U.S.
Brags Haiti Response Is A “Model” While More Than A
Million Remain Homeless In Haiti
16 February 2010By
Bill Quigley
Despite the fact that over a million people remained
homeless in Haiti one month after the earthquake, the
U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, Ken Merten, is quoted at a
State Department briefing on February 12, saying “In
terms of humanitarian aid delivery…frankly, it’s
working really well, and I believe that this will be
something that people will be able to look back on in
the future as a model for how we’ve been able to sort
ourselves out as donors on the ground and responding
to an earthquake.”
What? Haiti is a model of how the international
government and donor community should respond to an
earthquake? The Ambassador must be overworked and need
some R&R. Look at the facts.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA) reported February 11 there are still
1.2 million people living in “spontaneous settlements”
in and around Port au Prince as a result of the
January 12 earthquake. These spontaneous settlements
are sprawling camps of homeless Haitian children and
families living on the ground under sheets.
Over 300,000 are in camps in Carrefour, nearly 200,000
in Port au Prince, and over 100,000 each in Delmas,
Petitionville and Leogane according to the UN.
About 25,000 people are camped out on one golf course
in Petitionville. Hundreds of thousands of others are
living in soccer fields, church yards, on hillsides,
in gullies, and even on the strips of land in the
middle of the street. The UN has identified over 300
such spontaneous settlements. The Red Cross reports
there are over 700.
The UN reported that barely one in five of the people
in camps have received tents or tarps as of February
11. Eighty percent of the hundreds of thousands of
children and families still live on the ground under
sheets.
Many of these camps are huge. Nineteen of these
homeless camps in the Port au Prince area together
house 180,000 people. More than half of these camps
are so spontaneous that there is no organization in
the camp to even comprehensively report their needs.
Another half a million people have left Port au
Prince, most to the countryside. As a result there are
significant food problems in the countryside. About
168,000 internally displaced people are living along
the border with the Dominican Republic. Many are with
families. Others are in “spontaneous settlements” of
up to a 1000 people.
People living in these densely populated camps will be
asked to move to more organized settlements outside
the city. Relocation, says the UN, will be on a
voluntary basis.
The U.S. Ambassador knows full well there are 900 or
so aid agencies are on the ground in Haiti.
Coordination and communication between those agencies
and between them and the Haitian government continues
to be a very serious challenge.
Though many people are trying hard to meet the
survival needs Haiti, no one besides the Ambassador
dares say that it is a model of how to respond.
Partners in Health director Dr. Louise Ivers reported
on the very same day that “there is more and more
misery” in Port au Prince as fears of typhoid and
dysentery haunt the camps as the rainy season looms.
But the still the Haitian spirit prevails. Everyone
who has been to Haiti since the earthquake reports
inspiring stories of Haitians helping Haitians despite
the tragically inadequate response of the Haitian
government and the international community. That
spirit is something people should admire. Let me
finish with a story that illustrates.
One orphanage outside of Port au Prince, home to 57
children, was promised a big tent so the children
would no longer have to sleep under the stars. The
tent arrived but without poles to hold it up. The same
group was promised food from UNICEF. Twelve days
later, no food had arrived. They improvised and
constructed scaffolding to create an awning over the
mattresses lying on the dirt. They are finding food
from anywhere they can. “We’re holding on,” said the
Haitian director Etienne Bruny, “We’re used to
difficult times.”
Haitians are holding on despite the inadequate
humanitarian response. They are the model.
Bill is the legal director of the Center for
Constitutional Rights and a frequent visitor to Haiti
for human rights work over the past decade. You can
reach him at Quigley77@gmail.com
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