23301: Esser: Haiti shines mirror on leadership (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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


Daytona Beach News-Journal
http://www.news-journalonline.com/

Sept. 27, 2004

Haiti shines mirror on leadership
By MICHELLE.FERRIER
CHASING RAINBOWS


Something was missing.

I was proofreading an article about Haiti for this past Tuesday's
paper. Tropical Storm Jeanne . . . more than 600 dead . . . thousands
homeless . . . devastation.

Toward the end of the article, I stopped. "The U.S. Embassy announced
$60,000 in immediate relief aid . . ."

Hmmm, I thought, $60,000? There must be a mistake. Perhaps a few
zeroes were inadvertently dropped in the version I was reading. I
went back to some of the earlier stories that had been transmitted by
the Associated Press. Sixty thousand dollars stared back at me.

Sixty thousand dollars. Sixty thousand dollars. Something was wrong,
but it wasn't the material fact that $60,000 was all there was.

I tried hard to contain my anger, but it spilled out along with
disbelief and disgust.

"Sixty thousand dollars!" I shouted to one of my colleagues.

"That's all the U.S. could spare to send to Haiti? What is wrong with
this government?"

"Sixty thousand dollars? That's an insult! That's disgusting!" I
continued in my tirade.

"We can go charging into Haiti with troops to get rid of its leader,
and yet for a major island-wide disaster we send $60,000? We can
bully our way into Iraq for supposed weapons of mass destruction and
look past Haiti's tragedy?

"That's par for the course, of course," I continued. "Look at what
we've done for Sudan. Hundreds of thousands displaced from their
homes. Thousands dead.

And what? We've sent words, rhetoric, condemnations."

Oh, I was hot. But I wasn't surprised. Our country has shunned the
Haitians, sending back refugees from poverty to their troubled
homeland. America's deportation policies make no sense to me. This
latest response to Haiti was just downright stingy.

Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., called it "a drop in the bucket."

Floridians and others throughout the southern and eastern states have
had recent experience with hurricanes and their aftermath of
flooding, damages, and recovery.

President Bush has been to Florida three times in the past several
weeks, examining first-hand storm effects. I would think that our
country's leaders could have a bit more empathy for the plight of
another nation without our resources for rebuilding and recovery.

Sixty thousand dollars can't even buy one bulldozer to help dig out
the mass graves.

The Associated Press reported several other nations were sending aid
this week, including $1.8 million from the European Union and $1
million and rescue supplies from Venezuela.

If the U.S. is going to tout itself as a global leader, shouldn't it
be out in front aiding its neighbors instead of waiting to be
chastised?

Shouldn't the U.S. be showing that there's a humanity that goes with
democracy? Our leaders shouldn't have to be shamed into doing the
right thing.
.