Haiti’s Imported
Disaster
Published: October
12, 2013
It is, instead, a man-made disaster,
advocates for Haitian victims contend, asserting the epidemic is a direct
result of the negligence of United Nations peacekeepers who failed to keep
their contaminated sewage out of a river from which thousands of Haitians drink.
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New
hope for Haiti
Companies and programs geared to create
jobs
By Deborah M. Todd / Pittsburgh
PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti Haiti
Life here is finally
taking a gradual turn toward normalcy as shuttered schools reopen and a deadly
cholera outbreak slowly fades. Yet for all of the hard-fought victories meant
to restore the nation, many citizens feel separated from what's been done on
their behalf without their input. But a movement to pass the baton to the
Haitian people is gaining steam -- within a reconstruction effort spearheaded
and executed by foreign nonprofit stakeholders.
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The UN owes Haiti
World body
must take responsibility for a horrific cholera outbreak
SUNDAY,
OCTOBER 13, 2013, 4:05 AM
The
United Nations’ callous and chronic refusal to own up to its responsibility for
inadvertently importing a cholera epidemic to one of the world’s most
impoverished nations may finally come back to bite it.
In federal court in New York
The disease’s introduction
to the Haitian half of Hispaniola began with
the best intentions.
After an awful earthquake
rocked the nation in January 2010, relief workers and peacekeepers descended. Those
included much-needed UN staffers whose last stop had been Nepal
The staffers were stationed
near a tributary of a river — and they discharged sewage into that river. With
almost absolute certainty, this is what introduced the deadly bacteria into the
waters of Haiti
NEW
How Canada tried –
and failed – to help Haiti
Rick MacInnes-Rae looks
back at Canada
By Rick MacInnes-Rae, CBC News Posted: Oct 11, 2013 7:35 PM ET Last Updated: Oct 14, 2013 5:27 AM ET
Twenty-two
years ago this month, Canada went to bat for a fiery Haitian priest whose
campaign of class warfare won him the presidency, until the military took it
away.
Despite its age, the anniversary of the coup in Haiti that ousted Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991
still has the power to draw angry supporters into the streets of the capital, Port-au-Prince
In October 1991, Canada
was quick to provide a plane to ferry then secretary of state for external
affairs, Barbara McDougall, and a delegation of Caribbean foreign ministers
with a representative of the Organization of American States (OAS) to Haiti
It would turn out to be an object lesson in the “limits
of diplomacy,” as McDougall recently told me.
“Who liked Aristide? Nobody,” she says. “He was a man
of the street. He’d made himself into a bit of a demi-god. He had certainly
done some evil things, but he had won the election fair and square.”
For that reason, Canada
Championed poor, criticized Duvaliers
A Salesian priest, “Titid” (as he’s known) rose to
power championing the poor and a liberation theology his critics viewed as
Marxist. His criticism of the ruling Duvalier dictatorships proved so
corrosive, the Catholic Church exiled him to Montreal
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Education reform needed to lift Haiti
However,
despite the government making education one of its key priorities, the state
“simply has no more money” to improve the situation further, one resident, who
wished only to be identified by the name Hermine, told New Europe.
“Two years
later, we are still rebuilding,” she says, referring to the January 2010
earthquake that devastated the country. “It is still a work in progress.”
Her comments
come at the beginning of European
Week of Action for Girls,
which is calling on the EU to ensure that girls are visible in policies and
programming, including development and emergency response.
“The economic
system collapsed, which has an impact on the education system, by making if
difficult to bring children to school, to pay for things like books,” continues
Hermine.
In addition,
she says, many families can not afford adequate food, meaning that many
children go to school without first eating. Earthquake damage has also meant
that in many cases, school canteens are no longer functioning.
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