Showing posts with label humanitarian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humanitarian. Show all posts
12 February 2012
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A pregnant Sudanese woman being treated for Malaria in a health center in Nyala. (Photo: Raul Touzon, National Geographic Society, Corbis)16 January 2012
Somali famine 'will kill tens of thousands'
The UN in Somalia says tens of thousands of people will have died of starvation by the time the famine in the Horn of Africa ends
BBC News | 15 January 2012
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Many Somalis have fled across the border into Ethiopia to seek aid
03 January 2012
Indonesia: Opening 2012 with disasters
With intensive rainfall since mid-December 2011 Indonesia is experiencing widespread disasters throughout the archipelago
Compiled by Awicaksono
Read more... Sphere: Related Content02 January 2012
Don’t feed the world? How food aid can do more harm than good
While the media again reports 'famine in the horn of Africa' caused by 'drought', Rasna Warah looks at the real reasons why people are going hungry
Rasna Warah | Red Pepper | January 2012
27 December 2011
Thailand seeks flood prevention plan as Bangkok clean-up operation continues
Authorities urged to tackle urban planning issues amid concerns climate change puts Thai capital at risk of more frequent flooding
Jonathan Watts | guardian.co.uk | 26 December 2011
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A street vendor in flood waters on a street near the Chao Praya river in Bangkok. The Thai capital is recovering from it worst floods in a century. Photograph: Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images
20 December 2011
Somalia Remains the Worst Humanitarian Crisis in the World
The drought and famine in the Horn of Africa continues, with the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net) recently confirming that the famine in the Middle Shabelle, as well as among internally displaced populations in Afgoye and the Somali capital of Mogadishu, will continue through the end of the year. The result is a humanitarian crisis that has left an estimated 250,000 people at risk of imminent starvation
By William J. Garvelink, Farha Tahir | Center for Strategic and International Studies | Dec 16, 2011
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05 March 2010
Chile quake reconstruction 'to take up to four years'
Chile's reconstruction will take "three to four years" as the country recovers from the earthquake that killed some 800 people, its president has said
BBC News | 4 March 2010
Chile is still assessing the enormous cost of the quake
"There are rural areas where everything has tumbled to the ground... infrastructure has been destroyed," Michelle Bachelet told Chilean radio.
It would take foreign aid and most of the mandate of President-elect Sebastian Pinera to rebuild, she added.
Three days of national mourning have been declared, to begin on Sunday.
Tremors have continued to rock the nation after Saturday's 8.8 magnitude earthquake, one of the strongest recorded.
One of 6.3 hit the north of the country, 255km (160 miles) north-east of Antofagasta and 1,260km north of the capital Santiago, the US Geological Survey said.
On Wednesday, strong aftershocks of magnitude 5.5 and higher were felt in several cities, including Santiago, and prompted tsunami warnings, which were later lifted.
'Government of reconstruction'
The cost of the damage, which Ms Bachelet described as "enormous", has so far been estimated at between $15bn and $30bn.
"Chile has the resources for a number of actions, but we will have to ask for credit from the World Bank and other entities," Ms Bachelet said.
President-elect Pinera is set to take office next week.
He said his government would be one of reconstruction, with a plan of four clear stages - "to cope with the emergency needs of citizens, find people who are still missing, provide prompt and timely assistance to the sick and wounded, and restore law and order so that people can return to peace".
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is to visit Chile on Friday to assess the damage and meet Ms Bachelet and Mr Pinera.
An 18-hour nightly curfew remains in place in Concepcion, Chile's second largest city, and six other towns badly affected by the earthquake.
Officials have said 802 people are confirmed to have died, of whom 279 have been identified. But there are reports of many people still missing in the coastal town of Constitucion.
About two million Chileans are believed to have been affected by Saturday's 8.8 magnitude earthquake, the seventh most powerful on record and the worst disaster to befall Chile in 50 years.
The epicentre of the quake was 115km north-east of Concepcion and 325km south-west of the capital Santiago.
About 1.5 million homes in Chile have been damaged.
Most of the collapsed buildings were of older design - including many historic structures.
© MMX
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20 February 2010
HAITI: Private Contractors 'Like Vultures Coming to Grab the Loot'
Critics are concerned that private military contractors are positioning themselves at the centre of an emerging "shock doctrine" for earthquake-ravaged Haiti
By Anthony Fenton | Inter Press Service in Naomi Klein | February 19th, 2010
Next month, a prominent umbrella organisation for private military and logistic corporations, the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA), is co-organising a "Haiti summit" which aims to bring together "leading officials" for "private consultations with attending contractors and investors" in Miami, Florida.
Dubbed the "mercenary trade association" by journalist Jeremy Scahill, author of "Blackwater: the Rise of the World' Most Powerful Mercenary Army", the IPOA wasted no time setting up a "Haiti Earthquake Support" page on its website following the Jan. 12 earthquake that devastated the Caribbean country.
IPOA's director Doug Brooks says, "The first contacts we got were journalists looking for security when they went in." The website of IPOA member company, Hart Security, says they are currently in Haiti "supporting clients from the fields of media, consultancy and medical in their disaster recovery efforts." Several other IPOA members have either bid on or received contracts for work in Haiti.
Likewise, the private military contractor, Raidon Tactics, has at least 30 former U.S. Special Operations soldiers on the ground, where they have been guarding aid convoys and providing security for "news agencies," according to a Raidon employee who told IPS his company received over 1,000 phone calls in response to an ad posting "for open positions for Static Security Positions and Mobile Security Positions" in Haiti.
Just over a week following the earthquake, the IPOA teamed up with Global Investment Summits (GIS), a UK-based private company that specialises in bringing private contractors and government officials from "emerging post-conflict countries" together, to host an "Afghanistan Reconstruction Summit", in Istanbul, Turkey. It was there, says IPOA's director Doug Brooks, that the idea for the Haiti summit was hatched "over beers".
GIS's CEO, Kevin Lumb, told IPS that the key feature of the Haiti summit will be "what we call roundtables, [where] we put the ministers and their procurement people, and arrange appointments with contractors." Lumb added that his company "specialise[s] in putting governments together [with private contractors]."
IPOA was "so pleased" with the Afghanistan summit, says Lumb, they asked GIS to do "all the organising, all the selling" for the Haiti summit. Lumb pointed out that all of the profits from the event will be donated to the Clinton-Bush Haiti relief fund.
While acknowledging that there will be a "a commercial angle" to the event and that "major companies, major players in the world" have committed to attend, Lumb declined to name most of the participants.
One of the companies Lumb did mention is DACC Associates, a private contractor that specialises in management and security consulting with contracts providing "advice and counsel" to governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
DACC President Douglas Melvin, a former Special Forces commander, State Department official and director of Security and Administrative Services for President George W. Bush, acknowledged that "from a revenue perspective, yes there's wonderful opportunities at these events."
Melvin added that he believes most attendees will be "coming together for the right reasons," a genuine concern for Haiti, are "not coming to exploit" the dire situation there, and does not expect his company to profit off of their potential contracts there.
Naomi Klein, author of "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism", is concerned that the thesis of her best-selling book will once again be tested in Haiti. She told IPS in an e-mail, "Haiti doesn't need cookie cutter one-size fits all reconstruction, designed by the same gang that made same such a hash of Iraq, Afghanistan and New Orleans - and indeed the same people responsible for the decimation of Haiti's own economy in the name of 'aid.'"
Unhappy with critics' characterisation of the IPOA, Brooks said, "If Scahill and Klein have the resources, the capabilities, the equipment, to go in and do it themselves then more power to them."
University of California at Los Angeles professor Nandini Gunewardena, co-editor of "Capitalizing on Catastrophe: Neoliberal Strategies in Disaster Reconstruction," told IPS that "privatisation is not the way to go for disaster assistance."
"Traditionally, corporations have positioned themselves in a way that they benefit at the expense of the people. We cannot afford for that to happen in Haiti," she said, adding that "any kind of intermediate or long-term assistance strategy has to be framed within that framework of human security."
This, according to the U.N-.based Commission on Human Security, means "creating political, social, environmental, economic, military and cultural systems that together give people the building blocks of survival, livelihood and dignity."
Denouncing the "standard recipe of neoliberal policies," Gunewardena said, "If private corporations are going to contribute to Haiti's restoration, they have to be held accountable, not to their own standards, but to those of the people."
Reached by telephone, Haiti's former Minister of Defence under the first presidency of Jean Bertand Aristide, Patrick Elie, agreed. He's worried about the potential privatisation of his country's rebuilding, "because these private companies [aren't] liable, you can't take them to the United Nations, you can't take them to The Hague, and they operate in kind of legal limbo. And they are the more dangerous for it."
Elie, who accepted a position as advisor to President Rene Preval following the earthquake, added "These guys are like vultures coming to grab the loot over this disaster, and probably money that might have been injected into the Haitian economy is going to be just grabbed by these companies and I'm sure that they are not only these mercenary companies but also the other companies like Halliburton or these other ones that always [come] on the heels of the troops."
In its 2008 report, "Private Security Contractors at War: Ending the Culture of Impunity," the NGO Human Rights First decried the "failure of the U.S. government to effectively control their actions, and in particular the inability or unwillingness of the Department of Justice (DoJ) to hold them criminally responsible for their illegal actions."
The IPOA's Brooks told IPS that members of the Haitian diaspora and Haiti's embassy have been invited and are "going to be a big part" of the summit.
While stressing that it's impossible to know the exact details of an event that is planned outside of public scrutiny, Elie countered that if high-level Haitian officials were to participate, "It's either out of ignorance or complicity."
Worried that Haiti is already seeing armed contractors in addition to the presence of more than 20,000 U.S., Canadian, and U.N. soldiers, Elie says he has seen private contractors accompanying NGOs, "walking about carrying assault rifles."
If the U.S. military pulls out and hands over the armed presence to private contractors, "It opens the door to all kinds of abuses. Let's face it, the Haitian state is too weak to really deal efficiently with this kind of threat if it materialises," he said.
The history of post-disaster political economy has shown that such a threat is all too likely, says Elie. "We've seen it happen so many times before that whenever there is a disaster, there are a bunch of vultures trying to profit from it, whether it's a man-made disaster like Iraq, or a nature-made disaster like Haiti."
Read more... Sphere: Related Content27 January 2010
Haiti Aid Agencies Accused of 'Jostling for Position'
By Matthew Weaver | The Guardian in Naomi Klein | January 22nd, 2010
Aid agencies have been accused of "jostling for position" and putting their own interests above those of the victims in the Haiti earthquake.
In a caustic editorial today, the respected medical journal, the Lancet, attacked the way charities and other non-governmental organisations have clamoured for attention in the wake of the disaster.
"NGOs are rightly mobilising, but also jostling for position, each claiming that they are doing the most for earthquake survivors," it said.
The Lancet did not name any aid agencies, many of which lost staff members in the disaster, but it questioned the way several have claimed to be "spearheading" relief efforts.
"As we only too clearly see, the situation in Haiti is chaotic, devastating, and anything but co-ordinated," it said.
The editorial argued that the response to the earthquake has highlighted questions about the competitive ethos of large aid agencies. The issue has emerged in past emergencies, including the Asian tsunami in 2004.
"Polluted by the internal power politics and the unsavoury characteristics seen in many big corporations, large aid agencies can be obsessed with raising money through their own appeal efforts. Media coverage as an end in itself is too often an aim of their activities," it said.
Worse still, it accused aid agencies of acting selfishly to the detriment of those they were supposed to be helping. "It seems increasingly obvious that many aid agencies sometimes act according to their own best interests rather than in the interests of individuals whom they claim to help," the Lancet said.
It urged aid agencies to do more to collaborate in response to disasters rather than compete for attention.
"Relief efforts in the field are sometimes competitive with little collaboration between agencies, including smaller, grassroots charities that may have better networks in affected counties and so are well-placed to immediately implement emergency relief," it said.
The editorial said the response to the earthquake should prompt a review of aid agencies and the way they deliver aid.
It said: "Given the ongoing crisis in Haiti, it may seem unpalatable to scrutinise and criticise the motives and activities of humanitarian organisations. But just like any other industry, the aid industry must be examined, not just financially as is current practice, but also in how it operates, from headquarter level to field level."
Since the disaster some countries and aid agencies have criticised the way the US military has led the relief effort. The Lancet editorial was the most sustained criticism to date of the way the aid agencies themselves have reacted.
It concluded: "Although many aid agencies do important work, humanitarianism is no longer the ethos for many organisations within the aid industry. For the people of Haiti and those living in parallel situations of destruction, humanitarianism remains the most crucial motivation and means for intervention."
Andrew Hogg, campaigns editor for Christian Aid, rejected the criticism and detailed the collaboration of the charity with other international NGOs and local groups.
"Within hours of being dug from the rubble in Port-au-Prince last week, Christian Aid's country manager, Prospery Raymond, and programme manager, Abdonnel Dioudou, were liaising with local partner organisations about the provision of relief."
On the charge that aid agencies have been clamouring for attention at the expense of victims, he said: "A journalist working for Christian Aid who was on leave in New York when the quake struck flew immediately to the Dominican Republic and entered Haiti as quickly as she could. Her presence there has been vital in fielding media inquiries about the situation, leaving our assessment team who also flew in, and staff on the ground, free to concentrate on the job of providing humanitarian relief."
Hannah Reichardt, who is emergencies adviser at Save the Children, said: "We have a staff of 200 in Haiti, only two are doing media work. Our response to the crisis in Haiti is a humanitarian one, not a media one."
But she added: "It's absolutely vital that we put effort into media work, because it's the thing that drives our fundraising. It might seem tasteless to some, but it's about giving people the opportunity to donate money to the people of Haiti."
She also pointed out that the work of the Disasters Emergency Committee, an umbrella group of NGOs which has raised £38m for Haiti in the UK, helps to overcome competition between agencies.
"It brings together all of our collective efforts, and it puts the emergency at the forefront not the individual charities."
Brendan Gormley, chief executive of the Disasters Emergency Committee, said the claim that aid agencies had lost their humanitarianism ethos was "risible". The Lancet had failed to "take into account the huge efforts by dedicated staff and volunteers – both Haitians and international experts – who are working tirelessly to bring help to earthquake survivors".
"Co-ordination is improving but remains difficult following large numbers of deaths in both the UN Haiti operation and the Haitian government."
A spokeswoman for Médecins Sans Frontières conceded that the Lancet had some "valid points" but in a statement MSF said: "Tragically we lost a number of our national staff in the earthquake. Our three health facilities were damaged. But the fact that we already had 800 national staff and 30 international experts working in Haiti meant we were able to start helping survivors 25 minutes after the earthquake struck.
"MSF has struggled to put Haiti on the international media agenda for 19 years. It is a scandal that it takes a disaster on this scale for the world to wake up to the plight of the thousands of Haitians who have been living in poverty with limited access to healthcare for many years."
Read more... Sphere: Related ContentHaiti: US military occupation worsens suffering, blocks aid
Right-wing columnist David Brooks began his January 15 New York Times piece by reminding his readers that when, in October 1989, the San Francisco Bay Area was hit by an earthquake similar in magnitude to the one that devastated Haiti on January 12, the death toll was 63
Tony Iltis | Green Left Online | 23 January 2010
The death toll in Haiti is estimated to be 200,000 and is still rising.
Brooks used crude racism to blame “a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences [including] the influence of the voodoo religion”.
Most media coverage of Haiti’s latest tragedy lacks Brooks’ crudeness, but the same assumptions dominate. This racist narrative is being used as a smokescreen, behind which the US is cynically using the earthquake to increase its military, political and economic control of Haiti. (Actively hampering relief efforts in the process.)
US President Barack Obama immediately responded to the tragedy with trademark lofty rhetoric, declaring: “I have directed my administration to respond with a swift, coordinated, and aggressive effort to save lives.
“The people of Haiti will have the full support of the United States in the urgent effort to rescue those trapped beneath the rubble, and to deliver the humanitarian relief — the food, water and medicine — that Haitians will need in the coming days.”
Unfortunately, he lied.
The US response was swift, coordinated and certainly aggressive. However, it was not aimed at saving lives.
A week and a half after the earthquake, most Haitians in the capital, Port-Au-Prince, were still without food, water and medical supplies. Aid agencies, meanwhile, have complained that the US military takeover of the main airport blocked the arrival of badly needed supplies.
Haitians have been digging their compatriots out of the rubble with their bare hands or makeshift implements — without heavy lifting equipment. Western rescue teams have concentrated their efforts on tourists and expatriates.
Outside the capital, conditions are even worse.
The main US response has been the dispatch of a naval flotilla and almost 13,000 soldiers.
“I haven’t seen them distributing food downtown, where the people urgently need water, food and medicine”, Wilson Guillaume, a 25-year-old student, was quoted as saying in Cuban newspaper Granma on January 19.
“This looks more like an occupation.”
The article reported injured Haitians shouting “Go home!” and “Don’t occupy us!” at the US soldiers.
A United Nations military force has been occupying Haiti since 2004, when the US sent marines to support a coup against the democratic government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In response to the earthquake, the UN announced it would add 2000 soldiers and 1500 police to the 9000-strong force already there.
“We don’t need military aid. What we need is food and shelter”, a young Haitian yelled at UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during his January 17 photo-opportunity in the stricken city, the Tehran Times reported the following day.
Since 2004, Haiti has been a virtual colony of the self-styled “international community”, with the UN supervising the government and with more NGOs per head of population than any other country.
It is true that the dismal state of Haiti’s infrastructure before the earthquake has hampered relief and rescue efforts. However, this is not, as Western politicians and media often claim, a “Haitian failure”. It is a failing of the “international community”.
The first relief flight to arrive in Port-Au-Prince following the earthquake was from Venezuela. It contained aid, doctors and search and rescue teams.
It arrived on January 13, as did a medical team from Cuba. There were already more than 300 Cuban medical workers working in Haiti, providing free health care to the poor.
Three other planes have come from Venezuela.
However, since the country’s airport was taken over by the US military, the high volume of military traffic has prevented many aid flights from landing. Five planes belonging to Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have been turned back by the US forces.
On January 16, when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demonstrated her government’s compassion by flying in to Haiti for a press conference, the airport was closed to other flights for three hours, further disrupting the arrival of aid.
However, an even bigger problem is that upon arrival, most aid and aid workers have not left the airport.
The reason an alleged threat to security posed by marauding gangs of Haitian looters — also the pretext for the US military occupation.
Times Online said on January 17 that “many aid workers are reported to have orders not to venture out without armed guards … [T]he Haitian people seem to scare aid workers more than Somali warlords, Darfuri Janjawid or Afghan Taleban.
“Frightened Dutch aid workers abandoned a mission without reaching the collapsed building where people were trapped, and frightened doctors have left their patients unattended.”
Most media coverage has fuelled this hysteria. However, some journalists, as well as others including MSF aid workers and Cuban doctors, who have braved the streets have reported that, far from mob violence and looting, Haitian survivors are displaying remarkable resilience and social solidarity.
Eyewitness David Wilson wrote in a January 18 MRZinearticle: “The only force we saw rescuing survivors … was, as a fellow guest at the Hotel Oloffson remarked, ‘young men with crowbars’.
“Every few blocks as we walked downtown from the hotel we found young men carefully clearing rubble from collapsed buildings or trying to remove blocks of cement where they thought there were survivors …
“In contrast to the police, most people we saw that morning were already hard at work. Some were carrying the injured, in wheelbarrows, on planks, on doors, on stretchers made from sheets. Other people were removing rubble from the middle of the street ...
“Everywhere we walked we were on the lookout for any sign of looting. For the record: we didn't see any.”
Inter Press Service reported on January 15: “In the absence of any visible relief effort in the city, the help came from small groups of Haitians working together. Citizens turned into aid workers and rescuers.
“Lone doctors roamed the streets, offering assistance
“In the day following the quake, there was no widespread violence. Guns, knives and theft weren’t seen on the streets, lined only with family after family carrying their belongings.
“They voiced their anger and frustration with sad songs that echoed throughout the night, not their fists.”
Others reported that, on the rare occasions food aid was distributed, far from rioting (as US defence secretary Robert Gates predicted they would), people formed orderly lines and made sure that children and the weak were prioritised.
While the US responded to the earthquake with armed troops the International Monetary Fund showed its compassion with a $100 million loan, with conditions. This brings Haiti’s IMF debt to $265 million.
[Haitian solidarity activists have issued an open letter demanding “relief, not militarisation” and are calling for people around the world to add their names. The Haiti Emergency Relief Fund, a grassroots aid organisation that has been working on the ground with Haitian organisations since 2004, is organising relief in the aftermath of the earthquake. Donate to it at here.]
All articles appearing in Green Left Weekly are copyright by their authors. However, most regular contributors have granted permission for their work to be republished by non-profit green, left, human rights or generally progressive publications
Read more... Sphere: Related Content22 January 2010
A massive relief effort limps into gear: Post-earthquake chaos in Haiti
The world’s attempt to aid Haitians stumbles against extraordinary difficulties of transport and communications
eyevine
The Economist | Jan 21st 2010
IN ONE of the ramshackle tent cities that have sprouted in open spaces all across Port-au-Prince, Isa Longchamp, a dishevelled and dejected eight-year-old girl, starts to whimper. After losing her mother when the Haitian capital was devastated by the earthquake of January 12th, she is now struggling to survive. Batted aside when hundreds of desperate victims of the disaster swarmed around aid workers handing out a batch of supplies earlier in the day, she is still hungry. She depends on the charity of her new neighbours. But at least she is alive, and fairly healthy.
Her home now is a precarious lean-to made from a couple of stained, fraying sheets tied to some sticks. She shares it with what remains of her family. Not far away other earthquake survivors wail in agony in a makeshift hospital. Field surgery is performed with rudimentary equipment and morphine is scarce. Many of the injured have died because of a lack of medical supplies.
Like hundreds of thousands of other Haitians, she is patiently waiting for a relief operation that has proved agonisingly slow to get going. Officials at the World Food Programme said that a week after the earthquake, 200,000 people had received ration packs of high-nutrition biscuits. American helicopters, operating from an aircraft-carrier offshore, dropped small quantities of supplies. Canadian troops, the first of some 2,000, arrived in Jacmel, a badly affected town south-west of Port-au-Prince. But aid has so far amounted to “a drop in the ocean” of what people need, admitted Elisabeth Byrs, the spokeswoman for the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
That is partly because of the huge scale of the disaster—a third of the population of 9m were affected and about 1m are homeless. But the main reason was that the earthquake knocked out both the institutions and the sinews of transport and communication on which aid agencies normally rely. So co-ordination—deciding who does what where—has been unusually slow and difficult. The rapid influx of well-meaning aid agencies that now throng the dusty remnants of Port-au-Prince has contributed to the confusion.
Haiti’s elected government is operating from a police station near the airport. The Cabinet meets there each day. But the structure of government has caved in just as completely as the presidential palace itself. The UN mission to Haiti was decapitated with the collapse of the hotel where it was based. Its 49 confirmed dead included Hédi Annabi, the experienced mission chief, his Brazilian deputy and the Canadian police chief. Another 300 UN personnel, including local staff and peacekeepers, are still unaccounted for.
Brazil, which has led the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti since 2004, lost 18 soldiers—the biggest loss of life for its armed forces since the second world war. The Haitian police force, which the UN has been training, lost around half its strength in Port-au-Prince, according to Ms Byrs. Some of the many NGOs already working in Haiti were also impeded by quake damage. Oxfam, a British charity, had 100 staff there. Two were killed, and their office and warehouse of supplies were both reduced to rubble. The UN has dispatched 50 civilian officials to Haiti. The Security Council called for 1,500 more police officers and 2,000 extra peacekeeping troops (Brazil quickly offered 800).
An even bigger bottleneck has been transport. American troops took charge of the airport, and quickly tripled its capacity to 100 flights a day (and to 153 flights by January 19th). France and Brazil initially complained that their flights were turned away while a landing slot was found for Hillary Clinton, the American secretary of state. Half of the ten flights that Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), a French medical charity, tried to land in Port-au-Prince were diverted, and with them some 85 tonnes of medical and relief supplies. But France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the UN later praised the huge American effort, and Brazil’s foreign ministry said co-ordination had improved.
By January 19th more than 11,000 American troops, marines and sailors had arrived in Haiti (another 4,000 were on their way). They were trying to open transport links, as well as giving out some aid. They were due to open an airport at Jacmel on January 21st, and were also to use an airbase at San Isidro in the Dominican Republic. They hoped to get the port working again in “a week or two”. Meanwhile, the UN was using minor ports at Cap-Haïtien and Gonaïves. Supplies were also coming in through the Dominican Republic.
The next set of difficulties lie in getting the aid out to those who need it. The main arteries in Port-au-Prince are blocked by rubble. Landslides have severed roads to outlying towns and villages. This week petrol all but ran out. The UN has designated four sites in the capital as distribution hubs for water and food, and 18 local depots. But this network is not yet fully functioning—hence the resort to air-drops. Adding to the problems, telephones and the internet have worked only patchily if at all.
The specialised rescue teams that flooded into Haiti in record numbers managed to extract more than 120 people from the ruins. The problem was that the lack of medical supplies meant that many more among the survivors died from their injuries. This carnage gradually subsided. On January 15th Partners in Health, an American NGO which runs 12 hospitals in rural Haiti, took over the capital’s General Hospital. Foreign teams set up several field hospitals. But some medicines remained in short supply. An MSF doctor was reduced to buying a saw in a market to carry out amputations of gangrenous limbs. The USNS Comfort, a vast American hospital ship, arrived on January 20th.
In most natural disasters, points out Graham Mackay of Oxfam, by day four the aid agencies expect to have set up distribution systems for food, water and temporary shelter. After the Asian tsunami, Oxfam’s first flight left Britain with supplies within three to four days. That also happened this time. The difference was the difficulty of getting them into the hands of desperate Haitians.
It seemed, too, as if some of the lessons from other disasters that could have been applied in Haiti were being ignored. One is that dead bodies are not necessarily an immediate threat to the health of the living. A Haitian official said that some 70,000 bodies had been hastily buried in mass graves. In a society that places great store on venerating its dead, that will add to the trauma of the survivors.
Too dazed to riot
Another lesson is that survivors are generally too dazed and weak to riot. An exaggerated fear of violent disorder seemed to be another reason why aid was slow. A few hundred desperate people scavenged in the rubble in a downtown shopping street. There were reports of gang leaders who escaped when the jail collapsed resurfacing in shanty towns from which they had been flushed out by UN troops in 2006. But generally Port-au-Prince was calm. Haitians were helping each other. Many crowded onto buses to seek refuge with relatives in rural areas.
Brazil’s ambassador to Haiti, Igor Kipman, said that the UN peacekeeping force had security “perfectly under control” and did not need the help of the American troops. The Americans, too, stressed that their job was logistics. But the potential for friction with Brazil remained. Barack Obama’s administration is “trying to pull off a delicate balancing act by offering massive humanitarian relief while avoiding giving the impression that they are taking over Haiti,” says Daniel Erikson of the Inter-American Dialogue, a think-tank in Washington, DC. The build-up of troops may have caused short-term delays in aid deliveries, but will pay off if they quickly open transport routes without which nothing would reach the needy anyway. This relief operation was always going to be unusually slow and chaotic. But Haitians cannot afford for it to remain so.
Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2010. All rights reserved
Read more... Sphere: Related Content17 January 2010
Fidel Castro: The lesson of Haiti
By Fidel Castro Ruz | LINKS | January 15, 2010
Two days ago, at almost six o’clock in the evening Cuban time and when, given its geographical location, night had already fallen in Haiti, television stations began to broadcast the news that a violent earthquake -– measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale -– had severely struck Port-au-Prince. The seismic phenomenon originated from a tectonic fault located in the sea just 15 kilometres from the Haitian capital, a city where 80% of the population inhabit fragile homes built of adobe and mud.
The news continued almost without interruption for hours. There was no footage, but it was confirmed that many public buildings, hospitals, schools and more solidly constructed facilities were reported collapsed. I have read that an earthquake of the magnitude of 7.3 is equivalent to the energy released by an explosion of 400,000 tons of TNT.
Tragic descriptions were transmitted. Wounded people in the streets were crying out for medical help, surrounded by ruins under which their relatives were buried. No one, however, was able to broadcast a single image for several hours.
The news took all of us by surprise. Many of us have frequently heard about hurricanes and severe flooding in Haiti, but were not aware of the fact that this neighbouring country ran the risk of a massive earthquake. It has come to light on this occasion that 200 years ago, a massive earthquake similarly affected this city, which would have been the home of just a few thousand inhabitants at that time.
At midnight, there was still no mention of an approximate figure in terms of victims. High-ranking United Nations officials and several heads of government discussed the moving events and announced that they would send emergency brigades to help. Given that MINUSTAH (United Stabilization Mission in Haiti) troops are deployed there -– UN forces from various countries –- some defence ministers were talking about possible casualties among their personnel.
It was only yesterday morning when the sad news began to arrive of enormous human losses among the population, and even institutions such as the United Nations mentioned that some of their buildings in that country had collapsed, a word that does not say anything in itself but could mean a lot.
For hours, increasingly more traumatic news continued to arrive about the situation in this sister nation. Figures related to the number of fatal victims were discussed, which fluctuated, according to various versions, between 30,000 and 100,000. The images are devastating; it is evident that the catastrophic event has been given widespread coverage around the world, and many governments, sincerely moved by the disaster, are making efforts to cooperate according to their resources.
Why is Haiti so poor?
The tragedy has genuinely moved a significant number of people, particularly those in which that quality is innate. But perhaps very few of them have stopped to consider why Haiti is such a poor country. Why does almost 50% of its population depend on family remittances sent from abroad? Why not analyse the realities that led Haiti to its current situation and this enormous suffering as well?
The most curious aspect of this story is that no one has said a single word to recall the fact that Haiti was the first country in which 400,000 Africans, enslaved and trafficked by Europeans, rose up against 30,000 white slave masters on the sugar and coffee plantations, thus undertaking the first great social revolution in our hemisphere. Pages of insurmountable glory were written there. Napoleon's most eminent general was defeated there. Haiti is the net product of colonialism and imperialism, of more than one century of the employment of its human resources in the toughest forms of work, of military interventions and the extraction of its natural resources.
This historic oversight would not be so serious if it were not for the real fact that Haiti constitutes the disgrace of our era, in a world where the exploitation and pillage of the vast majority of the planet's inhabitants prevails.
Billions of people in Latin American, Africa and Asia are suffering similar shortages although perhaps not to such a degree as in the case of Haiti.
Situations like that of that country should not exist in any part of the planet, where tens of thousands of cities and towns abound in similar or worse conditions, by virtue of an unjust international economic and political order imposed on the world. The world population is not only threatened by natural disasters such as that of Haiti, which is a just a pallid shadow of what could take place in the planet as a result of climate change, which really was the object of ridicule, derision and deception in Copenhagen.
Real and lasting solutions needed
It is only just to say to all the countries and institutions that have lost citizens or personnel because of the natural disaster in Haiti: we do not doubt that in this case, the greatest effort will be made to save human lives and alleviate the pain of this long-suffering people. We cannot blame them for the natural phenomenon that has taken place there, even if we do not agree with the policy adopted with Haiti.
But I have to express the opinion that it is now time to look for real and lasting solutions for that sister nation.
In the field of healthcare and other areas, Cuba –- despite being a poor and blockaded country -– has been cooperating with the Haitian people for many years. Around 400 doctors and healthcare experts are offering their services free of charge to the Haitian people. Our doctors are working every day in 227 of the country’s 337 communes. On the other hand, at least 400 young Haitians have trained as doctors in our homeland. They will now work with the reinforcement brigade which traveled there yesterday to save lives in this critical situation. Thus, without any special effort being made, up to 1000 doctors and healthcare experts can be mobilised, almost all of whom are already there willing to cooperate with any other state that wishes to save the lives of the Haitian people and rehabilitate the injured.
Another significant number of young Haitians are currently studying medicine in Cuba.
We are also cooperating with the Haitian people in other areas within our reach. However, there can be no other form of cooperation worthy of being described as such than fighting in the field of ideas and political action in order to put an end to the limitless tragedy suffered by a large number of nations such as Haiti.
The head of our medical brigade reported: "The situation is difficult, but we have already started saving lives." He made that statement in a succinct message hours after his arrival yesterday in Port-au-Prince with additional medical reinforcements.
Later that night, he reported that Cuban doctors and ELAM’s Haitian graduates were being deployed throughout the country. They had already seen more than 1000 patients in Port-au-Prince, immediately establishing and putting into operation a hospital that had not collapsed and using field hospitals where necessary. They were preparing to swiftly set up other centers for emergency care.
We feel a wholesome pride for the cooperation that, in these tragic instances, Cuba doctors and young Haitian doctors who trained in Cuba are offering our brothers and sisters in Haiti!
[Fidel Castro Ruz is the former president of Cuba.]
Read more... Sphere: Related ContentHaitians plead: `Where is the help?'
By Roger Annis | LINKS | January 15, 2010
Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Evidence of monstrous neglect of the Haitian people is mounting following the catastrophic earthquake three days ago. As life-saving medical supplies, food, water purification chemicals and vehicles pile up at the airport in Port-au-Prince, and as news networks report a massive international effort to deliver emergency aid, the people in the shattered city are wondering when they will see help.
The BBC World Service reports that Haitian officials now fear the death toll could rise to 140,000. Three million people are homeless. BBC reporter Andy Gallagher told an 8 pm (Canadian Pacific Time) broadcast tonight that he had traveled “extensively” in Port-au-Prince during the day and saw little sign of aid delivery. He said he was shown nothing but courtesy by the Haitians he encountered. Everywhere he went he was taken by residents to see what had happened to their neighbourhood, their homes and their lives. Then they asked, “Where is the help?”.
“When the rescue teams arrive”, Gallagher said, “they will be welcomed with open arms.”
Canada's CBC Radio One’s As It Happens broadcast an interview this evening with a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross. He said he spent the morning touring one of the hardest hit areas of the city (the district was not named), in the hills that rise from the flat plain on which sits historic Port-au-Prince. “In three hours, I didn’t see a single rescue team.”
The BBC report contrasts starkly with warnings of looting and violence that fill the airwaves of news channels such as CNN and are being voiced by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates. He was asked by media in Washington why relief supplies were not being delivered by air. He answered, “It seems to me that air drops will simply lead to riots.”
Gates says that “security” concerns are impeding the delivery of aid. But Gallagher responded directly to that in his report, saying, “I’m not experiencing that.” Describing the airport, Gallagher reported, “There are plenty of materials on the ground and plenty of people there. I don’t know what the problem is with delivery.”
Nan Buzard, a spokesperson for the American Red Cross, was interviewed on the same BBC broadcast about the problem with aid delivery. She implied that there were not, in fact, many supplies at the airport to be moved, that many of the planes that have been landing were filled with people, not supplies.
When pressed by the BBC host why aid was not being moved into the city, Buzard conceded she was “surprised” that it was not being airlifted in.
The BBC’s is not the only report to contradict exaggerated security concerns. The daily report on the website of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) one day after the earthquake said, “Some parts of the city are without electricity and people have gathered outside, lighting fires in the street and trying to help and comfort each other. When they saw that I was from MSF they were asking for help, particularly to treat their wounded. There was strong solidarity among people in the streets.”
An emailed report received by the Canada Haiti Action Network describes a city largely bereft of international aid. “Thus far”, it reports, “the rescue teams cluster at the high profile and safer walled sites and were literally afraid to enter the barrios. They gravitated to the sites where they had secure compounds and big buildings.
“Meanwhile, the neighbourhoods where the damage appears to be much wider, and anywhere there were loose crowds, they avoided. In the large sites, and in the nice neighbourhoods, and where the press can be found, there would be teams from every country imaginable. Dogs and extraction units with more arriving, yet with 90% or more of them just sitting around."
“Meanwhile, in the poor neighbourhoods, awash in rubble, there was not a foreigner in sight. News crews are looking for the story of desperate Haitians that are in hysterics. When in reality it is more often the Haitians that are acting calmly while the international community, the elite and politicians have melted down over the issue, and none seem to have the remotest idea what is going on.”
The report says that most of the staff of the US embassy and US AID complex (located a stone’s throw from the oceanfront) have fled and buildings are largely empty, even though the streets in the area are clear.
On January 14, the BBC broadcast an interview with Mark Stuart, a director of an orphanage in Jacmel, a city of 50,000 on Haiti's south coast, 50 km south of Port-au-Prince. Aerial footage showed catastrophic damage. Stuart appealed for international relief, saying that food and water supplies would soon run out and no aid whatsoever had arrived.
An article on the website of a Chicago publication says a trickle of aid arrived today but the road between Port-au-Prince and Jacmel is impassable.
Aid authorities must be urged to speed up their efforts to flood the earthquake zone with food, water, supplies and medical personnel. A network of relief centres fanning out from the port and airport, including air lift and parachute drops, would seem to be an obvious step. Donations to relief efforts, especially to those already delivering services, such as Partners in Health and Doctors Without Borders, are crucially important.
[Roger Annis is a coordinator of the Canada Haiti Action Network in Vancouver.]
Read more... Sphere: Related Content
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