[Haiti-London-Konbit] Haiti: Six Months Later

[Haiti-London-Konbit]

Haiti: Six Months Later

There seems to have been a flurry of media reports about Haiti  
commemorating the 6th month anniversary of the earthquake. The general  
picture is one in which only a fraction of the millions of dollars  
donated by the general public and charity organizations has been  
converted into concrete assistance for the people of Haiti. The best  
and most in-depth of these reports is by Amy Goodman for Democracy  
Now. She exlains how despite $11 billion of aid promised Haitians have  
only seen 10 percent of this.

David Muir of ABC news reports that there is still 25 million cubic  
tones of rubble in the streets of Port-au-Prince and that only 10,000  
new shelters have found their way to the 1.7 million homeless, less  
than 10% of that required.

According an article on Haitian-Truth.org one of the causes for the  
delays in the flow of aid are the Customs Authorities who are rumored  
to be charging extortionate import taxes on medical and building  
supplies donated by non-registered charities.

In his interview with Amy Goodman, Patrick Elie, former Secretary of  
State for Public Security in Haiti, claims that the part of the %10  
that has been spent was used to fund the US military security  
operation immediately after the disaster. He believes that without  
vigilance on the part of Haiti and its international friends, what he  
calls the 'Grand-Scale Vultures' of mercenary military corporations -  
such as Haliburton, Black Water, DynCorp - will syphon off most of the  
aid revenue from the international NGO's.

On a postive note he discusses the revival of neighborhood committees  
who have been taking care of public security and organization. There  
has emerged a federation of neighborhood committees that could form  
the basis for a new form of collective organization and politics in  
Haiti.

"We are a people who can fend for ourselves" he says. "We have a  
vision of where we want to go. So we do need friends but we don’t need  
people to think for us, or to pity us. That is probably the attitude  
that’s playing a part in the aid not being forthcoming. Our friends,  
if they are friends, should trust us."

Amy Goodman also interviews Beverly Bell at Camp Corail, a refugee  
built between two killing fields from the Duvalier and post-Aristide  
era seven miles outside Port-au-Prince, in one of the hottest and most  
exposed areas of the country with no natural shelter. The site is  
inhabited by 13,ooo families displaced from makeshift camps in the  
capital -  many forcibly evicted by the Haitian police and MINUSTAH  
forces -  with no transportation back to the city where the only  
meagre food and medical aid is still available. Rape has become a  
serious problem in the camps underling the necessity for secure and  
permanent housing. Food aid and water aid are being discontinued in  
many of the camps after Haitian businessmen claimed that their profits  
are being undercut. There is as yet no clear government plan for the  
rebuilding of Haiti.

One resident from Camp Corail explains how at a meeting with the  
representative of the NGO's responsible for managing the camp refused  
to listen to any of their concerns and he told that they were living  
better now than they were in Port-au-Prince. Residents of the camps  
believe that the aid is still in the hands of the major NGO's who have  
said nothing about the situation and the that President Preval is  
powerless to do anything about this.

Despite the desperate need for adequate housing for the vast majority  
of Haitians and the running dry of food and water aid, several new  
free enterprise zones have been created since the earthquake as part  
of Bill Clinton's plans for Haitian 'reconstruction'. Some of these  
are being built directly in the refugee camps.

Bell outlines an alternative plan for the reconstruction of Haiti that  
is not yet being heard by the international community.
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