Haiti "the State has Completely Collapsed"
"Every Haitian thinks that we are being abandoned by the whole world.""If I was in a foreign country and I believed at any moment my life could be at risk, I would leave too.""[But] what about the ones who can't leave?"Dr. Wesner Junior Jacotin, Haitian physician"Those who are here to stop the mess are running away from it.""Leaving a capital in total anarchy is an act of cowardice."Reginald Delva, former Haitian minister of the interior
Haiti,
the impoverished, crime-ridden, woebegotten half of the island of
Hispaniola that it shares with the Dominican Republic, is in a chaotic
mess of immense proportions, a total breakdown of civilized mores, with
roaming masses of Haitian criminals assaulting all the arms of
government, including the police and the military, with free reign to
spread terror among the population, where they rape, and loot, destroy
and murder at will.
Echoes
of the dictatorship-rule in the 1950/60s of Papa Doc Duvalier and his
dreaded Tontons Marcoutes acting on behalf of the Duvalier reign,
collecting 'taxes' from residents, similarly threatening, looting,
raping and murdering. The Duvalier reign in Haiti had the tacit
approval of the United States when Haiti became a getaway for Americans
seeking a holiday spot with no rules of civilized conduct.
At
Duvalier's death, his son, Baby Doc Duvalier exercised a stint at
governing the ungovernable nation of blacks whose heritage on the
island stemmed from their status as enslaved black Africans set down on
Hispaniola when the original indigenous population was decimated by
diseases brought by the presence of western European colonizers like
France and Britain, who established plantations and used enslaved
Africans in slave labour.
The
two countries on the island couldn't be further apart in their fortunes
and their social, cultural, historic and economic outcomes, Haiti is a
pathetic failure of a country, while its neighbour enjoys a far superior
state of civil engagement; the contrast between a successful nation and
one that is a perennially ungovernable state whose people live in
primitive conditions of fear of the criminal class which their
authorities are incapable of controlling.
A resident carries tires to be added to a burning barricade to deter gang members from entering his neighbourhood, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, November 19 [Odelyn Joseph/AP] |
As
conditions in the island nation steadily descended from bad to
horrible, United Nations personnel in the capital Port-au-Prince were
being evacuated for safety's sake. Embassies and international aid
groups including Doctors Without Borders operating a few
still-functioning hospitals have been forced to suspend operations,
given gangs storming into greater areas of the capital.
Most
recently the UN Security Council debated whether to begin an official
peacekeeping mission with its background of failed interventions in the
Caribbean nation. After the earthquake and tsunami of 2010 that
devastated Haiti, UN troops had arrived to aid in maintaining calm and
helping in reconstruction, but they also engaged in sexual exploitation,
and their presence led to an outbreak of cholera from unsanitary
practises contaminating water systems.
Despite
which, the population and government officials were prepared in their
desperation to welcome UN soldiers returning, but it was not to be, when
both Russia and China used their veto power, arguing that there is no
peace to keep, in Haiti. The United Nations had some 300 employees in 18
different agencies engaged in Haiti. Dozens assigned to the UN
Integrated Office in Haiti, a political mission known by the acronym of
BINUH, have been evacuated.
Petionville,
a Port-au-Prince neighbourhood where aid groups and their employees are
based were raided by gangs and although police and local residents
fought back and killed many, the gangs have not been put out of
commission. At least 220 people were killed due to a dozen attacks from
November 11 to 19. The UN migration agency revealed that 41,000 people
had fled their homes in November.
The
Kenyan police staffed international force sent to Haiti in June has
faced heavily armed gangs. The UN feeds 40,000 people daily. According
to Pierre Esperance in Port-au-Prince, only senor staff remained at most
embassies. "Everyone is gone -- Canada, Japan, the U.S. The state has completely collapsed."
Labels: Doctors Without Borders, Government Collapse, Haiti, Roving Violent Gangs, United Nations
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