Hello Colleagues,
Flavia Cherry from St. Lucia is now in Haiti. Sharing some emails from her:
2010-01-30
"I have been here in Haiti for a few days now and what I find most striking, is not only the resilience of the people, but the extent of volunteerism which is evident in every single camp and in every recovery effort at building and rescue.
"There are thousands of young Haitian men who speak English and they show up at the make-shift hospitals every single morning from 6am till late at night as volunteer translators between the people and the international medical personnel and relief workers. I have never seen anything like this! One Canadian volunteer introduced me to three young men who came across the boarder from the DR as soon as they heard of the earthquake. They are born of a mother from the DR and Haitian fathers, so they came over to look for their fathers. They were drawn together by grief when they each learned that their fathers had passed away and those three young men decided to stay in Haiti to assist in the camps. When the Canadian volunteer introduced me to those three young men, I had to hold back the tears. Like everyone else, they are living in tents and can barely find something to eat, but they stayed to help their Haitian people.
"What you really do not see, is Haitians helping Haitians and the extent to which the people have organized themselves. Civil Society has set up huge signs in areas which read in English "Please, Help us Here. Those signs point to the areas where the need is greatest. But what you do not see on TV, is the extent to which aid efforts are being mishandled by those international people who think they know everything. What you do not see on TV is the thousands of military officers heavily armed, standing, milling around doing nothing when there is absolutely no need for this kind of military presence. Just think of what it must take to house, feed, pay and care for each of those heavily armed military officers. Compare this to the women and children living under tents made of bedsheets, who are yet to see any aid efforts reaching them.
Regards,
Flavia"
*******************************
Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010
I have met with doctors, women, patients, women and children who need help etc. I am now at the ofice of SOFA (one of the women's organisations). I am starving but no supermarkets are open. It does not even make sense to have money now, when there is no place to buy food. But my spirits are up and I am surviving. The determination of the Haitians is all i n eed for inspiration.
Regards,
Flavia
***************************************************
Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010
Hi Joyce, friends:
I am now in Haiti - incredible! The situationis so absolutely unlivable, terrible. Will give an update when i can.
Regards,
Flavia
****************************************
Sent: Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Hi ROK:
We had meetings all day yesterday and for half a day today and listened intently to reports from the women of Haiti who came. It is really incredible to listen to the stories of hope, survival, despair and pain! I am leaving tonight at 11:30pm. Can you please send me Jenny´s number? Send me the gentleman´s name and number again.
We have been successful in getting a women´s media team to come to Haiti with us and they will be broadcasting live from Haiti. They will be interviewing me in creole. We had meetings with the media licensing authority here and they have agreed to assist us in setting up a radio station in Haiti, which will be run by the women. It is incredible what can be done with international solidarity.
I was able to get supplies in and we have loaded two buses which will take them into Haiti. Buses leave the border at 6am, 9am and 2pm.
Things are happening very quickly here. I am not sure about internet access when I get into Haiti, but I will come back here in the DR for a day or two before I get home. I hope the supplies leave Barbados quickly because people are really desperate in Haiti.
Regards,
Flavia
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Caricom's false start
Sunday, January 24th 2010 |
 |
|
CCN senior journalist Andy Johnson spent five days last week in Haiti, embedded with a contingent of the members of the Jamaica Defence Force. This is the first part of a series on his journey into Haiti. Port-au-prince, Saturday VELDIA V Coleby, is the Second Secretary and Vice Consul at the Bahamas Embassy in Haiti. The Bahamas is one of a few of the Member States of Caricom with diplomatic missions resident in Haiti. Barbados is another one of those few. At dusk on Friday, Ms Coleby was not clear about what was the Caribbean Community’s effective response to the latest tragedy in Haiti caused by the earthquake on January 12, which registered 7.0 on the Richter scale. She was aware, however, that her embassy was supposed to have been used as the base for an official Caricom mission to Haiti, ostensibly to undertake its own assessment of the damage and to decide on a co-ordinated regionwide response. No meetings had taken place at the embassy thus far. Ms Coleby was aware, though, that executive director of the Barbados-based Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), Jeremy Collymore, was to arrive in Haiti yesterday. She also understood that the region had decided to undertake a project in Lougane, a town some considerable distance away from the capital. On what basis that decision had been taken, she was also not clear. The story of Caricom and its efforts to join in the international relief efforts in the wake of the earthquake disaster has itself been dismal thus far, mired in a deep, dark atmosphere of lack of co-ordination, and an embarrassing absence of independence. Whereas the Bahamian diplomat confessed to knowing Colin Granderson, she had not seen nor heard from him in the ten days since January 12. A crippling breakdown in most areas of telecommunications inside Haiti had made contact near impossible for most people operating in the middle of the earthquake-induced crisis. Granderson, a Trinidadian diplomat who is a deputy Secretary General of Caricom, had twice endeavoured to make it into Haiti in the wake of the crisis. The first time he was part of a mission which was frustrated by its inability to land. He had planned to make it in from the Dominican Republic after an emergency meeting there on January 18. In the wake of the current crisis, the government of Jamaica rushed a 150-member contingent of the Jamaica Defence Force, to establish what has been described as ’the Caricom footprint’ amid the jungle of international military, disciplined forces, aid workers, humanitarian agencies and non-governmental organisations scampering in. So swift was the action of the Jamaican Government that a portion of those troops was on the ground at Toussaint L’Ouverture International Airport when Jamaica’s Prime Minister Bruce Golding and Opposition Leader Portia Simpson-Miller arrived there in a joint mission on January 14. This was less than 48 hours after the devastating earthquake. The JDF barge had been ordered to sail overnight, the night before, leaving behind hundreds of pounds of vital cargo and equipment for the troops. In the days between January 14 and 22, the Jamaican contingent representing the Caribbean, has had to suffer, silently, the indignity, frustration and the embarrassment arising from its total dependence on a foreign ’partner’. The Canadian Defence Force has been the agency moving people, supplies and equipment between Kingston and Port-au-Prince. Those operations have been hampered by the decision of the Canadians to place their own needs and requirements entirely above those of the Caribbean’s. For three days last week, Major Jamie Ogilvie, the Commanding Officer of the JDF forces in Haiti, waited for definitive word from the Canadians on the availability of an aircraft, to transport personnel and equipment, as well as the tonnes of relief supplies transported to Kingston from other Caricom destinations, for distribution in Haiti. On Wednesday the aircraft was ’likely to come’. That advisory looked ’more likely’ for Thursday, only to have been called off by mid-morning that day. One of the ’problems’ given was that ’permission to land’ was not forthcoming, because of what was described as an absence of space at the airport tarmac. Resentment was developing over what was being reported as ’the American takeover’ of the operations at the airport. Quite possibly as a result of this, the Canadians decided to move the base of their own operations from Port-au-Prince to the town of Jacqmel, on the other side of Haiti. The Caricom initiative, or what presented itself as such, was suffering considerably. | |
| Comments: Caricom's false start |
| | | |
| This just goes to show Caricom has always been third world and will always be | Posted: 2010-01-23 9:59:00 PM | |
| This article just goes to show the Caricom as a whole will always be classified as a third world community which nobody pays attention to until they get their act together..... | ||
| False Start | Posted: 2010-01-23 10:01:00 PM | |
| There will always be a false start with Caricom mainly because there really is no unity amongst its members and also amongst the populations of the member states.When Mr. Manning postulates some ideas what is the natural reaction in T&T.....negativity. Regardless of how many nationals are suffering certain actions must still be taken to develop a brotherhood, but we continue to miss this point yet when tragedy strikes we all want to look good. Sacrifice is what is required to achieve a well oiled an functioning caricom that can rise to the occasion at a moments notice, until we all understand this....Haiti i'm sorry. | ||
| Where are our true leaders | Posted: 2010-01-24 00:17:00 AM | |
| The issue is not lack of communication. The issue is what are we going to do about out incompetent leaders. Is it the system of government we inherited from our former colonizers that makes us so incapable and lackadaisical? The Caribbean produces many intelligent people, when will we begin to purge the incompetents and issue in the brilliant minds? | ||
Haiti: The Pain of Jacmel and Rural Areas
There is no longer a major search-and-rescue effort in the town of Jacmel
Haitians show fortitude in face of disaster
They had told us the route was impassable, but we made it in three hours. No aid has come this way. Only the rugged vehicles can get through.
Jacmel, a former colonial coffee town, is desperate for help. Perhaps one in three buildings in the old town now lies in ruins - more than 100 years of history, shattered in a few catastrophic seconds.
At the Saint Michele hospital the patients are lying in the garden, baking in the heat, without enough doctors to help. The hospital buildings are too unstable to use.
In the operating theatre, nurses swat flies as the surgeons do what they can. Outside, the injured scream for painkillers.
'Emotional experience'
On the day we visited, an expeditionary team of Canadian doctors had just arrived to lend a hand. But with only basic supplies, they could only perform what resembled battlefield triage.
 The aid operation is finally beginning to reach the more remote parts of Haiti |
One patient, Marie Laurie, was trapped by falling masonry and has lost her arm beneath the shoulder.
"When I got here she had been sitting here for days because there was no surgeon available. Her arm had gone black. It was too late to save it," Dr Alexander said.
"It has been such an emotional experience for us all," he added. "I guess I am getting kind of tired... but, there's no place I would rather be. This is where it is happening. This is what you've got to do."
Grateful
There is no longer a major search-and-rescue effort in Jacmel. The Colombians who were here have long gone. It is the smell that signposts the dead. We have not seen anyone here, no-one has come to help us," she says. "We are on our own."
But then she thanked us for coming. She seemed genuinely pleased that the world might be interested. I could not help but wonder why she was so grateful, because help has not come fast enough here.
Extraordinary fortitude
In the past few days, a Canadian team has at last opened up a tiny airfield, a vital second front in the relief operation.
The need is great. The football stadium is a sea of plastic sheeting home to some 6,000 people and growing. Ninety percent of the people in Jacmel are living out in the open, too afraid to sleep indoors.
And yet, despite the fact they are surviving in sweltering conditions, they show some extraordinary fortitude.
But then they have experienced disaster before. Two years ago, this town was hit by an enormous hurricane, from which they had barely recovered.
The UN World Food Programme was distributing basic supplies here within 24 hours of the disaster. They are now feeding 14,000 people and are very well organised.
They can provide rice and beans for people to cook for themselves. They have divided the people into teams, each of them responsible for their own cooking. They choose the cooks, someone to set the fires and someone to serve the rice.
 The people of Jacmel experienced another natural disaster in 2008 |
Hazem el-Zein, the head of the south-east division for the WFP, is working flat out and like everyone else he is frustrated.
I asked him why, after 10 days, the UN had still not mobilised diggers to clear the mountain road and open up the south-eastern corner of Haiti. It would not be a big job.
"We ask the same questions to the people in charge," he responded.
"They promise rapid response. To be honest, I don't know why it hasn't been done. I can only think that their priority must be somewhere else."
We left Jacmel on the US Black Hawk helicopters now flying aid on repeated shuttles from Port-au-Prince. For this town, they are at least a lifeline.
But on the way home - barely a 10-minute journey to the capital - we crossed miles of the most remote and mountainous terrain. How many other people did we fly over who are still cut off without any help at all?
Haiti rescuers pull man alive from rubble after 11 days
Search ends for Survivors
A 24-year-old man has been rescued alive from the rubble of a ruined hotel in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, 11 days after the earthquake.
It came hours after Haiti's government declared a formal end to the search for survivors.
Onlookers cheered as Wismond Exantus - smiling and apparently in a good condition - emerged on a stretcher from what remains of the Napoli Inn Hotel.
He later told reporters that soft drinks and snacks had kept him going.
"I survived by drinking Coca-Cola and I ate some little tiny things," Mr Exantus, who worked in the hotel's grocery store, told news agency AFP from his bed in a French field hospital.
"Every night I thought about the revelation that I would survive," he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press agency.
Greek, French and US rescue teams were involved in the two-and-a-half-hour operation to bring him out of the remains of the hotel.
A French rescue worker, Lt Col Christophe Renou, described his survival as "a miracle".
He said rescuers - who had been alerted by the man's family - had managed to get water to him while they worked to dig him out.
Lt Col Renou said the man had probably been helped by the fact that the 5-6m (16-20ft) of debris above him was largely wood, rather than concrete.
He said the man had told his rescuers that another four people were trapped with him but that they had stopped moving a couple of days ago.
The BBC's Adam Mynott, in Port-au-Prince, says some Haitians have questioned the announcement that search-and-rescue operations are to end - and the discovery of Mr Exantus will have lent weight to their argument.
Drank his own urine
Speaking before Mr Exantus's rescue, UN spokeswoman Elizabeth Byrs in Geneva said the decision to end the search for survivors was "heartbreaking" but that it had been taken on the advice of experts.
She said most search-and-rescue teams would now be leaving Haiti, although some with heavy lifting equipment might stay to help with the clean-up operation and with aid distribution.
Two people, an 84-year-old woman and a 21-year-old man, were pulled alive from the rubble in Port-au-Prince on Friday.
The woman, who was found in the wreckage of her home seriously injured and severely dehydrated, was taken to the main city hospital for treatment.
The 21-year-old man, Emmannuel Buso, was rescued by an Israeli search team and is said to be in a stable condition.
Speaking from his hospital bed, he described how he had had no food, and had drunk his own urine to keep thirst at bay.
An estimated 1.5 million people were left homeless by the 7.0-magnitude quake, which some have estimated has killed as many as 200,000 people.
AT THE SCENE
By Adam Mynott, Port-au-Prince
It took two-and-a-half hours for the rescue of Wismond Exantus to take place.
It might never happened, had not a member of his family approached a Greek journalist on the street and said they had heard noises coming from underneath a building.
The Greek journalist said he also heard the noises, and approached a Greek rescue team. They then went into operation in combination with French and American teams, and pulled the man free from the rubble.
As he was gingerly put on a stretcher and carried towards a waiting ambulance, Wismond Exantus smiled. He didn't say anything but he was, if not totally unharmed, clearly in a very good state of health.
'Miracle' rescue from under the rubble
A 24-year-old man has been rescued alive from the rubble of a ruined hotel in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, 11 days after the earthquake.
It came hours after Haiti's government declared a formal end to the search for survivors.
Onlookers cheered as Wismond Exantus - smiling and apparently in a good condition - emerged on a stretcher from what remains of the Napoli Inn Hotel.
He later told reporters that soft drinks and snacks had kept him going.
"I survived by drinking Coca-Cola and I ate some little tiny things," Mr Exantus, who worked in the hotel's grocery store, told news agency AFP from his bed in a French field hospital.
"Every night I thought about the revelation that I would survive," he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press agency.
Greek, French and US rescue teams were involved in the two-and-a-half-hour operation to bring him out of the remains of the hotel.
A French rescue worker, Lt Col Christophe Renou, described his survival as "a miracle".
He said rescuers - who had been alerted by the man's family - had managed to get water to him while they worked to dig him out.
Lt Col Renou said the man had probably been helped by the fact that the 5-6m (16-20ft) of debris above him was largely wood, rather than concrete.
He said the man had told his rescuers that another four people were trapped with him but that they had stopped moving a couple of days ago.
The BBC's Adam Mynott, in Port-au-Prince, says some Haitians have questioned the announcement that search-and-rescue operations are to end - and the discovery of Mr Exantus will have lent weight to their argument.
Drank his own urine
Speaking before Mr Exantus's rescue, UN spokeswoman Elizabeth Byrs in Geneva said the decision to end the search for survivors was "heartbreaking" but that it had been taken on the advice of experts.
She said most search-and-rescue teams would now be leaving Haiti, although some with heavy lifting equipment might stay to help with the clean-up operation and with aid distribution.
Two people, an 84-year-old woman and a 21-year-old man, were pulled alive from the rubble in Port-au-Prince on Friday.
The woman, who was found in the wreckage of her home seriously injured and severely dehydrated, was taken to the main city hospital for treatment.
The 21-year-old man, Emmannuel Buso, was rescued by an Israeli search team and is said to be in a stable condition.
Speaking from his hospital bed, he described how he had had no food, and had drunk his own urine to keep thirst at bay.
An estimated 1.5 million people were left homeless by the 7.0-magnitude quake, which some have estimated has killed as many as 200,000 people.
AT THE SCENE
It took two-and-a-half hours for the rescue of Wismond Exantus to take place.
It might never happened, had not a member of his family approached a Greek journalist on the street and said they had heard noises coming from underneath a building.
The Greek journalist said he also heard the noises, and approached a Greek rescue team. They then went into operation in combination with French and American teams, and pulled the man free from the rubble.
As he was gingerly put on a stretcher and carried towards a waiting ambulance, Wismond Exantus smiled. He didn't say anything but he was, if not totally unharmed, clearly in a very good state of health.
VIDEO
'Miracle' rescue from under the rubble
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
HLLN will not tolerate the maligning of the Haitian people. We urge all in this Network please use some of these points made below to send letters to MSNBC, Foxnews, Reuters, AP, CNN et al. Let them know you won't tolerate the criminalizing of the good people of Haiti. Please send us a letter we could circulate. Many hands make light a heavy load.
*****************************
To the Mr. Champagne
Re: Mr. Champagne's Haitian Lawyers Association letter dated Jan. 19 2010 and copied below and made a part herein
Sir, in your letter dated January 19, 2019 to President Obama, you write, on behalf of the Haitian Lawyers Association, inter alia, that your organization, the Haitian Lawyers Association in Miami, Florida:
"urge the administration to address the rising lawlessness, created by the criminals who have escaped Haiti's broken penitentiary. Not only does it threaten the current humanitarian relief efforts, but it also unacceptably increases the vulnerability of women and children, many of whom now orphans. More should be done to curtail the lawlessness before it becomes uncontrollable."
Point one: As lawyers and advocates who represented many of the detainees who were in the National Penitentiary, we find your statements criminally negligent, odious, irresponsible and not based on any verifiable facts. It is a well-known fact, that most of those detainees you are depicting as "criminals who escaped from the National Penitentiary were poor Haitians from poor neighbourhoods who were summarily rounded up into preventive or indefinite detention during the 2004 Bush/Bicentennial coup d'etat without ever being charged, tried or convicted of any crime. As of 2008, it is reported that there were 8,204 prisoners in Haiti and of this only 1,764 have been convicted of a crime. Of the 8,204, 3900 were warehoused at the National Penitentiary.
The majority awaiting charge and a hearing, some suffering five years of prolonged detention, without ever having been charged, tried or convicted of any crime. These prison population statistics come from the 2008 US State Department Human Rights Report on Haiti and do "not include the large number of persons held in police stations around the country in 'preventive detention' (without a hearing or filed charges)."
For your legal association to call them "criminals" is unethical. For most were indefinitely detained without any charges, hearing or trial and have never been charged with a crime.
Point two: It is reported that when the earthquake hit, the wall of the National Penitentiary collapse on these men, most of whom have suffered tremendous injustice of indefinite incarceration without charge, and whose wives, children, mothers and families lost valuable time they could have had with their love one but for their unjust and illegal incarceration. Their "escape" Mr. Champagne was when concrete fell on their heads!
There is NO EVIDENCE that these men are either criminals or committing crimes right now.
We don't know how injured they were when the Penitentiary collapsed on them or how many perished and for you to repeat, like a parrot, what you are hearing from CNN, Fox news and MSNBS is unprofessional. As a legal organization you are charged with knowing the law and speaking factually. This depiction is objectionable also, especially as most reporters and even the general on the ground have said there is no significant violence amongst the earthquake wounded, thirsty and hungry. This idea of POTENTIAL violence, or as you put it "the rising lawlessness, created by the criminals who have escaped Haiti's broken penitentiary" is defamation and libel against people who are not here to defend themselves but HLLN is and we demand a retraction.
Point three: HLLN runs the Ezili Danto Witness Project and we have people on the ground in Haiti. Their first hand account of the current situation is that a natural disaster of epic proportion has hit the poorest of the poor and they are wounded, hungry, hurt, traumatized and most without food, clean water and medical treatment since last Tuesday. For you Mr. Richard to criminalize and vilified these people at such a time is repugnant. The people of Haiti are not violent or naturally prone to lawlessness. The US is statistically more violent than Haiti and the only times, in the past 20 years, that the violence in Haiti increases is when the US supports death squads and regime change that massacre the poor.
Point four: Haiti needs conscious disaster relief with human rights and dignity, it does not need your propaganda Mr. Champagne alleging the innate violence of people who were not ever committed of any crimes. Medical relief, food, shelter and water are its priority right now, not 12,000-pentagon gun, to, as you write "curtail the lawlessness before it becomes uncontrollable." This projection of fear is arbitrary and capricious Mr. Champagne.
Here are two reports that contradict your irresponsible assertions about the current situation in Haiti:
1. Doctor: Misinformation and Racism Have Frozen Recovery Effort at General Hospital in Port-au-Prince | http://bit.ly/7zZ4gu “There are no security issues,” says Dr. Evan Lyon of Partners in Health, reporting from the General Hospital in Port-Au-Prince in Haiti, where 1,000 people are in need of operations. Lyon said the reports of violence in the city have been overblown by the media and have affected the delivery of aid and medical services. http://bit.ly/7zZ4gu
2. Tell CNN to stop hyping fears of violence in Haiti. For shame at http://bit.ly/6bXnPz
HLLN is working at over capacity right now. But, we are prepared to provide testimony, including from some who were held indefinitely, detained without ever having been convicted or charged with a crime, and who are now seriously injured and dying and who you are maligning. Their survivors are ready for a class action suit against the media and you and your organization, Mr. Richard, to take all to court for this vilification/defamation. As HLLN is working over capacity, we are prepared to make a general call to human rights attorneys who wish to assist should your organization not make a retraction IMMEDIATELY.
This letter will go public - on facebook, twitter, our blogs and all the social networks and to the Ezili Listserve. We are hereby asking civil rights and human rights lawyers who would like to assist the earthquake victims to help HLLN stop the maligning and criminalization of the people of Haiti and anticipate your retraction within the next 3 days.
Very Truly Yours,
Ezili Dantò
Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
