Comments on: Playing the blame game in Haiti

By: EziliDanto

EziliDanto — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 21:51:15 +0000

And yes, Mr. Salmon, it certainly would have been BETTER for 539,000 sick and over 7000 dead Haitians if there had there been no peacekeepers and no 42,000 NGOs at all in Haiti masking US regime change, pillage and occupation. No comma. That’s a period. For the cholera victims, for the earthquake victims, for the 2008 storm victims, for the 2004 to 2006 Bush regime change dead victims of Haiti.

End the UN occupation, take the World Bank, IFM, IFS privatization folks, Paul Farmer, Bill Clinton and the embedded media out of Haiti. Along with the LARGEST US embassy in the Western Hemisphere. Yes, Haitians would be far, far better off. Get out from behind neutral imperialism and philanthropic white supremacy. Souple

By: EziliDanto

EziliDanto — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 21:40:06 +0000

Disagree totally with this Reuters writer. If his son, daughter, entire community was dying from an imported disease. If the CDC, Harvard doctors and UN investigative panel all avoided identifying the source of the outbreak for months and when a whole genome test was done, still kept avoiding pining down the source of the disease was UN soldiers, one wonders if Salmon would reduce his family’s rights to justice and life as an irresponsible call, a “blame game”. This racism and avoidance MUST end. For another perspective, see – HLLN analysis of Times’ cholera article at http://bit.ly/HEATYv

By: walt9316

walt9316 — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:57:47 +0000

For years my sister-in-law has been working at establishing small-scale industry in Haiti. She comments:
“There are a few errors in how [Felix] describes the problem, the most important is ….no, the UN troops should and must leave. The problem is they are there only to protect 184 rich Haitian families that control all the wealth.”

By: rb6

rb6 — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 18:28:21 +0000

I used to work with a church sponsored Haitian aid group. Our biggest project was funding tuition for school children, along with a school lunch program (Haiti’s malnutrition level is so bleak that malnutrition related diabetes is one of its biggest health problems, and prenatal vitamins are one of the most urgently needed medical products).

It doesn’t matter how much money there is. The problem isn’t money, it’s infrastructure, the rule of law, minimum educational attainment, and the things that are largely invisible to us because we take them utterly for granted.

I have started supporting a group called SOIL, which is dedicated to building hygeine infrastructure in Haiti, using Haitians to help design and implement its projects.

By: QCIC

QCIC — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:59:44 +0000

Its a good thing we have an infinite supply of labor and resources to throw at never ending problems like Hatii….oh wait…

Say 5,000 people took off on a spaceship and set up a state on the moon. And then despite their tenuous situation proceeded to have more children than they could support while not working enough to provide for them. It does not become an obligation of the rest of us to go make everything right for them.

All of Hatii’s problems are solvable by Hatiians, they just choose not to solve them because they are a poverty stricken country with little social infrastructure and way way too many people.

I mean if everyone in the developed world was living fat and happy that would be one thing, but have you seen the urban poor in the US. If we cannot fix that with all the advantages it has (compared to much of the world) what on earth makes anyone think we can fix Hatii?

By: MrRFox

MrRFox — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:03:21 +0000

” … the guilty, in this telling, would seem to include the CDC, the UN, and especially the Nepalese peacekeepers…” (F.S.)

Um… yeah – all those outsiders meant well, and that’s what counts. Their hearts were in the right places. That they made matters exponentially worse for Haitians through their efforts is something that should never be mentioned in polite, politically correct company – like ours.

“Would it have been better had there been no peacekeepers at all? Of course not.” (F.S.)

Your economist’s natural certitude not withstanding, I’d like to keep an open mind on that question.

By: JayCM

JayCM — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 14:38:46 +0000

One takeaway is that, when sanitation breaks down, travel into the area should be viewed with suspicion because new people bring new germs.

By: bklyn_pap

bklyn_pap — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 14:12:46 +0000

i honestly think the ny times reporter didn’t “spend a huge amount of effort tracking down purely anecdotal stories of individual Haitians who were exposed to the disease.” i’m sure she left that to the haitian man who was listed as contributor to her article.

i do agree with you that she doesn’t seem to have a grasp on the issues at all.

it’s distressing to me that considering how they’ve almost completely stopped reporting on haiti at all (especially what’s going on with the haitian government right now), the ny times wasted such a large amount of space on such a poorly articulated thought piece.