Haiti earthquake: angry survivors 'block roads with corpses' -- London Times

[Leopolds Ghost]

Haiti earthquake: angry survivors 'block roads with corpses' -- London Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6989116.ece

See also

Anderson Cooper reporting tonight:

** Visits a "mass grave" where dump trucks full of bodies are unloading them like cordwood in an empty field and then using a backhoe to bulldoze them into a pile of rubbish, cover them with mounds of debris (not even bothering to dig a trench like the Nazis did) -- Anderson cooper took photos of the dump truck backing up, hands and arms sticking out of the mound of debris (no hole, mind you, just an open field landfill)

** Health Correspondent and US Surgeon-General candidate Sanjay Gupta treating critical patients alone all night in a tent hospital abandoned by so-called "UN" doctors who abandoned them because of "security concerns" (in reality, professional misconduct no matter who hired them or ordered them to do so, and can be prosecuted and licensed revoked by their professional peers back home for doing so)

** Ret. Lt. Gen. Russel Honore (the man responsible for coming in and saving thousands of lives in New Orleans, after three days of racist (local Democrats!) cops and Republican blackwater mercs running around the city engaging in "force protection" and shooting at people attempting to leave the city on foot.) Honore was shown a split screen of Gupta live and said "that is absolute bullshit, this is the same thing that I saw in New Orleans, guys running around in body armor and M-16s, more concerned about security than giving aid, security does not take precedence over saving lives in an emergency rescue situation! There's a ship off shore, ou need to air-lift an airborne detachment and help those people in that field and any one like it."

Why has Obama given numb-nut Bush a position in the relief effort and not Honore?

[Leopolds Ghost]

1. Bump

Has this Times story or the Anderson Cooper reports been posted on LBN or GD? Links appreciated.

[Leopolds Ghost]

2. Mind you, I want to know who is in charge of these mass graves --

I don't think for a minute that anyone from US, or many third world countries, or the middle east, would treat bodies like that.

[thunder rising]

3. Armchair quarterback much? Probably a temporary grave.

[Leopolds Ghost]

4. Yeah, I'm "armchair quarterbacking" Haitians piling corpses into roadblocks in frustration and anger

The Times and Anderson Cooper are obviously exaggerating an unfortunate situation that happens every time bodies pile up after a disaster. No, um, wait! This shit doesn't fly in most parts of the world... except in siege warfare or plague conditions... lay the bodies out in bags, in rows, photo them, tag them, to identify where they came from, like after the (300,000 dead?) Tsunami. Dig a fucking TRENCH with the backhoe and temporarily (?) bury the bodies in BAGS (whatever material) in ROWS.

That's not what I saw on Anderson Cooper, he showed backhoes pushing bodies in a tangled heap with the shovel arm, shoving them into a landfill along with refrigerators and cardboard boxes, cutting limbs in the process, pouring dirt on top, unloading bodies from a dump truck Rwanda-style, by backing up and emptying the truck, onto a field to be pushed around by a backhoe, landfill style, not even into a trench like your average genocidaire would think to dig.

[vadawg]

5. yeah making roadblocks, thats going to help

i would be wary of all reporting at the moment, remember the number of times stuff gets reported during disasters that turns out to be untrue....

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[XemaSab]

33. The priority is to get them out of the streets before they spawn disease

Also, would you rather the remaining gasoline be used for burying people or getting food and water into the region?

[LuvNewcastle]

6. Remember that those bodies are a

health hazard and need to be disposed of as quickly as possible. I know that it seems disrespectful to the dead, but when that many people die all at once, there isn't much you can do except make sure the bodies don't kill others with disease. It's a grim situation and they're doing the best they can with what they have.

[Leopolds Ghost]

7. It would help if we airlifted in machinery to properly lay out the bodies for ID, outside the city

In the same fucking field, perhaps, along with body bags, linens, 40,000 bedsheets from Wal-Mart.

Piling them in a landfill is not sanitary or respectful of the dead... in the Middle East I bet it would take a huge cataclysm to forestall proper treatment of the dead... after the Johnstown Flood they HAD a mass pile of bodies in a tangled heap to start with and they carefully laid out the identifiable bodies in open morgue to give people a chance to identify the bodies before quickly burying the unidentified remains in a mass grave... laid out properly...

[vadawg]

8. dude they have other things to worry about than body id

they are in the middle of a disaster and are to busy trying to keep the other 3 million alive to waste time on the dead. if in fact they are doing mass graves for health reasons then i applaud them....

[Leopolds Ghost]

9. Two things:

* Mass graves need to be sanitary. The bodies are being dumped in an open landfill by dump trucks in a tangled heap, no bags, no tags, no pre-identification by photographing the corpses before disposal, unlike much larger disasters. Even the Nazis dug trenches. (For that matter, the Nazis had Red Cross on hand, didn't they? I doubt the Red Cross have a problem with access... they are stockpiling at the docks, waiting for security situation to improve, I bet.)

* Access to Haiti is not a problem for emergency personnel, after the Johnstown Flood in 1880s, morgue personnel flooded the city to handle 20,000 (?) deaths, this was a few short years after the invention of the telegraph and rail travel. First thing you need on the ground is morgue and rescue personnel, WhTF are they doing?

[vadawg]

10. dude they have their own way of doing it, as long as they are doing it sanitary

and we dont really know everything that is happening, mayby they dont really care about id'ing every body, for whatever reasons i would give them the benefit of the doubt. First thing they need on the ground is the capability to feed 3 million people or they are going to have many more mass graves...

[LuvNewcastle]

11. I agree that they shouldn't just dump

the corpses in a landfill; they should bury them (if they have the equipment they need). I just think the aid workers are overwhelmed by it all and they're using some quick fix solutions right now until they get more supplies and help.

[Leopolds Ghost]

29. If they have a backhoe, why are they using it to push bodies around like trash?

Why are they not digging a trench? Why are they not tagging and bagging?

US and French aid workers are too busy medevacking Foreign Nationals by
helicopter from collapsed downtown buildings to worry about broad search
rescue morgue operations or food & water.

[XemaSab]

34. And in the Galveston hurricane

they burned them in piles and tried to dump them out at sea... only to have them wash back ashore.

[ElmoBlatz]

38. I REALLY don't mean to be rude...

But do you have a clue? Its very nice to think of a proper burial, with a coffin, maybe a nice service. The funeral director orchestrating the proceedings.

TENS of THOUSANDS of bodies rotting, yes ROTTING in 90 degree heat. Can you even imagine the stench? The flies? The potential for disease? Please take a break from your calm, sedate, suburban American sensibilities and try to wrap your mind around the horror that is Haiti. In this situation, you GET RID of the bodies as quickly and expeditiously as possible. The mourning can take place later.

[TicketyBoo]

12. One program this evening

(may have been Olbermann) said that the bodies were piled and then burned, not buried. They showed a burning heap, but you couldn't tell what it was (thank goodness).

[allincompassing]

13. World Wide Strike Today

WORLDWIDE STRIKE TODAY, NO ONE GOES TO WORK! US & UN REFUSE TO HELP HAITI UNLESS IT PROMISES TO PAY 5 BILLION FOR AID. PEOPLE R DYING! TELL THE US & UN TO FEED AND TREAT THE DYING OR NO ONE WORKS. PASS IT ON!

[JTFrog]

20. Worldwide work strike on a Saturday?

Just sayin....

While I appreciate the thought, I doubt the world would feel any effect.

:shrug:

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Taitertots]

14. I'm somewhat surprised that they are angry at us

And not at their own government for their complete lack of effort in preparing for this.

[vadawg]

15. never agreed with you before but on this i do...

what if they threw a we hate you party and we never came........ but like all survivors they are lashing out at who they percieve as not helping them. i wouldnt take it to heart but i would be wary of it..

[dipsydoodle]

16. You're living in a world of fucking dreams

unless you missed out the sarcasm thingy.

Their inability to cope is mainly as a result of American interference going back to 1915. There are other current posts on that subject here on DU which I suggest you find and read.

They are also acutely aware that they can walk to the airport in less than 2 hours and so are unable to understand why the situation is best described as SNAFU.

[vadawg]

17. yeah all 3 million of them should just walk to the airport and they can be fed

you realise the task that is before the world, 3 million people to feed is a fucking lot of people...

[dipsydoodle]

19. The subject of the post

refers to those putting bodies on the road which isn't all 3 million of them - just a few. I've seen them interviewed on TV, which you may not have done in the USA, due to your Micky Mouse media, and hence the 2 hour walk remark. The fact is that little if any of the aid has reached survivors.

[Taitertots]

21. "Little if any of the aid has reached survivors"

Now why are they mad at US about it, and not their own government for doing nothing to prepare for this?

They have failed to prepare themselves, and now they are mad that we didn't prepare enough for them.

[dipsydoodle]

22. Presumably you mean

like the US being prepared for Katrina. :sarcasm:

Aside from that, incase you didn't know, Haiti is one of the poorest nations on the planet. They use mud in pies to help fill their stomaches. It's the heritage of US intervention in the past which is well documented - perhaps you should search to confirm.

[Taitertots]

23. Yeah, we got mad at our OWN government for not being prepared for Katrina

We didn't cry that Canada wasn't being fast enough while we did nothing.

So we are to assume that helping people in the past makes us their permanent caretakers, absolving them of any responsibility to have disaster preparedness.

[dipsydoodle]

25. helping people in the past ?

Get serious and do what I suggested - search for past USA help ?/ intererence in Haiti which notwithstanding the current catastrophe has led to the mess they're in as a country.

Presumaby helping people in the past also includes most mainland Latin American countries and Cuba. :sarcasm:

[Taitertots]

30. Why do they all expect us to help them now?

America's impact on Haiti was not nearly as negative as you wish to portray it.

Everyone is doing what they can. It is misplaced to be angery at America.

[independentpiney]

24. The problems go back alot further than 1915 and it's not just the US

France made them 'buy' their independence under threat of re-invasion, so that the nation was born into a crushing,impossible to pay debt.

[dipsydoodle]

28. Fair comment.

:hi:

[treestar]

37. This everything is the US fault is a bit strained

They are poor entirely due to US interference?

I'm all for condemning U.S. interference, but this is straining my breaking point.

I'd like to know why we are so much to blame that our efforts to help can be met with total ingratitude.

[dipsydoodle]

39. I didn't say entirely - I said mainly

and you're as capable of finding the histrory of Haiti since 1915 as I am.

Apart from that for some recent history go here : http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7471693

[Leopolds Ghost]

18. Once this is over, what will US do to help reforest Haiti so they can grow their own food?

Stupid question, we won't even close the MRGO in New Orleans or build a Thames style barrage across the Rigolets to prevent another Katrina here at home. Because "those people shouldn't return to live in that place anyway."

We won't even endorse efforts to protect and sanitize shantytowns in countries as diverse as India and Haiti, instead electing to bulldoze them to build western style "vertical slum" concrete buildings that promptly collapse in the next earthquake.

No long term environmentalist thinking, no major investment of that sort, "environmental" greenwashing from people who think if we make everyone drive smart cars we'll save humanity from the effects of third world poverty and deforestation.

[XemaSab]

35. It goes deeper than that

How do we provide jobs and fuel to people so they don't cut down the trees?

Also, how do we protect new trees against peasants with machetes?

[Leopolds Ghost]

40. The British monarchy spent 1000 years trying to educate Anglo-Saxons to sustainably crop firewood

One of the reasons William the Conqueror was so hated was for his forest preservation laws.

[XemaSab]

41. One of my ancestors was the first professional forester in the Black Forest

I have a family tradition of forest management. :D

[CJCRANE]

27. The roads were already blocked by bodies and debris due to the earthquake

and people clearing up after the earthquake. If you're removing bodies and debris from collapsed buildings where else could you put them except on the road?

This is a neocon talking point designed to dehumanize the Haitians, just like the Iraqis and incubators before Gulf War I, and the urban myths propagated after Katrina.

As usual RW talking points don't have to make sense for people to believe them.

And it's from a Murdoch paper too, the guy who is the propaganda merchant to the entire English-speaking world.

[Leopolds Ghost]

31. Serious shit is happening in Haiti... why do folks unrec any thread that isn't sunshine and roses?

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.