23285: Esser: Haiti Poverty And Tragedy (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser <torx@joimail.com>

The Nation {Barbados]
http://www.nationnews.com/

- Our Caribbean -
Haiti Poverty And Tragedy

Friday 24, September-2004
by Rickey Singh

THIS WEEK’s grisly, soul-wrenching scenes of hundreds of floating
corpses and livestock from Haiti’s latest nightmare of death, missing
people and colossal destruction resulting from mudslides and
floodwaters, must serve to remind our region and the world of the
terrible consequences of chronic poverty in this and other poor
regions.

The national disaster, particularly in the heavily populated northern
city of Gonaives, was quickly associated with tropical storm Jeanne
that lashed the poverty-stricken Caribbean state at the weekend.

But within the first two days of torrential rains that brought
mudslides and rising floodwaters, it became evident that
deforestation was the primary culprit of the horrendous tragedy
which, by yesterday, had left an estimated death toll of some 1 000
with more than 1 000 others missing, and a wretched people
overwhelmed by destruction and dislocation as they cope with hunger
and fears of new disease.

Those familiar with the herculean struggles of the Haitian masses for
survival in the poorest nation in this hemisphere, would know how
they have been driven over the years into the danger zone of denuding
the hills of trees for wood as fuel and to eke out a living from the
land.

Caribbean Hurricane Network, in its tracking of Jeanne, reported
earlier in the week, and contrary to initial news reports, that the
tropical storm was well north of Gonaives. The flooding, therfore,
would have been more the result of local thunderstorms in the hills
and, “due to deforestation there, the water just rushed down and
flooded the areas . . .”

The dangers to the physical safety and welfare of the Haitian people
from deforestation have been of concern for many years. I well recall
the focus that the Caribbean Conference of Churches, for example, had
placed on this and other social and economic ills of Haiti during my
years as editor of the CCC’s now defunct newspaper, Caribbean Contact.

There are those in powerful countries like the former colonial power,
France, and the United States of America, once an occupying power –
both often accused of racist and exploitative policies toward Haiti –
have long been in the habit of making it appear that the Haitian
people, citizens of the first independent nation in the Western
Hemisphere, are somehow just too lazy, illiterate and corrupt to
climb out of their poverty.

The reality is that the United States, France and the other European
nations that form the rich and powerful, along with Japan, have
largely contributed to the persistent poverty and hunger that afflict
poor nations, such as Haiti, across the globe, by their trade and aid
policies and how they influence decisions of the international
financial institutitons.

Both the President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula daSilva, and
Pakistan's President, Pervez Musharraf, have warned, have just warned
in addressing the 59th General Assembly of the United Nations, that
poverty was the most dangerous weapon of mass destruction and its
urgent and systematic reduction could prove very effective in the war
against international terrorism.

Poverty remains Haiti’s number one enemy, and with Gonaives
confronted with an environmental disaster and the capital
Port-au-Prince expected to be further burdened by a new wave of
internal migration, traditional bandaid is not an option.

What’s needed now, is for the international community’s emergency
relief responses to be followed by a new focus on economic
reconstruction never before in Haiti’s 200-year history of
independence. For a start, some of the US$1.1billion development aid
pledges Haiti already received at the donors conference in July
should be speedily released – even as questions are being raised
about the new “debt trap” it faces.
.