A blog for all seasons; A blog for one; A blog for all. As the 11th most informative blog on the planet, I have a seared memory of throwing my Time 2006 Man of the Year Award over the railing at Time Warner Center.
Justice. Only Justice Shall Thou Pursue
Haiti, which was one of the poorest and most incompetently governed countries in the world even before the devastating earthquake that killed more than 300,000 people, continues to struggle to rebuild its capital two years after the quake struck.
While streets have been cleared of debris, damaged and destroyed buildings throughout Port au Prince remain omnipresent. The debris of the collapsed national government palace in the city remains untouched and is an indelible image of the ongoing problems facing the Haitian government. They've managed to rebuild the national airport terminal so that operations could resume, but much of the city's residents live in horrendous conditions that worsen each time it rains.
And about half of the $4.5 billion pledged in donations have been disbursed:
The statistics say only about half of the rubble has been removed. There was 10 million cubic meters of it, or by one estimate, 10 times the amount of debris left by the September 11th attacks.
The international community pledged more than $4.5 billion dollars to help Haiti's recovery, but so far, just over half, 52 percent, has been disbursed.
“You’re moving from emergency response to recovery and that has complexities. Things take time...More could be done, we can always do better. At the same time, people are trying hard,” said Jehane Sadky, officer in charge at the UN Office of the Special Envoy for Haiti.
Sadky’s office is in charge of tracking where all the money has gone. She said that most of the money that has been disbursed has gone to NGOs or grants, not directly to the Haitian government.
“We want to emphasize that perhaps more money should go through Haitian institutions,” Sadky said. “Haiti deserves to get up on its feet alone and won’t be able to do that unless it has the money to do so.”
In part, donors have been reluctant to give the money they’ve committed directly to the Haitian government because of this year’s election. The painfully prolonged and disputed election finally produced a president and then five months later a prime minister and a government.
Once assembled, the newly elected government did not renew the mandate for the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, the group headed by former President Bill Clinton that was helping coordinate relief efforts.
On top of the political changes, there's been an ongoing cholera epidemic that killed about 7,000 people and sickened perhaps half a million Haitians in the wake of the earthquake.
The sociopolitical challenges remain difficult to overcome and the Haitian political institutions aren't getting the job done even where they have the opportunity to do so. For their part, the charitable groups are making the best of a bad situation, but millions of Haitians continue to struggle to deal with a shattered country that can't handle a disaster of this magnitude.
The Haitian government has threatened former Haitian despot Baby Doc Duvalier with arrest ever since he went into exile 25 years ago should he return to the country he plundered. At this point, government officials are just questioning him in advance of whether they will bring charges against him for looting the Haitian treasury for years.
Haitian authorities will question former dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier to determine whether he should be prosecuted for stealing from the treasury during his rule, a senior government official said Tuesday.
"He will be questioned and he will remain at the disposal of the judicial system," the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
The statement came as senior police officials and a judge were holding a private meeting with Duvalier.
The officials would not tell journalists the purpose of the meeting at the high-end hotel where the former leader has been staying since his surprise return to the country. Haiti's chief prosecutor was also at the meeting in the Hotel Karibe.
Now it will be interesting to see what Duvalier's supporters will do - since they were in a position to benefit from Duvalier's appearance and resurgence.
Duvalier was nothing but bad jobu for the Haitian people, and he's the last thing the country needed a year after suffering from a devastating earthquake that claimed nearly 300,000 lives. Much of the capital remains uncleared of debris and lacks the wherewithal to rebuild. 95% of the city debris has yet to be cleared, and millions remain in tent cities around the city and countryside.
A Haitian prosecutor Tuesday formally charged former dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier with corruption, theft, misappropriation of funds and other alleged crimes committed during his 1971-1986 rule.
"His fate is now in the hands of the investigating judge. We have brought charges against him," Port-au-Prince Chief Prosecutor Aristidas Auguste told Reuters.
The charges must now be investigated by the judge who will decide whether a judicial case should go ahead. Earlier, Haitian police detained the former dictator. Armed police escorted Duvalier, 59, from the luxury hotel in Port-au-Prince where he had been staying since his surprise return on Sunday to his poor, earthquake-battered Caribbean homeland after 25 years in exile in France. Officers put him in a police SUV with tinted windows which drove away.
No good can come from this. Duvalier is widely reviled among Haitians and his fleecing of the country has left a lasting mark on the country although those close to Duvalier while he was in power would probably love to see him make a return to power.
Photos posted on Twitter showed Duvalier, 59, walking off an Air France plane with his companion, Veronique Roy, to be greeted by supporters.
It was his first visit to Haiti since he was deposed by a popular uprising in 1986.
Agence France-Presse reported he was met by a delegation of former officials who had served as his cabinet ministers 25 years ago.
Duvalier's intentions for returning were unclear. Some feared he would try to seize power amid the paralysis following November's disputed elections.
He told the press at the airport that he came back "to help."
Port-au-Prince erupted in a frenzy of rumors and ringing phones.
Haiti is in the middle of a major political crisis.
President Rene Preval, who is supposed to leave office in three weeks, is resisting international pressure to remove his handpicked candidate from a runoff election. A first round of balloting on Nov. 28 was widely considered rigged.
The international community "has not done enough to support good governance and effective leadership in Haiti," the aid group Oxfam said in a recent report. "Aid agencies continue to bypass local and national authorities in the delivery of assistance, while donors are not coordinating their actions or adequately consulting the Haitian people."
Less than 5 percent of debris has been cleared, leaving enough to fill dump trucks parked bumper to bumper halfway around the world. In the broken building where the man was found, workers hired to clear rubble by hand found two other people's remains.
Meanwhile, about a million people remain homeless and neighborhood-sized homeless camps look like permanent shantytowns on the fields and plazas of the capital. A cholera epidemic erupted outside the earthquake zone that has killed more than 3,600 people, and an electoral crisis threatens to break an increasingly fragile political stability.
The promise of a better Haiti remains just that.
"The problem is that at a certain point the international community gave the impression they could solve the problem quickly. ... I think there was an excess of optimism," said Ericq Pierre, Haiti's representative to the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington.
Progress has been slow across the board, starting with the omnipresent rubble.
The U.S.-based RAND organization said donors and the Haitian government are responsible for more not being cleared. Haitian workers are not given personal equipment while heavy lifters have been blocked by customs officials at the border, the report said. The government has also not designated sufficient dumping space.
"Unless rubble is cleared expeditiously, hundreds of thousands of Haitians will still be in tent camps during the 2011 hurricane season" - which runs from June through November, the report said.
It does not help that the fees collected by customs officials - such as those blocking the large rubble-removing equipment - are one of the few bright spots in a Haitian economy that was already the worst in the hemisphere before contracting by 7 percent over 2010, according to the World Bank.
The political situation isn't much better, and that's hampering the reconstruction efforts as well.
Haitians deserve better than this from their government and from themselves. They also deserve better from the international community that pledged to help but which has moved on to the next international crisis and put Haiti in its rear view mirror.
The country will face yet another hurricane season with millions exposed to potential calamity without proper shelter.
UPDATE:
The NY Times has a series of before/during/after photos showing how Haiti looks compared to what happened before and after the quake hit. It's staggering to see just how little reconstruction has taken place and how much of the city of Port au Prince is filled with temporary structures that have taken on the air of permanence.
Haiti's President Rene Preval confirmed the outbreak of cholera Friday in the quake-hit country's central region, saying his government was taking measures to try to stop the disease spreading.
"I can confirm it is cholera," Preval told Reuters, as Haitian and international health officials confronted the poor Caribbean nation's biggest medical crisis since the Jan. 12 earthquake.
The outbreak in the rural Artibonite region, which hosts thousands of quake refugees, appeared to confirm relief groups' fears about sanitation for homeless survivors living in tarp cities and other squalid settlements.
"We have been afraid of this since the earthquake," said Robin Mahfood, president of Food for the Poor, which was preparing to fly in donations of antibiotics, dehydration salts and other supplies.
Many of the sick have converged on St. Nicholas hospital in the seaside city of St. Marc, where hundreds of dehydrated patients lay on blankets in a parking lot with IVs in their arms as they waited for treatment.
The epidemic has broken out in areas that weren't greatly affected by the quake, but instead became refuges for those fleeing the capital. Prompt medical assistance is critical in reducing and eliminating mortality among those suffering from the disease, which can cause rapid dehydration through severe vomiting and diarrhea. Primary treatment is with orals or intravenous rehydration solutions.
This outbreak again refocuses attention on the dire situation in Haiti and the slow pace of rebuilding the infrastructure in the country to deal with the threats posed by quakes and tropical storms.
Just as many commentators expected, the misery in Haiti has dropped off the radar after six months following the devastating earthquake that killed more than 230,000 people in Port au Prince and the surrounding area. Attention has moved on to the next crisis.
Much of the region remains impassible because of rubble and debris. A fraction of the debris has been carted away, and an even smaller percentage was carted to sanitary landfills. The blame game is making the situation even worse, with aid groups not coordinating efforts and the government is ineffectual:
"It's an emergency response still," says Mary Kate MacIsaac, a spokeswoman in Haiti for the Christian relief group World Vision. "We are still meeting the basic needs of people in these camps ... but it's not sustainable. We need to transition into the recovery or the long-term goal."
Frustration is high among Haitians and aid groups who say they see halting and haphazard progress toward recovery.
The Haitian government — responsible for the cleanup but still reeling after the loss of most of its buildings and many of its workers — and the aid groups blame each other for the lack of progress.
"There is no global view or plan of action to date from the government," says Pierre Tripon, mission director for the French aid group Action Against Hunger. "There is no agenda with priorities. No cohesion in the projects being done. If people don't share the information on what projects are being done, we're headed for a catastrophe, and we are already at our limit."
Minister Felix Longchamp, secretary-general to the president, says that despite the millions of dollars pledged to help Haiti, the funds are going through international aid organizations, which are not coordinating efforts. "I am deeply frustrated with how things are going now," he says.
The country is struggling to get by, despite concerns over how the rainy season would make the situation worse. Housing remains in short supply, as does proper sanitation and water access. Aid groups are doing much to fill the gaps, but the Haitian government could barely get by before the quake and is doing even worse now.
Still, disease outbreaks have been largely prevented, and that's a good thing considering the poor conditions that the Haitians are dealing with.
A veteran filmmaker, Lou Angeli, who has recorded rescue and relief efforts from terrorist attacks and natural disasters says that the situation in Haiti is spiraling out of control and is likely to descend into chaos where anything might happen to the fragile political situation in the Haitian capital.
The political situation has largely been responsible for the failure to provide a building code and oversight necessary to build structures capable of resisting earthquakes, and now that fragile government situation is threatening the relief and recovery efforts because hundreds of thousands of people aren't getting basic services and the medical teams in the country are stressed to the limits trying to provide basic care.
Angeli is a veteran filmmaker who has witnessed other disaster areas and has documented rescue and recovery efforts at Ground Zero and two wars. He declares the disaster in Haiti is especially poignant. Water, food, medicine and diapers remain sorely-needed items in a city ravaged by lack of resources and state-of-the-art equipment required for adequate support and rehabilitation of the country's citizens. He said this,
"Life in Port-Au-Prince is like a scene from a motion picture dealing with Apocalypse. "There is no order whatsoever in the Haitian capital, and it’s just a matter of time before frustration and desperation will lead to all out chaos."
The filmmaker has been in Haiti to debrief cameramen and technical folks on the elements of documenting the crisis.
Angeli declares, in a press release as he makes preparations for the film, "Many of the docs and nurses have mixed emotions about what took place during their stay in Port-Au-Prince." He also says the medical team members are concerned and compassionate toward Haiti's unfortunate, but then adds it seems unlikely order will be restored to such a dangerous and poor nation.
As I warned back in January, the rainy season will pose special challenges given that most people are not in proper shelters and various diseases might spread due to poor sanitation and polluted water sources. We are also on the cusp of the hurricane season, which would be a double whammy should a hurricane cross the already suffering country. It can ill afford another natural disaster, let alone one so soon after the country was hit by one of the worst natural disasters of the past 100 years.
The US is pledging more than $1 billion in aid to the Haiti rebuilding, and more than $5 billion overall has been pledged. I fear that much of the money will be lost to waste and will not go to rebuilding key infrastructure so that the country can begin to recover in a meaningful way.
Haiti was hit with a strong earthquake. It killed more than 200,000 people (and the ultimate death toll is likely far above that level.
Chile was hit with a massive 8.8 earthquake, which was several magnitudes more powerful. Less than 1,000 were killed.
Taiwan was hit with a 6.6 quake, which was slightly smaller than that of the Haiti quake. No deaths were reported in that quake and the damage was limited.
What was the difference between those outcomes?
Joe Conason thinks that the difference is in the nature of the political system.
If the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti carry any message for those of us fortunate enough not to live in those places, perhaps it is that government regulation could save your life — while right-wing ideology may kill you someday.
(snip)
In a society with sane politics, rules and regulations needed to safeguard life don't provoke much debate, even on the furthest ends of the ideological spectrum.
Everyone realizes that there are certain dangers to which anyone can fall victim; protecting and insuring against those dangers is a social responsibility, a government function and a measure of human progress.
Here in the United States, however, anti-government ideology is a pandemic mental tic that has now developed into a virulent disorder afflicting a large number of citizens — including many of our self-styled conservatives. Infuriated because their party cannot permanently control the White House and the Congress, they have gradually persuaded themselves that all government is evil, that all taxation is theft and that all regulation is tyranny. Or at least that is the tone of their rhetoric.
If the Chileans had adopted this kind of manic and reflexive attitude, many more of them would undoubtedly be dead today. The "free market" extremists who call themselves conservative probably wouldn't worry much about the loss of life, because they are far more concerned with ideological consistency than with practical effects. But the rest of us might consider the wiser approach of Friedrich von Hayek, the Austrian economist whose work is often cited by the extremists when they claim to be defending freedom.
Conason doesn't realize that his argument is undermined by the fact that the Chilean government first instituted its stringent building codes following the massive 9.5 quake (one of the largest ever recorded). That it further strengthened it decades later is besides the point. Chile had learned the lesson in blood- it needed to improve its seismic codes because many structures would otherwise crumble and kill and maim.
Taiwan has stringent building codes that were likewise born of blood - deadly quakes and improved science have resulted in better construction techniques.
Haiti has no such history. Strong quakes are simply not a part of the legacy of Haiti's collective memory and no quake has struck within the last 100 years that was sufficient to show that the building of structures without rebar and modern seismic system would have devastating consequences.
The US likewise has a mixed history of improved seismic codes born in blood. California and the West Coast has endured major quakes and significant death tolls and each quake has resulted in incremental improvements in construction practices and engineering, but many thousands of structures are still ill-equipped for major quakes. Other parts of the country aren't nearly as prepared, even though they've seen significant quakes including Charleston, South Carolina and the New Madrid area.
Moreover, changes to building codes often result in disagreements over their applicability to existing structures and grandfathering of structures means that while new buildings may survive major quakes, older structures might not - and could conceivably affect nearby intact structures by collapsing into them.
We can only hope that Haiti learns the lessons of improved seismic construction techniques that would also result in improved resilience to hurricanes and severe storms but the country's dire economic situation makes those needed changes all the more difficult to come by.
What we do know about government and economics is that totalitarian regimes and dictatorships and failed states are much less capable of providing sufficient means to protect their citizens from natural disasters and to engage in relief and recovery efforts. Affluent countries are much more capable of absorbing such natural disasters and rebounding.
Chavez in Venezuela or Castro in Cuba would be hard pressed to deal with a significant natural disaster, even though they're left leaning regimes. They've decimated their infrastructure and the capability to respond to natural disasters.
If hit by a similar sized natural disaster, North Korea would not do well in a natural disaster, while South Korea would likely end up providing assistance and shrugging off the disaster - and the South would likely come to the aid of the North while the North never could because it would lack the resources to do so.
No, the true test to whether a country can build survivable structures isn't whether they lean left or right, but whether they've endured the loss in blood and sweat from such natural disasters to attune them to the existence of the threat and the affluence to make sure that the damage can be minimized. And on that front - countries that promote capitalism and wealth are more likely to be able to provide on that basis than regimes that socialize the care (see China's infrastructure failures resulting from the Sichuan quake that killed tens of thousands of kids in their schools when they collapsed despite claims from their leadership that the structures were safe).
The curious case of the 10 American missionaries who were caught trying to bring 33 Haitian kids into the Dominican Republic continues today with a finding by a Haitian judge that eight of 10 can return to the United States.
Laura Silsby, the leader of the group, and Charisa Coulter, were being kept for further investigation, said investigating Judge Bernard Saint-Vil. He said those released would be allowed to return home without posting bail if they agreed to return to Haiti for any more questions in the pending investigation.
"They will not have to post bail," the judge said. "But they will have to come back at the request of the court."
Earlier Wednesday, Coulter, who is diabetic, was taken to a field hospital. She briefly received treatment but was then taken back to jail. Neither her condition nor reason for the treatment was not immediately known.
Multiple reports seem to indicate that the other members of this group didn't know or realize that the proper papers were never obtained by Silsby's group. It makes sense to send the rest home given that Haiti's infrastructure is so badly damaged in the wake of the earthquake, but keeping those that knew, or had reason to know, of the lack of paperwork and who were in charge of this operation, makes sense.
Mr. Puello is wanted by the police in at least four countries in connection with charges including sex trafficking of girls and women, and making counterfeit documents and violating parole.
The Salvadoran police unveiled a sex trafficking ring last May in which they said Mr. Puello was helping to bring women and girls from Central America and the Caribbean into El Salvador and luring them into prostitution through offers of modeling and office jobs. Nude and semi-nude photographs were taken of women and girls and put on Internet sites, the police said.
The case against Mr. Puello broke open when three under-age Nicaraguan girls escaped from a house where they said they had been held captive for up to ten days by Mr. Puello’s wife, Ana Josefa Galvarina Ramirez Orellana, and another man, according to Jorge Callejas, head of the Salvadoran border police.
The girls had been recruited in Nicaragua by a Nicaraguan man who offered them jobs. Upon arriving in El Salvador, they complained that they were photographed and not allowed to leave the house.
He managed to insert himself into the human trafficking case in Haiti and several members that were arrested accepted Puello's assistance, but later tried to distance themselves from him.
Just when you thought that the case of the 10 members of the New Life Children's Ministries who are charged with kidnapping and criminal association in connection with trying to take 33 Haitian kids into the Dominican Republic couldn't get weirder, it just did:
The Haitian lawyer for 10 U.S. Baptists charged with child kidnapping tried to bribe the missionaries' way out of jail and has been fired, the attorney who hired him said Saturday night.
The Haitian lawyer, Edwin Coq, denied the allegation. He said the $60,000 he requested from the Americans' families was his fee.
Jorge Puello, the attorney in the neighboring Dominican Republic retained by relatives of the 10 American missionaries after their arrest last week, told The Associated Press that he fired Coq on Friday night. He had hired Coq to represent the detainees at Haitian legal proceedings.
Coq orchestrated "some kind of extortion with government officials" that would have led to the release of nine of the 10 missionaries, Puello charged.
"He had some people inside the court that asked him for money, and he was part of this scheme," Puello said.
Coq denied the requested $60,000 payment amounted to a bribe.
The legal situation facing the American charity New Life Children's Ministries in Haiti is a serious one and one that could have been wholly avoided had they chosen to follow the law and procedures for orphans and adoption rules. 10 of its members are now facing possible criminal charges over human trafficking; they were caught trying to take 33 kids out of Haiti without any documentation or authorizations.
How many valuable resources are now going to deal with this mess that could otherwise be devoted to actually providing humanitarian aid and helping orphans in need?
It all began last week when a local orphanage worker, fluent in English and acting on behalf of the Baptists, convened nearly the entire village of 500 people on a dirt soccer field to present the Americans' offer.
Isaac Adrien, 20, told his neighbors the missionaries would educate their children in the neighboring Dominican Republic, the villagers said, adding that they were also assured they would be free to visit their children there.
Many parents jumped at the offer.
"It's only because the bus was full that more children didn't go," said Melanie Augustin, a 58-year-old who gave her 10-year-old daughter, Jovin, to the Americans.
Adrien said he met the Baptists' leader, Laura Silsby of Meridian, Idaho, in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 26. She told him she was looking for homeless children, he said, and he knew exactly where to find them.
He rushed home to Callebas, where people scrape by growing carrots, peppers and onions. That very day, he had a list of 20 children.
Desperate people in desperate situations make all kinds of decisions that we might not otherwise consider (like sending their kids away with a bunch of strangers claiming that they'll get a better life somewhere else. Yet, the group claims that the kids were orphans.
The group claims and those of relatives of the kids claim two different things. One side says that the kids were orphans. The other says that the church group got permission from family members. In no case were government authorizations provided.
The problem with the various versions is that regardless of which version you believe (that they had permission from family members or that the kids were indeed orphans, the group had no government approvals or documentation to do any of this.
The five men and five women were in custody in the capital, Port-au-Prince after their arrests on Friday night. There are fears that traffickers could try to exploit the chaos and turmoil following Haiti's January 12 earthquake quake to engage in illegal adoptions.
One of the suspects, who says she is leader of an Idaho-based charity called New Life Children's Refuge, denied they had done anything wrong.
The suspects were detained at Malpasse, Haiti's main border crossing with the Dominican Republic, after Haitian police conducted a routine search of their vehicle.
Authorities said the Americans had no documents to prove they had cleared the adoption of the 33 children -- aged 2 months to 12 years -- through any embassy and no papers showing they were made orphans by the quake in the impoverished Caribbean country.
They claim that they were right to do so since they were helping the children get to an orphanage located in the Dominican Republic. This is all too familiar; it's very much like the Zoe's Ark case.
An American doctor treating victims in Port-au-Prince warned that at least 100 patients needed to get to better hospitals or they could die, while the U.S. government said it was working to expand hospital capacity in both Haiti and in the U.S.
It was unclear exactly what prompted the Wednesday decision by the U.S. military to suspend the flights, or when it would end. Military officials said some states were refusing to take patients, though they wouldn't say which states.
"There has been no policy decision by anyone to suspend evacuee flights," White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said. "This situation arose as we started to run out of room."
The halt came one day after Florida Gov. Charlie Crist wrote a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, warning that "Florida's health care system is quickly reaching saturation, especially in the area of high level trauma care."
But officials in Crist's office said they didn't know of any Florida hospitals were turning away patients. He asked Sebelius to activate the National Disaster Medical System, which is typically used in domestic disasters and pays for victims' care.
Poor coordination and limited resources, not costs, drove the governor's request, said John Cherry, spokesman for the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
Poor coordination and limited resources? How was it that the military airlifts were approved, hospital care provided, and no one considered how to coordinate all this? Flights were landing without advance notice? Florida hospitals deny that they refused care.
Did the Haitian government pull the plug too soon on rescue efforts, as witnessed by additional rescues of survivors from the rubble around Port au Prince more than two weeks after the deadly 7.0 quake?
I'm not sure that they can be faulted when the odds grow longer for every day after someone is trapped in the rubble without water or food (and often badly injured at that).
Bandits in Haiti are preying on vulnerable earthquake survivors, even raping women, in makeshift camps which were set up in the capital of Port-au-Prince after the disaster.
"With the blackout that's befallen the Haitian capital, bandits are taking advantage to harass and rape women and young girls under the tents," Haiti’s national police chief Mario Andresol said yesterday.
"We have more than 7,000 detainees in the streets who escaped from the National Penitentiary the evening of the earthquake... It took us five years to apprehend them. Today they are running wild."
Rachelle Dolce, who is living at a large makeshift camp on the Petionville Club Golf Course, said she thought a rape had occurred outside her tent the previous night. She said she heard men making noise and a woman struggling.
"I heard a fight outside, and I saw panties on the ground," she said. "I started to shout a lot, and they left."
The Haitian police lay blame on the fact that the prison was badly damaged and that let the prisoners escape. The ongoing security situation isn't good at all, and the need to maintain order is hampering the relief efforts. As nations curb their direct involvement, that means that the UN will be forced to shoulder an ever larger burden on security.
At the same time, the Haitian government is hoping to reopen schools next week although it isn't clear how many schools can actually reopen or how many students will be able to attend. I see it as a hopeful first step to return to a sense of normalcy.
The NYT has a roundup of where we stand. Of note, the US Navy has got three artificial beaches in operation to hasten the flow of containers into the country but aftershocks this past week increased the damage to one of the city's piers forestalling the ability to get it back in operation. At the same time, the US Army is working on clearing rubble from downtown Port au Prince, which is the first step in rebuilding.
The USS Bataan has moved 1,000 pallets of food and supplies since arriving off the coast of Haiti while the USNS Comfort continues providing medical care; a volunteer on board has chronicled their experience here. More on-the-ground reports can be found here.
The US continues providing significant amounts of resources for the humanitarian aid effort, including the hospital ship USNS Comfort, which has dealt with hundreds of the most seriously injured. The US military has identified a 100 acre parcel near the coast to establish a hospital to treat less seriously injured patients.
The choices made by the doctors and the patients is often a grim one; in one instance a police officer had to get his foot amputated because gas gangrene had set in, but would likely lose his livelihood in the process and a way to support his four children. Yet, if the amputation wasn't done, he would likely die within days.
Here's a running tally of what the US government medical teams have accomplished so far, and what they hope to do in coming weeks. USAID is also issuing radios to help keep Haitians informed of what's going on.
The BBC reports that the strong US military humanitarian response may itself be partly to blame for the slow distribution of aid to Haitians, and looks at how the situation differs with Aceh province in Indonesia that was devastated by the SE Asian quake and tsunami in December 2004. That's nonsense, given that no one else in the world has the capabilities to mount the logistical effort to assist with the numbers needed. The BBC claims that the US military is shouldering out relief aid from other sources, particularly at the airport and that the numbers of troops sent in to help is hampering relief efforts. It also minimizes the fact that the Indonesian government was in a better position to respond since its government structure and military were capable of responding and its capital of Jakarta were unaffected while Port au Prince was the capital of Haiti and the Haitian government, which wasn't particularly effective before the quake is now facing the near total devastation of its government offices and infrastructure. There isn't anyone locally who can coordinate efforts, and even the UN offices there were badly damaged with significant loss of life to those UN officials who had cultivated relationships with Haitian government officials.
In sum, even when the US does the right thing, they get slammed. Nice.
I do not know if what I’m about to write makes me a monster. I do know that it makes me a part of a miniscule minority, if Internet trends and news stories of the past weeks are any guide.
“It”, is this:
I haven’t donated a cent to the Haitian relief effort. And I probably will not.
I haven’t donated to the Haitian relief effort for the same reason that I don’t give money to homeless men on the street. Based on past experiences, I don’t think the guy with the sign that reads “Need You’re Help” is going to do anything constructive with the dollar I might give him. If I use history as my guide, I don’t think the people of Haiti will do much with my money either.
It doesn't make him a monster, and it shouldn't rise to the level of being grounds for losing his slot at ESPN but he's verbalizing a legitimate concern that many have about the Haitian government and rebuilding efforts - that the money is going to go to waste. It's a shame that many feel this way (and was also included in a David Brooks column in the NY Times), and that there's plenty of evidence to back up that concern.
As Glenn Davis points out, by not donating at all, there's a 100% chance of not helping Haitians desperate for aid. It's a concern that could be overcome by donating to charities that have a track record of doing good work and making sure that the money goes where it should - to helping those who need it, rather than sucked into an administrative morass or wasted in graft and corruption. I chose my donation in just that fashion. I chose Doctors Without Frontiers because they have doctors on the ground there (and in other hotspots around the world where there aren't enough doctors to provide routine care). It's what they do; and the needs in Haiti are such that DWF (or MSF as it's known by the French acronym) will be there for a long time to come - long after the media coverage wanes and the Haitians will be left to struggle to pick up the pieces.
Haitians will have to pick up the pieces and do much of the heavy lifting themselves; rebuilding their government infrastructure and cleaning up Port au Prince; the rest of the world should be there to lend assistance, but it should not and cannot do it all for the Haitian people. They've got to be able to learn how to build the institutions from the ground up. This is an opportunity for Haitians to finally put decades of mismanagement and corruption behind them and work towards a better future. Let's hope they don't squander it amid the rubble.
Rebuilding is going to take years, but getting key infrastructure projects underway is critical. That means getting the airport, port, electric transmission lines, and water/sewage restored as swiftly as possible.
The immediate need is to provide shelter to the more than 1 million Haitians who are now homeless because of the quake. Relief organizations say that they need 200,000 more tents to help house those left homeless, but those tents will be only a temporary measure and provide no shelter once hurricane season arrives in June. Even with 20,000 US troops providing humanitarian assistance, food and water are still hard to come by and interest in rebuilding will wane among international donors and groups. Rebuilding will take years, and some Haitians are saying that they want to break the cycle of dependency and want to get up on their own feet.
That's what we want to hear. We need to help provide them with the tools they need to get the job of rebuilding properly done, and to replace the destroyed and damaged structures with construction that is vastly improved.
UPDATE: Israel is shutting down its relief efforts, and is closing its mobile hospital facility, which treated more than 1,000 patients and performed hundreds of surgeries with the assistance of a contingent of Colombians. There was a military ceremony marking the end of the operation of the facility and included the transfer of Israeli and Colombian flags.
The field hospital commanded emphasized the collaboration with other te4ams. "The Home Front Command, the Prime Minister's Office, and other medical professionals helped us focus our efforts on the patients," he said.
The commander of the Colombian team, Col. Sagura, spoke at the ceremony and gave an emotional thanks to the Israeli team. "Through difficult days, we worked together with the Israeli hospital. As the commander of the Colombian medical force, I would like to thank you in the name of my country, military, and team. You treated us like brothers," said the colonel.
The Colombian colonel concluded his speech in Hebrew: "This story we will tell to our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A big thanks to the people of Israel."
At the end of the military ceremony, after the anthem was sung, the Colombian team handed over their flag to Dr. Kreis and his team in a rare symbolic gesture. The Israeli delegation also gave the Israeli flag to the Colombian commander.
Logistics is the key to rebuilding Haiti and serving the hundreds of thousands of Haitians who have been rendered homeless by the January 11 earthquake. It means getting the right personnel to the right places with the right tools at hand to deal with the needs of the people.
It means that a seeming surplus of doctors at some facilities needs to be addressed by sending them to where they can best provide services and with the appropriate level of equipment to make their work possible. While there is a surplus of doctors, the need for nurses and physical therapists will be high for a long time to come, particularly with the large number of people who required amputations to survive their injuries and those who had fractures who need rehabilitation.
The US Navy and Coast Guard contingent of 30 ships present or soon to arrive in Haiti continues to serve as a platform from which NGOs can send relief to areas around Haiti. The USS Bataan took aboard 450 pallets of goods, primarily for NGO efforts to be distributed by the Bataan's sailors and Marines. Guantanamo Bay remains a central hub for the US relief efforts.
And, as I've previously noted, the media is already starting to go back to its routine news cycle and interest in Haiti will wane and attention will shift elsewhere. Some are fretting about the change in coverage, but I'm most concerned that the rebuilding efforts get underway.
UPDATE:
There's some concern from officials that because the Haitian government has been all but absent following the quake, that there are going to be unscrupulous individuals hoping to take advantage of the anarchy and attempt to bring out orphans that might not actually be orphans (to engage in human trafficking). It's a situation not unlike that which found Zoe's Ark in hot water with French and Chadian authorities. They attempted to smuggle out 80 kids who were victims of the Darfur genocide, and they didn't have permission to do so. It was human trafficking. Those involved with that scheme were sentenced to hard time in Chad.
UNICEF and human rights groups are right to be concerned about such exploitation.
The massive devastation from the Haiti quake occupied the lede on major news networks for the past 13 days, but it's slowly giving way to other news stories. Google News is headlining other stories, which is a good indicator that the news cycle is returning to its normal rhythms. Yet, the Haitians living among the rubble have no such luxury. They've got to figure out how to rebuild from the utter devastation, which is a seemingly insurmountable challenge given that many parts of the country already looked like an earthquake hit even before the massive 7.0 quake did strike the country on January 11.
While the search and rescue efforts are winding down, there was yet another rescue yesterday as these two videos show:
The death toll has topped 150,000 as the Haitian government reports that they've recovered that many bodies from the rubble of Port au Prince.
The United Nations said Saturday the government had confirmed 111,481 bodies; all told, authorities have estimated 200,000 dead from the magnitude-7.0 quake, according to Haitian government figures cited by the European Commission.
"Nobody knows how many bodies are buried in the rubble — 200,000, 300,000?" Lassegue said. "Who knows the overall death toll?"
Experts say chances are slim that more survivors will be found in that debris, although rescuers pulled a man buried for 11 days in the wreckage on Saturday.
Crews dug a tunnel through the rubble of a fruit and vegetable shop to reach Wismond Exantus, who is in his 20s. He was placed on a stretcher and given intravenous fluids as onlookers cheered, and later told the AP he survived by diving under a desk during the quake and later consuming some cola, beer and cookies in the cramped space.
"I was hungry, but every night I thought about the revelation that I would survive," Exantus said from his hospital bed.
Haiti's government has declared an end to searches for living people trapped under debris, and officials are shifting their focus to caring for the thousands of survivors living in squalid, makeshift camps.
The Hope For Haiti telethon organizers have released a statement that they collected $57 million for their Friday showing across television networks around the world. It's expected to bring in more from dvd sales and is put on iTunes.
Many Haitians are fleeing the ruined capital city for refuge in the countryside. That may help reduce the pressure on relief efforts in Port au Prince, the fact is that the Haitian government is so centralized that many will be forced to return to the capital to get essential services.
UPDATE:
Here are more photos of the damage to Port au Prince. In particular, note the damage to the port facilities, including the main pier that was completely destroyed. The US Navy is in the process of rebuilding the port infrastructure.
The addled Cuban dictator, Fidel Castro, who has overseen the gradual and steady decay of Cuban infrastructure for more than 50 years and now resides as dictator emeritus while his brother Raul runs the show, is excoriating the US for its relief efforts in Haiti.
Fidel Castro is questioning why the U.S. and other countries sent soldiers to quake-ravaged Haiti, saying military presence hindered international cooperation.
The former Cuban president writes that "without anyone knowing how or why," Washington dispatched troops "to occupy Haitian territory," and other nations followed suit.
In an opinion column Sunday in state-controlled media, Castro said neither the U.N nor the U.S. "has offered an explanation to the people of the world."
Castro noted that several governments complained that the troops kept them from landing aid flights and called on the U.N. to investigate.
Bolivian President Evo Morales, a Castro ally, is seeking a U.N. condemnation of what he called the U.S. occupation of Haiti.
Given that the Haitian government called for assistance and the US responded with the thousands of troops and 30 ships that provide the needed capabilities (potable water desalinization, medical facilities, airlift of equipment and evacuation of injured, etc.), this is just another effort by a bunch of socialist thugs to try and roll back US humanitarian efforts.
Hôpital Sacre Coeur, a 66-bed facility 70 miles north of Port-au-Prince, is accommodating 300 patients. Helicopters land constantly, bringing the injured from other parts of the country. Six operating rooms are being used around the clock, mostly to conduct amputations. Patients are being moved to nearby schools and other vacant buildings in the city of Milot to recover.
In the middle of this are Dr. Alan Gwertzman and Dr. Timothy Finley, anesthesiologists from Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck, who arrived last week. Both said via e-mail Sunday morning that they are anesthetizing an average of 30 patients a day.
“It’s remarkable that they’re just able to tend to these people,” said Dr. David Butler, a Holy Name obstetrician-gynecologist who has been volunteering at Sacre Coeur for 18 years.
Butler, who has been coordinating relief efforts from Florida, is scheduled to travel to the hospital on Thursday.
Military helicopters have been transporting patients into these hospitals as the need remains overwhelming. Meanwhile, the Haitian government is reporting that the death toll may top 300,000. If so, it would top all prior estimates and rank among the most deadly natural disasters in recent history.
The problem is that while death tolls may provide some gauge for the devastation, the government has to focus on doing more for those who survived. The Haitian government had better get straightened out in a hurry. It has a massive task ahead of it, and while tallying the dead is an important task, it is not the most important - providing for those who survived and making sure that those who survived are found survivable shelter before hurricane season.Tents may be in short supply and may serve an immediate need, but they aren't going to provide any kind of shelter in a tropical storm. That's why work done by engineers to figure out which homes are safe to reinhabit and which must be demolished is crucial:
The call to aid organizations to focus on shelter comes 12 days after the quake, as officials wind down efforts to rescue people from the rubble and begin the gargantuan task of recovery. Crews have already begun demolishing buildings that are teetering dangerously close to collapse. And teams of American surveyors are expected to begin examining the stability of structures left intact so that people whose homes have been spared can move off the streets and businesses can go back to work.
A team of Colombian engineers conducted a similar survey in Jacmel, a coastal city of about 40,000 people where whole sections of the once festive downtown were destroyed.
They painted red circles on buildings deemed to unsafe to re-inhabit, yellow ones on buildings that could be fixed and black on buildings that were undamaged. Red circles far outnumbered any other color. Hazen El Zein, 29, head of the World Food Program for the region who is coordinating relief efforts in the area, said nearly half the homes were destroyed, including the city’s police station.
Construction materials that can survive severe storms and earthquakes will be critical to the rebuilding; reinforcing steel for new concrete construction, for example. Many of the hardest hit structures were plain concrete block buildings, which collapsed and disintegrated in the quake; those that had reinforcing steel were more likely to survive the quake.
Despite it all, a sense of normalcy is returning, even though this is the new normal where food, shelter and potable water are in short supply:
The Haitian government and UN have decided to end the rescue operations and will go into a relief effort. Rescue teams that descended on Haiti in the hours and days after the devastating quake are ending their missions, although it is up to the individual units. The relief operations continue, including expanding medical facilities and setting up temporary refugee camps on the outskirts of Port au Prince. All the while, the official death toll continues climbing to well over 110,000. More than 600,000 are homeless.
The US Navy, Coast Guard and Military Sealift Command are continuing to support relief efforts with 30 ships on station or on the way, including the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson and the USNS Comfort hospital ship. While the comfort is in the reserve fleet and doesn't affect operational tempo elsewhere in the world, eventually the Carl Vinson's missions will have to be filled by other aircraft carriers, particularly if a crisis somewhere else in the world occurs.
The Hope for Haiti Relief telethon was held last night and while the stars came out in a rather low-key dressed down manner, I'm surprised that we haven't seen any reports indicating just how much money was raised in the effort. You would think that someone would be interested to know just how successful the effort was. I'd previously given to Doctors Without Borders in support of the relief efforts, and for those who are contemplating donating for the Haiti relief efforts, Congress is preparing legislation to allow donations made from January 11 through March 30 to apply to the 2009 tax year (proof of donation necessary).
Also, one can only hope that some of the lessons from the 2004 Southeast Asian quake and tsunami, which killed more than 210,000 people can be applied to Haiti and how it recovers from this disaster.
Today, most areas swept away by the December 2004 catastrophe have been almost completely rebuilt.
It is possible, aid officials say, that visitors unaware of the Indian Ocean quake and tsunami might visit coastal communities in Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia and not realize what had happened.
"Coming up on five years now, by and large, the obvious effects of the tsunami have been kind of taken away visually," said Jeff Wright, a humanitarian affairs adviser at World Vision. "A lot of the urban areas are rebuilt. Houses are back up, buildings are back up."
Aceh province was closest to the epicenter of the 2004 earthquake and hardest hit, with its capital Banda Aceh was left largely in ruins. Today the city is almost entirely rebuilt with infrastructure better and more durable than what existed previously, said Rod Volway, program director for Mercy Corps' Aceh, Indonesia, project. All that is left to be done, he said, is finish repair of a coastal road.
"Save for particular sites, I cannot recognize the Aceh of today as the one I saw in January 2005 myself," Volway said.
U.N. and nongovernmental relief officials with post-tsunami experience are now heading to Haiti. Even as search crews continue digging for survivors and humanitarian workers struggle to get a handle on aid delivery, planners are working on designs for the rebirth of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.
Building infrastructure better and more durable will have lasting effects on the Haitian economy as well, as it would make the region better able to withstand the hurricanes that regularly sweep through the Caribbean and improve survivability during earthquakes.
At the same time, the tourist industry at Labadee continues, and that's just what the Haitians need -they need the revenues, but Labadee can and should also be utilized to increase the flow of aid into the country.
The USNS Comfort is bouying the Haitian people since it is providing health care that can't be accomplished elsewhere in the country. Many Haitians have received basic first aid onshore, but the Comfort can provide advanced care including the most complicated surgical procedures:
Authorities are worried about sanitation and disease outbreaks in makeshift settlements like the one on the city's central Champs de Mars plaza, said Fritz Longchamp, chief of staff to President Rene Preval.
"The Champ de Mars is no place for 1,000 or 10,000 people," Longchamp told The Associated Press. "They are going to be going to places where they will have at least some adequate facilities."
He said buses would start moving people within a week to 10 days, once new camps are ready. Brazilian U.N. peacekeepers were already leveling land in the suburb of Croix des Bouquets for a new tent city, the Geneva-based intergovernmental International Organization for Migration reported Thursday.
The hundreds of thousands whose homes were destroyed in the Jan. 12 quake had settled in more than 200 open spaces around the city, the lucky ones securing tents for their families, but most living under the tropical sun on blankets, on plastic sheets or under tarpaulins strung between tree limbs.
The announcement came as search-and-rescue teams packed their dogs and gear Thursday, with hopes almost gone of finding any more alive in the ruins. The focus shifted to keeping injured survivors alive, fending off epidemics and getting help to the hundreds of homeless still suffering.
That's just the tip of the iceberg as there are several times that number who are homeless or living in substandard housing. This is a major concern since we're just a few months from the start of hurricane season, and the potential for severe storms hitting the region could lead to additional deaths, devastation and disease unless key infrastructure is in place.
Phase two would involve contracting with companies to rebuild with assistance from the displaced Haitians. Emergency search and rescue crews are starting to pack up since the likelihood of finding survivors grows more remote with each passing day and the grim work of recovering remains can be done by others.
And for all the aid pouring into the country, distributing it to those in need is still problematic.
Meanwhile, the US is using Guantanamo Bay as a central hub for relief efforts, and the US is looking at other ways to utilize its facilities. The US is in the process of clearing a disused runway to prepare it for additional airlift capabilities so helicopters can use it for the less than 200 mile trip to Haiti. A series of tents have already been erected to house up to 10,000 people. Those are temporary measures; a long term process of rebuilding has to lead to significant improvements in the Haitian infrastructure.
UPDATE:
Amazingly, the AP reports that a woman was rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building alive after 10 days.Yet, the situation remains grim for survivors; hundreds of thousands have fled the city, while many of those who remained are being directed to new refugee camps being erected on the outskirts of the city becuse of a fear of the spread of disease in the impromptu camps set up amid the ruins that lack potable water or sewers.
Meanwhile, this report suggests that the worry over the spread of diseases from the remains of the dead that have yet to be buried may be overblown, though there is a realization that with so many dead, it is impractical to hold the bodies for identification when they can start decomposing and become unrecognizable within 24 hours in the tropical heat.
UPDATE:
With so much death and devastation, it's good to know that there are some uplifting stories to report - the first Haitian baby was born aboard the USNS Comfort today. The USS Bunker Hill is providing relief to one of the Haitian islands near the epicenter of the disaster. Many Haitians from Port au Prince had fled to the island and have overwhelmed the services there. LCACs (US air cushioned craft) are bringing supplies ashore in Western Haiti.
Because of untreated injuries, infectious diseases and dismal sanitary conditions, health workers said that the natural disaster that struck Haiti more than a week ago remained a major medical crisis and that, unless quickly controlled, it would continue to take large numbers of lives in the days and weeks ahead.
“There are still thousands of patients with major fractures, major wounds, that have not been treated yet,” said Dr. Eduardo de Marchena, a University of Miami cardiologist who oversaw a tent hospital near the airport where hundreds of severely injured people were being tended. “There are people, many people, who are going to die unless they’re treated.”
For the seriously ill, the chances of surviving may depend on leaving Haiti entirely. On Wednesday morning, a paramedic rushed up to Dr. de Marchena with news of a newborn who had arrived at another clinic in dire condition. After hearing that the baby could barely breathe, Dr. de Marchena said, “Should I get him airlifted to the United States?”
The paramedic hesitated for a moment, and the doctor said, “Do it.” The baby was soon boarded for medical care in Miami.
In the squatter camps now scattered across this capital, there are still people writhing in pain, their injuries bound up by relatives but not yet seen by a doctor eight days after the quake struck. On top of that, the many bodies still in the wreckage increase the risk of diseases spreading, especially, experts say, if there is rain.
If there's a silver lining thus far, it has been that it hasn't rained since the quake, which would have made already intolerable conditions even worse. Yet, we will likely never know the true death toll, where estimates ranged from tens of thousands to 200,000 or more. The lack of infrastructure and that all too many people are still buried in the rubble accounts for the wide range, but it will eventually settle on an accepted figure - all too high for the people of Haiti to bear.
One can only hope that out of this massive crisis, the Haitian people will rebuild with stronger construction that will allow these structures to survive not only quakes, but hurricanes, and that the higher initial costs for better building will be paid back by not having to rebuild after every storm that hits and lower death tolls over time from natural disasters.
CNN has additional updates, including that all Oxfam run site now have running water. They're also reporting that while most food being distributed around the city is nonperishable, some sales of fresh bread and ice are being reported. The US military will station aid representatives at the airport to prioritize flights based on the aid being brought in to streamline operations.
One problem is that some charitable groups are coming to the country so ill-prepared to deal with the disaster and needs, that they're more of a hindrance than a help, particularly if they come without necessary items to be self sufficient and/or bring donated items that aren't critical to relief.
UPDATE:
The US has reopened the port at Port au Prince. That's a critical step in the relief efforts since far more equipment and materials can be delivered by sea than by air.
The Commander of the U.S. Southern Command, General Douglas Fraser, said a U.S. landing craft will enable 150 containers to move through the port Thursday. He said the capacity will grow to at least 250 containers a day Friday when a commercial vessel arrives.
Debris around the port, wrecked roads and congestion at the damaged main airport in the capital have made delivering relief to Haitians difficult.
General Fraser said more than 1,400 flights are on a wait list to land in to Port-au-Prince. He said officials have opened another airport in the Haitian city of Jacmel and two airports in the Dominican Republic to help, but road travel from the sites remains difficult.
Aid workers on the ground in Haiti say they are making progress getting food and water to survivors, but the death toll could increase because of untreated injuries and disease. Now nine days after the quake, they are shifting their focus from search and rescue operations to relief.
A full list of the 30 US Navy, Coast Guard and Military Sealift Command ships deployed to assist in the relief efforts is here.
