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<h1><font size=4><b>Venezuela’s Anti-Hegemonic Aid In
Haiti</b></font></h1><font size=3>February 23rd 2010, by Kiraz Janicke -
Venezuelanalysis.com <br>
<a href="http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/judiciary" eudora="autourl">
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/judiciary<br><br>
</a>
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-adams/venezuelas-renegade-aid_b_464129.html">
In a February 17 article “Venezuela’s Renegade Aid” published in the
Huffington Post</a>, freelance journalist Patrick Adams implies that
there is something untoward and problematic about the Venezuelan aid
effort in earthquake ravaged Haiti.<br><br>
Venezuela’s main crime appears to be its non-participation in the UN
coordinated “cluster system” which Adams argues “has worked fairly well”
– never mind that the UN has been an occupying force in Haiti since the
United States engineered overthrow of democratically elected President
Jean Bertrand Aristide in 2004 and never mind that John Holmes, the head
of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, himself
heavily criticised the implementation of the “cluster strategy” in a
confidential email leaked on February 16.<br><br>
“One month into the response, only a few clusters have fully dedicated
cluster coordinators, information management focal points and technical
support capacity, all of which are basic requirements for the efficient
management of a large scale emergency operation,” Holmes said.<br><br>
Despite the clearly logistical nightmare of organising such a large scale
relief operation Adams argues that it is “one group -- such as the
National Armed Fores [sic] of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela” that
is creating “problems for everyone else.”<br><br>
Adams’ main source for the supposedly problematic behaviour of the
Venezuelans is Dr. Tiffany Keenan, “founder and president of Haiti
Village Health, which oversees the supply and distribution of private aid
from its offices in the airport,” in the port city of Jacmel. As it turns
out Adams is “embedded” in Keenan’s guesthouse in Jacmel (though he
doesn’t mention that in the article).<br><br>
“The Venezuelans haven't showed up at a single meeting," complained
Dr. Tiffany Keenan,” Adams writes.<br><br>
"We were all sitting there the other day and someone said, 'Did you
hear they just put a bunch of tents in Pinchinat?' Nobody had had any
idea they were there. We still don't know how many doctors they have or
how long they'll be there." Keenan continues.<br><br>
However, as Adams later admits, the Venezuelans are coordinating their
work directly with the Haitian government (which is ultimately
responsible for deciding “how aid is coordinated and who manages its
distribution among populations in need”) and in the case of the Pinchinat
camp in Jacmel, the Venezuelans were brought there directly by the local
mayor’s office, so it’s pretty clear that some people had an idea they
were there.<br><br>
As one perceptive commentator on Adams’ article wrote, “So they chose to
work through the local government instead of the North-American run
“cluster” system. I guess that makes them renegades.”<br><br>
It later also emerges that the whole story seems to be concocted around a
communication problem as the cluster system meetings are conducted only
in French and English, whereas the Venezuelans speak Spanish.<br><br>
In fact, Adam’s article is one big whine about the Venezuelan aid effort,
implying that it is uncooperative, inept and inefficient.<br><br>
However, occasionally facts on the ground force Adams to take a reality
check: “When the Venezuelans first arrived, Pinchinat was a sea of
makeshift huts assembled with sticks, bed sheets and scraps of plastic --
whatever could be salvaged from the collapsed homes that many of its
residents had fled. Within days, some fifty Venezuelan soldiers in forest
green fatigues had erected more than a hundred 40-foot, green canvas
tents with "U.S." stamped on the side.”<br><br>
But again Adams finds something to complain about; he mocks Maximo
Tampoa, a 25-year-old engineer in the Venezuelan Civil Defense and
another Venezuelan Capt. Chapparo for spray painting the red, yellow and
blue colours of the Venezuelan flag on the tents provided by Venezuela
and chides them for not knowing that more than two centuries ago “on
March 12, 1806, the "Generalísimo" Francisco de Miranda,
predecessor of the revolutionary leader Simon Bolivar, whose vision of a
unified South America has become Chavez's own, raised the original
Venezuelan tricolor on the ship Leander, anchored at the time in Jacmel
Bay.”<br><br>
Then he goes on to list a string of complaints: the tents are hot, and
there are no floors. That’s it! That’s the problem with the Venezuelan
aid effort!<br><br>
The Venezuelans haven’t occupied the country militarily, blocked aid
supplies from arriving at the airport, tried to impose unfair conditions
on reconstruction loans or attempted to kidnap 33 Haitian children <i>a
la</i> Laura Silsby and the Central Valley Baptists, BUT…. their tents
<i>are</i> hot!<br><br>
<b>So what are the Venezuelans really doing in Haiti?<br><br>
</b>Venezuela has certainly differentiated its approach to what
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicholas Maduro described as “the hegemonic,
abusive form in which U.S. military has sought to address the issue of
Haiti.”<br><br>
After the disaster struck on January 12, Venezuela was the first country
to send aid, with an advance team of doctors, search and rescue experts
as well as food, water, medical supplies, and rescue equipment arriving
in Port-au-Prince on the morning of January 13.<br><br>
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez also announced the cancellation of
Haiti’s US$ 295 million debt to Venezuela on January 25, (a fact which
Adams does not mention). In addition to thousands of tonnes of food aid
Venezuela has also sent 225,000 barrels of diesel fuel and gasoline and
Chavez has pledged “all the free fuel that Haiti needs.”<br><br>
The Venezuelan government has donated 30,000 tents and sent more than
10,000 tonnes of food to Haiti and has pledged to continue shipments of
food aid and supplies. Collection points have been set up all around the
country for donations to ship to Haiti and Chavez’s United Socialist
Party of Venezuela has organised dozens of concerts and fundraising
events to help out with the Haiti reconstruction effort.<br><br>
As part of a broader effort in collaboration with the member countries of
the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA), which
also includes Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Dominica, St Vincent and
the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda, Venezuela and the ALBA countries
also pledged $120 million to help reconstruction efforts, and together
with the Union of South American Nations (UNSAUR) Venezuela has also
agreed to contribute to a $300 million fund, with each country donating
according to their GDP.<br><br>
Venezuela has also set up three “community camps”, that together house
3,900 Haitians whose homes were destroyed by the earthquake - the Simón
Bolívar and Alexander Petión camps in Leogane, which each house 1,200
people, and the Francisco de Miranda camp in Jacmel, which houses 1,500
people.<br><br>
The camps provide medical attention, trauma counselling, food, access to
sanitation, adult literacy programs as well as sports, education, and
music classes and other recreational activities for children. Venezuela’s
ambassador to Haití, Pedro Canino, said Venezuela’s 520 aid personnel are
also working directly with 219 grassroots social organisations in Haiti
to distribute food aid and other supplies to the local communities. The
Venezuelans are also helping with reconstruction efforts, digging
latrines, clearing rubble, building houses and schools.<br><br>
Rather than living in hotels or guesthouses like many other aid workers,
the Venezuelans are living and working side by side with the Haitian
people. Jean H. Charles MSW, JD Executive Director of AINDOH Inc, wrote
of the Simón Bolívar camp in Leogane in Caribbean Net News on February
17, “The Bolivarian tent city, is well organized, its a
transitional model that should be replicated; the Venezuelan soldiers
living with the refugees are social workers, teachers, cooks and
community organizers.”<br><br>
The Venezuelan plan is to work with local communities to multiply the
camps to extend access to thousands more people in need. The Jacmel camp
is scheduled to be handed over to a team of Cuban doctors, while the
Venezuelans will go back to Port-au-Prince, to work on constructing
additional camps. The approach of the Venezuelan aid effort is not to
impose conditions or win lucrative reconstruction contracts, but rather
to help provide Haitians with tools with which they can organise and
empower their communities for their own sovereign development.<br><br>
Of course, efforts can always be improved, and unlimited solidarity with
the people of Haiti is urgently necessary right now, but Venezuela, a
small underdeveloped country has attempted, in a spirit of
internationalism to step up to the challenge to the best of its ability
and resources. As Chavez said, “Venezuela’s aid is modest but it is done
with a big heart.”<br><br>
So, rather than attacking the efforts of poor countries engaged in
genuine solidarity to alleviate the suffering of the Haitian people
perhaps Adams could better spend his time questioning the imperialist
intentions of his own country that has sent more than 15,000 soldiers to
occupy Haiti, which, incidentally, is thought to have potentially massive
untapped reserves of oil and gas. He could also investigate where the
billions of dollars in international aid is actually going, what
conditions the IMF is imposing on Haiti’s reconstruction loans or what
Christian missionaries – who, as with all colonising projects are an
essential part of the “hearts and minds” strategy to maintain
subordination to Western imperialist and capitalist interests - are
really getting up to?<br><br>
Maybe he could even start with the Christian relief and missions
organisation, ORA International, of which Keenan’s NGO, Haiti Village
Health, is an affiliate. According to the website Ministrywatch.com,
whose stated aim is “educating and empowering donors to support Christian
Ministries,” ORA International’s “transparency grade” is “F” and the
website posts a “Donor Alert” on the ORA International profile with a
warning “Non-Transparent Ministries: Are they Faithful in the Small
Things?”<br><br>
<br><br>
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