29202: Durban (comment): On the Lancet Study (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Lance Durban <lpdurban@yahoo.com> offers this comment:

In Corbett #29179 Chin says:

     I too read the study in its entirety and found little to
     argue with, unless one wants to take the stance that the
     the data were invented.

Well OK, I'll voice my belief that the the data were invented.
Furthermore, although someone could redo the study and demonstrate that
the results cannot be reproduced (ie. supporting my suspicion),  this
is probably not an undertaking that Lancet would finance.  The cost of
another survey plus the discomfort of scraping egg off one's face will
probably limit Lancet's admission to regretting the unfortunate
Kolbe/Duff name obfuscation, an obfuscation that I imagine was
perpetrated quite intentionally by Ms Kolbe/Duff.

The Lancet-published study claims that 8000 people were killed in the
post-Aristide period, while another 35,000 were raped or sexually
abused.  These first of these numbers, supposedly a best-guess
extrapolation, is quadruple the number of people the U.N. feels may
have died as a result of violence in the same period, according to
another recent post on the Corbett group.

Does the U.N. have an interest in keeping its estimate low?  Maybe, but
one could equally well point out that any survey conducted by people
PERCEIVED as having the wherewithal to help the respondee can expect to
get an answer designed to attract sympathy, support, help, etc.   So,
could there have been as many as 2000 people killed in post-Aristide
violence?   Personally, I doubt it, but let's acknowledge that any
violence is unacceptable and that there has indeed been
political-related violence since the departure of Aristide.  And, let's
also acknowledge that the Latortue Interim Government fell far short of
what it could have done to bring the nation together in a non-partisan
manner.

What concerns me most about the Kolbe/Duff - Hutson study, however, is
not their unstated political effort to resurrect the Aristide legacy,
but rather that these inflated numbers further damage Haiti's already
sullied reputation.  As I travel around the U.S., Canada, and Great
Britain visiting potential investors and customers that Haiti needs if
it is ever going to rejoin the world economy, I get amazed reaction
that not only would I dare to travel to this God-forsaken, dangerous
place but that I actually have lived there.  And reading the supposedly
calming reports on Corbett by returning visitors to the island who
report, with some amazement, that they fortunately managed to escape
being kidnapped, raped, mugged, or murdered doesn't do much to
encourage other potential visitors either.

So, Ms Kolbe/Duff and your gullible co-author, Hutson, say all the nice
things you want about Mr. A, but please let's not further damage
Haiti's reputation by means of a bogus study that you have cooked up to
further that political agenda.

Lance Durban