Haiti Earthquake Disaster

[Vortex]

Did I hear right on the BBC just now ... up to 3 MILLION dead in Haiti???

[emordnilap]

The Red Cross says up to three million people are affected.

[clv101]

Their prime minister says the final death toll could be "well over 100,000".

[adam2]

The death toll is undoubtably severe, but I doubt that it is 3 million, that is almost the entire population.
I suspect that someone has confused 3 million affected, with fatalities estimated at some thousands.

[2 As and a B]

Interesting country Haiti, and an interesting contrast with Cuba.

Haiti and Cuba: two islands, two worlds

Ned Nolan

The Windward Passage is a small body of salty Carribean water which separates Haiti from the island of Cuba. I'm looking at a map of the West Indies and wondering how two chunks of land separated by only 80 kilometres of water could be so different.

A question like this, provoked by the markings on a map, may be naive, but it can also be profoundly insightful. Indeed, what is different about Haiti and Cuba, and why?

Developments over the past few months in Haiti have led to a bloody coup d'etat. The first-ever elected president of the country, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was forced to flee the country on an American plane which took him, against his will, into exile. The violent revolt was led by unorganized anti-government gangs whose "leader," Louis-Jodel Chamblain, has long been accused of human rights atrocities. He, like most of the anti-government rebels, is an ex-member of the brutal Haitian military and "death squads" which were disbanded when the country's string of dictatorships ended and Aristide came to power. Amnesty International has called for the arrest of Chamblain's and the other war criminals who took part in the recent coup.

Haiti's history is plagued with dictatorship and violence. This is the second time the elected Aristide (corrupt as he may be) has been forced to leave the country due to a violent coup. Unfortunately, despite his social idealism, he was unable to substantially raise the country's standard of living or challenge the American control of the Haitian economy. Today, the country has the highest illiteracy rate in the hemisphere and is one of the poorest countries in the world. Its people are denied basic rights such as education and health care and basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter.

Across the Windward Passage, things are very different. In Cuba, every citizen is assured these basic human rights and needs. Cuba has the lowest illiteracy rate in the world (below one per cent). Its education and health care systems are studied worldwide because of their remarkably high quality and efficiency. When I was in Havana several years ago, I met members of a commission of European medical professionals who were studying how the country can provide such an unprecedented high level of care with so little in terms of finances. Also unlike Haiti, Cuba enjoys political stability and has the region's lowest level of street violence and crime.

We are taught by our media that Cuba is an evil empire, a violent and repressive dictatorship. In actuality, Cuba is a unique and thriving democracy, and has been democratic ever since it overthrew the American backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista, in 1959. Cuba has regular free elections which determine who will be in the governing party and who will be the party's leader. Fidel Castro's repeated electoral success in this regard is a tribute to the esteem in which he is held by the people of Cuba. After all, he was the leader of their revolution which the majority of Cubans hold lovingly in the highest respect. In my experience, Cubans react with hilarity when asked if Castro is a dictator.

Why is Haiti so troubled, while 80 Kilometres away, Cuba's standard of living has been recognized, in all important respects, to be among the highest in all of South America?

Although the answer to this question is complex, an important component of the answer lies in the involvement of the international community, especially the United States.

The United States fought ruthlessly against the Cuban Revolution in an attempt to restore the dictatorship which ensured security for American firms exporting sugar and coffee from the island. It continues to fight the revolution because of its vested economic interests in the region. In the name of democracy? Well, some light on this matter can be shed by examining how the U.S handled the recent threat to democracy in Haiti.

Unlike its reaction to the well organized, idealistic and visionary mass movement against a Cuban dictator 50 years ago, the chaotic and cynical Haitian coup against an elected president not only received military support from the U.S. but vital planning assistance as well. In the winter of 2003, foreign ministers from France, the United States and Canada met in Ottawa to discuss what was called the "Ottawa Initiative On Haiti." Their report was entitled "Aristide Must Go." He had not been co-operating with the economic demands of the developed world, and the recent rebellion in the country, notwithstanding that it was led by international war criminals, provided the perfect opportunity to get rid of the elected president.

The Windward Passage separates two very different nations, one which has won a battle against dictatorship, imperialism and corruption, and one which continues to suffer greatly in this domain. We need to recognize the problematic role which the United States and its allies play in policing the world, and we need to re-address our biases towards Cuba, a nation from which we and the developing world could learn so much in the name of peace, democracy and human rights.

http://www.cubanlibrariessolidaritygrou ... 03_04.html

What they do, however, have in common is some great music. Haiti has Twoubadou [troubadour] (accoustic, influenced by Cuban Son [sound]) and Compas Direct [direct beat] (jazzy big band), created by the great Nemours Jean Baptiste.

My favourite Haitian musician, Coupe Cloue (out of Twoubadou style):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFSamDaxfk4

[PS_RalphW]

I think a more direct comparison is with the Dominican Republic.

It is the other half of the same island, but has a very different (colonial and independent ) history.

DR got its independence first, and in the first half of the 20th century it had a typically autocratic ruler, bumping off any potential rivals, but with relatively enlightened policies. Setting up nature reserves, and limiting access to forest for logging and wood for burning. Effective agricultural and population control.

Haiti was a French colony. It's half of the island has had almost all forest stripped. Agricultural land is badly degraded. Population has been out of control and above sustainable levels for a long time. Despotic rulers and then descended into anarchy. It is close to hell on earth.

Democracy does not necessarily lead to more enlightened government.

[2 As and a B]

The earthquake seems to have been very local, affecting only Port-au-Prince, or the journos have been particularly lazy. No damage on th erest of Hispaniola or on Cuba, Jamaica or Puerto Rico?

[Blue Peter]

Perhaps "US neo-Colonial intervention necessarily does not lead to an enlightened government" may be a better statement?

What is already all too clear, ­however, is the fact that this impact will be the result of an even longer-term history of deliberate impoverishment and disempowerment. Haiti is routinely described as the "poorest country in the western hemisphere". This poverty is the direct legacy of perhaps the most brutal system of colonial exploitation in world history, compounded by decades of systematic postcolonial oppression.

The noble "international community" which is currently scrambling to send its "humanitarian aid" to Haiti is largely responsible for the extent of the suffering it now aims to reduce. Ever since the US invaded and occupied the country in 1915, every serious political attempt to allow Haiti's people to move (in former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's phrase) "from absolute misery to a dignified poverty" has been violently and deliberately blocked by the US government and some of its allies.

Our role in Haiti's plight


Peter.

[jonny2mad]

if you have a country where people are already eating mud your going to have mass die-off soon anyway.

really the states and the west generally should pull in its horns and not interfere with other country's because their only going to get blamed, and through this guilt they may be stupid enough to take in more refugees making it more likely they will sink too .

we should stop all our aid programme's and just be concerned with our own people because the aid programmes are going to stop anyway, but when they stop we will have caused a bigger unsustainable population to develop and more people will die.

This may seem heartless but I think our way of thinking of the world comes from very rich times, before these times people generally thought about their own tribe and their tribes survival .

I don't think the romans were big on giving food aid to non romans, I may be wrong, the romans were slightly bastards, but you could look at other people before fossil fuels and mostly they looked after themselves

in the long term aid could well be seen as being cruelty, the Chinese really implemented their one child policy on their own you don't need foreign aid .

I would imagine there will be aid for this earthquake and then haiti will be forgotten, most likely they will have aid for a while then it will stop and most of the people saved and their children will die

[Aurora]

You must be delighted today Jonny. Most of the victims were Muslims.

Heartless b*****d!

I hope you never find yourself in the same desperate situation.

[2 As and a B]

It is a hard truth.

How does one balance saving 1m from starving now only to be unable to prevent their 10m descendents from starving in thirty years time?

Unless, of course, we discover another planet nearby with everything we could ever wish for on it.

I feel a Mr Micawber quote coming on...

[jonny2mad]

has our giving food aid done any real good since we started doing it, Africa's populations doubling every 24 years India's doubles every thirty .

I find a sort of imperialist attitude in a lot of the concerned people they think that their way of doing things is the ideal they want to make everyone liberals.

They think the answer to starvation is sharing or importing people or open borders, that if their not starving its their fault that people in other country's are starving .

that somehow they know best

when the best answer is to look after your local situation .

leave the Indians and Africans to sort themselves out .

if it wasn't for immigration Europeans world wide are in population decline so are the Japanese, they might be society's that had a chance of surviving whats to come, they most likely wont because of the fluffy headed brigade .

I have a greater contempt for the fluffy than you feel for me , I think your attitude is going to cause more misery and unhappiness

[Aurora]

Jonny, are you trying to tell me that you don't feel any compassion for the victims in Haiti?

Surely you must feel the need to offer aid to these people regardless of their long term, post PO, plight?


Watch this video: http://news.aol.co.uk/frantic-hunt-for- ... 3109990001


Would you really be content to leave these people to their own devices?

How would you feel if you or your family had suffered a similar experience in Weston? Wouldn't you want help?

If scenes like this don't touch you, I'm afraid to say that you're a lost cause and must be a very lonely creature. I feel incredibly sorry for you.


Remember - 'Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive' - Dalai Lama.

[2 As and a B]

It is close to hell on earth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaFisi2OINE The devil's music!

Honey from the rotting corpse of a lion.

[jonny2mad]

well this is bigger than just haiti what I'm talking about is withdrawing food aid worldwide to I don't know maybe a billion people

I was talking to a guy I worked with over Christmas he was from Somalia and basically he said something like you meaning the UK are the father we the children meaning Somalia .

meaning that the UK had been through various things and was a stable country and should teach or take care of Somalia

I'm not sure where he got this notion but its understandable from the paternalistic way we seem to still have when dealing with africa , well I don't think paternalism is a good thing I think people would be better off looking after themselves .

compassion

during the war ships would get hit and the Germans would wait for other ships to come and pick up survivors, so my father said they used to often wait till they thought the u-boats had left before going to pick up desperate men in the water, by this time most were dead .

now thats not very compassionate likely the Dali lama wouldn't approve but it caused less people to die overall .

so yup I could live with cutting aid if I thought the overall result would be better , if Haiti was the sort of country where it was dealing with its over population problems like say china, Id be more inclined to help them.

but that would be short term emergency aid not rebuilding the country or anything that created dependence