This is going to be short but might be helpful to some for a wide variety of reasons.
Google has teamed up with GeoEye to bring updated aerial views of the devastation from the Haiti Earthquake.
Tag: Haiti
Jan 14 2010
ACTION: Stop Deportations To Haiti
This is a straightforward and important request.
The Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker-based and widely respected Washington lobby for peace and justice, is asking for letters to President Obama and our Congresspersons urging the U.S. government to immediately act to grant Temporary Protected Status to the 30,000 Haitian immigrants presently facing deportation. That means that attempts to deport Haitians back to their ravaged country would be halted.
The Friends Committee has made this easy. Just click here and follow the instructions.
Let compassion guide us on this.
Updated: 1/14/10, 1:40 pm ET: There is in place an informal halt to deportations. It was announced late yesterday by DHS. It does not grant Temporary Protected Status. Because this issue may continue into the far future, Temporary Protected Status would be an extra measure of security which will allow Haitians to remain at large and work without fear of detention and accumulate funds to send to relatives who are in desperate need.
————————-
simulposted at The Dream Antilles and dailyKos
Jan 14 2010
Haiti: “The world is coming to an end…”
Channel 4 News via The Real News Network – January 14, 2010
Haiti earthquake: ‘100,000 may be dead’
Haiti’s President warns the scale of suffering is “unimaginable”
Haiti and her people have not only been treated to catastrophe by nature, but have also suffered unimaginably at the hands of other countries. Reminiscent of the ten year sanctions war that killed over a million people in Iraq, mostly women and children, Haiti’s people have for a long time been victims of the global trade system, which has forced Haitians to buy imported food staples, despite the existence of a once-robust agricultural economy.
In April 2008 Raj Patel of UC-Berkeley’s Center for African Studies and author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, spoke with Paul Jay of The Real News about Haiti’s suffering. (video on the flip)
Jan 14 2010
Haiti – Doctors Without Borders Teleconference on Emergency Response to Earthquake
Hat Tip to Vox Humana at MyLeftWing for pointing me to this. It should give you an idea of her present circumstances and the relief work our own TheMomCat who is now in Haiti with MSF is doing there…
Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders
Teleconference on Emergency Response to Haiti Earthquake
January 13, 2010
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams already working on medical projects Haiti have treated hundreds of people injured in the quake and have been setting up clinics in tents to replace their own damaged medical facilities. Paul McPhun, MSF’s operations manager for Haiti, described the current situation for MSF teams on the ground during a press conference on January 13.
Transcript follows on the flip…
Jan 14 2010
Haiti: Don’t Forget
It’s been a week. One week. The Haitian earthquake that likely killed 100,000+ people last week is fading from public consciousness. After a week. American Idol has started back up, after all. One must redirect attention to the important things.
What’s worse is that little is remaining in the minds of most Americans other than “the great USA is sending aid.” Well… if you’re a thinking cog in The Machine. If you’re a nonthinking cog you may have opinions more along these paraphrases of Rush Limbaugh or Pat Robertson: “Haitian aid was a racist political ploy of Obama” or “Haitians got what they deserved because they made a deal with the Devil.” On a side note, I thought deals with the devil resulted in good things on this Earth in exchange for perpetual torture after death. Then again, any attempt to try to make sense of modern religion is an exercise in the absurd. But this is not an essay on religion.
This is an essay on Haiti – and on the United States’ relationship with Haiti.
Jan 13 2010
Haiti: US Kakistocracy In The Caribbean
Please donate to Haiti Relief through Doctors Without Borders
This essay was first printed in The Dream Antilles on March 23, 2008. I’m republishing it here, because it might help in putting the horrific events in Haiti in perspective.
This morning’s NY Times has an extremely strange story about Haiti. The premise is that things are now so bad in Haiti, that some Haitians wish they still had Papa Doc or Baby Doc Duvalier back as their military despot:
But Victor Planess, who works at the National Cemetery here, has a soft spot for Mr. Duvalier, the man known as Papa Doc. Standing graveside the other day, Mr. Planess reminisced about what he considered the good old days of Mr. Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude, who together ruled Haiti from 1957 to 1986.
“I’d rather have Papa Doc here than all those guys,” Mr. Planess said, gesturing toward the presidential palace down the street. “I would have had a better life if they were still around.”
Mr. Planess, 53, who complains that hunger has become so much a part of his life that his stomach does not even growl anymore, is not alone in his nostalgia for Haiti’s dictatorial past. Other Haitians speak longingly of the security that existed then as well as the lack of garbage in the streets, the lower food prices and the scholarships for overseas study.
Haiti may have made significant strides since President René Préval, elected in 2006, became the latest leader to pass through the revolving door of Haitian politics. But the changes he has pushed have been incremental, not fast enough for many down-and-out Haitians.
The article is worth reading in its entirety, primarily because of its conceit that Haiti, seething on one end of the island of Hispaniola in the midst of the US sphere of influence in the Caribbean, has developed its present dystopia all by its lonesome self, without any assistance worth mentioning from its gigantic hemispheric neighbor, the United States.
Jan 13 2010
4:53 Updated
UPDATE: Change you can believe in from the Miami Herald:
The Obama administration is temporarily suspending deportations of undocumented Haitian nationals who are in the United States, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said Wednesday at a news conference in Miami.
But there are no immediate indications from the Obama administration that it would grant Haitian nationals Temporary Protected Status in the aftermath of Tuesday’s earthquake.
Better known by its acronym TPS, the immigration benefit is given to certain immigrants in the United States who cannot safely return to their countries because of armed conflicts, natural disasters or other emergencies. Those eligible for TPS are allowed to remain in the United States.
The approval of TPS has been long sought by Haitian activists and South Florida lawmakers.
On Wednesday, South Florida’s three Cuban-American Republican members of Congress — Reps. Lincoln and his brother Mario Diaz-Balart, and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, sent a letter Wednesday to President Obama requesting immediate humanitarian aid for Haiti and TPS for Haitian nationals in the United States.
“How much does Haiti have to suffer before Haitians in the United States are granted TPS,” Lincoln Diaz-Balart told El Nuevo Herald in a telephone interview Wednesday. “The reason TPS exists… as an option for the President is precisely for moments such as this in Haiti.”
4:53 is the official time noted that the earthquake that hit Haiti yesterday. Right around the time that TheMomCat and I were casually commenting here. Weird.
DONATE TO DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS (MSF) h/t randgrither
It is still unclear how many have been killed in the earthquake, which measured 7.2 on the Richter scale, but aid agencies fear thousands are dead.
My daughter and I said some special prayers last night as we snuggled in our warm bed. Empathy. I couldn’t get the idea out of my head of what it must be like for the people there. What a dreadful deep dark night they were facing. Even though there weren’t many photos out yet, I could only begin to imagine. Having been through Hurricane Ike here a couple of summers ago, I at least know the frustration and dismay that comes with no power, no communication, no relief. But we were fine. Can’t even begin to compare. We were able to camp out in (and outside) our old funky but sturdy home, get in our funky little car and drive back and forth to The Pod for government issued emergency water and supplies, and listen to our Emergency Weather Radio. A walk in the park for us. I cannot comprehend this…
Bodies on the streets
Aftershocks rattled the city of 2 million people as women covered in dust clawed out of debris, wailing. Stunned people wandered the streets holding hands. Thousands gathered in public squares singing hymns.People pulled bodies from collapsed homes, covering them with sheets by the side of the road. Passersby lifted the sheets to see if a loved one was underneath. Outside a crumbled building the bodies of five children and three adults lay in a pile.
snip
Haitian President René Préval told the Miami Herald that he had been stepping over dead bodies and hearing the cries of those trapped under the rubble of the national Parliament building, describing the scene as “unimaginable.”
“Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed,” he said.
Préval issued an urgent appeal for aid.
Tens of thousands of people appear to have lost their homes and many perished in collapsed buildings that were flimsy and dangerous even under normal conditions.
“The hospitals cannot handle all these victims,” Dr. Louis-Gerard Gilles, a former senator, said as he helped survivors. “Haiti needs to pray. We all need to pray together.”
Jan 13 2010
So What Do We Know About Haiti?
Perhaps I’ll do a Science Supplement later but this morning my mind is elsewhere.
Haiti is half the island of Hispaniola, larger and slightly to the right and South of Cuba on your map. The Haiti part of it is the fishhead looking thing with Port Au Prince, the capital, located near the base of the lower jaw.
The epicenter was 10 miles to the Southeast and six miles deep.
Jan 13 2010
In The News
Just a quick note-
Got an email from TheMomCat that says she’ll be leaving for Santo Domingo in the morning, and going from there to Haiti.
If you didn’t know TMC is a member of Médecins Sans Frontières (aka Doctors Without Borders) and had already been planning a trip to Haiti soon.
As I said to her-
Good luck. Do what you need to. I hope you get a chance to relax and check in, but don’t worry about us. We’ll be right here in the tubz.
Sep 06 2008
Hell in Haiti – Ike Update in Comments.
Cross-posted from my blog, The Wild Wild Left.
My friend went to The Dominican Republic a few years back. Staying at a Gated Resort, she mentioned how the worst part was getting there. Apparently the tour bus had to pass nearby the machine gun border areas with Haiti, and the driver reiterated how dangerous it was to even go near their border.
Devastating poverty and war lords out of sight, though, she had a marvelous time in a lush resort with huge buffets and plentiful alcohol. When asked if it bothered her, her typical American response was “Not my problem. They obviously fucked their side of the Island up, so why shouldn’t I enjoy the Good Side?”
Much the same American response to how Gustav fucked Haiti like Katrina fucked NOLA, and is now fucked worse from the rains and flooding from Hanna in the area and Ike on its way.
“Not my Problem?”
Mar 23 2008
US Kakistocracy In The Caribbean: Haiti
cross posted from The Dream Antilles
Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti
This morning’s NY Times has an extremely strange story about Haiti. The premise is that things are now so bad in Haiti, that some Haitians wish they still had Papa Doc or Baby Doc Duvalier back as their military despot:
But Victor Planess, who works at the National Cemetery here, has a soft spot for Mr. Duvalier, the man known as Papa Doc. Standing graveside the other day, Mr. Planess reminisced about what he considered the good old days of Mr. Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude, who together ruled Haiti from 1957 to 1986.
“I’d rather have Papa Doc here than all those guys,” Mr. Planess said, gesturing toward the presidential palace down the street. “I would have had a better life if they were still around.”
Mr. Planess, 53, who complains that hunger has become so much a part of his life that his stomach does not even growl anymore, is not alone in his nostalgia for Haiti’s dictatorial past. Other Haitians speak longingly of the security that existed then as well as the lack of garbage in the streets, the lower food prices and the scholarships for overseas study.
Haiti may have made significant strides since President René Préval, elected in 2006, became the latest leader to pass through the revolving door of Haitian politics. But the changes he has pushed have been incremental, not fast enough for many down-and-out Haitians.
The article is worth reading in its entirety, primarily because of its conceit that Haiti, seething on one end of the island of Hispaniola in the midst of the US sphere of influence in the Caribbean, has developed its present dystopia all by its lonesome self, without any assistance worth mentioning from its gigantic hemispheric neighbor, the United States.
Join me in the Caribe.