Haiti earthquake: Looting starts as frustration and anger boils over

[Turborama]

Source: The Guardian

Peacekeepers in Haiti warned that improved security was an urgent priority amid fears of widespread looting as aid workers struggled to overcome aid bottlenecks.

The UN World Food Programme said its warehouse in the capital, Port-au-Prince, containing 15,000 tonnes of provisions had been looted, though it was not yet clear how much food had been taken.

UN peacekeepers patrolling the capital said there was rising anger that aid had not been distributed quickly, and the Brazilian military advised that aid convoys should add security to guard against looting.

"Unfortunately, they're slowly getting more angry and impatient," said David Wimhurst, spokesman for the Brazilian-led UN peacekeeping mission. "I fear, we're all aware that the situation is getting more tense as the poorest people who need so much are waiting for deliveries. I think tempers might be frayed."

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/14/haiti-earthquake-rescue-operation

---

Seems like The Guardian have added the wrong date on their site. AP is reporting it as happening today.

Looters Break into U.N. Warehouses in Haiti

By AP / BRADLEY S. KLAPPER Friday, Jan. 15, 2010

Looters have broken into U.N. food warehouses in Haiti's crumbled capital, an official said Friday, as security and logistical challenges mounted for groups trying to feed at least 2 million people reeling from a devastating earthquake.

The U.N. World Food Program stressed that looting was normal in emergency situations, but spokeswoman Emilia Casella said the agency didn't know how much remained of its pre-quake stockpile of 15,000 tons of food aid in Port-au-Prince.

She noted that regular food stores in the capital also "have been cleaned out" by desperate Haitians since Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake killed thousands and left countless more buried under the rubble.

Distributing food and clean water to hungry and thirsty quake survivors is the top challenge of the early relief effort. Looting, bad roads, a ruined port, an overwhelmed Port-au-Prince airport and fears of violence meant most Haitians have received no help three days after the quake.

The U.N. was planning to ask governments later Friday for $550 million in humanitarian pledges for the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1953947,00.html

[shraby]

1. Why wasn't that food being distributed by the day after

the quake when people became hungry and before becoming desperate?

[Turborama]

4. Here's your answer

Later in the AP piece...

"The physical destruction is so great that physically getting from point A to B with the supplies is not an easy task," Casella told a news conference. "Pictures can get out instantly ... and that's important because the world needs to know. But getting physically tons and tons of equipment and food and water is not as instant as Twitter or Skype or 24-hour television news."

The international community has already donated hundreds of millions of dollars and sent in the first of hundreds of doctors, engineers, soldiers and aid workers.

But the U.N. and others still hadn't figured out how to deliver assistance through broken roads and crumpled buildings, with little machinery to clear the mess. They are also contending with masses of people gathered in Port-au-Prince's streets, few working phones and a massive influx of goods and personnel without an organized plan.

[rocktivity]

16. Yet the looters can get into the warehouses to GET the food?

:shrug:
rocktivity

[snooper2]

20. big difference walking four miles by foot through/over destruction

to get some food because you are starving

and driving one of these... :eyes:

[rocktivity]

29. I rest my case.

Ration out the food to the people who CAN make it to the warehouses and stop calling them looters!


rocktivity

[REACTIVATED IN CT]

46. Agreed !!n/t

[Thothmes]

49. How much of this food will wind up on the black market?

[Raschel]

24. I don't get it. I can't watch the coverage anymore. Why is there no relief yet?

I've seen the pics of the port and heard about the airport, yet, the reporters were there instantly. Something's better than nothing. I cannot believe with all of the technology in the world that the people of Haiti are still trapped after all of this time.

I see that there are Swiss(?)rescue teams that have been there a couple of days.

These people are in hell. How could they not be angry.

I know I'll get backlash for this post, but this just does not make sense to me.

[boppers]

56. Reporters are not food.

Though, come to think of it, if we can get them there faster....

:evilgrin:

[Rebubula]

5. They are trying

The entire area is crushed. The roads are buckled and not drivable. The Airport is clogged and has no fuel.

Before you start questioning why - look into the infrastructure. The World is rushing to get into a small area that is crippled by this quake.

Of course....people will begin to blame others and there will be impotent Congressional and UN meetings.

[grytpype]

18. Because Obama is a sellout!!!!

[kayla9170]

19. For The Could Write a Headline About "Black" People

Looting............This is pitiful IMHO. :mad:

[Turborama]

23. Are you saying the Guardian and Time are racist?

[kayla9170]

32. If the SHOE FITS...........

People in TOTAL DESTRUCTION are LOOTING? What sense does that make for the Times, Guardian or Any News Source? The Haiti People are trying to SURVIVE and they are stealing FOOD in order to SURVIVE. But, loose association of the words "Looting" and "Poor Black People" sells better..........:puke:

[Turborama]

41. They're not saying that because they're "Poor Black People" they're "looting".

Neither of those articles mention the color of the people who carried out the liberation of the food. You're reading too much into it.

[Igel]

38. You're right.

It's "forcible socialization and redistribution of privately held food and other commodities to dignified-yet-needy minimally minimally individuated collectives on a strictly able-to-access basis."

Similarly, there may yet be "forcible socialization and redistribution of personally held currency and/or other commodities to dignified-yet-needy minimally individuated collectives on a strictly able-to-access basis". Let's not have the ugly word "mugging".

We could even have "forcible use of other-bodied genital and ancillary body parts by dignified-yet-needy minimally individuated male collectives on a strictly able-to-access basis".

The whole world is American and entirely ruled by domestic US politics, even if they don't know it.

[jberryhill]

43. You should write copy for the Somalian Maritime Environmentalists...

Dang, you can really turn a phrase.

[KittyWampus]

33. I would think a lot of the staff were dead or trapped under rubble.

[mikelgb]

36. seems like the people have taken it upon themselves to distribute

[sweettater]

2. are air drops

out of question? :shrug:

[Zoeisright]

27. That's my first thought too.

Or would that cause even more chaos?

[angel823]

28. exactly!

Can someone explain why helicopters can't be used (and staged from the Dominican Republic if necessary) to drop protein bars, water, basic medical supplies, tarps, etc.?

Just air drop so much that there wouldn't be a need for the people to panic about getting a portion.... is there something missing that I don't see that would keep us from doing this?

Just trying to understand, here.

[KittyWampus]

35. Those who do airdrops have requirements that cannot be met in Haiti right now.

First, there are special forces who are trained/able to do airdrops.

They need surveys of area and require specific conditions on the ground.

Supplies would have to be readied.

[GreenStormCloud]

55. The strongest would get the most and the weakest would get none.

An unsupervised airdrop will make the problem worse. You need a way to distribute the supplies to make sure everybody gets some.

[Zen Democrat]

3. I resent the use of the word "looters" to describe starving people trying to get food!

To put property over human life is evil. I heard a news story last night that "looters" were getting food from damaged supermarkets in Port-au-Prince. So like, who was going to BUY this food? And what about the perishables, without electricity or ice? Looters, my ass. In my opinion, anyone who calls these people looters should be called out for it. I heard the same thing regarding New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina. There's another term for "looting for food" and it's called "the will to live."

[Rebubula]

7. Haiti and Katrina

I do wholeheartedly agree that the press should be a little more cautious with the word 'looting' as in this situation it is merely (as you stated) the will to live.

And I also agree that there was some racial bias in the aftermath of Katrina - but the dozens of videos of people ransacking Stores of televisions, shoes, clothes in the NOLA is hard to justify. The people getting food...that was necessary to live. Flat Screens...not so much.

[Bragi]

8. Quite so, this isn't "looting"

When people in a natural disaster take food from grocery stores, this should not be called "looting". It should be called foraging, and it is necessary for survival.

[Thothmes]

50. That is provided that the food is for personal or family consumption

what if it is taken for the black market.

[Turborama]

11. I agree with your sentiment. Which verb would you use instead?

I thought of plundering, but that too has connotations. Foraging?

On edit, just saw Bragi's reply. I agree, foraging would be a better description but unfortunately there aren't any news agencies using forage to describe how they took the food from the UN warehouse.

[Raschel]

25. How about hunting? They're searching, looking for food.

[Bluenorthwest]

30. finding, using

not stealing. Feeding babies.

[bergie321]

37. Assisting

With the distribution.

[Turborama]

40. If that's what they were doing, 'liberating' the food would be another good description.

[M155Y_A1CH]

12. Agree with #3

It's more apt to say foraging for food and water. Are people just supposed to sit and wait in a survival situation?
Are there any survivalists here without a plan to forage if supplies run out? If so, please post your alternatives.

[dipsydoodle]

15. Correct assessment.

People who have nothing are not doing so out of greed. They're doing so of necessity to help stay alive.

Our TV news in the UK conveys your point of view.

[Raschel]

26. Great post.

[phantom power]

31. No kidding. "Frustrated?" How about: "fucking hungry?"

Jesus, you'd think they were stealing TVs.

[lunatica]

6. People don't loot food

They'll take food if it's there and they and their starving families need it in order to survive. They may even become violent while taking it.

Looting is when there's a black-out or rioting and people break into stores to take tv sets or when a war starts and people break into museums and take historical icons. Looting is when object are stolen. Not when food is involved.

Yet once again there's that insidious stereotype of blacks 'looting'.

[Berry Cool]

14. Exactly. Taking luxury items, items that are not necessary for life, is "looting"

but taking food and drink in a disaster situation is "foraging," as far as I'm concerned. It is people doing what they need to do just to survive. They are not having a happy field day here stealing luxury goods they cannot otherwise afford or taking things to resell for a handsome profit (the social infrastructure is so broken down there's not even an informal market left for that). They are just trying to keep themselves and their children from starving.

[Igel]

39. If they take it to sell it, is it foraging?

Whether or not that happened is unknown and unknowable from the reports. Let's keep an open mind.

[Odin2005]

9. If they were white and rich it would be called "making a profit".

[midnight]

10. I hope someone with some quick solutions steps in to move the aid to the people.

[snappyturtle]

13. How could they not "loot"? It's life and death there. nt

[izquierdista]

22. Because they are black

People not "of color" survive under difficult circumstances; people "of color" loot. It's in the MSM lexicon.

[rocktivity]

17. If they're getting food to the people (and not reselling it)

it's not looting, it's helping.


rocktivity

[jberryhill]

44. What about selling it?

On the one hand, that is opportunistic.

On the other hand, in the absence of (a) food, and (b) a functioning fair market, I wonder whether it is unequivocally "bad" for people to obtain food from the warehouse and sell it - even on a "gouging" basis.

What is the worse scenario:

1. Everyone starves

2. Some people do not starve if they can pay a premium to profiteers.

[Xenotime]

21. THis is ridiculous! People need this aid NOW!! THis kind of shit pisses me off.

[FarCenter]

34. If they are taking food to sell on the black market, it is looting.

[Turborama]

42. MSNBC: Agencies report big hurdles in distributing aid

msnbc.com news services

updated 10:59 a.m. ET Jan. 15, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Hundreds of U.S. paratroopers touched down in shattered Port-au-Prince overnight as U.N. and other aid organizations struggled Friday to get food and water to stricken millions. Fears spread of unrest among the Haitian people in their fourth day of desperation.

=snip=

The quake's destruction of Port-au-Prince's main prison complicated the security situation. International Red Cross spokesman Marcal Izard said some 4,000 prisoners had escaped and were freely roaming the streets. "They obviously took advantage of this disaster," Izard said.

Huge logistical hurdles and the sheer scale of the destruction mean aid is still not reaching hundreds of thousands of hurt and homeless people in the devastated coastal capital Port-au-Prince.

=snip=

The U.N. World Food Program said post-quake looting of its food supplies long stored in Port-au-Prince appears to have been limited, contrary to an earlier report Friday. It said it would start handing out 6,000 tons of food aid recovered from a damaged warehouse in the city's Cite Soleil slum.

A spokeswoman for the Rome-based agency, Emilia Casella, said the WFP was preparing shipments of enough ready-to-eat meals to feed 2 million Haitians for a month. She noted that regular food stores in the city had been emptied by looters.

Full article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34829978/ns/world_news-haiti_earthquake/

-

[Peace Patriot]

45. "food aid recovered from a damaged warehouse in the city's Cite Soleil slum"--that indicates

the dimension of the problem. Aid agencies' buildings are DOWN. Many of their people are dead. So the very people needed to coordinate the aid that is on its way into the country cannot operate efficiently. They are greatly handicapped--their facilities crippled, communications down all over, roads blocked, fuel scarce, many of their people dead or missing, and certainly no rest for themselves, no relief. Many have likely been awake and on their feet for the last three days.

In-coming help can set up infrastructure, but it takes time. They don't have the usual local contacts easily available or available at all. This is WHY outfits like the UN and the Red Cross keep stores of food and emergency supplies and staff within countries on an on-going basis--when they are not needed--because they generally count on the LOCAL staff to start getting aid out, in a disaster, and to help organize in-coming aid. This quake hit the country's major city and ripped it to shreds. That's where existing staff and aid supplies were concentrated. The UN lost the head of their mission and at least a hundred people, outright--killed in the quake. Their entire office building collapsed. So just imagine what it meant for the surviving UN relief staff, for instance, to find their local warehouse also damaged by the quake. They've got people screaming for help buried under rubble all over the city; dead bodies piling up; millions wandering the streets, dazed, injured, trying to find their family members. How are they supposed to get the food out of a damaged warehouse, and set up a distribution system, in those dire conditions? Trucks? Truck drivers? Fuel? Workers and heavy equipment to haul boxes of food? Inventory information (vital to distribution)? Staffing distribution points? Even getting in contact with staff? Choosing distribution points (maps, plans-all lost in the rubble)? If the warehouse was falling down, how to get the food out before it's buried? And you yourself are exhausted, in mourning, hungry and homeless.

This is a quite unusually terrible disaster--for many reasons, some the fault of the "first world" in its prior treatment of Haiti, some simply due to where the earthquake hit. In-coming help has to wade into a situation with ALL the local infrastructure down, and all local aid agencies severely disrupted.

Please don't be so quick to blame those who were in the country as the earthquake hit, or those trying to coordinate and deliver aid into this hellish chaos.

There may be plenty of blame to go around, later--as to how aid is used and who benefits. But in this immediate horrendous disaster, don't jump to the conclusion that aid has been unnecessarily delayed.

I agree with everybody about the utter wrong of calling starving people "looters."

I also wonder about helicopter drops, but it's not as if that is an easy thing to do, in any circumstance. They would probably have to be deployed from the Dominican Republic or Cuba, and/or from the U.S. aircraft carrier (I think it's an aircraft carrier) which was 2-3 days out, heading to Haiti. How many helicopters are available? How much fuel is available for them? Where are all the in-coming food/emergency supplies located, and how to get them to the helicopters? Where to drop supplies? (You can't just start dropping heavy packages over a city, and you have to have safe landing areas to land and distribute.) Three days is by no means sufficient time to organize such a relief effort (an airlift) for 2-3 million people. And I can't imagine that the U.S. government, other governments and aid agencies are not considering it, and/or organizing it, as we speak.

Another thing that Haiti lacks is heavy equipment--and a lot of whatever they had has likely been smashed up. Somebody has to evaluate the logistics of clearing the roads and delivering aid by land (I read that the road from the airport to Port-au-Prince was seriously blocked by debris, including many wrecked vehicles) vs some other method of transport such as an airlift. Neither is easy. Both take time. And when you've got trucks filled with aid supplies, aid workers, doctors, nurses, soldiers, all geared up, fueled and ready to go, or you have helicopters similarly lined up, where do they go? To whom do they deliver the supplies and other help? The city is in ruins. There is no hospital standing in the entire city. There is no church standing. There is no school standing. Almost all government buildings are damaged or destroyed--along with everything else. They've got to find open fields, I guess, to set up vast tent cities, and tented hospitals, and tented everything. And this in itself is not easy--to house, feed, shelter and provide medical care for 2 to 3 million homeless, starving people. It cannot be done overnight. They have to evaluate and determine--and, indeed, create--destinations for the aid effort. You can't just dump doctors and medical supplies and other aid anywhere.

Immediate, emergency food is a priority, of course. The Red Cross, the UN, everybody knows this. And we don't have Bushwhacks obstructing things (that we know of). But actually, potable water is probably even more important--and I'm sure that aid agencies know this as well. I would say, hold criticisms about timeliness for later--and DONATE MONEY.

Also, there has been an emergency call for NURSES to go to Haiti. See
http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/press-releases/2010/january/largest-rn-union-issues-urgent-call-for-nurse-volunteers-to-assist-earthquake-ravaged-haiti.html

And see Bill Quigley's "Ten Things the U.S. Should Do For Haiti"
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/14-11
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=278642&mesg_id=278748

Just saw news that the U.S. shut down the airport in Haiti yesterday, to evacuate Americans, delaying aid shipments. Some of my patience with aid efforts just vanished.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7471431&mesg_id=7471495

But this comment is interesting...

-----

TornadoTN (1000+ posts) Fri Jan-15-10 08:01 AM
Response to Reply #2
6. Things are getting better though.

The US Air Force was able to get control of the ground yesterday and start directing air traffic and coordinate ground logistics. Previous to that, the Haitian government was still in charge of the airport and understandably didn't have a full handle on the situation. That may have contributed to the problems that were encountered with the traffic overwhelming the airport and perhaps even what was prioritized.

The USS Carl Vinson has arrived with 19 Helicopters, so things are going to start moving a lot more quickly now with more air assets on the scene. An undertaking such as this isn't something that can just happen at the snap of a finger.

Not making excuses at all, I share in the frustration of many here that can only watch and send money.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7471431

-----------------------------

19 helicopters--YES!

[Turborama]

47. Excellent post! You should post it in GD as a standalone thread. n/t

[tonekat]

48. Thank you Peace Patriot for a sensible summary

No building code existed, so the city is rubble. The airport is tiny, and commercial planes are having a hard time just getting a stairway to unload (the military planes have ramps, maybe only military aircraft should be permitted to land there for now).

Responses have been swift, but, there's no place to park more planes (and, no fuel there to rely on to get back), no open space for staging distribution of food and water to speak of other than the airport it seems from the pictures.

It very much is a "perfect storm" of disaster.

[Peace Patriot]

51. Yes, I agree. I'm well aware of why Haiti had no building codes, no emergency infrastructure,

vast slums on mudsliding hills, a population of people who were once good farmers, massively driven off their land into urban squalor by the rich and the corporate (1% of the people now own 99% of the land!), the poor schools, the vast poverty (wages $2/day), the utter rape of Haiti's forests (only 2% left--with consequent unstable soils, mudslides everywhere and waterway problems), and a dysfunctional government, with Haiti's democracy overthrown by the U.S. time and again, most recently by the Bushwhacks in 2004.

This is all of why Haiti is probably the least able country on the face of the earth to deal with one of the worst earthquake disasters in history--striking right at the heart of an overpopulated city with no building codes. It is just bloody awful--one of the worst tragedies we will ever witness.

But let's not heap criticism on the rescue workers and the aid givers! This is a very, VERY difficult situation--and I cannot believe that everyone with responsibility to get aid set up and distributed in Haiti does not feel that weight very heavily, indeed, and are not working feverishly to accomplish it. We really must respect these heroes, whoever they are--Cuban doctors, U.S. soldiers, Canadian nurses, Venezuelan rescue teams, Brazilian peacekeepers, the UN, the Red Cross, Oxfam, Doctors Without Border, the Pope, President Obama, and everyone working on this deserves our support and our prayers, most especially those on the ground in Haiti.

There is plenty of criticism to go around about Haiti, and I am the first to rip into the U.S. government for service to corporate interests and the rich, in Haiti above all. But that has nothing to do with getting aid into Dante's Inferno! Let's save the criticism for next week, anyway--when we can begin to see the parameters of militarization, of private contractors, of bad decisions, of human rights violations, of ulterior motives and so on. It's not that aid shouldn't be scrutinized nor that our government shouldn't be raked over the coals on certain issues. But we are looking at a literal sea of dead people--at a distance. We don't have to bury them. We don't have to try to insure that disease doesn't wipe out half the remaining population before the month is out. And we should just praise and encourage and donate money to those who are not at distance from this horror and are trying to help.

[bemildred]

52. Foraging for food and water is not "looting". nt

[Kablooie]

53. Wow. Sounds like it's turning into "The Road" .

[Blandocyte]

54. I'm surprised it took this long to start

That shows that the immediate response with food/water was pretty effective. Too bad it couldn't help everyone everywhere affected.