[News] Hell and Hope in Haiti

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/quigley01292010.html

January 29 - 31, 2010


Help the Poorest First!

Hell and Hope in Haiti

By BILL QUIGLEY

Port au Prince.

Smoke and flames rose from the sidewalk. A white man took pictures. 
Slowing down, my breath left me.  The fire was a corpse.  Leg bones 
sticking out of the flames.

Port au Prince police headquarters is gone, already bulldozed. A 
nearby college is pancaked. Goverment buildings are destroyed. Stores 
fallen down.  Tens of thousands of buildings destroyed. Hundreds of 
thousands homeless.

Giant piles of concrete, rebar, metal pipes, plastic pipes, doors and wires.

Corpses are still inside many of the mountains of rubble.  No 
estimates of how many thousands of people are dead inside.

Electrical poles bend over streets, held up by braids of thick black 
wires. On some side streets the wires are stll down in the street.

Buildings take unimaginable shapes. Some are half up while the other 
side slopes to the ground. Some like collapsed cakes. Others smashed 
like childre's toys.

Everywhere are sheet shelters. In parks, soccer fields, in the 
parking lot of the tv station, tens of thousands literally in the 
streets and on sidewalks.

Thousands of people standing in the hot sun waiting their 
turn.  Outside the hospital, clinics, money transfer companies, 
immigration offices, and the very few places offering water or food.

Troops and heavy machinery are only seen in the center of the city.

After days in port Au prince I have seen only one fight - two teens 
fighting on a streetcorner over a young woman. No riots. No machetes.

Hope is found in the people of Haiti. Despite no electricity, little 
shelter, minimal food and no real government or order, people are 
helping one another survive.

Men and boys are scavenging useful items from the mounds of fallen 
buildings. Women are selling mangoes and nuts on the street. Teens 
are playing with babies.

Beautiful hymns are lifted as choirs  calling to god in every sheet 
camp every evening.  People pray constantly.  The strikingly 
beautiful tap tap cabs trumpet in god we trust or merci Jesus on 
bright colors.

Everyone needs tents and food and medical care and water.  But when 
you talk to them, most will lead you to an ailing great grandma or a 
malnourished child.

What should outsiders do, I asked Lavarice Gaudin?  Lavarice, who 
helps the St. Clares community feed thousands each day through their 
What If Foundation, said, "Help the most poor first. Some who labored 
their whole lives to make a one bedroom home will likely never have a 
home again. Haiti needs everything. But we need it with a plan. 
Pressure the Haitian government, pressure US AID to help the poorest."

International volunteers who work hand-in-hand with Haitians are 
welcomed. Others not so much.

Lavarice saw the Associated Press story that reported only one penny 
of every US aid dollar will go directly in cash to needy Haitians. "I 
can understand that they distrust the government, but why not 
distribute aid through the churches and good community organizations?"

"We hope this will help us develop strong leadership that listens and 
responds to the people."

"No matter what, we will never give up. Haitians are strong hopeful 
people. We will rebuild."

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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