Georgianne Nienaber: The Disaster Accountability Project (DAP) released an online petition Friday, targeting leaders of major disaster relief and aid organizations for failing to do more to prevent the cholera outbreak in Haiti
Twitter Cholera Confusion in Haiti: Was NGO Apology Necessary?
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Georgianne Nienaber: In retrospect, the inadvertent mix-up in the Twitter account of the geographical locations LaGonave and Gonaive is completely understandable. The fact that it caused such a flurry in Haiti and enraged an epidemiological NGO competing for the same slice of the funding pie–is unfortunate and speaks to a deeper disconnect and lack of trust.
Haiti: Ground Truthing Cholera in Mirebalais
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Georgianne Nienaber: In very worrisome news Tuesday, the Haitian Health Ministry estimated that the cholera outbreak in Haiti is resulting in an average of 32 deaths every 24 hours since the epidemic began on October 20
Haiti: Testimony From Camp Corail as Cholera Looms
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Georgianne Nienaber: On Monday, the Haitian Ministry of Population (MSPP) released new figures indicating at least 8,138 cholera patients and 544 deaths in five regions or “departments.”
Time to Rebrand Haiti’s Tent Cities as Tomas Approaches
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Georgianne Nienaber: Haiti’s Potemkin village, the Camp Corail-Cesselesse relocation camp, is not safe. With the approach of Tomas, which is morphing daily from tropical storm to hurricane and back again, Haitian officials are urging the 7,850 residents of its flagship camp to evacuate and “find different locations.”
Haiti: Cholera Outbreak Metaphor for No Accountability
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Georgianne Nienaber: It will be astounding to see the media coverage of this event, should it unfold in all its potential horror, but where has the media been since the six-month anniversary in July?
Bill Clinton Puts Influential Muscle Behind Agricultural Production in Haiti
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Georgianne Nienaber: Given the huge remaining humanitarian and economic crisis facing Haiti, it is puzzling that mainstream media in the United States short-changed coverage of former President Bill Clinton’s early August visit to Leogane. The symbolism is significant, considering that Leogane and the nearby village of Fayette are at the epicenter of the 7.0 quake.
On Reading the Sunday Paper
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Ron Wolff: Like many people, I get some of my news these days from blogs. But I still read a daily newspaper. Had I not, I might have missed several key reports.
Report Questions NGO Accountability in Haiti
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Georgianne Nienaber: A new report by the Disaster Accountability Project (DAP), there is a “shocking lack of transparency” by relief organizations that have received upwards of $1.3 billion for Haiti aid.
“Stop Feeding on Haiti’s Suffering”
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Georgianne Nienaber: Haiti is not waving at America. Haiti has the professional expertise to help itself, if only given the opportunity and monetary support to do so. Yes, accountability is needed, but for USAID to suggest that “aid professionals” are the only entities that can accomplish this is not true. Haiti is not an abandoned infant, needing a savior. Abandoned by the international banking community, yes, but fully capable of taking care of her people if given the resources to do so.
Haiti: “Americans Can See Exactly the Way We Live”
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Georgianne Nienaber: Writing about the shattered hopes and dreams of the Haitian people is like trying to describe the movements of a symphony to a hearing-impaired person. How does one separate the elements of the whole, the hundreds of conversations, pleas, and stories that assault the senses, while explaining to an indifferent world that they must open their eyes because the cries of the Haitian people are certainly falling on deaf ears?
Misery, Fear, Loss, and Confusion in Haiti Four Months After the Quake
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Georgianne Nienaber: As she knelt with her back to the writer, the Grandmother stopped the smoothing, stopped the straightening, and grew very quiet. Her shoulders began to heave and it was obvious she was wracked with sobs. The task was hopeless and the Creole cries were soft at first and then became a wail. Not knowing what else to do, the writer sat down in the water and touched the back of the elegant Grandmother.
Haiti: Naomi Campbell’s Shot at Real Heroism
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Georgianne Nienaber: Health care in Haiti before the earthquake was inadequate. Now many health care workers have been killed, others have left the country and those that remain are overwhelmed not only with delivering care, but also with putting their own lives back together and dealing with friends and family who lost everything in the quake. So what happens? Predictably, the international NGOs roll in and force the closure of part of the established infrastructure. Why? One would suspect so that they can garner a part of the billions in funding promised by the UN donor conference.
Voices From Haiti: “God, We Have Not Heard You for a Long Time”
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Georgianne Nienaber: Religious fundamentalists have long attempted to make sense of human suffering by twisting the existential argument and blaming suffering upon the victim. How Haitians have managed to avoid incorporation of shame into their collective psyche is truly a wonder.
Haiti: Time for an NGO Police?
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Georgianne Nienaber: Keenan is especially critical of NGOs that “overstate what they have done since the quake. They want their names stamped all over this (disaster).” What she says is true. The logos of international “charitable” organizations are more numerous than the number of tents in the IDP camps. Make no mistake about it charity is “corporate business” in Haiti.
Haiti: “All the Resources Are in the Wrong Place”
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Georgianne Nienaber: Relief efforts are limping along. There are thousands of foreign NGOs on the ground, but no overall organized effort to distribute aid. Compounding the problem is the fact that IDP camps are springing up overnight, and rural areas face a different set of problems than those faced in the city of Port-au-Prince.
Haitian Women: Rea Dol vs. the Republic of NGOs
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Georgianne Nienaber: Needs are many. Temporary classrooms are a must, but tents are impossible to come by here. The current school will never be used, but the field is secured at 83 Delmas Road. She needs $20,000 to pay it off completely. Haitian officials have promised tents, but it is doubtful they will arrive.
Haiti: Eight Weeks After the Quake and Words Fail
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Georgianne Nienaber: So, the writer does what writers do and steps back, walking alone and searching for vowels and consonants that might describe what is unseen and impossible to understand. Then something happens that challenges the morality and duty of the writer. There is something on the ground that does not fit the pattern of stones and vegetation. A pelvis attached to a spinal column is lying in the open. Pieces of ribs, a wrist and a forearm are nearby. The writer knows it is human but wants it to be something else. It is familiar and something she has seen before.
Remittances Will Help Haiti Recover and Strengthen U.S. Economy
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Michele Wasdin: It is simplistic to argue that remittances are bad because money is leaving the U.S., but upon further analysis, it becomes clear that remittances return to the U.S. in the form of increased exports. Remittances give individuals in foreign countries the ability to buy U.S. goods and the ability to invest in themselves which, in turn, allows them to buy even more U.S. goods.
Haiti Reminds Us of the Poverty at Home
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David A. Love: It is unfortunate that it took an earthquake to put the spotlight back on poverty in Haiti. To be sure, the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that leveled Port-au-Prince would have been devastating under any circumstances. But the people of Haiti had been suffering for years. The difference is that no one cared, because people often become weary hearing about black people suffering.
Will Faith-Based Agencies Help Haiti’s Gay Community?
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Rev. Irene Monroe: It is my hope that the many conservative faith-based groups and organizations that are now part of Haiti’s earthquake relief effort will not discriminate against Haiti’s LGBTQ community as many of them did toward New Orleans’s queer communities during Katrina.
Replacing International Oppression with International Aid
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Lawrence Wittner: So why should humanitarian aid be extraordinary? Why not make it routine? Long before the earthquake, Haitians were the poorest people in the hemisphere, suffering from widespread hunger, disease, and illiteracy. Could not the United States — the richest nation in the world with a public whose major anxieties (to judge from the vast attention given to weight loss) seem to result from over-eating — manage to share a bit of its affluence by regularly providing food aid to starving Haitians?
Mark Krikorian: Haiti’s So Screwed Up Because It Wasn’t Colonized Long Enough
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Andrea Nill: Krikorian hit a new intellectual low yesterday when he suggested that the reason Haiti is “so screwed up” (though apparently not screwed up enough), is because it’s home to a “progress-resistant culture” that simply “wasn’t colonized long enough”
Media Coverage of Haitian Earthquake Can’t Go There
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Joseph Palermo: When the television cameras stop whirring and the famous correspondents leave Haiti and move on to the next Tiger Woods scandal, we should take a hard look at the power relations between the United States and Haiti that not only tolerated but helped create the Western Hemisphere’s best known economic, medical, political, judicial, educational, and ecological disaster long before the natural disaster hit.
Can the New Administration Keep Canada as an Ally in Afghanistan?
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As Barack Obama looks abroad for allies in the war in Afghanistan, he should move fast to put Canada at the top of his list. Thus far, however, the incoming administration’s message to Canadians has been disappointing. The principal problem is Obama’s use of Defense Secretary Robert Gates as his primary recruiter of Canadian support. [...]
Who Should Obama Look to for Advice?: Jimmy Carter
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At the request of President-elect Barack Obama, President George W. Bush convened an awkward meeting of all living former presidents at the White House to meet, and presumably give advice and encouragement to, the new guy. The body language of the participants in the summit photo, taken in the Oval Office, said it all. The [...]
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