Todd Shea Reports from Haiti

By John Ballard

Today is Sunday..
This is the MLK remembrance weekend.
And via Abbas Raza and Facebook today's Epistle is from Todd Shea. I recall hearing about him after last year's earthquake in Pakistan and seeing the video embedded below. 

...The collective official response should have been completely on-track by today. As usual, many big shots are failing to think selflessly and share their financial, operational resources with smaller but super-effective agencies- acting like they are the only game in town and the smaller agencies are merely a nuisance underfoot that should just be ignored. This attitude is is not helping anyone. Quite frankly, I would have thought some of them would have learned an important lesson from other disasters where some of the same mistakes were made.

Here's the bottom line: If things don't start improving very rapidly, then life and limb-threatening infections and deadly dehydration and unnecessary conflict will likely emerge within the affected population on a scale that has the potential of becoming rampant and widespread, resulting in more death and injury that could still be avoided, though time is fast running out. The current path to giving Haiti the relief it desperately needs is simply taking way too long in developing in order to be a reasonable and defensible short term emergency strategy. Each country should, by now, be realizing that it is very much the correct option would be to stage multiple and overwhelmingly robust and well managed multi-national supply lines and helicopter sorties using locations and bases other than Port Au Prince Airport, particularly from the Dominican Republic through the border near Jumani, D.R.   It's 7-10 hours by road (depending on the kind of vehicle and size of the load), but it's a darn good road compared to the roads in the Pakistan earthquake affected areas that I've been traveling on for the past four years. Distributing aid from several points over a more widespread area can reach far more people far more quickly.

I have been struck from the outset why media reports have made little or no reference to the Dominican Republic, the country at the other end of Hispaniola. My suspicions about racism grow with every passing day but at the moment those thoughts have to wait. I make note, however, so that this ingredient will not be overlooked in any retrospective analysis of all that is happening at the moment.

Todd makes no reference to racism but he clearly indicates that the DR route may be a more helpful logistical approach than what is being emphasized in the media.

Some ground rules for volunteers: Only call me if it's important (I should have a working number in Haiti in less than 24 hours), Any teams or individuals need to provide me with Name, DOB, Passport Number, Occupation/Specialty/Skills, flight numbers (with dates and times), I need to be given the date that you plan to fly back (or make me aware if you are deploying indefinitely). In the interest of proper communication and coordination, give me as much notice of ALL flight info as soon as possible. Rember that deployment strategies and ground realities from day to day and often several times a day, and know that you are entering one of the most tragic, toxic, difficult and challenging environments (in every way you can imagine) that you will ever encounter. Medical Teams shoud deploy out of Santo Domingo and not Santiago. Santiago is closer to the border. And a request to the U.S. Government: please set a up a large helicopter supply and medivc operation out of the Barahona airport, in the Dominican Republic, only about an hour or so from the Hatian border by road. It's a beautiful but horribly under-utilized in this disaster response. It has decent airfield capabilities and has a 3,000 meter runway.

As in other disaster reports from all over the world, the magnitude of this tragedy takes out breath away. International responses from media, humanitarian and political groups get faster and more responsible with each one.

Regardless of anyone's political leanings, the image of three elected presidents closing ranks to help in this time of Hatian distress is powerful and instructive. I would be more impressed to see a similar closing of ranks including Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the current official Haitian government. Unfortunately, an attempt to avert that very scenario may be partly inspiring the altruism of all three presidents. I find it interesting that the other President Bush and Jimmy Carter are conspicuous in their absence, even for photo ops and official press releases. But that's just the musings of a suspicious old guy blogging.

Read Todd Shea's letter in full and allow his words to inspire you to do something positive to help.

Kalsoom at CHUP! -- Changing Up Pakistan posted this Friday.

Brings Us to Our Knees

On Thursday, Dawn reported that rescue workers recovered 16 bodies from under rubble in Kamsaar Village, just north of Muzzafarabad in Pakistan-Administered Kashmir. The people, traveling in a passenger coach, were reportedly trapped in the earthquake that struck Kashmir in 2005, a natural disaster that killed about 74,500 people and injured over 100,000 in the region.

It has been over four years since one of Pakistan’s most devastating earthquakes and we are still recovering victims. We still bear the scars of the thousands of lives lost. And yet, despite the fact that man-made conflict prevails throughout the world, that discrimination and violence have torn countries apart, nature has the power to bring us all to our knees. In the aftermath of earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and cyclones, we come together.

[...]
Watching the news, I was reminded of similar scenes that played out in the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan , when residents in Islamabad pitched in to help lift bricks and rubble in F-10, helping recover survivors from a collapsed apartment building. Hundreds of people collected blankets, food, tents, and clothes for the people displaced in Kashmir. Similar scenarios also took place following the tsunami in 2004, a disaster that killed nearly 230,000 people in 14 countries.

In the aftermath of Haiti, the global response and attention has been overwhelming. President Obama has promised $100 million in aid, and said the U.S. would grant “every element of our national capacity, our diplomacy and development assistance, the power of our military and most importantly, the compassion of our country” to Haiti.

[...]

We shouldn’t have to ask why we should help Haiti. But if Pakistanis need a reason, we don’t have to look very far. Pakistan’s renowned philanthropist, Abdul Sattar Edhi has pledged $500,000 via the Edhi Foundation to relief efforts, and will reportedly travel to the country, (via Twitter user @curry_crayola). Given our own experiences with natural disasters, the Haiti earthquake should serve as a reminder about how connected we are, and how much we can do even in our small capacity.

This beautiful You Tube portrait of Haiti in better times makes tears come to my eyes as I watch.

Newshogger's KAT furnishes these links.

►"Haiti is a country privatized by its ruin." That's from Joe Mozingo in a comprehensive op-ed in the Chicago Trib. Excellent.

►Julia Llewellyn Smith, author of Travels Without my Aunt, has a short piece in the London Times.

...when I visited Haiti, following in Greene’s footsteps for my book Travels Without my Aunt, I discovered that most Haitians regarded the Duvalier era as a golden age of law and order. “In Duvalier’s time we could sleep easy in our beds. Now there is no discipline,” one friend told me.

Port-au-Prince already looked as if it had been razed by an earthquake. The shack-lined roads were potholed and buckled and cars swerved constantly to avoid open sewers and vast, rat-infested mountains of rubbish.

Haiti’s tiny elite, a handful of Lebanese and mulatto billionaire families who ran the country’s only thriving industry — cocaine smuggling — lived in the now devastated hilltop suburb of Pétionville, served by restaveks — child slaves purchased from starving parents — and dining on imported French steaks and wines.

The view from their mansions was one of unending slums, which even Mother Teresa, that connoisseur of misery, called “Fifth World”. Beyond lay a cesspit Caribbean, too polluted to swim in, and behind were barren brown mountains that were completely deforested. Haitians stole topsoil from the neighbouring Dominican Republic so they could grow something to feed their children.

Under its French rulers, Haiti was the richest colony in the world. But a voodoo priest led the slaves in rebellion and in 1804 it became the world’s first black republic.

Terrified that other slaves would follow, America treated it as a pariah. The new rulers neglected their infant country for endless power struggles. Before Duvalier took over there had been 22 revolutions. Since his death in 1971, one corrupt government has followed another. Unemployment is 75%; the sole growth industries are kidnapping, prostitution and drug dealing.

The headline reads "Voodoo is the only escape..."

Talk about Voodoo won't do much to reassure the ignorant following of many American Teavangelicals, but as part of the challenge, it must be faced and dealt with.

►BBC reporter Mark Doyle reports from outside Port-au-Prince. "The destruction here is even more dramatic than the dreadful conditions in the capital."  Video at the link.