Haitis horror

Bodies of earthquake victims lying outside the Port-au-Prince General Hospital.-EDUARDO MUNOZ/REUTERS

THE United Nations has described the humanitarian disaster that followed the January 12 earthquake that struck Haiti as the worst since the founding of the organisation. The Haitian government has said that it fears more than 200,000 people have already perished. More than 300,000 people have been rendered homeless. Health Minister Alex Larsen said that the death toll from the earthquake could eventually reach half a million, with another 250,000 injured. The quake measured 7.0 on the Richter scale and had the force of 500,000 tonnes of TNT (trinitrotoluene).

Even as aid efforts were continuing, Haiti was hit by a strong aftershock measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale on the morning of January 20.

The U.N. itself was badly hit. Five hundred of its peacekeepers were missing a week after the quake. Forty-six U.N. personnel, including Hedi Annabi, the head of the U.N. mission in the capital Port-au-Prince, were confirmed dead by the third week of January.

Haiti has been under virtual U.N. guardianship since 2004 after governance in the Caribbean country collapsed. The U.N. mission comprised 9,000 peacekeepers and 2,000 civilian administrators. The tremor completely or partially destroyed most of the government offices, the presidential palace and the U.N. premises. The houses of the comparatively well-off Haitians, located on the hills surrounding the capital, were mostly unscathed. It was the poor who bore the brunt of the quake.

Both the U.N. and the government of President Rene Preval have been rendered even more powerless by the force of the quake. Even at relatively normal times, the U.N. peacekeepers were finding it difficult to maintain law and order.

There is no Haitian army to lend a helping hand in the rescue and relief operations. The army was disbanded in 1994 by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide because of its undisciplined ways and its penchant for staging coups and backing right-wing figures. The local police force, underpaid and numbering a few hundred, is in no position to cope with the magnitude of the disaster.

If the casualty figures are accurate, the earthquake that hit Haiti will go down as one of the 10 deadliest quakes ever recorded. In all, 40,000 bodies have been buried most of them in common landfills. Bodies have been rotting on the streets of the cities. A week after the disaster, international agencies estimated that 100,000 corpses had yet to be recovered from the rubble. Besides the thickly populated capital city, the three major towns of Leogane, Carrefour and Gressier were badly impacted. They have very few buildings left standing.

Most of the hospitals and clinics have collapsed. Even at the best of times, medical care was an elusive facility for the average Haitian. The 300,000 people affected by the earthquake have to look for food and water too. The power grid collapsed immediately after the quake struck.

The senior adviser to the Save the Children Fund warned the international community that the situation can go from dire to absolutely catastrophic if we dont get enough food and medicine.

The international community led by the United States could have been quicker in responding to the disaster. The U.S. had a moral obligation to lead the humanitarian efforts as it has played a significant role in the politics of the country since the early 20th century. Most historians ascribe Haitis underdevelopment and poverty to U.S. policies. Twenty years ago, Haiti used to produce enough rice to feed its own population. Today the country of 10 million people is the largest importer of rice from the U.S. Aristide was overthrown in U.S.-backed coups twice, in 1991 and 2004, despite having the backing of the majority. Aristide, who is currently exiled in South Africa, told the media after he heard about the devastation that he wanted to return to share in their suffering, help rebuild the country, moving from misery to poverty with dignity.

U.S. President Barack Obama got relief operations moving a couple of days after the quake by ordering the deployment of 13,000 American troops to the country. The U.S.-backed Haiti government virtually handed back the sovereignty of the country to its big neighbour. The U.S. Army has taken control of the only airport in the country. It took its time to deploy its forces all over the capital city and other urban centres to help in the distribution of aid and in the maintenance of law and order. There were reports of widespread looting in many parts of the country a week after the U.S. troops landed. In one incident in the capital, angry citizens piled up corpses to be used as barricades against the police. U.N. peacekeepers had to resort to firing tear gas and rubber bullets to keep desperate crowds from storming the airport when planes laden with food and other essentials started arriving.

The Haitian authorities declared a state of emergency on January 18 as the situation threatened to get out of control, arming themselves with draconian powers. The decision to declare a state of emergency came after the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Port-au-Prince. She told the media during the visit that the decree would give the government an enormous amount of authority, which in practice they would delegate to us. For all practical purposes, Haiti now is under American military rule. Obama has signed an executive order mobilising military reserves for possible deployment in Haiti.

According to The Washington Post, a man yelled We dont need military aid. What we need is food and shelter when U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited the Haitian capital on January 17.

French Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet compared the U.S. actions in Haiti to occupation. It is a matter of helping Haiti, not occupying Haiti, he told the media. The Minister was angry after a French plane carrying essential supplies was turned away from the airport.

The Americans have been very strict about giving permission for landing owing to the limited capacity of the airport. Flights from Brazil, Italy and other countries were diverted to the neighbouring Dominican Republic.

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela said that the U.S. was occupying the Caribbean state under the guise of providing relief. It appears that the U.S. is occupying Haiti militarily, taking advantage of the tragedy, he said on his weekly radio programme. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega also expressed his deep concern over the deployment of U.S. troops.

The Caribbean Communitys (CARICOM) assessment mission to Haiti, which comprised many heads of state, was not allowed to land. Jamaicas Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who headed the mission, said that he was aware of the chaos in Haitis only airport but pointed out that Haiti was a member of CARICOM and, therefore, the leaders of the community should have been allowed in. The truth is that there is hardly a functioning government in Haiti, he said.

Chavez also clarified that he did not mean to cast aspersions on the humanitarian efforts of the Obama administration but was only expressing his concerns about the heavily armed military deployment. Pictures of heavily armed troops taking over the damaged presidential palace and securing its compound while hungry Haitians were milling around have sent the wrong signals to the international community.

The U.S. is giving priority to flights bringing its military personnel into the country and escorting stranded American citizens and aid workers out. The other important objective is to prevent desperate Haitians from commandeering boats and fleeing to Florida. The U.S. Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, warned Haitians that they would be deported immediately if they landed on U.S. shores. The Department of Homeland Security is said to be preparing prisons for potential refugees from Haiti. Only Cuban refuge-seekers who manage to reach U.S. shores will continue to have the privilege of staying on and becoming citizens.

The overland route through the Dominican Republic takes an extra nine hours to reach the Haitian capital.

The European Union (E.U.) is said to be unhappy with the U.S. handling of the situation in Haiti. The E.U. has increased its aid to Haiti to $500 million, which is five times more than what the U.S. has pledged.

A significant amount of the aid for Haiti is coming from individual donations from the U.S. and other Western countries. It is remarkable that many Americans have chosen to contribute liberally to the disaster-hit country despite the recession and the 10 per cent unemployment rate at home. A week after the earthquake struck, more than $200 million was raised by individuals and private charities. Only $43 million had come from corporate donors.

Leonel Fernandez, the President of the Dominican Republic, said that it would take $10 billion and five years to rebuild the shattered country.

The U.S. has sent in the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson to supply essentials such as water, food and medicine. However, Haitians in need of urgent medical attention have not been allowed on board the aircraft carrier, which has a fully equipped hospital capable of taking in up to 1,000 patients at a time. U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said that the primary aim was to distribute aid as quickly as possible so that people dont, in their desperation, turn to violence. It took nearly a week for essential supplies to trickle down to the capital from the airport.

The U.S. is blaming the security situation for the delays. We need a safe and secure environment to be successful, said General Ken Keen of the U.S. Southern Command, which is in charge of the Haiti operations. Keen has warned of increasing security-related incidents as the relief measures are implemented. Brazilian Defence Minister Nelson Jobin has also expressed concerns about the security situation. If the three million hungry and homeless people of Port-au-Prince take the law into their own hands, it will be difficult for the American forces and the Brazilian-led U.N. peacekeepers to control the situation.

More than 30 governments around the world have started responding with aid for the Haitians. Neighbouring Cuba was always there for Haiti. More than 400 Cuban doctors and health care workers have been working in the most impoverished areas of Haiti for several years. They are present in 227 of the countrys 337 communes. Four hundred Haitians have been trained as doctors in Cuban universities.

As soon as the news of the disaster came in, the Cuban authorities despatched an additional team of 30 doctors. Cuban leader Fidel Castro wrote a few days after the earthquake that another 1,000 Cuban doctors and health care experts could be easily mobilised if there was a demand for their expertise from states that wish to save the lives of the Haitian people and rehabilitate the injured. We feel a wholesome pride for the cooperation that, in these tragic instances, Cuban doctors and young Haitian doctors who trained in Cuba are offering our brothers and sisters in Haiti, he added.

As a gesture of solidarity with the Haitian people, Cuba opened up its airspace for American relief supplies to be flown into Port-au-Prince. Under normal circumstances, the U.S. planes would have had to take a detour that would have meant an additional hour of flying time. Some leading American policymakers have even suggested that the U.S. should work in tandem with Cuba to help the Haitian people in their hour of need. Laurence Korb, a former Assistant Secretary of State for Defence, told The Christian Science Monitor that the U.S. should consider tapping the expertise of neighbouring Cuba, which had some of the best doctors in the world we should see about flying them in.

Venezuela has sent several planes with doctors, humanitarian aid and soldiers. Chavez has promised to provide as much petrol as needed for Haiti so that power generation and the transport system could be revived quickly. The U.N. has said that the shortage of fuel has become a critical issue and is stalling relief efforts.

More than a week after the earthquake struck, only around 73,000 people have received emergency rations. U.N. officials say that one-third of the nine million people are in need of assistance. In the capital, people have been digging into debris for food and money.