As donors plot, misery continues for Haiti quake survivors

While the vultures are beginning to circle over the money that “donor countries” are planning to pour into Haiti, hundreds of thousands of homeless Haitians — estimates vary between 400,000 and 1.5 million — are trying to survive heavy, violent, tropical downpours that are turning their camps into pools of water and mud.

According to USAID, there are approximately 600,000 displaced people living in 416 makeshift camps in Port-au-Prince. Hundreds of thousands fled to areas not hit by the Jan. 12 earthquake, but some of them are returning because even the meager relief available is only provided in the capital.

The Associated Press reported that during the heavy rains on March 19, in the camp housing over 45,000 people on the site of the former Port-au-Prince golf course, the screams of people knocked off their feet and swept away by the swirling water and mud could be heard over the noise of the rain. No one was reported killed.

Pictures of the encampments show many families using bedsheets, rags, scraps of wood and plastic bags to build their shelters, though a number of people have gotten tents.

Partners In Health Executive Director Ophelia Dahl, who recently returned from Haiti, said at a press conference March 5: “We witnessed hundreds of thousands of people living in makeshift temporary shelters; spontaneous settlements made of scraps of cardboard and plastic bags. What little people have is soaked, because they’re sleeping in the rain, and the makeshift shelters are already breaking down and dissolving. The conditions for the homeless and displaced people are absolutely inhumane and getting worse every single day.”

The United Nations has scheduled a “donors conference for Haiti” on March 31 at its headquarters in New York. A “preliminary damage and needs assessment” (PDNA) was drawn up at a conference held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on March 16 and 17.

The preliminary estimate was that to restore Haiti would take $11.5 billion, with 50 percent of that being used for social programs, 17 percent for infrastructure and 15 percent for environmental and disaster analysis. (Christian Science Monitor, March 17)

A number of commentators from liberal newspapers and Web sites have pointed out that donor promises are rarely kept — 25 percent is the normal level. But a widely representative group of Haitian NGOs and community groups, ranging from peasant organizations and women’s organizations to community-based associations, issued a condemnation of how this PDNA was formulated. (AlterPress, March 18)

This statement charges, “The formulation of the PDNA ... comes from a process characterized by a quasi-total exclusion of Haitian civil society and the weak and uncoordinated participation of the representatives of the Haitian government.”

It continues, “The path traced by this PDNA for the reconstruction of Haiti cannot satisfy the expectations of the Haitian people because this process is not conceived to promote development, just restoration, while the context in Haiti demands a complete reorientation of the development model.”

In other words, the PDNA is designed to restore a capitalist state in Haiti but the Haitian people need a better model.

There is an ongoing discussion in the Haitian community in New York about holding a demonstration at the U.N. against this conference on March 31.