How Haiti was abandoned

[Hannah Bell]

WHEN THE devastating earthquake struck Port-au-Prince in Haiti last January...people of the world responded with an outpouring of generosity.

But by every measure, those states and institutions (powerful governments, UN & NGOs) failed Haiti and betrayed the generosity of the world's people.

An angry Ricardo Seitenfus, special representative from the Organization of American States (OAS) to Haiti, told the Swiss daily Le Temps, "If there is failure of international aid, it is Haiti."

For that moment of honesty, the OAS fired Seitenfus. But he was right. Haiti's past year explodes the myth of imperial humanitarianism.

**Summary**

- At least 810K people still live in tent camps

- Less than 5% of the earthquake rubble has been removed

- NGOs & charties are sitting on the money they collected to "help Haiti" e.g. the red cross has committed about half of their haul.

***

The worst offender is the ICHR. As Haitian journalist Christophe Warny wrote:

Everyone counted on the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, with its co-presidents Bill Clinton, the UN's special envoy to Haiti, and Haiti's prime minister, Jean-Max Bellerive. Disappointingly, it has met just three times in 10 months, few projects have been confirmed, and there's poor coordination between the sponsors. Haitian civil society has been spurned. The donor states...seem a long way from the $10-15 billion target announced: just 10 percent of donations have materialized.

TO COVER up their failure, the major powers, the UN, NGOs and the media have turned to the most traditional of alibis--blaming the victim.

***Summary***

They blame:

-- the government, ignoring the fact that basic government infrastructure was destroyed & 30% of government personnel killed.

-- "lawlessness" = duh.

***

THE U.S., the UN and their NGO accomplices have proven themselves completely unable to help Haitians rebuild from the crisis--in fact, they are one of the principal causes of the unending crises that has wracked the country.

As Seitenfus declared:

I had hoped that with the plight of January 12, the world would understand that it had got it wrong with Haiti. Unfortunately, it has reinforced the same policy.

Instead of taking stock, we sent more soldiers. We must build roads, erect dams and participate in the organization of the state, the judicial system. The UN says it has no mandate for that. Its mandate in Haiti is to keep the peace of the cemetery.

http://socialistworker.org/2011/01/13/how-haiti-was-abandoned

[JCMach1]

1. How can it be abandoned if it was never found...?

Don't expect Haiti to ever matter to anyone until they find oil there.

The U.S. has been helping to screw-up this country almost since its birth.