By BENJIE OLIVEROS Bulatlat Perspective Three years after a strong earthquake hit Haiti, January 2010, there are still around 360,000 people living in tents that were provided as temporary shelters. People are asking: Where did the donations go? There is much to learn from the relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts in Haiti. The government could…
Tags: Haiti
Business as government: Capitalizing on disaster in post-earthquake Haiti
By DEEPA PANCHANG and BEVERLY BELL Commondreams.org “I am optimistic that in 18 months, yes, we will be autonomous in our decisions. But right now I have to assume… that we are not.” With these words, Haiti’s Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive watched a swath of his government’s decision-making power shift into foreign hands in early…
Suffocating the Poor: A Modern Parable
They democratically elected a president to stand up to the rich and multinational corporations – so our governments have him kidnapped By JOHANN HARI The Independent / Commondreams.org International Posted by Bulatlat.com Today, I want to tell you the story of how our governments have been torturing and tormenting an island in the Caribbean –…
Slavery in Haiti, Again: What’s the Worth of a Haitian Child?
By BEVERLY BELL and TORY FIELD Truthout International Posted by Bulatlat.com “I’m struggling to end slavery because I know how I suffered,” said Helia Lajeunesse, a former restavèk, child slave, who is now a children’s rights advocate. Today, there are an estimated 27 million slaves in the world, according to the research of Kevin Bales…
Sweatshops Won’t Save Haiti
By Tope Folarin Commondreams International Posted by Bulatlat.com The United Nations will host a Haiti donors’ conference at the end of March. This conference will be quite different from last year’s event, of course, coming as it does on the heels of the worst earthquake to strike Haiti in two centuries. An agenda has already…
Three in a Million – Voices From the Hatian Camps
By BULL QUIGLEY International Truthout Posted by Bulatlat.com The United Nations reported there are 1.2 million people living in “spontaneous settlements” or homeless camps around Port-au-Prince. Three people living in the camps spoke with this author this week, before the hard rains hit. Jean Dora, 71 My name is Jean Dora. I was born in…
Haiti: Still Starving 23 Days Later
By BILL QUIGLEY T r u t h o u t International Posted by Bulatlat.com You can walk down many of the streets of Port-au-Prince and see absolutely no evidence that the world community has helped Haiti. Twenty-three days after the earthquake jolted Haiti and killed over 200,000 people, as many as a million people…
To Heal Haiti, Look to History, Not Nature
By MARK DANNER CommonDreams.org International Posted by Bulatlat.com Haiti is everybody’s cherished tragedy. Long before the great earthquake struck the country like a vengeful god, the outside world, and Americans especially, described, defined, marked Haiti most of all by its suffering. Epithets of misery clatter after its name like a ball and chain: Poorest country…
Cuba and Haiti: More Than a Decade of Health Assistance and Solidarity
By ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO Bulatlat.com MANILA—When Haiti was struck by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake last Jan. 12, there were already around 400 Cuban doctors and other health workers working all over the country, present in 227 of Haiti’s 237 communes. “Our solidarity with Haiti did not begin after the earthquake,” said Enna Valdes, Cuba’s newly-designated…