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Haiti Aid Response Far Better than Nargis – The Irrawaddy

January 25th, 2010

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=17652

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—The slow delivery of humanitarian aid to Haitians has become something of an embarrassment, if not a scandal. All last week, I encountered earthquake survivors who either had not received any relief such as food, water, basic shelter, or had not seen any aid workers in their part of the city. Still others said I was the first foreigner they had met, which in some cases was a week or more after the disaster.

It is possible to write some of this off as white lies, with people trying to clamor for attention by making the case that their street or block has been neglected, and therefore should be prioritized. However, the ubiquity of these complaints and pleas suggests that most are more likely to be true than not. (more…)

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Doing good, not doing so good – The Sunday Tribune

January 24th, 2010

http://www.tribune.ie/news/international/article/2010/jan/24/devastated-haiti-caught-between-limbo-and-fires-of/

Simon Roughneen in Port-au-Prince – Rachel Voltaire shuffled disconsolately on a narrow, rubble-strewn lane, which runs alongside a camp set up to shelter 700 Haitian survivors of the January 12 earthquake.

The area is called Delmas, one of Port-au-Prince’s worst-hit suburbs. Buildings lie flattened, and the locals say that

many bodies remain underneath. Ms Voltaire’s story is a harsh mix of tragedy and Kafkaesque catch-22 that makes her downbeat demeanour all the more understandable.

“ I was kicked out of the US coz I didn’t have no green card”, she drawled. She arrived back in Haiti just days before the earthquake, her five children split between cousins in Georgia and an ex-husband in Miami.

“I ain’t got family left here, more than twenty were killed in the earthquake. My mom, my sisters, their kids, everyone.”

She has savings in Citibank, but all the branches in Port-au-Prince were destroyed. “My ex sent me fifty dollars, but the CMA (a Haitian version of Western Union) doesn’t have no cash, so I can’t get my fifty bucks”, she explains.

“What’m I gonna do?” she asks. “Are those guys gonna help?”, pointing at the GOAL volunteers pacing through the squalid camp to see what the people need, and how it can be delivered. Paul Kelly is a civil engineer from Louth. He tells the ‘community leaders’ to draw up a list of families staying at the camp as soon as possible, so the aid agency can allocate shelter, food and hygiene kit donated by the Irish and US Governments. (more…)

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Haiti ends search for survivors – RTÉ World Report

January 24th, 2010

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0124/worldreport.html

Even as a man is pulled alive from the rubble 11 days after the earthquake, the search for survivors is being called off. The focus moves onto the emergency relief operation.

“Why is there not enough for everybody”, said Clement, who walked a mile uphill on Port-au-Prince’s narrow, debris-strewn streets to get to one of the first aid deliveries to some of the estimated 3 million Haitians affected by the earthquake.

Moving around the stricken Caribbean capital last week, I met dozens of groups in different parts of the city who said that they had not received any aid one week after the disaster. Others told me I was the first foreigner they had met.

Anger, frustration and confusion animated most of the Haitians I met last week. And tragedy, on a scale unimaginable. 10000 people a day are being buried in mass graves outside the city, over 100000 so far. Thousands more lie under the rubble.

At GOALs first aid distribution last Wednesday, an atmosphere of tension and anticipation filled the air. With hygiene, shelter and food relief donated by the Irish, American and Canadian Governments, there was enough for 300 families in this first run.

Not enough for everyone who showed up, waiting in the hot afternoon sun. Tensions grew as some people received aid, while others, who came from districts outside the area of the city where this consignment was to be delivered, were trying to access material aimed for others. (more…)

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“I thought I was dead for sure” – The Irrawaddy/National Catholic Register

January 23rd, 2010

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=17644&Submit=Submit

PORT-AU-PRINCE — Screaming as the doctor cleaned and dressed her leg, Lenas then lay back on the bed, drawing breath and, after a couple of minutes, regaining her composure.

“The ground shook for at least thirty seconds, I never knew anything like it,” she said, speaking in Haitian Creole.

“When it was over I was buried. The house was down around me, dust everywhere. I thought I was dead for sure.”

Lenas, 25, spent five hours under the rubble, her leg crushed. It was Jan. 18 when I caught up with her at the Medishare field hospital in a UN compound in Port-au-Prince.

She was receiving her first treatment since the disaster, her leg a nasty mix of bruising, swelling, bleeding and infection.

“I am in a lot of pain,” she said, holding back tears, as Madame Judy, a Haitian nurse who lives in Miami, comforted her.

“I flew home as soon as I heard about the disaster on the news,” Judy said. She arrived in Port-au-Prince late on Jan. 12, ahead of the posse of international aid workers who subsequently struggled to gain access to the country.

The tiny international airport has one runway, and when the US military took over operations there, some aid workers and relief material was held up. It took this correspondent two days to get to Port-au-Prince from Miami, after being diverted to Jamaica. (more…)

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Haiti: ‘His phone died, we don’t know if he is alive’ – National Catholic Register

January 21st, 2010

http://www.ncregister.com/register_exclusives/horror_in_haiti/

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—Four days after the Jan. 12 earthquake that destroyed much of Haiti’s capital, surprising news made its way to Jean-Claude Jérémie, making him jump from his spot at a camp close to the port. Like hundreds of thousands of his compatriots, he now sleeps outdoors, his home destroyed.

It was news of a phone call.

“The call was from Father Benoit, he was missing since the earthquake, everyone thought he was dead”.

“So where was he calling from?” I asked.

“He said ‘I am under the concrete, buried here.”

Apparently he was unable to reach his hand phone until loosening an arm. The call was made to another parishioner, a friend of Jean-Claude’s.

Among the estimated 200,000 killed during the 7.0 quake was Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, leading some newspaper reports to suggest an apocalypse for the Church in Haiti, where Catholicism and Christianity sit in an uneasy relationship with voodoo, which is practiced by some Haitians.

Some stories insinuate that apparently superstitious Haitians will desert Catholicism in droves, due to the destruction wrought on the once-magnificent Notre Dame Cathedral and the loss of so many religious and devout laypeople. Built in the distinctively French style and painted pink and cream, it rose above the downtown Port-au-Prince, now a sea of rubble and pancaked multistory buildings. (more…)

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Quake victims dying from treatable wounds as aid trickles through – Voice of America/Today FM/The Irrawaddy

January 20th, 2010

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/americas/decapua-haiti-sitrep-20jan10-82160902.html

http://audio.todayfm.com/1250125.wav

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=17617

Simon Roughneen in PORT-AU-PRINCE – “You are the first foreigners we have seen here”, said Pierre Ronald.

Standing beside a group of thirty Haitians sheltering from the midday sun, Mr Pierre said in Carrefour, one of the worst-hit areas of Port-au-Prince, no aid had been delivered . Visibly agitated, he exclaims – “we need food, water, doctors – but one week after the disaster, nothing!”

“Do you know anyone who can help? Can you tell people we are here, without anything, please?”

Aidworkers are trying their best, after overcoming immense difficulties even getting into the country. The seaport is damaged, the airport has only one small runway, limiting access from outside. Haiti’s limited infrastructure has taken a hammering – blocked, or clogged with chaotic traffic, with most of the police not showing up for work since the earthquake. Many have been killed, and others are looking for missing family members.

The lack of police causes other problems for survivors. “We need security too”, says Arnaud, standing next to Pierre. Before the earthquake Arnaud made a living as an artist, and perhaps not known to many outside the country, Haiti had popular and thriving arts/culture scene prior to the disaster. But now he is more concerned about marauding thugs intent on looting and stealing.

“We have set up our own group here to protect women and children. At night, we all sleep here in the open”, pointing to a shabbily-painted playground close to the city’s harbor. (more…)

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Haiti earthquake: time running out in nightmare republic – The Sunday Tribune

January 17th, 2010

http://www.tribune.ie/news/article/2010/jan/17/time-runs-out-for-survivors-as-relief-operation-st/

http://www.tribune.ie/article/2010/jan/17/time-is-running-out-as-irish-aid-workers-struggle-/

Simon Roughneen in PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI – In ‘The Comedians’, Graham Greene called Haiti the nightmare republic. For the last few days, truth has been more nighmarish than fiction, with an estimated 140,000 killed in last week’s earthquake according to the Haitian Government.

The international relief operation struggling, and time is running out for the estimated 3 million Haitians affected by the disaster – either injured, homeless, or without food and water. With only miracle rescues now possible for those still trapped alive under the rubble, the risk of disease grows by the hour.

In a land notorious for voodoo, the dust-covered corpses lying prone in the early-morning haze took on an eerie aspect, only overshadowed by the sheer scale of the tragedy that left so many dead – and dying – with medical supplies absent, and medical facilities obliterated.

And the stench – the retch-inducing waft of rotting corpses, with so many thousands still under the rubble – settled over the city, as dead as the heat marking the turn from dawn to morning.

Jean-Pierre, 26, said he had been digging for survivors, without food or water, or much of a break, for two solid days. ”We cannot keep going like this, we are trying to reach people, but they cannot last under the buildings.”

Bodies lay in rows or piled beside the streets, some being stacked as roadblocks. On Friday, Haitians began to dig mass graves to bury their dead, which include several leading politicians and the country’s leading Catholic cleric.

Chaos reigned on the streets of Port-au-Prince, with machete-wielding mobs forming road-blocks, and people looting whatever they could lay their hands on. People are visibly angry and baffled at the inability of foreign governments and major international organisations to come to their assistance quickly enough. (more…)

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Northern Ireland still troubled – ISN

January 14th, 2010

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=111287

As the Irish and UK prime ministers meet to discuss the impasse over control of police and justice in Northern Ireland, the long-running dispute is overshadowed by sex and corruption scandals, and IRA splinter groups are keeping police busy by attempting to undermine the political process and capitalize on a vacuum should the policing powers dispute not be settled.

By Simon Roughneen for ISN Security Watch

The dictum that truth is stranger than fiction was given renewed impetus by the outing of MP Iris Robinson’s affair with Kirk McCambley, now 21. She announced last month that she would be stepping down from politics as she seeks treatment for depression, and says that she attempted suicide in March 2008 after the liaison ended.

Robinson, 60, is the wife of Peter Robinson, first minister in Northern Ireland’s regional government and the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the largest pro-British political party in Northern Ireland.

The couple are to be investigated by Northern Ireland’s committee on standards and privileges after Iris Robinson admitted she secured £50,000 ($81,400) from two developers to help McCambley set up a restaurant business in Belfast. (more…)

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Churches Bear Brunt of Anger in Malaysia – National Catholic Register

January 13th, 2010

http://www.ncregister.com/register_exclusives/churches_bear_brunt_of_anger_in_malaysia/

BANGKOK, Thailand — Churches in Malaysia have come under attack after a court ruling permitted Christians to use

the word “Allah” in publications.

In the wake of the ruling, nine church buildings had been attacked around the country, though no injuries have been reported.

The controversy has dragged on since 2007, with Herald — the Catholic Weekly, the main Catholic newspaper in the country, challenging a government ban on Christians using the word “Allah” in Malay-language literature to refer to God.

One effect of the government ban has been that thousands of Bibles printed in nearby Indonesia, which has more Muslims than any other country, have been confiscated by the Malaysian authorities because they employ the word “Allah” for God.

The government has challenged the court ruling, prompting the judiciary to issue a stay on its implementation. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak visited one of the vandalized churches, issuing a call for calm while reminding Malaysians that Islam forbids such attacks.

After briefing foreign diplomats on the situation Jan. 11, the Home Ministry secretary, Gen. Mahmood Adam, said, “These outrageous incidents are acts of extremism and designed to weaken our diverse communities’ shared commitment to strengthen racial unity.”

Malaysia remains somewhat anomalous for its widespread use of the word “race” to denote ethnic and religious differences among the Malay, Chinese and Indian groups that make up its 27 million people.

Despite the condemnatory words, the government’s appeal suggests that it seeks to exploit the controversy for political gain. The opposition parties have endorsed the court’s decision; in particular, Malaysia’s sole self-declared Islamist party, PAS, which is growing in size and strength and is a key opposition player, contends that Christians have Quranic sanction to say “Allah.”

The government has argued that Christian use of the word “Allah” will confuse Muslims and promote conversions from Islam, which are illegal under Malaysian law. (more…)

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The worst crime – National Catholic Register

January 11th, 2010

http://www.ncregister.com/site/article%20/the_worst_crime/

KNOCK, Ireland — In 1979, Ireland was enthralled as a visit by Pope John Paul II brought out millions at locations across the land. Out of a population of just over 3 million at the time, this massive turnout was seen as a triumphal indicator of the strength of Irish Catholicism.

When Hilaire Belloc wrote “Europe is the faith, and the faith Europe,” he may have had Ireland in mind. Catholicism has been integral to Irish national identity for hundreds of years, and to an extent unequalled in any other European country, save perhaps for Poland.

But all was far from well in the Irish Church. The Pope was welcomed onstage in Galway by Bishop Éamon Casey and Father Michael Cleary, two of Ireland’s best-known Churchmen. Years later, it was revealed that both had fathered children. Soon after the Casey scandal emerged in the early 1990s, stories began to break that some priests had sexually abused children, and as the years went on, the number of allegations rose.

Thirty years after the Pope’s visit, 2009 saw the publication of two reports that have shocked Irish people, led to the resignation of four bishops, and prompted speculation that Pope Benedict XVI will instigate a reorganization of the Irish Church in a pastoral letter scheduled for early 2010 (see related story on page 4). (more…)

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