Six Months On, Haiti Remains Covered in Rubble”
A half a year after a devastating earthquake claimed at least 222,570 lives, the work of rebuilding Haiti is still in the early stages. Helpers have traveled to the country from around the world, but reconstruction has barely progressed. In many parts of the country, people have simply moved on with their lives amidst the rubble.
Indeed.
h/t Maz2
We have a similar story happening right here in Saskatchewan near my home. It’s called Kowacatoose First Nation. I pray for alla to give these people the strength and sense to recover themselves from these tragedies.
http://www.globallethbridge.com/world/Tornado+damaged+Kawacatoose+First+Nation+receive+government+funds/3358723/story.html
I gave at the office.
I gave at the office.
Charity is an individual choice. Go ahead and donate as much of your income to whatever ‘issues’ strike your fancy. Global charity is not the responsibility of governments.
Friend at NGO is there building a shelter for volunteers. collected donations and supplies in three containers. Haitian ‘authorities’ are looking for a $60K bribe or else they won’t let containers in.
Charles, this is what happens all over the world.
Harper already gave mine away x 2.
Nope, nothing left for anyone else.
Sorry đ
One might contrast Chile, which suffered a massive 8.8 quake in February, with Haiti. The Chileans were not recipients of massive foreign aid or even media coverage, but they have got on with their rebuilding, and still expect to see GDP growth of about 5.5% this year. Their public debt is only 6% – yes, that’s SIX percent – of GDP, and yet the government actually raised taxes to help pay for the rebuilding.
It might help that their president made a fortune in business, and leads a government that is not massively corrupt. But the point that the media swoons over the incompetent and the kleptocrats shouldn’t be lost. Michelle Jean didn’t visit Chile once, didn’t cry about them, didn’t pledge any help for them. Does Haiti deserve some special consideration because she has relatives there? Sounds like a pretty poor reason to me.
I figure the 5 billin dollars our prime minister gave away in foriegn aid can be tallied as my life time contribution to the third world . So while i have a very small part of my heart that feels bad for the third world people none of my money out side of the 5 billion will ever see the hands of any charity for any entity outside of canada.
Paul in calgary
As so many of us said at the time, the purpose of aid and assistance is to aid and assist those in need, not to prove to ourselves that we are charitable.
Haiti is totally corrupt. It’s run by a small set of about 30 isolate families, French speaking, who are the government. They control all the key aspects of the economy – the ports, industrial aspects, govt. They live in isolate gated communities.
The rest of the population, who are Creole, are on their own. They are uneducated, illiterate, without an infrastructure of roads, hydro, water, schools, work. Services for them, such as health care, schools etc, are provided by external foreign charity organizations. Again, the Haitian govt does not do a thing for this population.
The earthquake primarily devastated the shacks of this population. Since the govt had never provided for them before, then, nothing would change. And nothing has changed. Where has the money donated by the world gone? To those 30 families. It certainly hasn’t gone to the Haitian population who remain in a worse situation than before…with their refugee tents now becoming permanent domains..and still lacking water, hydro, health care, education, jobs..and still dependent totally on those foreign charities.
What do I predict will happen? Nothing. The ‘new Haiti’ will be exactly as the old. The isolate 30 families living in their wealth; the rest of the population living in tents and supported by foreign aid.
Theodore Dalrymple’s observation applies:
“Aid to Africa is a system in which the poor people of rich countries give money to the rich people of poor countries.”
Just out of curiosity,ET, did our Governor General spring from one of the thirty privileged families,or did she come from the less fortunate crowd?
I agree with you, the New Haiti will be the same as the old. No one is going to oversee a rebuilding that is truly beneficial to the peasants,and governments prefer to deal with their fellows,so just like on our Canadian Rez’s, lotsa money is spent,and not much is accomplished.
Why can’t the healthy and hail in that country clean up the rubble, their apparent lazyness seems to be the result of to much aid and not enough personal responsibility.
dmorris:
I’m not a huge fan of Ms.Jean, but her family fled from Papa Doc’s government, after her father had been imprisoned for years, so I doubt they were among the privileged plutocrats who run the joint.
I’ve been in one of those countries Rose. The people are anything but lazy. They’ll work harder than you can imagine for a buck.
The problem is their government (including the bureaucracy) and the police and judiciary. Those with power steal from those without power and from guilt ridden bleeding heart developed world governments and aid agencies. Those without power aspire to gain power so they can steal. They can hardly wait for their turn to eat.
Our own little piece of Africa in the Caribbean.
Did anyone actually think Haitians would clean up the mess? Why bother, there are armies of guilt-ridden white-western do-gooders down there with bursting hearts and tear-filled eyes doing god’s work in saving the poor Afro-Francophony population of that beleaguered country.
What they don’t realize yet, is that you cannot clean up hell.
I too have been in many of the African countries that suffer many of the same problems as Haiti.
I would say that for every 1 able body worker who wishes to help out and try to make things better, there are 100 who will stand about and bitch about the west as they eat our food, sleep on our cots and sell our water on the black market.
As stated, why try to change the status quo and work hard, when if you just wait, manna will fall from heaven… courtesy of a taxpayer, in a foreign land, with no vested interest in the country involved.
Most think that every person in the west is rich, and it is their right to get a piece of that western pie. It becomes the expected, the norm.
I don’t care. I knew Haitians would do nothing when I saw a group idling discussing a dead womans remains, that they could see in the ruble of her home, ten days after the quake. No effort was made to retrieve the body. Also other Haitians who were waiting to be paid before they would begin clearing the ruble. If they don’t care about their home(s),then why should I?
rose and others – has it occurred to you that to clean up the rubble requires heavy duty equipment, not simply bare hands and donkeys? The mass don’t have this equipment and the govt certainly won’t provide it.
It requires roads to move that rubble away. No roads; the govt hasn’t and won’t build them.
It requires construction material to build new homes. The govt won’t do this.
It isn’t that the people are lazy. It is that one small authoritarian set controls the entire economy and political structure. You can’t build a home because you can’t get the permits; you can’t get the material; you can’t get hydro or water put in; you can’t get a job; you can’t get education. The Haitian govt provides none of these services.
Yes, the Canadian GG was part of the old ‘mulatto elite’ in Haiti, driven out by the Duvalier dictatorship.
Speaking of our Judeo-Christian heritage….
Luke 10:30-37
Knock,
knock! Who’s there, in the other devil’s
name? Faith, here’s an equivocator, that could
swear in both the scales against either scale;
who committed treason enough for God’s sake,
yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come
in, equivocator.
(Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 2 Scene III)
Just sayin’
No ET it does not take roads to remove the rubble, it’s called recycling and those people are perfectly capble of building crude huts with chunks of brick, mortar and concrete.
Ahh, rose – so, how do they get the concrete? Does it fall from the air, or is it shipped in via roads? And how do they get the bricks and rubble? Do they dig it out with their bare hands from the collapsed houses?
So, crude huts are all that is needed? That’s why so many hundreds of thousands died in the earthquake. Because they were living in crude self-built huts that collapsed on them during the earthquake.
And what if the govt won’t permit you to build a house on that site – or any site? What if there are no clear documents that attest to ownership of that site? What if there’s no water around? What if the only fire for cooking comes from the trees – Did you know that these people have over the years denuded Haiti of about 95% of its forest for that purpose? Has the govt supplied them with electricity or gas to use instead of the forests?
I suggest you do a bit of research and think about the realities of the situation. The people aren’t innately lazy. They have no means to do anything – because the so-called govt is completely and totally corrupt and long ago abandoned the majority of Haitians, the creoles, to the hands of external charities.
Lefties like to call America “Imperialist”, which is laughable. If America wanted an empire, it could have gotten one; who would have stopped it?
I have mixed feelings about, say, the British Empire (of course Britain can’t govern itself anymore, but that’s another thing), but can anyone seriously suggest that Haiti would not be better off as a U.S. colony?
ET – can you recommend something expanding on these “30 families”? It’s very interesting.
Black Mamba, I believe Haiti was a US protectorate or occupied from 1915 to 1934 and they built the infrastructure of the country.
When Chile was hit, than came back themselves with little help. Admirably didn’t even beg for it or ask. I thought to bad all the money wasted in Hatti. Given to politicians who’s bank accounts swelled. Who’s people never seen a dime. Should have been used for people, who are industrious, with a government not just interested in fleecing more Western suckers.
JMO
black mamba – I posted a long comment with links about the class structure of Haiti but it went to spam. Hopefully it will be unlocked. I’m not repeating it!
Just one comment, Dave – the infrastructure of Haiti was created by the French during its days as a French colony.
The elite families, the ‘mulattoes’ who control Haiti speak French and control most of the economy and the govt. The black population who speak Creole, have no power and no economy other than sustenance style. They rely on external aid for even such basics as water, food, schools, medical care. The govt doesn’t provide it.
Check out elite power or families on google.
” the principal fault-line in Haiti is not geological but one of class. A small handful of rich families own large tracts of land in suburban Port-au-Prince which would be ideal for resettling the displaced thousands. The lands are located near the city, often with water and some trees, and are largely undeveloped.
However, these same families control the Haitian government”
Exactly as I predicted…. sadly.
ET: The people of the ancient world built huge and incredible wonders, some of which still stand-
WITHOUT the benifit of modern technology or cement! Think pyramids et al…
Thanks ET. Here’s hoping it emerges from the dark netherworld of spam net limbo.
Stick – you are exactly right.
Now, if you want to compare building the pyramids – which took the labour of hundreds of thousands, costing the lives of multiple thousands, and taking a generation to build – with building a reasonably stable home that will not collapse in an earthquake home..and that does not require the labour of thousands and does not take a generation to build and does not cost the lives of thousands in that construction..well..that’s your choice.
Again,
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2589-land-ownership-at-the-crux-of-haitis-stalled-reconstruction
The people not only don’t have the tools to build homes – other than shacks – they don’t have the legal right to build. That’s because the land is ‘owned’ by those elite families and they are not giving it up. Read the above link.
Humble appologies for the length of this; I don’t have a link. It was in the Calgary Herald a few days after the quake and is a fine example of “Told you so”.
ONLY MILITARY OCCUPATION CAN LIFT HAITI OUT OF ITS WRECKAGE
News reports that Haiti has descended into hell are hardly surprising given the enormity of the disaster there. For the time being, the scores of private and public agencies on the ground will muddle through, and foreign troops should be able to more or less keep the lid on things. Many more people will die in the next week or two, but most will survive, and that’s when years of major problems will begin.
The situation in Haiti is magnitudes worse than it was in Indonesia after the tsunami where, beyond the waterâs reach, normal life continued. In Haiti, with most towns and cities reduced to rubble, roads destroyed and social structures completely disrupted, nothing is normal. It would be easier to start from scratch on vacant ground and build a nation than to undo the damage, while keeping millions of destitute people alive and maintaining some semblance of order.
A premature pullout of the major national participants in the relief effort, leaving rehabilitation to an uncoordinated group of NGOs and an ineffectual Haitian government under the tutelage of the massively corrupt and bureaucratically strangled United Nations would lead to failure and a humanitarian disaster.
I usually lean towards Libertarianism but, there are times when reasonable people have to examine their ideologies in the light of grim reality. My take on Haiti is that, like Japan and much of Europe after WWII, the country can only be rebuilt to a decent standard, and within a reasonable time, under military occupation.
That sort of bullying was common in the 1920s when, for example, Haiti was occupied by the U.S. Marines (1915 – 1934) and, notwithstanding two insurrections, that sad, blood-soaked country had a decent period of stability and internal development. Today, that would be a tough sell politically – especially since Haiti has no natural resources that anyone wants to commandeer, no solid industrial base, and no particular political significance.
The obvious candidate to lead such a venture would be (who else?) the USA but, given its economic problems and its preoccupation with the Middle East, that degree of altruism would be remarkable – especially with half the world shouting, âImperialists!â. Canada, and several other countries that have the means to contribute would probably be amenable to working under a U.S general but, the American public may be weary of being âmother to the worldâ.
Properly clearing the rubble from Port-au-Prince will require a fleet of trucks working for months. Unless the people are first moved out and accommodated in orderly military-style refugee camps, hundreds of thousands will be living like rodents in the rubble and defying the bulldozers. Whether in the ruins or in camps, survivors will have to be fed – some for months and some for years.
There is already talk of 100,000 tents outside of Port-au-Prince. As a stop-gap measure, thatâs necessary and urgent but, to leave people for more than a few months in tent cities is unthinkable. On a hurricane plagued island, even the most modest dwellings should be of concrete block construction. Moreover, in the tropics, a tent city would quickly degenerate into a festering pool of filth and disease. For the long haul military-style barracks, plenty of water wells and properly constructed latrines will be a must.
Even before the earthquake, Haiti wasnât equipped for major construction projects. Now there is almost nothing, and there will have to be staged preparations before even emergency housing can be built.
First, the port must be prepared to accommodate cargo ships to deliver thousands of tons of cement, other construction materials and heavy machinery. Nobody can do that sort of work in less time than an army corps of engineers unencumbered by the niceties of permits, bribes and tight budgetary controls. (The Alaska Highway was built in eight months.)
Plants will have to be built from scratch to provide concrete and concrete blocks. Only then will it be possible to begin camp construction. Getting those plants up and running before the fall hurricane season can only be accomplished within a hierarchy where decisions are made with finality and without red tape.
The post WWII world was Port-au-Prince times 100, but hard-nosed generals and “don’t get in our way” military engineers set things right fairly quickly. Douglas MacArthur was an arrogant, conceited martinet who came within a whisker of starting World War III but, in his capacity as de facto Emperor, he oversaw creation of the modern Japanese state including everything from sewers to the constitution.
Reconstruction of Haiti will cost billions of dollars and iron management by a 21st century MacArthur. Who will pay, and where will the world find its MacArthur?
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Lee Morrison worked for several years in Third World countries, as a geological engineer for private companies and as a consultant on various United Nations projects, including one in Haiti.