Got the hiccups after lunch?
"Breathing in Haiti one last time.... “I remember it,” Roy says, “like it was yesterday.”.... It was Jan. 12, 2010 — the day the country was forever changed by a catastrophic earthquake."
"REMEMBERING HAITI QUAKE VICTIMS -- On the third anniversary of a deadly earthquake, members of the Haitian community in Boston remembered the victims Saturday during a ceremony at New Calvary Cemetery in Mattapan. Schiller Joseph, E. Daile Beauplant, and Jean Louis Daniel played music. Marie Rene Brezault grieved as she read the names of loved ones who died (Boston Globe January 13 2013)."
"UN must make amends for cholera that organization brought to Haiti" November 13, 2012
When the international aid community descends on a vulnerable place, the first objective must be to do no harm. But all too often, good intentions make a bad situation even worse. That’s what happened two years ago, when United Nations peacekeepers arrived in Haiti in the wake of a devastating earthquake, bringing the deadly disease cholera with them.
Last year, a panel of UN experts concluded that poor sanitation at the peacekeepers’ camp was the likely cause of a terrible cholera outbreak that has so far killed 7,000 people and sickened 500,000. Their report declined to say whether the peacekeepers, the sanitation contractor, or the UN’s own inadequate health protocols were to blame for human waste getting into Haiti’s water supply. But as cholera deaths continue, new scientific evidence removes all doubt about the source of the disease: The strain of cholera that exploded in Haiti is an exact match to the cholera that exists in Nepal, the UN peacekeepers’ native country.
So far, the United Nations has declined to apologize for its role, or even admit it — perhaps because it is facing a deluge of expensive legal claims brought by the Boston-based Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti on behalf of the victim’s families. The United Nations legal department has sat on the group’s complaint for nearly a year. The UN says it is still studying the claims.
When the crisis first broke U.N. said don't talk about it.
But foot-dragging is the wrong response. The institute’s foremost demand is not monetary compensation for cholera victims, but UN action to stop the disease from spreading; this would involve a massive investment in clean water and sanitation infrastructure. Such an effort would not just wipe out cholera, but also a host of other water-borne illnesses. Rather than merely get Haiti back to where it was before the outbreak, this effort would push the country ahead.
It is true that such an effort would be expensive; the Institute estimates the cost at about $1.2 billion — about twice what the UN spends on peacekeepers in Haiti each year.
Related:
"International officials and the Haitian government credit MINUSTAH with improving security in Haiti. But some Haitians see the foreign troops as prone to using reckless force with impunity. When last summer massive crowds attended the Port-Au-Prince funeral of Father Gerard Jean-Juste, a popular priest, U.N. troops were seen on state television opening fire"
"The
coup was promoted to advance the process of neoliberal capital
accumulation, break the left and the unions, and break Famni Lavalas
and the civil society organisations sustaining resistance. For years, UN 'peacekeepers' have slaughtered thousands of Haitians, and the residents have been put through rigged election procedures."
I guess that is "keeping the peace," huh?
Sending UN peacekeepers home ahead of schedule could generate the savings to do this. The UN has a moral responsibility to correct its mistakes in Haiti and to institute simple public health protocols to ensure that peacekeepers who hail from cholera-infected areas never spread the disease again.
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"Hispaniola needs $2.2b to wipe out cholera" by Trenton Daniel and Martha Mendoza | Associated Press, November 29, 2012
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haiti and the Dominican Republic will require $2.2 billion during the next decade for an ambitious plan to eliminate cholera, an official from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday.
Where did the billions in aid to the Bush-Clinton fund go?
The plan is scheduled to be rolled out in a week or two and it outlines a government-led effort backed by the CDC, the Pan American Health Organization, and UNICEF.
It is still unclear who will pay for what will be the biggest endeavor yet to develop Haiti’s barely existent water and sanitation system.
‘‘This is the greatest public health intervention that could be implemented in Haiti, but it’s a long-term strategy, it’s not a fix tomorrow,’’ said Dr. Jordan Tappero, director of the Health Systems Reconstruction Office for the CDC’s Center for Global Health. ‘‘Our goal is to eliminate transmission of cholera.’’
Short-term goals include building water supply systems, sewer systems, and wastewater treatment plants, as well as improving access to latrines, especially in schools.
Where did all that aid money go?
The tattered state of Haiti’s infrastructure has contributed to the flow of cholera since the disease was likely introduced in October 2010 by a unit of peacekeepers from Nepal, where cholera is endemic.
Not likely. It's scientifically confirmed beyond a doubt! Unless there is a more nefarious reason for the release that we don't know about.
The disease is easily preventable through proper hygiene but it has killed more than 7,600 people in Haiti and more than 420 in neighboring Dominican Republic, health officials say.
The plan warns that the disease could spread across the hemisphere if left unchecked and produce an “economic catastrophe” because of its impact on agriculture and tourism.
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"Study: Widespread hunger in Haiti after storms" by Trenton Daniel | Associated Press, December 08, 2012
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haitians have suffered widespread hunger following an unusually active storm season this year and probably will experience more, according to a study released Friday.
No food, no water.
The report, backed by a Rio de Janeiro-based think tank, found that rural households in the heavily hit areas of Haiti’s West, North, and Grand-Anse departments experienced what it termed ‘‘severe food shortages’’ after Hurricane Sandy and an unnamed storm that followed. The two merely brushed the Caribbean nation in October and November but caused major flooding and killed as many as 66 people.
Nearly 70 percent of the more than 1,000 households interviewed said they experienced moderate or severe hunger, according to the study.
The report was written by social scientists who frequently work in the impoverished country. It echoes UN warnings that more than 1.5 million Haitians are at risk of malnutrition because they lost crops in the storms. As much as 90 percent of Haiti’s harvest season was destroyed in Sandy’s floods, the UN said.
Maybe the Haitians shouldn't feel so bad about the lack of rebuilding.
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That's the only meal I received from my Globe regarding Haitian hunger.
"UN’s cold, but correct, call on Haiti" by Juliette Kayyem | Globe Columnist, February 28, 2013
WHEN UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon invoked diplomatic immunity last week for peacekeepers who unwittingly caused the cholera outbreak that killed nearly 8,000 Haitians, his decision looked cold-hearted. Many in Haiti and in the humanitarian community are indignant that the United Nations will face no consequences for failing to properly test soldiers from Nepal who assisted in earthquake relief efforts in 2010. The incident seems like a sign of arrogance and ineptitude on the UN’s part.
But sympathy for Haitians should not mask the necessity of the secretary-general’s decision. It was right as a legal matter — and as a moral one, too.
The newspapers are hopeless, folks. The Jewish supremacism is internalized and exhibited in this form of elitist racism.
While causation is not easily proved, the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that a strain of cholera was introduced by peacekeepers from Nepal; sewage from their base contaminated the Artibonite River, causing the spread of a disease that had been absent from Haiti for a century. About 1 in every 16 Haitians is now infected.
The case against the United Nations was brought by the Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. The UN has never acknowledged its culpability in the outbreak and has been unforgivingly hostile to what amounts to near scientific certainty....
So much for ever believing in the U.N. anymore.
"From Andrew Square, taking on the UN for Haiti" by Adrian Walker | Globe Columnist, March 06, 2013
Fights against entrenched and powerful forces are sometimes waged from highly improbable places. As a case in point: Brian Concannon is taking on the United Nations from the sanctuary of a quiet former convent in Andrew Square.
Concannon runs the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, an advocacy group for legal rights for Haitians. The institute’s current fight, one that is garnering worldwide attention, is for the UN to take responsibility for the scourge of cholera unleashed in Haiti after the earthquake of January 2010.
The cholera epidemic has claimed more than 8,200 lives so far. The facts of how a nation that had eliminated cholera came to be in throes of an epidemic are not in dispute. Tragic, but not disputed.
Among the peacekeepers dispatched in the wake of the Haiti earthquake was a team from Nepal, a country that was then suffering an outbreak of cholera. They brought the disease with them, and it spread when raw sewage from their camp found its way to a major river. By late October, the first cases were being reported. A few months after that, tests confirmed that it matched the strain afflicting the Nepalese.
Concannon’s group is part of a legal team that is seeking action against the UN. It argues that it inadequately screened their personnel. The UN, in turn, has declared that a series of international agreements render its policies immune from legal action.
Concannon lists his group’s demands in what he calls descending order of likelihood. “The first thing is to put in the sanitation infrastructure to stop the killing. Second is compensation for the victims. Third, an apology.”
Yeah, where is that?
Concannon came by his commitment to human rights in Haiti almost by accident. A Marshfield native, he was working as a young lawyer at Mintz Levin in the early 1990s when he decided he wanted to pursue his passion for human rights. He thought he might work in Rwanda. Instead, his first offer was a job working for the United Nations in Port-au-Prince.
He arrived in 1995, intending to stay a year or two. Instead he stayed for nine — two years with the UN, the rest with a legal aid group in Haiti. As it has for so many people, Haiti got under his skin.
The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti draws great inspiration, Concannon told me, from Partners in Health, the Boston-based advocacy group led by the legendary Dr. Paul Farmer. Just as Farmer’s group views health issues as a byproduct of social ills, so Concannon sees legal problems as deeply linked to broader economic inequalities.
Concannon’s fight against his former employer is not going to be easy. The cost of building the sewage system needed to staunch the spread of cholera is estimated at around $2.2 billion, while compensating victims could add perhaps $200 million more to the bottom line. Some UN apologists argue that it simply cannot set a precedent of assuming billions in liability for the actions of its humanitarian peacekeepers.
Yeah, there is one just above you in this post.
Concannon argues otherwise. “They have a peacekeeping force in Haiti that costs $650 million a year, even though there hasn’t been a war in Haiti in our lifetime. If they cut that force in half, that would free up $325 million to fight cholera.” And, he said, “$325 million a year would solve the problem.”
Yeah, WHY are they THERE?
(Blog editor thinks organ harvesting and child sex slaves)
Given the UN’s assertion of immunity in Haiti, finding a venue in which to sue it is a major challenge. “If we can get them into a courtroom, the case itself is easy,” Concannon declared . “Their liability is so obvious.”
I suppose it would be the same with those other things.
A person dedicated to pursuing justice in Haiti learns to celebrate every victory, no matter how accidental. So Concannon notes that the one positive development of the 2010 earthquake was that it emptied Haiti’s national penitentiary, which was filled with political prisoners who had been jailed unjustly. Many believe the guards freed the inmates, but Concannon knows otherwise.
“The guards actually got scared and fled,” he said with a chuckle. “But they left behind a couple of keys.”
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"Trade more important than aid in Haiti" May 08, 2013
Three years after a devastating earthquake, Haiti still has a long way to go to get back on its feet economically. But the country is making progress. Much of the rubble has been cleared away.
I would hope so after more than three years.
Confidence in the Haitian government is climbing, from an 11 percent approval rating in 2010 to 32 percent last year, according to a Gallup poll.
Pfft!
Now Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, a former telecom executive, is traveling the world inviting businessmen to invest in Haiti. His message, which he will deliver to international donors at a meeting Wednesday, is that the country needs trade, more than aid, to sustain its future. He’s right. But it remains to be seen whether Haiti’s economic master plan — intended to bring more low-wage manufacturing jobs to the country — will work.
And the race to the bottom continues. Maybe the retailers could relocate from Bangladesh.
One of the crown jewels of the plan is the Caracol Industrial Park, a 600-acre manufacturing site equipped with electricity and access to transportion, built with funds from the US Agency for International Development, the Clinton Foundation, and the Inter-American Development Bank. This is where a large chunk of America’s post-earthquake aid went. USAID put in more than a third of the $300 million construction.
AID = CIA, and that is what Clinton-Bush dough went for?
Sae-A Trading, a South Korean company that makes clothing for Walmart and the Gap, is already producing T-shirts there. So far, only 1,500 people are employed there. But US officials say Sae-A is on track to employ 20,000 Haitians. It’s part of a larger plan for the country to regain more than 70,000 apparel jobs that it lost due to political instability and embargoes. Haiti’s government also hopes electronics manufacturers will soon forgo China and open up in Haiti, which enjoys duty-free status and close proximity to American consumers.
The trouble is that Haitians have had bad experiences with previous industrial ventures. Metropolitan Industrial Park in Port-au-Prince created jobs, but also exacerbated problems in a nearby slum, Cite Soleil, where the factory workers lived. And a low-wage manufacturing economy can only sustain a country so much: Wages can be so low that the few who get them still struggle, and employers are always tempted to shift operations to poorer countries with lower wages.
Still, manufacturing can be part of Haiti’s economic solution, even if it can’t rescue the Haitian economy on its own. The vast majority of Haitians make their living on agriculture and fishing. Proper investments in these areas could result in real and important gains for farmers. US officials should make sure Haiti does not bet entirely on manufacturing and ignore other crucial sectors.
Yeah, they have done such a great job managing the AmeriKan economy. The best thing the U.S could do for the Haitians would be to stop intervening.
Finally, the US government, which invested so heavily in the Caracol park, must also make sure that the jobs there pay a decent wage and that the industrial activity there doesn’t damage the environment surrounding the park.
How come the only people the AmeriKan government doesn't care about is you, American?
A stable, economically growing Haiti is of vital interest to the United States, which shoulders much of the burden of Haitian refugees. But its focus must be on long-term gains, and sustainability.
Because it is a drug-smuggling way station.
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Nothing about the world's worst cholera crisis, Globe?
"Thousands protest Haiti government" Associated Press, October 01, 2012
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Several thousand people poured into the streets of Haiti’s capital on Sunday to protest the government of President Michel Martelly.
It was among the biggest demonstrations this year in Port-au-Prince against the first-time leader as he tries to rebuild the impoverished nation after a powerful 2010 earthquake that displaced more than a million people and destroyed thousands of homes.
Demonstrators said the former pop music star has fallen short on promises to address allegations of corruption and improve the lives of people displaced by the quake, including the cost of schools, housing, and food.
The Martelly government had no immediate public reaction to the protest, which focused on poorer neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince.
Martelly, who was sworn in in May 2011, presented himself as an outsider when he ran for the presidency of one of the poorest countries in the world.
‘‘The president has made so many promises but nothing has become a reality,’’ protester Max Dorlien said. ‘‘It’s only a clique of his friends who are making money.’’
Americans know how you feel.
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Speaking of our guys:
"Duvalier makes court appearance" by Trenton Daniel | Associated Press, March 01, 2013
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier appeared in court Thursday after three times shunning a summons for a hearing on whether he should be charged with human rights abuses during his brutal 1971-1986 regime.
Dozens of supporters cheered as Duvalier emerged to face the three-judge panel.
Those seeking to have Duvalier prosecuted smiled as they saw him finally arrive, and some applauded.
Reed Brody, counsel and a spokesman for Human Rights Watch, said the session ‘‘is an important victory for Duvalier’s victims, who never gave up hope of seeing him in court, and for the Haitian people who have the right to know what happened during the dark years of the Duvalier dictatorship.’’
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Related: Duvalier Double-Crossed by CIA
Just like Musharaff.
"Clintons land in Haiti to showcase industrial park" Associated Press, October 23, 2012
CARACOL, Haiti — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton encouraged foreigners to invest in Haiti as she and her husband led a delegation Monday to inaugurate a new industrial park at the center of US efforts to help the country rebuild after the 2010 earthquake.
Actors Sean Penn and Ben Stiller, fashion designer Donna Karan, and British business magnate Richard Branson were among the luminaries at the opening of the Caracol Industrial Park, which is projected to create thousands of jobs....
Related: Sean Penn looks to Haiti’s future at Harvard
I know he's a well-meaning man, but he is still part of the Zionist media machine.
Hillary Clinton told investors gathered for a luncheon that she had made Haiti a priority when she became secretary of state.
‘‘We had learned that supporting long-term prosperity in Haiti meant more than providing aid,’’ she said. ‘‘It required investments in infrastructure and the economy.”
Earlier Monday, thousands of Haitians lined the roadway to wave at her motorcade. The secretary of state and other US officials, including Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, toured a housing development for industrial park workers supported by the US Agency for International Development.
The Clintons and their allies hope that the $300 million industrial facility will transform the northern part of this impoverished country.
But some Haitians say the industrial park does little more than replicate failed efforts from the past and will benefit outsiders more than Haitians. They also worry it will harm some of the few pieces of undamaged environment that still exist in Haiti.
It was never about Haitians.
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Related: Sunday Globe Special: Building Haitians a New Home
That aid money built one hell of a hotel for the Clintons on their stopovers?
Also see:
Speaking Creole led to suspension, job loss at Logan, two Haitians say
Needham foundation expands orphanage in Haiti
Gotta take a breath.
