[News] Haiti - And the U.S. Calls This a "Model Response?"
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Mon Feb 15 11:17:17 EST 2010
http://www.counterpunch.org/quigley02152010.html
February 15, 2010
And the U.S. Calls This a "Model Response?"
A Million Homeless in Haiti
By BILL QUIGLEY
Despite the fact that over a million people
remained homeless in Haiti one month after the
earthquake, the U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, Ken
Merten, is quoted at a State Department briefing
on February 12, saying In terms of humanitarian
aid delivery
frankly, its working really well,
and I believe that this will be something that
people will be able to look back on in the future
as a model for how weve been able to sort
ourselves out as donors on the ground and responding to an earthquake.
What? Haiti is a model of how the international
government and donor community should respond to
an earthquake? The Ambassador must be overworked
and need some R&R. Look at the facts.
The UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported February 11
there are still 1.2 million people living in
spontaneous settlements in and around Port au
Prince as a result of the January 12
earthquake. These spontaneous settlements are
sprawling camps of homeless Haitian children and
families living on the ground under sheets.
Over 300,000 are in camps in Carrefour, nearly
200,000 in Port au Prince, and over 100,000 each
in Delmas, Petitionville and Leogane according to the UN.
About 25,000 people are camped out on one golf
course in Petitionville. Hundreds of thousands
of others are living in soccer fields, church
yards, on hillsides, in gullies, and even on the
strips of land in the middle of the street. The
UN has identified over 300 such spontaneous
settlements. The Red Cross reports there are over 700.
The UN reported that barely one in five of the
people in camps have received tents or tarps as
of February 11. Eighty percent of the hundreds
of thousands of children and families still live on the ground under sheets.
Many of these camps are huge. Nineteen of these
homeless camps in the Port au Prince area
together house 180,000 people. More than half of
these camps are so spontaneous that there is no
organization in the camp to even comprehensively report their needs.
Another half a million people have left Port au
Prince, most to the countryside. As a result
there are significant food problems in the
countryside. About 168,000 internally displaced
people are living along the border with the
Dominican Republic. Many are with
families. Others are in spontaneous settlements of up to a 1000 people.
People living in these densely populated camps
will be asked to move to more organized
settlements outside the city. Relocation, says
the UN, will be on a voluntary basis.
The U.S. Ambassador knows full well there are 900
or so aid agencies are on the ground in
Haiti. Coordination and communication between
those agencies and between them and the Haitian
government continues to be a very serious challenge.
Though many people are trying hard to meet the
survival needs Haiti, no one besides the
Ambassador dares say that it is a model of how to
respond. Partners in Health director Dr. Louise
Ivers reported on the very same day that there
is more and more misery in Port au Prince as
fears of typhoid and dysentery haunt the camps as the rainy season looms.
But the still the Haitian spirit
prevails. Everyone who has been to Haiti since
the earthquake reports inspiring stories of
Haitians helping Haitians despite the tragically
inadequate response of the Haitian government and
the international community. That spirit is
something people should admire. Let me finish with a story that illustrates.
One orphanage outside of Port au Prince, home to
57 children, was promised a big tent so the
children would no longer have to sleep under the
stars. The tent arrived but without poles to
hold it up. The same group was promised food
from UNICEF. Twelve days later, no food had
arrived. They improvised and constructed
scaffolding to create an awning over the
mattresses lying on the dirt. They are finding
food from anywhere they can. Were holding on,
said the Haitian director Etienne Bruny, Were used to difficult times.
Haitians are holding on despite the inadequate
humanitarian response. They are the model.
Bill Quigley is Legal Director at the Center for
Constitutional Rights and a law professor at
Loyola University New Orleans. He is a Katrina
survivor and has been active in human rights in
Haiti for years with the Institute for Justice
and Democracy in Haiti. He can be reached at:
<mailto:duprestars at yahoo.com>duprestars at yahoo.com.
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