Haiti: why are people still in tents?

Hurricane Tomas is slowly heading towards Haiti.

Last I heard, it is weakening slightly, and is due to hit Haiti on Friday.

Apparently, hundreds of thousands of people are still living in tents, whose fabric has deteriorated in the sun. Tomas is going to shred those tents.

This is difficult to believe, given that total aid given is $1.6 billion.

I do not know much about Haiti. I have recently come across the tweets of an amazing doctor, Megan Coffee, who is treating TB patients there, who alerted me to the tent problem.

I have also found AFACeAFACe, which seems pretty good source of info.

Despite my ignorance of details, I think it is totally wrong that people are still in tents when 95% of the rubble left by the earthquake is still lying where it fell.

There is a failure of the aid model here. The rubble should be used to make the foundations and lower walls of new, robust, earthquake and windproof houses, using volunteer community labour, people making what they need from what is available. The French have a word for it: bricolage.

They need hacksaws (to cut the ties in reinforced concrete), gloves, and hand carts.
They collect the rubble, which will mainly be flat concrete and brick slabs, and they transport them on hand carts to the site where the new building is to go up. They prepare an accurately flat area, and start laying the slabs, using the biggest at the foot, and smaller ones higher up to bring it up to about 1 metre above ground. So we have a dry wall construction, and interstices are filled with mud, mortar, or cement, as available. Walls and roofing will be of floor joists rescued from the rubble, or from bamboo or virgin timber brought in. Concrete pillars will be rescued to make struts for the houses, using triangulation principles.

Here is video of an example of this kind of construction in nearby states.

These houses will be wind resistant, and to some extent earthquake resistant, since the slabs can move on each other, tolerating the lateral movement of the earthquake. They will crumble in bigger earthquake, so facing of boards or nets should be applied to the inner surfaces of the house to stop them falling inwards onto the occupants.

I admit I am writing from ignorance of the situation on the ground, and it may be that better programmes are in process. I very much hope so.

However I suspect that the "aid" in the main has been transmogrified into grand plans to rebuild a new, concrete Port au Prince along best town planning lines, and while waiting for these plans to materialise, the people are left idle, in fragile, doomed tents, while the material for homes lies in a heap where it fell 10 months ago.


Il scent mal.

$1.6 billion aid given to Haiti. Why then is there cholera?

Cholera hits Haiti, 250+dead already, and hospital services are pushed to the limit with coping with cholera cases.

Why, in view of the massive amount of aid given?

After the earthquake on 12th January 2010, much aid money was promised and delivered.
A quick scan shows the following donations from governments.

• $210m Brazil
• $131m Canada
• $104m Netherlands
•  $48m USA
• $33 UK
• $14 France - which is pathetic, given that France imposed a crippling tax on the Haitians to "pay" for their independence.

Total from Governments: $540 million

Then we have the NGO/charity money. 23 major charities have given $1.1 Billion.


The total giving from charities amounts to $37,000 per displaced families.

Yet 95% of the rubble is uncleared, there are still human bodies rotting under the rubble, the displaced persons are still housed under canvas in tents that are now falling apart, and facing up to the hurricane season. And now they are facing cholera. Why?

There are many facets to this question.

One estimate is that only 2% of the promised money has actually been used.

There is also the bottleneck problem: aid effort cannot be delivered if there are no physical facilities to deliver it. This was a problem initially, with a bottleneck at the airport, caused in part by US military prioritising their people over real aid. 

Aid agencies can get in each others' way. There are more aid agencies in Haiti than in any other country on earth.

We need to learn from this problem; in particular, there needs to be standing regional aid coordination authorities.

Preventing Cholera

Let us focus here on the cholera. Not the treatment effort, but on its prevention. Aid agencies always warn of cholera and other water-borne diseases in these disasters. They know how to prevent it - make sure that faeces do not contaminate water supplies. This has not happened.

Why? Why are people still defecating on the open ground, where it runs off into surface water, from whence the cholera vibrio can jump onto skin, food and drinking water every time it rains?

Because there is no sanitation. Most Haitians had no running drinking water before the earthquake, let alone now. But this presupposes the Western, post-Crapper notion that it is a good idea to shit into water. I bet there are plans being drawn up as we speak to theoretically supply, by private contract, a Haiti-wide Western style sewerage system. Plans.

What the displaced Haitians need is low technology sanitation. A slit trench is better than open-ground defecation. It does what it says on the tin. A slit trench, a trench which you straddle, crap into, and then immediately cover the crap with the earth dug out of the trench. No smell, no flies - but there is a risk of groundwater contamination at a later date.

So the slit trench is a second best option. The best option is a compost toilet system. There are many models, but the one I favour and use is Joe Jenkins' Humanure system.

It requires

1. One 5-gallon (20 litre) bucket, plastic or metal, per person.
2. One compost heap per family.

That's all.  One bucket, one compost heap. The heap heats up with the theromophilic bacteria from the faeces, and pasteurises all the pathogens (disease causing organisms) within days or weeks. It takes a bit of instruction, a couple of buckets, a bit of carpentry to make the bucket more comfortable, and you're there.

The huge advantage is that after standing for a year, the compost can be recycled to the ground, immensely enhancing soil fertility.

There are Permaculture practitioners out there in Haiti working on this system. However, the problem is - theft of buckets. The answer to this problem is to flood Haiti with 5-gallon buckets, so that there is no scarcity, so no value to be stolen.

This effort would have reduced the probability of the present outbreak of cholera in a major way. It would have cost a miniscule percentage of the available budget. It would have created prosperity in the bucket manufacture industry. Yet it has not happened.

 Why has it not happened?

Because it is a low-technology, people based solution, and our "rulers" for want of a better term, think in terms of top-down, high tech "solutions". Right-wink US think tanks saw Haiti as an "opportunity". They have failed.

This is only one aspect of the Haiti disaster, but other solutions can similarly be brought through by people power, using the money available, delivered through the Haitian Government as part of a rapidly expanded public service sector. This would be flexible, surfing the wave of individual and collective inventiveness.

For instance, instead of living in tents, people could be building stone-wall housing using the rubble from the towns. This would create a social demand for the rubble, causing it to be cannibalised. It could use human power (the aid effort would need to supply thousands of hand carts). Architects could advise on making the walls optimally earthquake proof, but the flat stone construction would be intrinsically able to slip and absorb the lateral movement of an earthquake. The advantage of heavy thick walls would be resistance to hurricanes.


So, in essence, the wrong model has been brought to Haiti. We have not had a green approach, empowering and working with the ingenuity of local people, educating them in low impact technologies. Instead, it seems that we have had the Corporatist, Private Sector, we-will-do-it-for-you, top-down approach. And it has failed.


Links
This blog on Haiti, 4 days after the earthquake.
This blog on  rebuilding a cohesive society in Haiti
Permaculture in Haiti.
Vid of Naomi Klein on the Shock Doctrine
Authoritative report from Partners in Health on Haiti  "great weakness in the public sector makes it exceedingly difficult to deliver basic services at significant scale"

Jean-Bertrand Aristide should return to Haiti

There are calls in Haiti for John-Bertrand Aristide to be recalled from exile in South Africa to help with reconstruction. He is popular with the poor, and they arguably need a ...er...leader. (Pause to reflect on the Green Party's doubts about leaders. But who are we to impose our culture on others?)

There is a confusing slew of accusations and counter accusations.

• J-BA was President of Haiti for a short while in 1991, then ousted by a military coup, then President again 1994-96, and again 2001-4.
• He resisted demands in 1994 to privatise his state-owned phones and electricity.
• There are allegations of voting irregularities by his party in 2000.
• He justifiably demanded reparations from France.
• International financial assistance was denied to Haiti.
• The Ottawa Initiative was a 2-day conference in Montreal in 2003, to decide the future of Haiti's government, though no Haitian government officials were invited.
• A rebellion led by a death squad leader in 2003 was backed by the USA.
• J-BA says he was kidnapped by US forces in 2004 and flown out of Haiti.
• USA Today alleges that he supported necklacing.
• The UN Mission in Haiti (MICIVIH) found that Human Rights improved after he came back in 2004.
• Amnesty International found that HR became worse after his removal in 2004.
• He denies allegations of involvement in drug trafficking, and has not been prosecuted for it.
• He denies allegations of involvement in corruption, and a prosecution for this was suspended.

What are we to make of all this?

It seems that Aristide offended US free-marketeers with his opposition to privatisation and globalisation. The allegations of corruption may or may not have some factual basis - the US Republican Swift Boat narrative against John Kerry shows that right-wing allegations should be taken with a grain of salt.

On balance, I believe that the Global Greens should call for the return of Aristide to Haiti to help and inspire the people to rebuild their economy and society from the grassroots up.

Earthquake resistant buildings for Haiti

diagram non-copyright R.Lawson

After the earthquake in Haiti I looked at earthquake predictions, then at earthquake engineering - making buildings more earthquake resistant. It is impossible to make a building earthquake-proof, but we can decrease the likelihood that it will crush the occupants. Buildings in seismic zones should be made to seismic specifications, but it is possible to retrofit existing buildings in an affordable way.

It's not rocket science, its triangulation.

In the above, diagram (a) above shows a conventional modern concrete building, with the floors hung from a few vertical concrete pillars. When the earthquake (e) shakes the ground, the pillars crack at (d), and the whole building collapses, concertina style. The structure is supposed to be stabilised by the walls, but they shake out with the tremors.

The solution is to triangulate the corners with robust concrete or wooden beams, as in (c). This is not difficult or expensive, and this triangulation should be included in the Haiti reconstruction. Interestingly, traditional timber framed buildings are earthquake resistant. It is good to use timber, so long as it is replaced, as all timber contains an equivalent mass of CO2 taken out of the atmosphere.

I have a feeling that the main block to earthquake resistance and engineering is denial.

Haiti: stop hyping up the security threat!

Great letter in the Guardian yesterday
Obsessive foreign concerns with "security" and "violence" are refuted by actual levels of patience and solidarity on the streets of Port-au-Prince. In keeping with a long-standing pattern, US and UN officials continue to treat the Haitian people and their representatives with wholly misplaced fear and suspicion.

This is very noticeable in the BBC reportage. The main man there seems to be desperate to film acts of violence. I have mentioned here the total irrationality of the determination to shoot "looters" and shown evidence that black people "loot" while white people "find" things.

Much was made of the escape of prisoners from the jail in Port-au-Prince, but it was not mentioned that many of them were political prisoners, and not a threat to security.

The perceived need to maintain "security" has led to the massive number of flights of US military planes, which have been prioritised over aid flights, and delayed aid.

This view is endorsed by a doctor on the ground. Media Tracker tells CNN to stop hyping the violence.

Like the Iraq war effect on Muslim radicalisation, (below) the military mindset just makes things worse.

Link: Reconstructing Haiti
Mercenaries circling for the kill

Ban Ki Moon speech on Haiti reconstruction

In the wake of the devastating quake which struck Haiti last week, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today emphasized the need to rebuild the impoverished Caribbean nation and “turn disaster into opportunity" in his address to the General Assembly.

“Haiti’s recovery must begin with its people – strong, resilient and impatient to get to work rebuilding their lives and their country,”

Good.
Last week’s disaster provides an “opportunity to build back better,” he said, quoting his Special Envoy Bill Clinton. On top of restoring the Government, governance must be improved,

Good. Bring back Aristide maybe?


and along with rebuilding factories, the right environment to draw ever greater investment must be created

Depends on who from, and what for. Not Halliburton we hope.

To this end, the UN has launched a cash-for-work programme to “help Haitians help themselves” by paying them to clear rubble from the street, distribute urgently-needed aid and build camps for those made homeless by the quake.

Good. It would be better if they were giving money to communities to do the work together, rather than acting as employers.

This is a good start, but the reconstruction effort needs to be based on community and ecological principles.

No mention (in the report at least) of the need for reforestation, and for new buildings to be made earthquake and hurricane proof.

I could find not working groups, committees or planning for earthquakes on the UN site. Nothing on disaster planning. Hmm. It looks as if there is a very large mad elephant asleep in one corner of the UNs china shop, and nobody quite knows what to do about it.

Action
Call to cancel Haiti's Debt
No Shock Doctrine for Haiti
Link: Reconstructing Haiti

Haiti: Looting? Or surviving?

"Looters continue to steal over the body of a man who has just been shot and killed by police in central Port-au-Prince" [Original caption]. Interpretation: Desperate people try to feed themselves despite the danger of being shot by police acting under ill-considered orders.
Image from Los Angeles Times photographer Carolyn Cole

They are shooting "looters" in Port au Prince. . A supermarket is cracked open, there is food in there, about to rot, and starving people get shot for going in.

Why?

Because our Governments have lost sight of human reality. They have a fetish for the supremacy of private property. " What's mine is mine, and even if I am not able to use it, even if you will die if you do not have it, I will kill you if you try to lay a finger on MY PROPERTY."

Someone is responsible for this shoot-a-looter policy. He (and it probably is a he) will have the title of Security Officer. Probably the same guy that has been causing US military planes to be prioritised in the landing stack over planes carrying food and medicines.

Wait a minute! I understand now: White people find things, black people loot:
Here's a couple of photos from New Orleans at the time of Hurricane Katrina.

That's OK then. (Thanks to Jim Jepps for the heads-up on this one)


I am not a revolutionary, I believe in radical reform. But things like this do make me wonder...
[Update: on reflection, in order to avoid any unwelcome attention from the Terrorist Thought Police, I should make it clear that I do not believe that a revolution, whether violent or non-violent, would succeed in the UK. The army and police are too well indoctrinated, and would quickly suppress it, and the most likely outcome would be a right-wing coup. Karl Marx underestimated the power of the likes of Rupert Murdoch to indoctrinate the masses.]

Here is a portal on how to help Haiti.
Link: Reconstructing Haiti

Haiti and Bankers' Bonuses - Martin Rowson Cartoon

Copyright Martin Rowson
Click for full picture
No comment

There is an amazing suite of photos of Haiti in the Los Angeles Times here.

Take me to the River: Poem on Haiti from Rudy Lewis

This is from Rudy Lewis, poet and editor of Chickenbones, an on-line literary journal.
Take Me to the River

—A mixed lyric medley

based on songs by philosopher of soul Al Green



Fruit trees in the yard are budding

in mid-winter, as a cold rain falls.



Two million are homeless, wandering

among the crushing earthquake without



food, water, shade, a pillow and bed

on which to cry in the peace of dreams.



Dead limbs lie by a tree trunk, a squirrel

scampers across the yard and climbs



aloft. These tragic street scenes burn

my eyes to tears, so heart-shaking



as I look in brown eyes of horror & loss,

as mountains of the dead burn. Their souls



like fire-flies mended fly to a we-can-call-on

God? Squeeze me, I can’t embrace this newness.



Take me to the river. Let me walk in water.

We been loving Haiti’s people, forever,



in times happy and sad. The earth’s unsteady:

houses pancake: flesh, limbs, futures crushed.

.

Some drink from potholes in this dry season

while women cook patties of clay, oil, and salt



as breakfast and dinner. This diet gets down in

marrow of bones. Oh, baby! Pretty woman



walks impassable by-ways with blue burdens

of two centuries. Her eyes, her smile deceives.



Take me to the river. Let me walk and be washed

in a dunking of baptizing words. Let a new world



rise skyward for you and me. All our troubles

are not in dust. Forgive me, I dream tomorrow.



Rudolph Lewis, January 18, 2010

Reconstucting Haiti - the choice is between Green and neo-liberal

Haiti needs help right now. That is obvious to every human in the world, with the solitary exception of Rush Limbaugh.

The delay of 4 days before aid started moving in is bad, because the first hours and days are vital, certainly from the medical viewpoint.

This delay was partly inevitable, physical, because the seaport was destroyed, also the airport control tower.

However, good emergency planning would have speeded up the response. We need to be prepared for the airport storage areas becoming saturated, and prepared to bring in fuel in order to get the aircraft out again. So we need the UN to set up relief squads of experts to lay up emergency plans for each at risk country, and to move in early, with authority to get things moving. That is for the future though.

Right now, Haiti needs: water, food, medicines, shelter, sanitation.

I have given through Aavaz, because they are talking of aid at community level.
I believe this is the right way to go about, both immediately and in the reconstruction period.

Some shocked aid victims cannot do anything, but there are other survivors for whom activity will aid healing.

Then there is the reconstruction to come:
First housing. Earthquake and hurricane proof housing. For everyone.
Then hospitals, clinics, water and electricity infrastructure.

So far as is possible, the work should be done with the collaboration of local communities. There already exist networks of relationships, family, friends, and old neighbourhoods. These must be protected and facilitated in the aid and reconstruction process. Working physically and organisationally on reconstruction is important for self esteem. There are probably communities with good experience of this in New Orleans who could advise on this.

We are reconstructing an economy here, so let's make it one that works equitably, for the benefit of all. The vultures of the Heritage Foundation are circling, wanting to co-opt the process as they did after Katrina.

We have a choice: shall we let them create the new economy of Haiti in their own image, IMF-style? The IMF have released a $100 million loan to the non-functioning Haiti Government, but with the usual restrictions under the IMF's extended credit facility, to which Haiti already has $165 million in debt. These loans came with conditions, including raising prices for electricity, refusing pay increases to all public employees except those making minimum wage and keeping inflation low.


The decent alternative is that we make sure that Haiti's renascence brings about an equitable and ecological economy, a new model for the whole world.

Let's start with a blank canvas.

First, wipe out all the international debt owed by Haiti. Consider wiping out all Haiti internal debt too, jubilee style. Here's a link to petition politicians to drop the debt.

Compared to the moral and financial debt owed to that nation by France (because of the monstruous debt it imposed on Haiti in compensation for lost slaves) and the rest of the western world, Haiti's financial debt is a mere pinprick.

Next, feed in the money as far as possible, say 75%, at local community level.

There must be zero tolerance of corruption in the distribution of money.
The UN has a campaign on this.

Communities can use the money to start farming again, conserving and rebuilding the eroded soil using safe recycled waste, using bio-digesters that produce usable gas.

Use the money to re-forest the land, to prevent the landslips that come with heavy rain, and for the many other benefits that forests bring.

Rainwater collection on every roof will provide washing water and plant irrigation, and will also reduce the impact of heavy rains.

Let the new Haiti become self-sufficient in electricity, using wind, sun, wave, and tidal currents. Let cooking charcoal be produced in up to date technology that gets gas from the process.

All of this is possible. The money is not a problem. The problem is the political will.

The battle-lines are drawn between the neo-liberals who wish to use the situation for their advantage, and the new ecological insight into economics, which would create an economy that exists for the benefit of the people, not for the benefit of multi-national corporations. The neo-liberal model we see in Iraq, with the likes of Halliburton creaming off millions of aid money for its own purposes.

The green model exists in many many places, as small pockets in the grey landscape of the economy. What we could do in Haiti is to put green at the heart of the new economy.

There are many people of goodwill already working at this level. See the links below. The Parmaculture link has an email list that is very active.

ONe of the first acts should be to invite Jean-Bertrand Aristide back.

Maybe we need a manifesto, a one page, say 500 word statement of aims, which can be passed around to collect signatures, a rolling snowball of a manifesto, one that we can put again and again under the noses of Presidents and Prime Ministers until they understand what it is we want.

The journey of 10,000 miles begins with a single step.

Links:

Petition to call for the international community to drop Haiti's $1billion debt.

Community action

Permaculture Haiti

Toxic wastes and Haiti

Montreal summit on Haiti ends with reconstruction principles

Protestors want reconstruction to benefit people, not corporations

Making buildings earthquake resistant

Sustainable Haiti Conference

Useful Haiti Portal

Can Earthquakes be Predicted? Yes, no, maybe probabilistically

Any skuleboy kno that earthquakes occur as tectonic plates slip on each other.

Everyone would prefer that the time they do his could be reliably predicted.

Experts agree that we are not yet in a position to make accurate predictions, but how close are we?

This is abstracted from Wikipedia on earthquake prediction

1. The VAN method picks up seismic electric signals (SES) from conductive sensors in the ground, and claims to be able to predict earthquakes of magnitude >5, within 100 km of the epicentre, in a 2-hour to 11-day time window. Its claims are contested. (SES come from piezo electric effects from stressed quartz, which is used to provide the spark in non-flint cigarette lighters).
   
   
2. There is evidence that the recurrence time of an earthquake in any place is related to its previous recurrence time.
   
   
3. Satellites may be able to detect precursor low-frequency EMF changes prior to earthquakes.
   
   
4. Animals such as dogs, cats, chickens, horses, ants and elephants have been observed to change behaviour in the days prior to earthquakes. More.
   
   Ref: Diana L. Guerrero, Seismic Sentries: "Animal Sixth Sense & Disaster", 2005
   Yet more: Toads
   
   
5. 50% of major earthquakes have foreshocks, but only 5-10% of foreshock magnitude earthquakes are followed by a major quake.
   
   
6. Ground water level changes occur before some earthquakes.

So we have some leads. The thing is that none of these, taken alone, has the predictive capacity required by the business community. Clearly, nobody is going to close down San Francisco for a week because some chickens are clucking uncontrollably, since they are going to look a bit sheepish is San Francisco fails to fall down in that week. (And if it does fall down, sceptics, being sceptics, are going to say it was a fluke and a coincidence). Susan Hough's book,
Predicting the Unpredictable: The Tumultuous Science of Earthquake Prediction , says there is no prospect of accurate prediction.

And yet...

The problem is that seismologists approach things on an analytic, single-modality basis. Experts are into their own thing, and obviously, a satellite man is going to look down (in both senses) on the lady who is fooling around with chickens and elephants. On the other hand, politicians have to make decisions to protect their populations to the best of their ability, and if I was mayor of a town or city sitting on a fault line (and many cities are located on fault lines, as they are mineral-rich) I would set up a collaboration between all modalities of prediction.

Each of the 6 methods taken on its own will only give a probabilistic estimate of an earthquake. Academic critics will demand 100% certainty before they will allow anything to go ahead, and 100% certainty is not available in this life. So, for their own ego aggrandisement and in pursuance of their obsessive compulsive tendencies, prediction skeptics will commit us to endless repetitions of what is now happening in Haiti.

Instead of having no predictions, and waiting forever for a single perfect predictive method that will never happen, it would be reasonable to work with what we now have, and take them in concert.

We have 6 methods available to us, each with its own uncertainties. If they could be integrated, we could get a very reasonable probability of what is about to happen. We can also give the affected population a probabilistic estimate. Early on, if one or 2 of the modalities are looking a bit ominous, low probability warnings might lead mothers and children to choose to take the weekend away from home, maybe go camping (tents do not fall on you). If four or five modalities are blinking, non essential workers might also decide to move out of the area, and essential workers might choose to wear helmets. If all six modalities are flashing red, the local authorities might care to issue a recommendation for everyone to clear off out of the danger area.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: compliance with these warnings is VOLUNTARY. Skeptics, individualists and free market fundamentalists are not required to comply with the warnings. They are at liberty to stay, and indeed other skeptics from outside the area will be allowed in, so that they can either crow to the cameras in the event of a false alarm, or, in the event that it was not a false alarm, so that they can submit themselves to evolutionary pressures.

This integrated, multi-modality early warning system should be audited for accuracy as time goes on. It might prove useless, or it might prove useful. If useless, it might cause a bit of loss to local businesses. If useful it might save thousands of human lives. ON balance, it is stupid not to try it out.

Summary: there are several modalities of earthquake prediction that, taken individually are subject to false positives and false negatives, but taken together, could provide effective probabilistic and voluntary warning of earthquakes.

PS: Is every window in San Francisco and other at-risk areas covered with adhesive film, so that if it shatters it does not fall and lacerate people in the street below?
I hope so.

See also:

• Earthquake resistant buildings
• Are earthquakes increasing in frequency?

Haiti: potted history

The following is a precis mainly from this Guardian G2 article by Jon Henley, which does not yet seem to be up on its website.

1492 Ayiti (meaning mountainous area) discovers that Christopher Columbus has bumped into it accidentally. Calls the island Hispaniola, but Spain finds more gold elsewhere, and leaves the island to buccanneers.

1665 France claims the island

1695 France and Spain divide the island, the French bit, Haiti being called Saint-Dominigue. France brutally exploits the island's rich productivity, importing up to 40,000 slaves a year to replace the dead.

1791 Inspired by the French Revolution two years earlier, the slaves have their own revolution against the French. 12 years of civil war follow.

1804 Haiti is independent, but has to pay France 150 million francs in gold. The final repayments are made in 1947, but only by incurring huge debts with private banks. In 1900, 80% of the Haiti GDP was going in debt repayments.

Despite this, culture flourished until a revolution in 1911, followed by 20 years of US occupation. Political instability from 1931-1957, when Jean Claude Duvalier took over. He did some good for education and was an exponent of Haitian culture, but eventually became a brutal dictator. He and his son killed between 30-60,000 people, terrorised the population, and stole the country's wealth. 80% of international aid donations were embezzled.

1986. Baby Doc goes into exile in France, taking an estimated $900 million with him (though Wikipedia says he lives modestly in Paris).

1986- Post dictatorship unrest.

2000 - political confusion. Pres Aristide popular but alledgedly corrupt. Removed by US Marines.

2004 - UN peacekeeping mission (MINUSTAH) in place. "Critics have criticized MINUSTAH as an attempt by the United States, Canada and France to oust Haiti's democratically elected populist president Jean Bertrand Aristide, neutralize his supporters of Fanmi Lavalas, and secure the more pro-Western government of Gérard Latortue." (Wikipedia)

I peer reviewed an academic article a few years ago that alleged abuses by UN troops, but it was withdrawn because of apparent political bias.


Present position

The country is 98% deforested, making it liable to floods, topsoil loss and landslides.
Overpopulation: 9 million, 80% under the poverty line.
2009 GDP $2 per day per capita.
Unemployment rate 75%
66% work in subsistence farming.
Much activity in drugs, weapons, gangs, kidnapping and extortion.
80 deaths per 1,000 live births.
It is 149th out of 182 on the Human Development Index
168 out of 180 on the Corruption Perceptions Index
225,000 children live as house slaves.

Which all goes to confirm that Haiti need more than a physical infrastructure rebuild, it needs a full economic and social restructuring along green lines.

Haiti: rebuild the hardware and run, or help them with the software too?

Acknowledgments to Reuters
I have made my donation to the Haitian earthquake fund via Avaaz, specifically because they say that their donations will be directed towards community based support. Nothing against the big relief agencies, but the community is the foundation of a healthy nation.

Port au Prince has been wrecked. The international community is rightly weighing in to help. The question is, do we just help them to clear up the mess, rebuild houses and infrastructure, and clear off? Or do we help them rebuild not just the physical infrastructure, but also the non-physical structure of the country also? Could (or should) we help them to rebuild their economy in a convergent way, where the gap between rich and poor tends to become less rather than greater? Could we help to stop the child slavery system? Could we help them create a sustainable localised, community based economy? In short, should we take this opportunity to rebuild one of the poorest nations in the world into a model of a green society and economy?

Probably not. The conservative mindset would be to create a bit of hardware, then leave it to market forces, while the extreme left mindset would probably classify any attempt to rebuild the software as paternalistic neo-colonial interferencism.

Another aspect: a Green Party colleague spent many months a few years ago campaigning for dedicated military depots around the world to be on 24/7 standby to respond to disasters of this kind. Whatever they are bad at (rape, pillage, War on Terror, wasting money &c) the military are undeniable good at logistics, at shifting people and materiel around in a short time span.
He got quite a lot of high level support. The main objection was the worry of politicians about inviting foreign soldiers onto their soil. It could have been implemented on a voluntary basis. It's still a good idea. Be good for the soldiers too, seeing people as in need of help, rather than as in need of being killed. (more on this)

Anyway, I am going to be in the Question Time in Cheddar audience on Friday, so I am going to try to put the societal rebuilding question forward.

[update 15 Jan] Naomi Klein speaking about free market fundamentalist Heritage Foundation looking to push their agenda on Haiti.

Haiti brief history
Looting or surviving?
Haiti and the bankers
Reconstructing Haiti