Reporting from Haiti
You have to be in Haiti to see for yourself that no where in Port-au-Prince are troops present or actively helping survivors.
No Aid In Port-au-Prince
I have been driving all week around Port-au-Prince taking photos of the destroyed homes and buildings and as I’ve gone from one end of this city to the other, the US is military is only found at the airport — nice and secured behind those gates.
Meanwhile, the UN and its white Jeeps are driving all around this city, but I haven’t seen them stop at any particular location to give food or water. Where is all the aid going, if any?
Michel David Stephan is a 22-year-old Haitian university student who has not been able to continue his studies because the campus has been badly damaged. I asked him what he thought of the UN.
“We call them ‘tourists’ because they don’t do nothing,” Stephan told me.
I also asked Stephan what he thought of the US military.
“They are tourists too, they only come to take pictures,” he said.
The only people present and actively helping on the ground are members of relief organizations, but there aren’t enough of them.
As a journalist my job is to try to provide answers, but I find myself scratching my head too. The troops are not seen at the tent cities or shanty towns — are they tanning at the beach? That’s a big maybe.
In many parts of Port-au-Prince you see people selling and providing services. They are trying to go back to a normal life, but right next to a bank, there is a tent city and when you drive around at night, you see people camping out where ever there is space. Do they have a full belly? Most likely not. Would they appreciate the help? No doubt.
There is a big propaganda machine spitting out lies that the Haitians are happy to see Americans everywhere, but those Haitians must be the ones living in the United States. Here what you see are signs with phrases like: “We need food and water,” “We need medicine.”
I drove by the Presidential Palace this afternoon, the scenes were even more chaotic there. Downtown Port-au-Prince was hit stronger than other places I had been — the government buildings were flattened like pancakes, floors were stacked up on top of each other. The place smells of dead, the survivors are forced to live like rats packed up on a landfill.
No Follow-Up Care
I’ve spoken with doctors and nurses who are concerned with what will happen to the survivors once the relief organizations have to pull them out.
“Who is going to take care of the amputees?” asked Dr. Eric Salado, an Orthopedic Surgeon from Miami. “Who is going to give follow up care to the people who got stitches and will need them removed a month from now?”
I have more questions: Can it be that the aid to Haiti will only lasts as long as the news cycle? Would Haiti be abandoned again once all CNN and other TV reporters go back to Miami, New York, and Los Angeles?
If the US and the UN fail to come through for Haiti, the country will have an entire population of people who are missing limbs and can’t fend for themselves since many of them have lost relatives.
“I had a little girl who lost two fingers during the earthquake,” said Luis Ramos, a Physician Assistant from Pittsburgh. “A relative brought her in because the girl was complaining of pain in her hand. When I took off the bandage and saw what she had, I put the bandage back on and told her to go to a hospital right away,” Ramos said. “The little girl had gangrene all the way to her wrist. They will have to amputate her arm.”
Ramos told me that the little girl was only 18 months old and because of lack of follow up care after the initial treatment, this girl will grow up having only one arm.
EXTRA: An Interview With A Haitian-American Nurse
While I was getting something to eat in Delmas, I ran into a group of Haitian American nurses and doctors from the United States. I wanted to get their reaction to the earthquake and relief efforts.
“I thought I was going to be seeing military everywhere.”
Listen to the interview, click here for the MP3 (4 mins 9 secs)
Dolores M. Bernal will continue writing from Haiti for the News Junkie Post this week.
Follow Dolores M. Bernal on Twitter, click here.
Haiti needed food, water, tents, blankets, medicine before the earthquake. Buildings collapsed because the concrete contained too little Portland Cement and no steel reinforcement bars. Haiti is an example of self inflicted poverty and self destruction similar to Detroit, South Chicago, East Oakland, East St. Louis, New Orleans, and Washington D.C. Haiti is an island paradise that was infested by an unsustainable culture.
self-inflicted? like the bully on The Simpsons who beats other kids up with their own arms. the bully is so civilized and representative of The Free World.
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Thanks for your remarkable coverage of the devastating story, Dolores!
Safe travels, friend.
We do have military on the ground/water in Haiti. Our US Coast Guard are working tirelessly trying to get the Port up and running which is the key to getting large amounts of needed food and shelters needed. Until the port is repaired it is going to be very difficult to get the supplies and equipment needed to help due to the limits of the airport. The Haitian government is in charge their recovery, we (military) are there to support them and follow their directions. http://cgvi.uscg.mil/media/main.php?g2_itemId=769904
I take offense that this author suggests that the UN and the US are singularly responsible for fixing this disaster. Haiti is and always has been a very poor country and I am glad that there is aid. But…to place any blame or responsibility of their condition squarely on the US Military is absolutely absurd.
Our military personnel are doing everything they can to HELP the Haitian people. We are not there to take over and duplication of services is a waste so appreciate that our military is working at what they do best. This is a global relief effort, thank goodness.
What the US military does best is Invade, steal and kill. It’s an army of thugs that has no moral.
Now is time to take over Haiti for their natural resources, that what they do best , just like in Iraq, Afghanistan.
Sounds like its part of the ,missle defence shield everyone so goes on about, hehe.
Rubbing salt in hurts they say.
Need we remind the Haitians *yet again* that we are under no OBLIGATION to help them? That any help we provide them is a gift purely out of our own good will?
Many, many countries aren’t contributing anything. But because we contribute- but not quite as much as they want- we are evil?
“Who is going to take care of the amputees? asked Dr. Eric Salado, an Orthopedic Surgeon from Miami” Well doc, how about…the Haitian people? How about we stop doing everything for them and let them do for themselves, if just a little.
I refuse to be guilted into providing more, more, more.
Reallyo, i don’t think you know what you are talking about. GOOD WILL? do a little more research before you stand up for your evil government and military. interesting how they were ready to go there a few days before the earthquake! interesting that most of the peoples donations are paying for the military… hmmm, don’t they already get paid by the state????
A tourist would help boost the local economy by buying souvenirs and drinks and snacks… and then leave. Just driving around taking pictures… sounds more like an inspector, or a squatter.
charity? aid? no. the US knows very well haiti is sitting on huge oil and mineral reserves that they consider to be US property. anyone, like aristide who tries to oppose the amerikans, is disposed of.
once the world stops treating haiti like slaves, they will be able to pull themselves out. if they were not robbed by the amerikans, the french, and the imf, they would have been able to afford to build proper homes and they wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with.
the paternalistic attitude of the west is what i find the saddest part of this story. we rob them, we make them poor, then we talk about handouts and how they should be grateful. it reminds me of how we treat the indigenous people of north america who’s land we stole and will never give back.
Gangrene! Cutting of limbs!?
Is that all the medical profession is good for?All the MD think off is that. Certain they do NOT heal, either. All the MD do is use their knife, that’ll all they’re good for. Although, they style themselves as the “Cat’s meow/”
It’s time to change to alternate healing methods. It couldn’t be any worse.
Those fingers, and that arm, could have been saved. As for crushed legs and bones, it’s been found that the human body, the bones re-build themselves.
One needs, help and Will and Intent, and knowledge, but he body has the property of renewing itself. Limbs that are green and black DO renew themselves.
This has been seen and documented.
Errrmmm….green and black? I don’t know about green and black. I know that the decision to amputate is often made in cases where there is some possibility of partial recovery – errors aside, the parameters are wide and include the patient’s total life outcome, i.e. will pain and inutility likely make the limb worse than no limb? Death by blood poisoning is well enough known, however. Better a partial than dead in horrible agony.
Put it this way – what would you do for a dog with a crushed, ruined back leg? Let it learn to walk on three, or condemn it to a life of infection and pain?
On and on I go, honestly, I must love the sound of my own keyboard. Night night.
PG
Haiti needs only one thing: help without America’s involvement.
Barak Obama put George Bush Junior in charge of American relief here.
Because of his experience in New Orleans after Katrina?
Were is all the money give by many people all over the world and who gave the right for the USA to come in with troops and not food and water just two of the questions I would like answered, also what made Obama stand with Clinton and Bush jr who told everyone to send money this man who did nothing for those people who suffered from Katrina the world is going to hell as the rich and powerful do anything for money. And then we get the born again fruit cakes kidnapping children from the country more like child traffickings than god bothers what did they want these children for organs I would guest well if it was Haitians doing the same thing to white American children of the rich then we would have huge uproar, evil is alive and well.
The “real” reason US military is there only to protect the resources ( oil, gold, uranium,etc) that the US government wants and has wanted for many years. Helping the the Haitians means nothing to them. It’s just a front.
“Dean says:
February 4, 2010 at 8:03 amThe “real” reason US military is there only to protect the resources ( oil, gold, uranium,etc) that the US government wants and has wanted for many years. Helping the the Haitians means nothing to them. It’s just a front.”
I think you made the truth.