Tag Archives: Earthquake

Caribbean, Haiti, International, USA

The Rescue Operation’s Priorities in Haiti

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Class and Race Fear

By Nelson P. Valdés
January 18, 2010 – counterpunch.org

“The contempt we have been taught to entertain for blacks, make us fear many things that are founded neither in reason nor experience.”

– Alexander Hamilton in letter to John Hay, 1799.

“Only those who hate the black population, see hatred in blacks”

– José Martí, Montecristi Manifesto, 1895

HaitiThe recent earthquakes that have demolished the city of Port au Prince and its surroundings has left Haiti stateless, ever poorer, desperate and in need of long term global assistance. A world-wide rescue operation has been initiated. But, it is questionable to what extent the best interests of the people of Haiti have been and will be considered, in the long run.
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Caribbean, Haiti, International, USA

Disputes emerge over Haiti aid control

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France, Venezuela, Nicaragua Accuse the US of Occupying Haiti
The United Nations must investigate and clarify the dominant U.S. role in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, a French minister said Monday, claiming that international aid efforts were about helping Haiti, not “occupying” it.

Chavez says U.S. occupying Haiti in name of aid
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez on Sunday accused the United States of using the earthquake in Haiti as a pretext to occupy the devastated Caribbean country and offered to send fuel from his OPEC nation.

Clash over Haiti aid flights
Alain Joyandet, French co-operation minister, told reporters at the airport he had protested to Washington via the US ambassador about the US military’s management of the airport where he said a French medical aid flight had been turned away.

Ortega warns of US deployment in Haiti
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega says that the United States has taken advantage of the massive quake in Haiti and deployed troops in the country.
“What is happening in Haiti seriously concerns me as US troops have already taken control of the airport,” Ortega said on Saturday.
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Caribbean, CARICOM, Haiti, International, USA

Reparations, not handouts, for Haiti

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By Raffique Shah
January 17, 2010

HaitiSO we cry for Haiti again. Yet another natural disaster, this time an earthquake of horrendous magnitude, has all but flattened what was left of that ‘cussed’ country. In the Caribbean, so full of heart are we, even those who survive barely above the poverty line give, be it cash or clothes or food. But will our generosity, will the US$1 billion or so in help that will flow over the next year make a difference to 4.5 million of seven million people who live on less than US$1 day?
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Caribbean, Haiti, International, USA

Help Haiti: The Unforgiven Country Cries Out

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By Chris Floyd
January 15, 2010 – chris-floyd.com

Via Mark Crispin Miller, the Center for Constitutional Rights points to some venues for getting help to the people of Haiti: Partners in Health and the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund. You can find several more in this listing from the New York Times.

I.

HaitiThe relentlessly maintained, deliberately inflicted political and economic ruin of Haiti has a direct bearing on the amount of death and devastation that the country is suffering today after the earthquake. It will also greatly cripple any recovery from this natural disaster. As detailed below, Washington’s rapacious economic policies have destroyed all attempts to build a sustainable economy in Haiti, driving people off the land and from small communities into packed, dangerous, unhealthy shantytowns, to try to eke out a meager existence in the sweatshops owned by Western elites and their local cronies. All attempts at changing a manifestly unjust society have been ruthlessly suppressed by the direct or collateral hand of Western elites.
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Caribbean, Haiti, International, USA

Haiti: The Aid Masquerade

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By Kerry Trueman
January 14, 2010 – Green Fork

HaitiThe horror in Haiti is beyond anything we can imagine in the U.S., but this apocalyptic catastrophe has something in common with Hurricane Katrina; in both cases, a terrible natural disaster was made infinitely worse by human negligence and incompetence. How many thousands of Haitians could have survived the earthquake if the country weren’t crippled by chronic poverty, shoddy infrastructure, environmental degradation and a host of other ills that have plagued Haiti for centuries?
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Caribbean, Haiti, International, USA

Cuba is Missing… From US Reports on the International Response to Haiti’s Earthquake

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By Dave Lindorff
January 15, 2010 – thiscantbehappening.net

HaitiThere are only two US media outlets that have reported on Cuba’s response to the deadly 7.0 earthquake that hit Haiti. One was Fox News, which claimed, wrongly, that the Cubans were absent from the list of neighboring Caribbean countries providing aid. The other was the Christian Science Monitor (a respected news organization that recently shut down its print edition), which reported correctly that Cuba had dispatched 30 doctors to the stricken nation.
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Caribbean, Haiti, International, USA

Catastrophe in Haiti

By Ashley Smith
January 14, 2010 – socialistworker.org

HaitiA devastating earthquake, the worst in 200 years, struck Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, laying waste to the city and killing untold numbers of people. The quake measured 7.0 on the Richter scale, and detonated more than 30 aftershocks, all more than 4.5 in magnitude, through the night and into Wednesday morning.

The earthquake toppled poorly constructed houses, hotels, hospitals and even the capital city’s main political buildings, including the presidential palace. The collapse of so many structures sent a giant cloud into the sky, which hovered over the city, raining dust down onto the wasteland below.
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Caribbean, Haiti, International, USA

Our Role in Haiti’s Plight

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If we are serious about assisting this devastated land we must stop trying to control and exploit it

By Peter Hallward
January 13, 2010 – guardian.co.uk

HaitiAny large city in the world would have suffered extensive damage from an earthquake on the scale of the one that ravaged Haiti’s capital city on Tuesday afternoon, but it’s no accident that so much of Port-au-Prince now looks like a war zone. Much of the devastation wreaked by this latest and most calamitous disaster to befall Haiti is best understood as another thoroughly manmade outcome of a long and ugly historical sequence.
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Caribbean, Haiti, International, USA

7.0 Earthquake Devastates Haiti

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Haiti earthquake aftermath

Wyclef Jean, Fellow Celebs Solicit Support for Haiti

Photos

Large Number Of UN Staff Missing After Haiti Quake -Official

Hundreds feared dead in Haiti earthquake

7.0 quake hits Haiti, hospital collapses
A strong earthquake hit Haiti on Tuesday, where a hospital collapsed and people were screaming for help. The earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.0 and was centered about 10 miles west from Port-au-Prince, the USGS said. (Jan. 12)
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