Earthquake Survivors Dying as Aid Struggles to Reach Haiti
The distribution of humanitarian supplies to Haiti is being hampered by infrastructure damage, blocked roads and severed communication lines. Reports are that those who survived Tuesday’s massive earthquake are now dying in huge numbers, and clean water, food and medical supplies are desperately needed. Dead bodies lie everywhere on the streets, and the Red Cross says it has run out of body bags. The Red Cross in Port-au-Prince estimates the dead at 50,000. Three million more—one third of Haiti’s population—had been hurt or left homeless.


Red Cross: Up to 50,000 Feared Dead in Haiti; Pan American Health Organization says 50,000-100,000 Dead
Aid groups are struggling to reach desperate Haitians as time is running out to reach survivors trapped beneath the rubble of devastated Port-au-Prince. On Thursday, Haitian President René Préval said some 7,000 people have already been buried in a mass grave. Corpses are piled up on the streets, with hundreds of bodies just outside the city’s morgue. The death toll may be as high as 50,000 to 100,000 people, the Pan American Health Organization said on Friday.
"A variety of sources are estimating the numbers (at) between 50,000 and 100,000," Jon Andrus of PAHO, the Americas arm of the World Health organization, told a news briefing. The Red Cross says preliminary figures indicate a death toll of between 45,000 to 50,000. This is Haitian Emergency Services Coordinator Evans Lescouflair.
Evans Lescouflair: “Yesterday evening we recovered between 3,000 and 5,000 bodies, but because of what happened, there are more bodies to be found in the rubble. There are some who are seriously injured who are also dying. And tomorrow we are going to conduct an effective evaluation—names of the dead, numbers of disappeared. It is very difficult. Many buildings have fallen—the National Palace, ministries, colleges, universities and hotels.”

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes said the toll could remain unknown for a long while.

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes: “It will be some time, days, maybe even weeks, before we have really reliable figures on the number of dead and injured. I know that’s very frustrating for you. It’s not easy for us. The important point for us is that there are very large numbers of casualties of both dead and injured, more than we can easily deal with at the moment. So the exact number doesn’t make any difference to our response, frankly.”


WFP: Food Supplies Looted in Port-au-Prince
Aid is slowly beginning to trickle in more than forty-eight hours after the earthquake struck. Aid flights were diverted for over five hours Thursday because of a lack of space and fuel at the Port-au-Prince airport. Earlier today, the World Food Programme said its Port-au-Prince warehouses had been looted. The United Nations is planning to make an appeal today for $550 million in emergency aid. The first US troops have begun to arrive in Haiti, the first wave of an expected deployment of over 5,500 US forces. On Thursday, President Obama said the US would contribute a first installment of $100 million in aid to Haiti.

President Obama: “The first wave of our rescue and relief workers arrived on the ground yesterday. Search and rescue teams are now working around the clock to save lives. More waves of major assets are going to be arriving. This morning, I announced an immediate investment of $100 million to support our relief efforts in the early days of this crisis. Most of this is for the basics—life saving equipment, food, water, medicine. This investment will grow over the year as we help our neighbors embark on what is going to be a long-term recovery.”


Naomi Klein Issues Haiti Disaster Capitalism Alert: Stop Them Before They Shock Again
NAOMI KLEIN: As I write about in The Shock Doctrine, crises are often used now as the pretext for pushing through policies that you cannot push through under times of stability. Countries in periods of extreme crisis are desperate for any kind of aid, any kind of money, and are not in a position to negotiate fairly the terms of that exchange.

And I just want to pause for a second and read you something, which is pretty extraordinary. I just put this up on my website. The headline is “Haiti: Stop Them Before They Shock Again.” This went up a few hours ago, three hours ago, I believe, on the Heritage Foundation website.
“Amidst the Suffering, Crisis in Haiti Offers Opportunities to the U.S. In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the image of the United States in the region.” And then goes on.

Now, I don’t know whether things are improving or not, because it took the Heritage Foundation thirteen days before they issued thirty-two free market solutions for Hurricane Katrina. We put that document up on our website, as well. It was close down the housing projects, turn the Gulf Coast into a tax-free free enterprise zone, get rid of the labor laws that forces contractors to pay a living wage. Yeah, so it took them thirteen days before they did that in the case of Katrina. In the case of Haiti, they didn’t even wait twenty-four hours.

Now, why I say I don’t know whether it’s improving or not is that two hours ago they took this down. So somebody told them that it wasn’t couth. And then they put up something that was much more delicate. Fortunately, the investigative reporters at Democracy Now! managed to find that earlier document in a Google cache. But what you’ll find now is a much gentler “Things to Remember While Helping Haiti.” And buried down there, it says, “Long-term reforms for Haitian democracy and its economy are also badly overdue.”
But the point is, we need to make sure that the aid that goes to Haiti is, one, grants, not loans. This is absolutely crucial. This is an already heavily indebted country. This is a disaster that, as Amy said, on the one hand is nature, is, you know, an earthquake; on the other hand is the creation, is worsened by the poverty that our governments have been so complicit in deepening. Crises—natural disasters are so much worse in countries like Haiti, because you have soil erosion because the poverty means people are building in very, very precarious ways, so houses just slide down because they are built in places where they shouldn’t be built. All of this is interconnected. But we have to be absolutely clear that this tragedy, which is part natural, part unnatural, must, under no circumstances, be used to, one, further indebt Haiti, and, two, to push through unpopular corporatist policies in the interests of our corporations. And this is not a conspiracy theory. They have done it again and again.


“Bush Was Responsible for Destroying Haitian Democracy”–Randall Robinson on Obama Tapping Bush to Co-Chair US Relief Efforts
President Obama announced he has asked former President George W. Bush and former President Bill Clinton to co-chair the US relief effort in Haiti. During his first term, Bush cut off desperately needed aid to Haiti and supported the overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Bush’s father, former President George H.W. Bush, supported the first coup against Aristide in 1991. Clinton, meanwhile, helped restore Aristide, but only on condition that he accept harsh neoliberal conditions. Aristide, meanwhile, spoke out yesterday from exile in South Africa.

Randall Robinson is author of An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, from Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President. On President Obama tapping former President Bill Clinton and former President George W Bush to co-chair US relief efforts in Haiti, Robinson says, “Bush was responsible for destroying Haitian democracy…Clinton has largely sponsored a program of economic development that supports the idea of sweatshops… but that is not what we should focus on now. We should focus on saving lives.”



NBA’s Only Haitian-Born Player Samuel Dalembert Donates

Samuel Dalembert

$100,000 in Support of Relief Efforts
Samuel Dalembert, the only Haitian-born player in the National Basketball Association and the starting center for the Philadelphia 76ers, is working to raise funds for relief efforts in Haiti. He is the founder of the Samuel Dalembert Foundation, which has teamed with UNICEF, the Red Cross and Feed the Children to support humanitarian aid to his home country.



Exiled in South Africa, Arisitide Says He Wants to Return to Haiti to “Help Rebuild the Country, Moving from Misery to Poverty with Dignity”
Ousted Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide spoke out yesterday from exile in South Africa. “We feel deeply and profoundly that we should be there, in Haiti, with them, trying our best to prevent death,” Aristide said. “As far as we are concerned, we are ready to leave today, tomorrow, at any time, to join the people of Haiti, to share in their suffering, help rebuild the country, moving from misery to poverty with dignity.”


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