanket detention policy directed at Haitian asylum seekers.
* The invocation of expanded post-9/11 detention authority in an attempt to prevent the release of Haitian asylum seekers who were found to be eligible for release by immigration judges.
* The expansion of expedited removal to sea arrivals - which had the effect of subjecting future Haitian asylum seekers to unfair summary procedures as well as depriving them of the right to have an immigration judge assess their eligibility for release.
* The expedited scheduling of Haitian asylum cases -- so quickly that many were not able to find legal representations.
* The issuance of a sweeping decision by the Attorney General which will have the effect of depriving Haitan asylum seekers of an individualized assessment of the need for their continued detention.
While the INS initially denied that a special detention policy existed, it eventually had to concede the existence of this policy after a federal lawsuit was filed by the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center on behalf of the Haitians. Human Rights First has filed two amicus briefs in this case, arguing that the discriminatory Haitian policy violates international law. Various justifications have been proffered for this special Haitian policy. These justifications have ranged from claims that the policy is necessary to deter Haitian asylum seekers from risking their lives by fleeing to the U.S. by sea to more recent claims that this policy is somehow in the interests of "national security."
On December 13, 2002, Human Rights First submitted comments to the then-INS denouncing a November 13 notice in the Federal Register authorizing expedited removal for Haitian and other migrants who arrive by sea (with the exception of Cubans). The notice would result in an expansion of unfair deportation and detention procedures to Haitian and other sea arrivals.
On April 17, 2003, Attorney General Ashcroft issued a sweeping precedent-setting decision which will result in the indefinite detention of Haitian and other asylum seekers who request refuge the United States. Human Rights First and other major refugee rights organizations had urged him against this plan. The decision paints Haitian refugees arriving by boat and seeking safety from persecution as threats to national security. As a result of the Attorney General's decision, Haitian men, women and children - who have no intent to harm the United States - will be detained in jails or other facilities for months or years without being given a meaningful chance to demonstrate that their detention is unnecessary.

Jeezuz.

I'm looking for more current info on this. Bear with me. Okay here's, in 2009, a really good piece here - it's a blog opinion not formal MSM News source, written by Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. (Note: This stuff isn't easy to find quickly.)

Haitians began arriving in South Florida about 50 years ago, but were denied the same rights and treatment as more favored immigrants like Europeans. Fleeing repressive dictatorships hardly mattered during years under "Papa" and "Baby Doc" Duvalier or when military dictatorships ran the country.
In September 1963, the first boatload claiming persecution arrived but were denied asylum and deported. Decades later, it's the same. After a 1991 coup deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, thousands of Haitians fled to America. Most were intercepted at sea and sent home while around 300 were detained at Guantanamo because tests showed they were HIV positive.
Conditions at the camp were deplorable. Treated like prisoners, they were held behind razor wire in leaky barracks with bad sanitation, poor food, and little medical care even for the sick and pregnant women. After protests and a hunger strike, crackdowns were severe, many were imprisoned, and Clinton White House justification was no different than today. The DOJ claimed Haitians had no legal rights under the Constitution, federal statutes, or international law. Wrong.

Did you know all this? I didn't. Well I do kinda live under a rock, or did until recently. More from Mr. Lendman...

In 2008, Obama campaigned vigorously for South Florida's Haitian vote. Now he's betrayed it the way he's abandoning millions of distressed households by providing little in real relief compared to trillions in handouts to Wall Street and the rich.
After Congress established TPS in 1990, Washington granted 260,000 Salvadorans, 82,000 Hondurans, and 5000 Nicaraguans protection, then extended it on October 1, 2008. It lets the Attorney General grant temporary immigration status to undocumented residents unable to return home due to armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other "extraordinary and temporary conditions." Besides El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras, past recipients included Kuwait, Lebanon, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Guinea-Bissau, Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Montserrat, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, and Angola. Six nations still have TPS, but all face expiration in 2009 unless extended.
Haitians never got it, yet granting it is the simplest, least expensive form of aid so Port-au-Prince can concentrate on redevelopment while Haitians in America help through remittances back to families. In 2006, they sent $1.65 billion, the highest income percentage from any foreign national group in the world.
In 1997, the Clinton administration granted Haitians Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for one year. Currently about 20,000 Haitians qualify for TPS, a much smaller number than for other recipient countries.
Nonetheless, deportations are proceeding with 30,299 on "final order of removal" status, meaning an immigration judge ordered them out. About 600 are in detention, 243 others are electronically monitored, and all 30,000 will be removed by an administration as callous to the poor as previous hard-liners under George Bush. In America, everything changes, yet stays the same, even under the first black president.

4:53.

In the blink of an eye.

Bloody hell.

UPDATE 1: from Haiti Liberte, Oct 2009

Oct 28 2009. Some 50 Haitians and their supporters held a spirited demonstration in front of the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach on Monday, Oct. 26 to demand that President Obama immediately grant Temporary Protected Status or TPS to some 35,000 undocumented Haitians currently in the US.
Obama was at the hotel for a fundraiser for Democratic Florida congressmen Alcee Hastings and Kendrick Meek, who is running for senator.
The demonstration was organized by the Haitian American Grassroots Coalition, Institute of Justice and Democracy (IJDH), Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC) and Free Haiti Now, all groups which had been expecting Obama to reverse the Bush administration's denial of TPS to Haitians last December.
"We are all frustrated that more than nine months after President Obama's inauguration Haitians still don't have TPS despite the incredibly broad editorial and political support for it, including from the three South Florida Republicans in the US House of Representatives," said Steve Forester, an immigration lawyer and long-time TPS advocate who presently represents the IJDH in Florida. "And we are doubly surprised that we have not yet gotten a response to our request to at least give people the dignity of the right to work while the administration continues, month after month, to review the propriety of granting TPS, which to us and every objective observer is a no-brainer, based on the four hurricanes and storms that hit Haiti in a one-month period a year ago."
TPS, which briefly can be granted by executive order to undocumented immigrants in the U.S. who are temporarily unable to return to their nation because of a natural disaster, armed conflict, or other extraordinary circumstances. Since it was established in 1990, TPS has been granted to immigrants from Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Burundi, Somalia, Montserrat, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Liberia.
"We need the administration to grant TPS or at least, while they are considering it, to grant work permits on a case by case basis to TPS-deserving non-criminal Haitians who desperately need work permits, drivers licenses and the ability to feed their families, pay electricity bills, and send remittances to Haiti which can support up to ten times that number, thereby increasing Haiti's security and our own," Forester said.

3:10PM Central UPDATE: Change you can believe in from the Miami Herald:

The Obama administration is temporarily suspending deportations of undocumented Haitian nationals who are in the United States, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said Wednesday at a news conference in Miami.
But there are no immediate indications from the Obama administration that it would grant Haitian nationals Temporary Protected Status in the aftermath of Tuesday's earthquake.
Better known by its acronym TPS, the immigration benefit is given to certain immigrants in the United States who cannot safely return to their countries because of armed conflicts, natural disasters or other emergencies. Those eligible for TPS are allowed to remain in the United States.
The approval of TPS has been long sought by Haitian activists and South Florida lawmakers.
On Wednesday, South Florida's three Cuban-American Republican [wtf?] members of Congress -- Reps. Lincoln and his brother Mario Diaz-Balart, and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, sent a letter Wednesday to President Obama requesting immediate humanitarian aid for Haiti and TPS for Haitian nationals in the United States.
``How much does Haiti have to suffer before Haitians in the United States are granted TPS,'' Lincoln Diaz-Balart told El Nuevo Herald in a telephone interview Wednesday. ``The reason TPS exists... as an option for the President is precisely for moments such as this in Haiti.''

NOTE: If anyone has links or info for me, please drop 'em in comments. Thanks, LL)

Prayers for TheMomCat and MSF crew en route...Godspeed.

So What Do We Know About Haiti?

ek hornbeck — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:21:11 GMT

Haiti is half the island of Hispaniola, larger and slightly to the right and South of Cuba on your map. The Haiti part of it is the fishhead looking thing with Port Au Prince, the capital, located near the base of the lower jaw.

The epicenter was 10 miles to the Southeast and six miles deep.
It shares space with the Dominican Republic and their capital, Santa Domingo, is where TheMomCat is flying this morning.

It will be quite an adventure even getting to Port Au Prince or someplace near.

But enough about them, Haiti is the really romantic and interesting part of the island.

It was the site of one of the earliest European colonies in the Americas, La Navidad, which was promptly destroyed by the naked, weaponless, and cowardly Taíno.

The natives didn't really ever get less restless since after the introduction of Arfican slavery in 1517 (most of the Native American slaves being killed off by European diseases and all) it was also the site of the first and only successful slave revolt in the Americas (and I would argue about Spartacus, since it ended badly).

The Spanish mostly abandoned the Western part of the island (except when they were busy killing Indians) and it was taken over by French pirates which explains why French is the primary language today.

The Pirates also found that there was safer money to be made in exploiting slaves on indigo, tobacco, and sugar plantations and after some disputes over squatter's rights the Western part of the island was ceded to France in the Treaty of Ryswick.

Under French rule it became the richest and most repressive part of the island, but with the successful examples of Revolution in The United States and France the African slave population became restive.

The French Revolutionary government to it's great credit opposed slavery on ideological grounds and abolished it for certain classes of mixed race people in 1791. After resistance from slaveholders to implementing the new laws a general rebellion of those covered by the new policies and more traditional slaves soon succeeded in seizing control of what was France's most profitable colony. Fearing British exploitation of the rebellion (as they themselves had exploited the American Revolution) France issued a general emancipation and abolished slavery in 1794.

Now the French Revolution is really complicated and enmeshed with the geo-political rivalries between the Continental and Colonial powers of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, France, and Britain (I'm excluding the Dutch and Portugese because their empires were primarily Colonial, but they also had European ramifications).

It was a time of quickly shifting allegiances of which it could truly be said that there were no eternal allies or perpetual enemies, only enduring interests.

As soon as 1801 Napoleon Bonaparte dispatched expeditionary forces because he was dissatisfied with the leadership of Toussaint L'ouverture who was showing a disturbing independence.

Defeated by the French (joined by Jean-Jacques Dessalines), L'ouverture signed a treaty swearing that slavery was abolished and retired to his farm for a full three weeks after which he was seized, deported to France, and died of "pneumonia" after repeated interrogation in captivity.

Dessalines in turn promptly booted the French and proclaimed the new nation of Haiti the second independent country in the Western Hemisphere and himself Emperor for Life. George Washington he wasn't.

More recently Haiti has become a nation of grinding poverty where people eat dirt to ameliorate their hunger and suffered a succession of brutal dictatorships interspersed with revolutions and hurricanes.

Bonne chance.

Also posted at The Seminal.