By BJ Bjornson
Politics always does seem to rear its ugly head no matter the situation, doesn’t it?
The US military's takeover of emergency operations in Haiti has triggered a diplomatic row with countries and aid agencies furious at having flights redirected.
Brazil and France lodged an official protest with Washington after US military aircraft were given priority at Port-au-Prince's congested airport, forcing many non-US flights to divert to the Dominican Republic.
Brasilia warned it would not relinquish command of UN forces in Haiti, and Paris complained the airport had become a US "annexe", exposing a brewing power struggle amid the global relief effort. The Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières also complained about diverted flights.
. . .
Frustration over aid bottlenecks among donors became tinged by national rivalry as it became clear the US was taking ownership of the crisis. A vanguard of more than 1,000 US troops was on the ground and 12,000 were expected in the region by today, including marines aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson which anchored offshore as a "floating airport".
. . .
The UN mission, which had a 9,000-strong peacekeeping force in Haiti before the quake, seemed too stunned by its own losses to take control. Its dead include its Tunisian head, Hédi Annabi, his Brazilian deputy, Luiz Carlos da Costa, and the acting police commissioner, Doug Coates, a Canadian.
It’s easy to say that one should put aside politics in cases like this, but such concerns are always with us.
I don’t know whether or not the de facto annexation of the airport by the U.S. is really a bad thing. My understanding was that the situation was far too chaotic prior to the U.S. takeover to the extent it was creating even more problems for the relief effort. Somebody has to be in charge, and the U.S. has both the equipment and manpower available (even if not necessarily easily available) to do the job. I haven’t seen that anyone else does on the kind of scale that’s required.
In any case, it appears that Secretary Clinton and President Obama have their work cut out for them smoothing over ruffled feathers before the diplomatic row becomes more serious and starts really affecting aid delivery.
BJ you forgot to mention that our li' Steven is desperately trying to gets his share of the humanitarian glory for this disaster by calling a meeting in Montreal to try to take the reins of the funding initiative. Of course I thinking he is just hoping Canadians will forget his and our weeping GGs most recent abrogation of our so-called democracy.
ReplyDeleteMe I have no doubt it'll go over well with the Tim Bit crew to whom Steve likes to pander and no doubt his spin machine will be trumpeting that it was good to prorogue Parliament so Steve can do god's work - oh that god character certainly works in mysterious ways.
I can hardly believe we read the same article.
ReplyDeleteThe emphasis, in the article I read, was on the fact that the aid agencies - and most of the governments - were trying to deliver food, water, and other relief to the Haitian populace, while the US military's priority had turned to getting their boots on the ground there -- which is why US flights suddenly took priority over everyone elses.
geoff
ReplyDeleteHarper has already said he thinks Parliament and answering to all of those elected folks is a pesky obstacle to him doing "important work", and using everything and anything to further his political fortunes is just par for the course for that crew.
Kat,
We did get different impressions. While I respect the aid agencies like Doctors Without Borders, it doesn't mean they have an overall handle on the logistics of the situation. Everybody wants to get their stuff on the ground, and the simple fact remains that there simply isn't the infrastructure to support them all. It creates bottlenecks, and someone has to deal with that. It may be that the U.S. is abusing that position, but the article provides no real proof of that.
As for the French and Brazilians, on the other hand, their complaint seems wholly based on the fact that they haven't been given more prominent leadership roles in the recovery efforts. France as the former colonial power and Brazil as the current UN mission leader. More about showing how their efforts are paying off rather than how the overall effort is going. It also says very little about their actual capacity to provide said leadership and ramp up their personnel to the extent the Americans have.
Now, there is, on my cynical side, a suspicion that this is also about today's rescuers being tomorrow's lucrative reconstruction contractors, which would be par for the course as well. However, that's tomorrow's problem, and again one to be dealt with on the diplomatic level.