Haiti: Growing anger, misery six months after earthquake

Conditions are worsening daily for the 1.5 million people in Haiti living in tents or under oilcloth tarps on the streets of Port-au-Prince, Leôgane or Jacmel. Food distributions in the 1,368 U.N.-recognized camps have stopped since the work programs that pay people for removing debris by hand have spread. However, many people are hungry and have insufficient food. If you can’t work, you don’t eat.

The free distribution of water to the camps, which involved waiting on long lines in the broiling sun for small rations of barely potable water, is being opposed by private water vendors because it cuts into their profits. The camps don’t have electricity, not even flashlights, and no sanitation. Many of the clinics that were set up after the catastrophic earthquake have been closed.

One of seven Haitians is homeless.

Beverly Bell, who has lived and worked in Haiti on and off for 30 years, compares the situation in Haiti to post-Katrina New Orleans. However, in Haiti it’s as though poor people are still trapped in the Superdome and the Arena after six months, fed and given water sporadically, sharing temporary sanitation facilities with thousands of people.

Father Wismith Lazard, head of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Haiti, told Haïti-Liberté, “Now is the time for the Haitian government, the international community, and the U.N. agencies to concretely address these problems — having enough to eat, education, sanitation and the other social needs of the most vulnerable sectors of society, including those living in the non-official camps.” (July 14)

For the fortunate few, those with money whose houses survived, conditions in Port-au-Prince are picking up. Children are back at private schools, people are playing games on the streets, and restaurants are playing music. The water company supplies water every two days. Meanwhile, men and women in the work-to-eat program are removing the debris in these areas.

According to former President Bill Clinton, who is the special U.N. envoy to Haiti and co-chair of the Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti, less than 10 percent of the $5.3 billion in international aid that was promised to Haiti has been paid. (New York Times, July 9) It should be remembered that Clinton did nothing to aid the Haitian people during his presidency.

U.S. $1.5 billion pledged, not paid

The U.S.-pledged $1.5 billion still has not been paid. Even Sri Mulyani Indrawati, managing director of the World Bank, reports that less than $100 million of the billions promised have been sent to the World Bank’s Haiti account. (NYT, July 15)

Without substantial, steadily flowing aid, the fancy plans and documents posted on the ICRH web site — which are almost entirely in English, not in Creole or French, the official languages of Haiti — are worthless.

Beyond aid, there is the ever-pressing problem of debris. U.N. consultants estimate that less than 2 percent of the rubble from the earthquake in Port-au-Prince has been removed. The Haitian government gives the excuse that there is no place to put it. Haitian landlords, members of Haiti’s rapacious bourgeoisie, want bigger crumbs from the booty the big imperialists want to extract from the Haitian masses and the humanitarian aid they have been promised.

As has been the case throughout Haiti’s history, protests regularly occur. The masses have not been silent during this vicious assault on their very existence. Many have marched to demand housing for the displaced, education, agricultural production and to protest nonpayment of state workers and teachers’ salaries.

They continue to protest violence by MINUSTAH, the U.N. security mission that replaced the occupation of U.S., French and Canadian troops. A massive demonstration protested Monsanto’s “gift” of genetically modified seeds, which are designed to subvert Haitian agriculture.

Fanmi Lavalas protest on July 15

Fanmi Lavalas called a big demonstration on July 15 to mark the 57th birthday of ousted democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Thousands marched six miles under the hot sun from his home in Tabarre to the ruined National Palace in the center of Port-au-Prince, which is near a major squalid camp on the Champ de Mars.

The protesters chanted, “If Aristide was in Haiti, we would not be in this disgusting situation. We would be sending our kids to school. We would have a place to live. Unlike Préval, he wouldn’t have sold the country to foreigners. Préval must go.” (Haïti-Liberté, July 26).

The marchers focused their anger at Préval because he has sold the country out to the U.S., Canadian and French imperialists by passing unjust laws, scorning the needs of the masses and denying Fanmi Lavalas — the largest political party in the country — the right to participate in the November elections.

Beyond help with their immediate physical needs and rebuilding, the people of Haiti need political solidarity in their struggle against the imperialists who are maneuvering to drain their country of every resource.