generalspeaking

The Marines Have Landed!

Yes, they have. Of course it is not just the Americans who have responded by sending their military to Haiti to restore order and security to enable humanitarian work to proceed without fear of interference and violence foisted on the scene by looting rioters and machete-slashing gangsters escaped from the country's national penitentiary. Canada too is up there with well over a thousand military set to do likewise in the cities south of Port-au-Prince.

But it is always and generally to the United States that the international community looks, for leadership in such catastrophic events. And the U.S. has never yet disappointed in that regard. One does well, however, to overlook catastrophes that strike in the heart of that great country itself, and wonder at the lack of internal response to episodes such as those that struck New Orleans; yet another peculiarity in world affairs.

The United States has come under fire for its take-charge attitude, but there was an imperative that could not be resisted, to restore working order both to the country's destroyed airport and its shipping port along with government institutions. Enraged envoys of other countries and of humanitarian groups blame self-interested decisions by the U.S. in decision making with respect to priorities.

There may indeed have been some glaring instances of unfortunate decision-making, permitting high-placed government entities to fly into the crowded airstrip while delaying or re-routing humanitarian groups like Medecines sans Frontieres to the Dominican Republic, thus delaying emergency responses. Or planes carrying U.S. citizens to safety prioritized over other nationalities.

These inconvenient lapses have provided the hugely obstreperous, high-decibelled Hugh Chavez with the opportunity to denounce American "imperialism". It's more than obvious to Venezuela's leader that the detested Americans stand prepared to "occupy" Haiti while pretending to be taking part in the rescue operations.

"Security goes hand-in-hand with our mission", the commander of U.S. troops in Haiti has stated, and that's fairly obvious. Delivery of food, water and medical aid is the primary purpose of being stationed in Haiti right now, but so too is security, to enable humanitarian aid to reach the intended target.

One Haitian survivor, standing by, alert to the international presence of aid workers is grateful, saying "We know the world wants to help us, but it has been eight days now and I have not seen any food or water for my family". That is an unequivocal failure on the part of the international community, both governmental and NGOs (consider there are claimed to be no fewer than ten thousand humanitarian groups operating in the country at any given time).

Under any other circumstances, the presence of American troops would be seen as anathema to Haiti, which had suffered under American domination after the turn of the Century, after having been a colony of France earlier for a much longer period of time. And because France still has a vestigial interest in its former colony, it has expressed some pique at the U.S. dominating presence.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy stepped in to defuse the blame levelled against the U.S. by France's International Co-operation Minister, diplomatically resolving the tension. So tempers have been frayed by those entering the country for the purpose of alleviating the horrors Haitians are facing, even while Haitians themselves, feeling abandoned, are beginning to raise their own tempers.

The simple fact is, a lack of co-ordination from the international community and the UN is partially at fault. On the other hand, the scope of the disaster is so immense, even they can be forgiven for not knowing quite how or where to begin. A nice start might have been to airdrop needed food and water and medical supplies until such time that a shortage of diesel fuel could solve the trucking problem.

Of course doing that would be to run the risk that those desperately needing the supplies would never see them, if looters and the gangster elements got to them first, or managed to wrest them from desperately needful survivors.

However, the water purification systems are being moved into place. Along with temporary housing, fuel tanks, generators and medicine. The wrecked seaport crane has been made operational once again, to enable the off-loading of supplies being shipped into the country. And the airport's air traffic control tower has been restored to use.

Too much time has elapsed to save the vast numbers of Haitians critically trapped under debris and rubble of the buildings that collapsed around and over them. The surviving injured and traumatized people must be rescued from hunger and disease, and their mortally festering wounds.

And that is the goal that must be reached in the next few days.

Labels: Environment, Political Realities, Poverty, World Crises

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, January 20, 2010