Port-au-Prince

Article photos by
Wadner Pierre

One Month after the Earthquake, bureaucracy worsens the situation in Haiti. Because of a lack of leadership, the Haitian government has no control over the distribution of humanitarian aid. In spite of all the millions of dollars that have been raised and sent to Haiti, the majority of earthquake survivors still do not receive help. However, people do keep moving with dignity and a big hope of restarting a new life and putting their country back to work.

Haitian people always show the world that they are a strong people and can rebuild their country no matter how long it will take them. Haiti's reconstruction should and must be done in the interest of Haitian people. One month since the 7.0 earthquake destroyed Haiti's capital and a great part of the south and southeast of the country, the world has mobilized to help the Haitian people. Millions of dollars and tons of medical supplies have been sent to the country through international organizations and large nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). However, the Haitian people do not know to whom they have to turn for help, and they now are asking the following questions:

What are these millions doing for us survivors?
Who is benefitting from these millions?
Who has access to the UN operations center?
Who decides for the Haitian people?

My recent trip to my beloved country, Haiti, helped me and gave me the answers.

Twenty thousand US troops, several thousand Canadian troops, the NGO sector, armored vehicles, US ships, helicopters, and several hundred SUVs or 4WD vehicles are allowing the NGOs' representatives to continue their bureaucracy while Haitian people have no tents, no water, no food, and children are dying because of lack of care.

By Lawyer, Professor, Bill Quigley
Hundreds of thousands of people are living and sleeping on the ground in Port-Au-Prince. Many have no homes, their homes destroyed by the earthquake. I am sleeping on the ground as well - surrounded by nurses, doctors and humanitarian workers who sleep on the ground every night. The buildings that are not on the ground have big cracks in them and fallen sections so no one should be sleeping inside.

There are sheet cities everywhere. Not tent cities. Sheet cities. Old people and babies and everyone else under sheets held up by ropes hooked onto branches pounded into the ground.
With the rainy
season approaching, one of the emergency needs of Haitians is to get tents. I have seen hundreds of little red topped Coleman pup tents among the sheet shelters. There are tents in every space, from soccer fields and parks to actually in the streets. There is a field with dozens of majestic beige tents from Qatar marked Islamic Relief. But real tents are outnumbered by sheet shelters by a ratio of 100 to 1.
Rescues continue but the real emergency remains food, water, health care and shelter for millions.
Though helicopters thunder through the skies, actual relief of food and water and shelter remains minimal to non-existent in most neighborhoods.
Haitians are helping Haitians. Young men have organized into teams to guard communities of homeless families. Women care for their own children as well as others now orphaned. Tens of thousands are missing and presumed dead.
The scenes of destruction boggle the mind. The scenes of homeless families, overwhelmingly little children, crush the heart.

Ciné Institute Director David Belle reports from Port-au-Prince:

"I have been told that much US media coverage paints Haiti as a tinderbox ready to explode. I'm told that lead stories in major media are of looting, violence and chaos. There could be nothing further from the truth.

"I have traveled the entire city daily since my arrival. The extent of damages is absolutely staggering. At every step, at every bend is one horrific tragedy after another; homes, businesses, schools and churches leveled to nothing. Inside every mountain of rubble there are people, most dead at this point. The smell is overwhelming. On every street are people -- survivors -- who have lost everything they have: homes, parents, children, friends.

"NOT ONCE have we witnessed a single act of aggression or violence. To the contrary, we have witnessed neighbors helping neighbors and friends helping friends and strangers. We've seen neighbors digging in rubble with their bare hands to find survivors. We've seen traditional healers treating the injured; we've seen dignified ceremonies for mass burials and residents patiently waiting under boiling sun with nothing but their few remaining belongings. A crippled city of two million awaits help, medicine, food and water. Most haven't received any.

"Haiti can be proud of its survivors. Their dignity and decency in the face of this tragedy is itself staggering."
David Belle, January 17th, 2010
Posted by Wadner Pierre at 10:57

January 30th, 2009

By: Wadner Pierre - HaitiAnalysis.com

What kinds of words do the Haitian people need to hear from President René Préval during these hard times? Do Haitians need the hopeful discourse of US president Barack Obama?

One would think that President Préval, a man with high level government experience dating back to the Aristide administration of 1991, would know how to address the Haitian people. Honesty need not crush hope, and false hope is useless. From the time of slavery Haiti has been plagued by commissions that do nothing for the people. The reason for their failure is simple. They exclude the people who know and care the most about Haiti. Any well intentioned leader must always bear this lesson in mind and ensure that it guides his actions and his words.

On January 1, 2009 in front of the cathedral of Gonaives, Préval gave a speech to the nation to open the year – something countless Haitian presidents (most of them illegitimate unfortunately) have done. Préval gave a mundane speech that highlighted road construction and “dialog”. When parliament opened on January 12, Preval pledged to continue with the “dialogue” that he thinks has brought peace to Haitians.

However, Senator Jean Hector Anacasis from “LESPWA (hope)”, the party of President Préval, announced something more significant. He said that in April a commission would be formed to review the Haitian constitution that would include “all sectors”. However, the Préval administration has already formed commissions that exclude the largest sectors – the peasants and the urban poor.

Time to make money or to help people?

By Wadner Pierre- www.haitianalysis.com

Early in September of 2004, the people of Gonaives, the “city of Independence”, located 152 kilometers north of the capital, Port-au-Prince, woke to the destruction brought by Hurricane Jeanne. Four years after Jeanne killed 3000 people, Gonaives is in agony again.

Hurricane Gustav has devastated southern Haiti: Southeast (Jacmel) department, South department (Les Cayes), Grand’Anse (Jeremie) and Nippes (Miragoane) department. Authorities do not yet have reliable numbers but early reports estimate at least 190 people dead – a death toll that will certainly rise.

Officials say 61 people were killed by Hurricane Hanna, which also just struck Haiti. Twenty one of those dead were found in Gonaives alone.

Hurricane Jeanne ravaged Haiti in 2004 only eight months after the coup that ousted Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Gerard Latortue, head of the UN installed dictatorship and a native of Govaives, received money from all over the world to help Gonaives rebuild. Unfortunately, the victims received very little benefit from the money. Gonaives lies below sea level but levees were never built; many roads have still not been repaired. The meager results obtained with international aid money have produced a widespread belief in Gonaives that Latortue's cronies and corrupt NGOs simply pocketed the money.

In 2004 a young survivor of Hurricane Jeanne talked to a reporter and sarcastically thanked Jeanne for destroying her life by killing off her parents and countless relatives. Today many survive on the rooftops of their homes, and say that the flooding from Hannah is even worse than it was with Jeanne, which left 250,000 Gonaives resident homeless.

People everywhere in the globe, listen the voice of people in Gonaives and in the rest of Haiti. It is hard and it's really hard a sit can be for people. As a Haitian and a Gonaivian man I am very concern, I ask you my brothers and sisters in the world to help my relatives there in the way you can. Haiti is not the most hit by the hurricanes, but we are the most victimized people, cause our political leaders most of them don't care about people live. They care about themselves and they families. Those who want to improve live; they often plot against them and keep the country in perpetual instability politic, that is the way they make money. The loss of sight is more humane than the one presented by the authorities. How they can pretend determine the number of death and disappeared people while they do not have any infrastructures to reach them. After four years, which road has been rebuilt in Gonaives? Therefore, they are happy to steal the money and the aids that people deserve. Once gain, they do not put the real problem of Haiti on the table, particularly Gonaives, where the level of the ocean is higher than the land. Nobody cannot forget what happened in New Orleans in 2005, even this city was protected by levees and after the levees broke, you could see how ravaged was New Orleans by floodwater. Then Gonaives before and after Jeanne the just passed Hanna was not and is not protected by levees. And the worst is, no plan to prevent or to protect the city from another natural disaster as this of Jeanne and Hanna.

By: Wadner Pierre-haitianalysis.com

"On That Day, Everybody Ate: One Woman’s Story of Hope and Possibility in Haiti" is the title of Margaret Trost's newly released book about her experiences in Haiti.

After her husband's untimely death, Mrs. Margaret traveled to Haiti to heal her broken heart by serving others. She was deeply moved by the struggles of the poor and resolved to do all she could to help them. In the year 2000, she founded the What If? Foundation in collaboration with Father Gerard Jean-Juste, a prominent Haitian humanitarian, political activist, and the priest of St. Claire’s Church in Port-au-Prince. He also lived in Florida for many years where he fought for the rights of Haitian immigrants. The Foundation’s mission is to provide food and education to impoverished children in Haiti. Together, Fr. Jean-Juste and Margaret have worked to establish a food program, educational scholarships, and a summer camp for children in the Tiplas Kazo neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. Members of the St. Clare’s community run these programs. The What If? Foundation provides the funding. It is an effective partnership that started small and has grown over the years. On That Day, Everybody Ate tells the story of this remarkable journey.

The What If? Foundation provided the funds to serve the first food program meal at St. Clare’s after mass on Sunday, March 19th 2000 - the day the Catholic Church celebrates Saint Joseph, patron saint of workers. Five hundred children enjoyed a meal that included rice, beans, and vegetables grown by Haitian farmers:

By: Wadner Pierre and Jean-Ristil Jean Baptiste -

Photos
By:Wadner Pierre

HaitiAnalysis.com

Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, a prominent human rights worker and Famni Lavalas activist, has been missing since August 12, 2007. He is the founder of Trant Septanm Organizasyon (September 30 Foundation) an organization that assists victims of the coup that took place September 30th, 1991. That coup ousted Haiti's first democratically elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide only seven months after his inauguration. According to human rights groups there were five thousand people killed by the military regime of Raul Cedras. Thousands were also raped and tortured by the Cedras regime, and hundreds of thousands driven into hiding.

Pierre-Antoine worked with many national and international human rights organizations to promote the rights of all people, particularly the right to justice. The perpetrators of the 1991 coup (the Haitian elite and their ex-military allies) gradually regrouped and in 2004 managed to overthrow Aristide again - this time with the overt backing of the US, France and Canada. In October 2005, at the first “International Tribunal on Haiti” that investigated the 2004 coup, Pierre-Antoine explained to an audience of hundreds in Washington how he had been arrested, assaulted and expelled from the country by authorities at the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince.

Peter Kondrat, one of Haiti's best friends, is no longer with us. May God bless his soul.

I met Peter twice – once in Haiti during 2007 and again about a year later in the United States.

He was a diligent reader of news from and on Haiti's grassroots. I was delighted when Peter told me "I've read your articles on HaitiAnlysis and I really appreciate them". I was very flattered that he called me "a voice of the poor in Haiti."

I was delighted to spend time with Peter, a true friend of Haiti and the poor. He fought for human rights in Haiti. He defended the poor and spent almost all his time in the poorest districts when he visited Haiti.

His love for Haiti allowed him to spend his time in Simon Pele a popular neighborhood near Cite Soleil, He spoke to me in Simon Pele about his frustration at the destruction caused there by his government's actions, but he felt happy that by working from Simon Pale and tell people about what was going on he could at least do something about it.

When I left Haiti in early 2008 to study in the US for a semester he called to congratulate me and to offer his help. Peter leaves Haiti with the impact of his noble volunteer work, which will hopefully lead to a better future.

We are all destined to die but Peter Kondrat will never die in my mind and in the mind of many independent journalists.

"Every man dies, not every man really lives" -BraveHeart

By: Wadner Pierre - HaitiAnalysis.com

Amongst the poor in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, the lack of affordable food is becoming a mounting problem. On tap-taps, colorfully decorated automobiles used for transportation by the poor, one can hear this discussion daily. Conversations on the tap-taps are referred to as "Radio thirty two".

Many poor Haitians have taken to referring meanwhile to hunger as "Klorox", a reference to a bleach which can kill people if enough of it is swallowed. Riding the tap-tap one hears references to "Klorox" when people mean hunger, a code word to mask the daily misery.

Recently, international headlines have paid attention to hunger in Haiti, where people resort to eating mud pies.

During the 1980s, due to pressure from the United States government, the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier wiped out the creole pigs (porca) that were indigenous to Haiti. After that catastrophic policy, peasants struggled more than ever to feed their children and to take them to school. The pigs were crucial to the rural economy, the "bank account" of the peasants. The problems were compounded by neo-liberal policies first implemented by the military government of Henry Namphy and continually pressured upon the country over the following decades. Trade liberalization meant that food imports undercut farmers who were also denied the means to invest in their production.