Haiti Report for September 30, 2008
The Haiti Report is a compilation and summary of events as described in Haiti and international media prepared by Konbit Pou Ayiti/KONPAY. It does not reflect the opinions of any individual or organization. This service is intended to create a better understanding of the situation in Haiti by presenting the reader with reports that provide a variety of perspectives on the situation.
To make a donation to support this service: Konbit Pou Ayiti, 7 Wall Street, Gloucester, MA, 01930.
IN THIS REPORT:
- UN Agencies Pressure Donors for Funds Needed in Haiti
- UN Can’t Get Money Needed for Haiti, Concerns About Corruption in Distribution of Aid
- International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Hard at Work in Haiti
- Congresswoman Waters Requests $300 Million in Disaster Assistance for Haiti
- ICG Reports that Criminal Threat and Political Instability have Stifled Peace Keeping
- USAID Announces Haitian Diaspora Investment Challenge
- Dominican Republic will Donate for Reforestation at the Border
- Deibert Interviews Peasant Leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste
- EDWIDGE DANTICAT: Haitians need help now, solutions for stable future
- ALBERT R. RAMDIN: Haiti’s myriad problems require bold solutions
UN Agencies Pressure Donors for Funds Needed in Haiti:
The World Food Program only has resources to help flood victims in Haiti through November and needs more money for the Caribbean country hit by four storms, the director of the U.N. agency said. While the WFP has the know-how to deal with the kind of disasters that have hit Haiti, inadequate funding prevents the WFP from getting the job done, Josette Sheeran said on Saturday. ”WFP knows how to do this. We do it in tsunamis, floods, earthquakes all over the world, and that’s why the world created us,” Sheeran said in an interview. ”Our mission is to come in and help with the emergency team, but right now we don’t have the funding to get the job done.”
The United States, Japan, the European Community, Switzerland and Canada have stepped up with $11 million (6 million pound) of $54 million needed, according to the WFP. Haiti was hit by four storms — Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike — in about a month. The storms killed at least 800 people, including 520 in the hardest-hit city of Gonaives. More than 800 others remain missing, and several hundred thousand people were left homeless or in dire need of help. The storms set back Haiti’s economic development by several years, Haiti’s president said last week. Haiti may have lost 3 to 4 percentage points of gross domestic product after the storms ripped through an impoverished country denuded of forest because of logging and wood-burning to produce charcoal for fuel.
The WFP has already distributed food to some 500,000 people, including nearly 300,000 in Gonaives. The agency plans to assist 800,000 people around the country within the next six months. Nearly one month after the disaster, some 3.9 million cubic yards (3 million cubic metres) of mud still need to be removed from Gonaives. Experts say about $30 million are needed to clean up the city. (Retuers, 9/28)
U.N. agencies are pressing donors to cough up cash for storm-battered Haiti after receiving only a tiny fraction of the funds needed to help hundreds of thousands of survivors living on the edge. The $108 million flash appeal launched almost a fortnight ago has attracted just $3.7 million, according to the U.N. relief co-ordination office known as OCHA. ”It’s 3.4 percent covered. That’s very, very low. I don’t know what people are waiting for. I have no clue,” said OCHA spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker. ”Given the scale of the disaster and the relative visibility of it in the news media, one is surprised. It was not a disaster that was here one day and gone the next.”
Four storms – Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike – have hammered Haiti since mid August, killing 600 people and leaving 800,000 in dire need of help after destroying houses, infrastructure and crops. Bunker said she was puzzled that no one had donated money towards the United Nations’ food operations, an area that normally attracts relatively generous funds in emergency appeals. ”It’s especially surprising given what we all know about the food situation in Haiti and how much, even before the hurricane, people were being squeezed by high food prices,” she added.
More than half Haiti’s population subsists on $1 a day. Anger over rising food and fuel prices triggered deadly riots earlier this year, bringing down the government. Bunker said donors had also failed to give money to other crucial sectors in the U.N. appeal, including water and sanitation, agriculture, economic recovery and education.
Although they have pledged another $18 million for Haiti, they have not yet turned these promises into cash. By contrast, the U.N. appeal after the cyclone that hit Myanmar in May is 52 percent funded and the food requests are 83 percent covered. The more recent U.N. appeal for Georgia is 42 percent covered.
The World Food Programme, the U.N. food agency, said its operation in Haiti was proving very difficult because of the colossal destruction to infrastructure, which means most aid can only be brought in by air or sea. ”We would urge donors who have promised money to get it in our coffers as soon as possible so we can keep our pipelines flowing,” said WFP spokeswoman Hilary Clarke. ”Our biggest concern is that an estimated 70 percent of Haiti’s agriculture has been destroyed, which is indeed extremely serious,” she added.
“The hurricane has come at a very bad time because crops like rice and maize were seedlings and it has washed them all away. And cash crop trees like mango and banana trees have suffered terrible devastation.”
Clarke said another major worry was that many people who had lost their homes needed to buy basic household items, reducing the amount they could spend on food. WFP has so far delivered 1,470 metric tonnes of food to more than 313,000 people. By the end of the week, it will have the use of four boats and two helicopters. Another two helicopters and 20 off-road trucks are on their way. Outside the U.N. flash appeal, OCHA said donors had given some $17 million in bilateral aid to Haiti and promised another $6 million. (Reuters, 9/23)
UN Can’t Get Money Needed for Haiti, Concerns About Corruption in Distribution of Aid:
The United Nations’ humanitarian agencies are seeking to collect $108 million in emergency relief funds from international donors for the victims of Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike, the four storms which killed hundreds in Haiti while devastating agriculture and infrastructure. Of the total sought, $54 million is just for purchasing emergency food for Haiti’s starving masses. But only 2% of that goal, some $2 million, has been collected so far, said Elizabeth Byrs, the spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
“We need to mobilize the international community,” she said. “Many schools, having served as temporary shelters, must be cleared out and cleaned so that children can return to their classes when the school year starts on Oct. 6. We must be able to resettle refugees in other places. “ Byrs said the most urgent task is to clean up devastated regions which are still full of debris and to rebuild dozens of severely damaged roads, bridges, power lines and other infrastructure. According to the latest official estimates, there are over 500 dead, 50 missing, and 100,000 homeless, of which 50,000 are still in temporary shelters. Overall, some 800,000 are considered storm victims, with their livelihoods damaged or destroyed. Almost all of Haiti is in a state of emergency.
In addition, about 100 new cases of malaria are diagnosed every day in areas affected by flooding. Damage to agriculture has been estimated to be more than $180 million. In a Sep. 21 press conference held at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport when leaving for the UN General Assembly in New York, President René Préval decreed three days of national mourning in memory of all the victims of the storms, beginning at midnight on Sep. 22 until midnight Sep. 24, “to bring solidarity to all victims and to share the pain of the victims.” Préval said he would fund-raise for Haiti, whose economy has suffered, he said, a setback of at least 5 years.
“I must leave for the U.S. to participate in the United Nations General Assembly with other heads of the state and with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice,” Préval said. “Among heads of state that I should meet there are the Brazilian president, Inacio Lula Da Silva, the Dominican president, Leonel Fernandez, the Senegalese President, Abdoulaye Wade, President Michelle Bachelet of Chile, the president of Mexico, José Calderon etc. It will be an opportunity for me to present the case of Haiti before the heads of foreign states to mobilize aid for Haiti, to assist storm victims. Finally, I will present my speech to the UN General Assembly on Friday, 26 September.”
From the Petro-Caribe project, funded by the Socialist government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Haitian government has already released $200.61 million (7.902 billion gourdes) to help storm victims. About $127,000 (5 million gourdes) has been awarded each of Haiti’s 133 communes or counties. The government Préval’s new Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis has also announced that it needs $3.8 million (150 million gourdes) to revive Haiti’s washed out agricultural infrastructure, the foundation of the government’s professed goal of “national production,” that is increased food self-sufficiency. To make matters worse, the government must deal with other obligations, such as the rebuilding of roads, electricity networks, and water systems, Préval said.
But many Haitians fear that all these efforts will be sabotaged by shoddy or corrupt administration. According to the latest information circulating in the capital, each of Haiti’s parliamentarians will receive about $25,400 (one million gourdes) for each commune in the region they represent, supposedly to help storm victims. Many question, however, if the lawmakers will divert the money to serve their own purposes. Senator Judnel Jean, for example, representing the 13 communes in the Northeast Department, blithely admitted that he would use some of the money to fund his 2009 re-election campaign. “I will receive 13 million gourdes [$330,200]. It’s lucky for me, for 2009.” A similar remark came from Senator Michel Cler, representing the Grande-Anse, which has 12 communes. He will receive 12 million gourdes ($304,800). Many are outraged that the Préval / Pierre-Louis government would allow parliamentarians, most of whom are considered corrupt, to be the managers of state funds.
Why does the government use the taxes it collects from the people to finance the election campaigns of parliamentarians, who then do nothing in terms of legislation for the Haitian people? Furthermore, there is a precedent of parliamentary corruption. In September 2007, the government gave each deputy two million gourdes ($50,800) and each senator three million gourdes ($76,200) to help poor parents send their children to school. But poor parents across the country declared that they received no aid at all from the parliamentarians.
Meanwhile, the aid delivered so far is just a drop in the bucket. Throughout the country, people are crying for help. In towns like Gonaives, Cabaret, and Archaie, local authorities are asking the central government to come to the aid of storm victims. Food sent for victims has been hijacked and is being sold in markets in full view of everyone. This is why we must criticize the Haitian authorities for negligence, incompetence and irresponsibility not only in the realm of prevention, but also in managing aid to storm victims. There was precisely so much loss of life because there was no prevention. And now there is almost no attempt to solve the current problem of corruption and waste in aid distribution. While the people are down, the government is taking advantage of their tolerance. (Haiti Liberte, 9/24)
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Hard at Work in Haiti:
The Red Cross effort in Haiti shifts up a gear this week, with the deployment of two Basic Health Care medical clinics in the field, the widening of assessments in Artibonite and further north, and the ongoing distribution of relief and aid. Two weeks after the last of three successive hurricanes hit the country, many parts of Haiti are only accessible by sea or helicopter. The German-led Basic Health Care (BHC) unit is being deployed in the area around San Marc in the badly affected Artibonite province, between Port-au-Prince and Goniave. The Spanish-led BHC unit was airlifted into the southern region around Cote de Fer by helicopter. Each BHC unit can treat up to 30,000 people within a month.
“In the coming week San Marc will be the main focus of actual distributions while assessment teams go to the north and south, really to look at the next round of distributions,” said Paul Keane of the ICRC. As the waters begin to recede more areas are opening up, allowing for an increase in assessments and beneficiary selection across the country. Almost 5,000 families have been targeted by the IFRC for immediate aid, and it is expected that 2,000 of these will have received family kits and food supplies by the end of the week. ”We are in constant touch with the Haitian Red Cross and they’re having a lot of donations of food items. We’re going to try to associate those with our kits so we’ll get the people what they need as far a nutrition is concerned,” said Brigittte Gaillis, FACT leader with the IFRC mission in Haiti.
Meanwhile, the threat from water-borne disease is growing and the incidence of malaria seems to be on the rise. 2,000 mosquito nets are being sent to BHC unit in the south and the Spanish Red Cross is setting up a water treatment plant in Cote de Fer. ”Another risk is that people who, at the moment are in a shelter with a roof over their head and food, may be soon going home,” said Keane, “and the conditions in their communities may be much more problematic in terms of their health.” With the setting up of the BHC units, trained Red Cross personnel will able to go to small affected communities with health care and health education, which will be very much needed as the community health problems start to arise. (IFRC, 9/25)
Congresswoman Waters Requests $300 Million in Disaster Assistance for Haiti:
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) called for Congress to support her request for $300 million in disaster assistance for Haiti when she testified today at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. Congresswoman Waters has long supported efforts to help the people of Haiti and most recently has appealed for disaster assistance to help the impoverished island nation recover from devastating hurricanes. In recognition of her leadership on this issue, she was invited by Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY), the subcommittee chair, to testify at today’s hearing. A copy of Congresswoman Waters’ statement follows:
I would like to begin by thanking my colleague, Eliot Engel, the Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, for inviting me to testify at this hearing on “The Hurricanes in Haiti: Disaster and Recovery.” I am honored to be here.
I have traveled to Haiti many times, and I have seen the poverty and the pride of the Haitian people with my own eyes. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and it has suffered through several natural disasters. In September of 2004, Hurricane Jeanne pounded Haiti with torrential rain. The storm caused extensive flooding, destroyed at least 5,000 homes, and killed more than 1,000 people. But no past storms or other experiences can compare to the storms that hit Haiti over the last month. Haiti has been struck by four hurricanes and tropical storms in rapid succession: Fay, Gustav, Hanna, and Ike. Severe flooding, landslides, wind and sea surge damage have affected the entire country. The government of Haiti estimated that 600 people have been killed and an additional 850,000 people have been affected by the storms. According to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), more than 10,000 houses have been destroyed and more than 35,000 houses have been damaged. There are more than 150,000 internally displaced persons in Haiti.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), up to 800,000 people – almost 10 percent of the population of Haiti – are in dire need of humanitarian assistance. OCHA also reported that the entire harvest for the current agricultural season has been severely damaged or destroyed. Many roads and bridges also have been damaged or destroyed. Almost all agricultural land in the country has been flooded. There is a desperate need for food, clean water, and health services. Immediate international assistance is critical to save lives and rebuild homes and infrastructure. OCHA issued an appeal for $108 million to provide humanitarian and early recovery assistance to survivors over the next six months.
According to Hedi Annabi, the United Nations’ special envoy to Haiti, the scale of the disaster has overwhelmed both the United Nations mission and the Haitian government. He called on the international donor community to take extraordinary measures to address the situation. Annabi reported that the damage in the agricultural sector alone is estimated at more than $200 million. He also said, “The people have lost everything in the floods and the cleaning and the reconstruction work will be enormous and very costly.”
The Embassy of Haiti has provided my office a detailed list of needs. The list is varied and includes portable bridges, patrol boats, life jackets, rehabilitation of major ports, water pumps, water pipes, and sewage cleanup supplies.
The Haitian government is also seeking a total of 2,265 agricultural tool kits. The kits are to be distributed throughout the country in order to begin the process of restoring the agricultural sector. Each kit would include 8 shovels, 4 rakes, 3 soil tillers, 4 wheelbarrows, 6 flashlights, 22 batteries, 20 pairs of boots, 20 raincoats, and a few other items. These items may not seem expensive to us in the United States, but to supply such basic items to farmers throughout the country is well beyond the current capacity of the Haitian government. Yet without these simple tools, it is unlikely the people of Haiti will be able to grow their own food long after the flood waters recede. On September 11th, I sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi requesting an emergency appropriation of $300 million for disaster assistance for Haiti, and 67 Members of Congress signed my letter.
The Administration recently requested one billion dollars in development assistance for Georgia. A mere fraction of that amount would help thousands of hungry and displaced Haitians survive and begin to rebuild their communities. Haiti’s needs are at least as great as Georgia’s, and Haiti is an impoverished island nation just south of American shores. I urge the members of this subcommittee to support my request for $300 million in disaster assistance for Haiti.
I deeply appreciate the opportunity to testify at this hearing, and I commend the members of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere for their interest in the needs of the Haitian people. (9/23)
ICG Reports that Criminal Threat and Political Instability have Stifled Peace Keeping:
The transnational criminal threat and ongoing political instability have stifled peace operations in Haiti, a report from the International Crisis Group says. The report, released Thursday by the independent non-governmental organization, says that while the U.N. peacekeeping presence in Haiti has made some progress toward stabilizing the country, the transnational criminal networks, along with a non-functioning government and a destroyed infrastructure as a result of recent hurricanes, have crippled Haiti’s chances for peace, the Crisis Group reported.
The report, titled “Reforming Haiti’s Security Sector,” says political leaders in Haiti’s Legislature have been at an impasse over the selection of a new prime minister. The political turmoil, coupled with a violent drug trade operated by organized criminal factions, has brought the country to a dangerous standstill. Officials say the free fall into complete instability could be avoided by increasing the training timeline for the Haitian National Police. The report says the police force not only needs to be trained faster, but also officers should undergo specialized training for skills in anti-kidnapping, riot control, counter-drug and intelligence gathering, among other skill sets. ”Haiti urgently needs a professional Haitian National Police as a prerequisite and bulwark if the new government is to move the country, with MINUSTAH (the U.N. peacekeeping operation) and donor help, toward stability,” Markus Schultze-Kraft, Crisis Group Latin America program director, said in a statement. (UPI, 9/19)
USAID Announces Haitian Diaspora Investment Challenge:
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance Henrietta Fore has announced an initial $2 million for a Haitian Diaspora Investment Challenge Facility, which will fund plans for sustainable business activities in Haiti. The announcement was made Wednesday during a meeting with members of the Haitian community. Administrator Fore reinforced the U.S. Government’s strong support for the people of Haiti and for those who are helping to rebuild businesses and create opportunities in communities throughout Haiti following this year’s hurricanes and tropical storms.
“USAID is proud to be a part of this initiative aimed at supporting sustainable development in Haiti,” said Fore. “The facility is intended to launch more partnerships between USAID and the Haitian diaspora in the United States.” The Facility is scheduled to be rolled out in early 2009 and will provide individual, competitive grants up to $100,000. Applicants will be required to invest an amount equal to at least twice as much as the amount of any approved grant. The facility will provide business development and technical assistance to grantees, and through partnerships with local Haitian banks, the facility will be able to provide grantees improved access to credit. Other international donors, as well as private sector foundations and businesses, will be invited to contribute to the Facility. (PRNewswire, 9/24)
Dominican Republic will Donate for Reforestation at the Border:
The Dominican Republic will donate trees and finance crews for a reforestation project along the barren border it shares with impoverished Haiti. Both countries share the island of Hispaniola, but the Dominican Republic claims 33 percent of forest coverage compared with Haiti’s 3 percent. Residents in Haiti continue to chop trees for wood and charcoal despite reforestation attempts from international groups. Officials say they want to raise awareness about the border’s dwindling natural resources. Dominican Environmental Minister Jaime Fernández said that crews also will identify water sources that both sides can tap into for the project and for local use. (Dominican Today, 9/22)
Deibert Interviews Peasant Leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste:
Peasant leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste has been at the forefront of the struggles of Haiti’s peasants for over 35 years. Born in the village of Papay in Haiti’s Plateau Central, Jean-Baptiste helped found the Mouvman Peyizan Papay (MPP) peasant union as well as the Mouvman Peyizan Nasyonal Kongre Papay (MPNKP), the latter a 200,000-member national congress of peasant farmers and activists. Jean-Baptiste’s role is an important one in a nation where, over the past 50 years, 90 percent of the tree cover has been destroyed for charcoal and to make room for farming, with resulting erosion destroying two-thirds of the country’s arable farmland. For his work on behalf of Haiti’s peasantry, Chavannes Jean-Baptiste was awarded the 2005 Goldman Environmental Prize, sponsored by the Goldman Environmental Foundation, the world’s largest prize for grassroots environmentalists.
In recent weeks, a series of hurricanes have struck Haiti, killing what is thought to be hundreds of people and devastating the country’s already-decrepit infrastructure. The United Nations now estimates that 800,000 people are in need of emergency food aid. Haiti is currently the location of a U.N. peacekeeping force numbering over 9,000 uniformed personnel. IPS correspondent Michael Deibert, who covered Haiti as a journalist from 2000 until 2006, sat down with Chavannes Jean-Baptiste during his recent visit to the United States. The interview was conducted in Haitian Kreyol in Brooklyn, New York, on Sep. 14, 2008.
IPS: How badly has Haiti been affected by the recent hurricanes?
CJB: It is a major catastrophe. The north of the country was affected, all of the Artibonite Valley, practically every house, every farm, every animal. Flood water passed through Saint-Marc, Fonds-Verettes, Marchand Dessalines, L’Estère, and other towns, and many of those communities are underwater.
IPS: The situation for the Haitian peasants before the hurricanes was already difficult, no?
CJB: When Hurricane Gustav hit us, the organisations that we have in the southwest told us that most of their animals — goats and cows and such — were affected, that, after being trapped in the rain for 72 hours, they couldn’t survive. Many of the animals died like that. I have spoken to people in [the towns of] Jacmel, Caye-Jacmel, Marigot and elsewhere in the south, and they have told us the same thing. In the Grand Anse, the same thing. Hurricane Hannah hit the north of the country, particularly the Artibonite, and the northwest. Hurricane Ike hit the Artibonite and the northwest again, as well as the west. Peasants in Fonds-Verettes have told me that only about 10 houses in the village were not destroyed by the flooding.
The focus now is on the town of Gonaives, where those who were hit so badly have been hit again. [In 2004, Hurricane Jeanne killed an estimated 3,000 people in Haiti] Many people who have been displaced from these floods in the Artibonite — 80,000 or so — have now moved on to parts of the Plateau Central such as Mirebalais.
IPS: I know that you have worked with the Haitian peasantry for over 35 years. At this time, is the situation for the peasants more or less difficult than before?
CJB: The economic situation of the peasantry is more difficult. We have witnessed the degradation of the environment. There is less agricultural production, and people are migrating to the cities, creating slums such as those we see in Port-au-Prince. This adds to the urban population and to the demand for wood charcoal. When you see the environmental situation in Haiti today, it is quite grave, and there is a real need to organise. We have planted 20,000 trees around the country over the last 20 years, but over the same time period some 50,000 trees have been cut down. [Correction: the actual number of trees planted by MPP and cut for charcoal production
in the last 20 years are 20 millions and 50 millions respectively — Chavannes dixit. Daniel Simidor] What seems clear now is that Haiti is going from catastrophe to catastrophe, and they are getting worse as we go along. And that is a direct result of the destruction of the environment.
IPS: How would you characterise the relationship of Haiti’s recent governments with the peasantry?
CJB: We can say that we have never had a government in Haiti that ever changed the problems of the peasantry. We need to create environmental protection and work together, at the same time, in a national framework. There has been a lot of demagoguery, because none of the politicians have had a programme to help the peasants. The politicians and the government are working to implement a neoliberal programme, and the parliamentarians have one preoccupation: To remain in parliament.
IPS: How would you characterise the relations and the actions of the international community towards the Haitian peasantry?
CJB: Today we are under a military occupation by the international community. There are 9,000 foreign soldiers in our country, with a budget of 600 million dollars to supposedly aid our country. They are there because of the desire of a small group in Port-au-Prince. The United States wants bilateral accords with every country in the region, and the international community — North America and Europe — wants the Haitian peasants to produce agriculture for exportation. And I think these two things are tied together. They give us this aid, and we are to export our food to pay our debt. So we don’t have a political situation that favours family or low-production farming.
IPS: What does the future hold for Haitian peasants?
CJB: We can say that the future for Haiti’s peasants is very uncertain. There is not a political system that can foster rural development right now, and that is our cause today. Young peasants go to the Dominican Republic, they go to the Bahamas, or they go to Port-au-Prince, because 80 percent of the Haitian population works in agriculture, but it cannot support them anymore. Our agriculture is threatened by the application of a neoliberal economic programme in our country. The future could be very sad, as well, but it depends on whether or not the people can organise in the country to save the country.
Organisations like MPP and MPKNP have a movement, a unified movement, to move forward and address this situation. For example we have a petition that says no to the production of combustible agriculture [agriculture for biofuels such as ethanol] and says yes to the production of food, food for the people in Haiti to eat, not for American cars. We will present this petition in October, and search for support from international organisations for our position, in forums such as La Via Campesina [an international peasant movement headquartered in Jakarta, Indonesia]. We will continue to struggle for agrarian reform to develop Haiti, which is integral if the peasants are ever going to have any kind of security. We will continue onwards with this struggle.
*Michael Deibert is the author of “Notes from the Last Testament: The
Struggle for Haiti”. (END/2008)(IPS, 9/23)
EDWIDGE DANTICAT: Haitians need help now, solutions for stable future
Haiti desperately needs your help. While most Americans have understandably been concerned about Hurricane Ike’s assault on Texas, people in Haiti just a few hundred miles away are suffering an even worse fate. More than a week after Ike assaulted Haiti, people in Gonaives, the country’s third-largest city, were still stranded on rooftops and trapped by rivers of mud. Others in remote areas remained huddled in schools and churches, their villages cut off from the capital by washed out bridges and roads. At least 1,000 deaths have been reported, with more expected as the waters recede. A million people remain homeless. Crops and livestock have been wiped out, making an already chronically dire hunger situation worse. Haiti is not just on the brink of disaster, as Haitian President Rene Preval noted in his plea for international aid. It is over the brink. Right now, Haiti needs all the help it can get, with food, drinking water, medical supplies and shelter being at the top of the list.
Haiti’s neighbors and the international community must not only find the will and compassion to help the country’s desperate survivors at this time, but they need to ensure a steady supply of aid down the road. Haiti’s problems will not recede with the floodwaters, and the international community must recognize this. For its part, the Haitian government, which had begun to invest heavily in agriculture in the devastated regions, needs to continue to pursue long-term solutions, including large-scale reforestation and alternative fuels to replace the charcoal production that has left Haiti with less than 2 percent tree cover. It is also vital that Haitians living and working in the United States not be deported back to Haiti at this devastating time. Deportations threaten the only consistent type of aid that Haitians receive. It comes in the form of $2 billion in remittances from friends and relatives abroad.
The U.S. government may fear that granting Haitians temporary protection status, as it did with Hondurans and Nicaraguans after Hurricane Mitch in 1998, will encourage mass migration to U.S. shores. However, it is mass starvation and political instability that have encouraged Haitian sea migration more than anything else.
Haitians are strong and proud and determined, and most will survive this latest in a string of political and natural disasters. But at this most vulnerable time, they need your help to overcome the immediate crisis and implement long-term solutions. (Edwidge Danticat, a Haitian-American writer, lives in Miami.) (Atlanta Journal Constitution, 9/23)
ALBERT R. RAMDIN: Haiti’s myriad problems require bold solutions
Recently, I visited Haiti and witnessed the true scale of the disaster in human terms and physical damage left in the wake of hurricanes Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike. The timing of this string of natural catastrophes — four hurricanes in three weeks — could not have been worse. Following a protracted process that lasted more than four months, it was only at the beginning of September that the Haitian Senate fully approved President Rene Préval’s nomination of the economist Michele Duvivier Pierre-Louis as prime minister. She was sworn in on Sept. 6, amid this devastating string of hurricanes and tropical storms.
The challenges faced by Préval and Pierre-Louis are staggering. The sheer scale of infrastructural destruction, economic devastation and human suffering is enormous, and carries with it both short- and long-term implications for that country’s economic and political future. The hurricanes left more than 423 dead, 800,000 people in need of humanitarian assistance, six bridges destroyed and almost the entire agricultural harvest valued at $200 million lost. The international community has responded swiftly to provide much needed short-term aid. The Organization of American States was one of the first organizations to send a high-level mission to assess the damage, offer assistance and join with the Haitian government in appealing to Friends of Haiti to assist with recovery and reconstruction efforts.
Aid must be well-coordinated: The inter-American community of nations — Canada, the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America — has provided valuable relief assistance to the government of Haiti. This effort must continue to address the humanitarian and economic concerns that will confront that nation for years to come. Strong and sustained international support, including from financial institutions, will be essential for addressing the structural and institutional underpinnings that are conducive to long-term economic and social development. But this support must be coordinated if it is to be effective.
During this period of recovery, the U.S. government’s willingness to consider the halting of deportations to Haiti and grant temporary protected status (TPS) for a limited time is welcome. Some 20,000 undocumented Haitian immigrants would benefit from this status, thereby helping to maintain a significant flow of much needed financial resources and food to the hemisphere’s least developed country. Haiti will no doubt benefit from this gesture of support, at once symbolic and substantive — Haitians abroad sent about $1.83 billion home last year, amounting to about 35 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
The solidarity and support from sister countries including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Peru, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela and the Caricom group have been instrumental in fostering a climate of peace and security. This support will be even more important in the months ahead as Haiti works to jump-start its economic development plan. Haiti’s private sector and civil society as well as its diaspora communities must also shoulder their responsibility and assume a major role in the country’s reconstruction through an injection of human, social and financial capital.
Despite its many challenges, Haiti, prior to the ‘’four-three’’ punch was well on the way toward achieving relative political stability and elaborating a plan for development, and had demonstrated significant gains in governance, socio-economic development and citizen security. Haiti will need a major realignment of its infrastructure as well as its strategies to ensure more effective implementation of policies that can eventually mitigate the impact of natural disasters which, reports on climate change suggest, may become more frequent.
The time for collective and sustained action is now. Failure to act could result in a major loss of the social, political and security gains of the last two years. From the crippling effects of these disasters, Haiti’s government, legislators, private sector, civil society and diaspora (with the support of the international community) must make this tragedy into a transformative moment to engineer a sustainable framework for Haiti’s future development. This humanitarian crisis cannot go unchecked. Unless the Haitian government, with the support of the international community, moves forward swiftly with a bold solution, Haiti’s progress will be severely hampered and political stability may once more be at stake. (Albert R. Ramdin is assistant secretary general and chairman of the Haiti Task Force at the Organization of American States.) (Miami Herald, 9/30)