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Life in Devastated Haiti

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Life in Devastated Haiti - by Stephen Lendman


Nine months after the January 12 earthquake, Haitians still have little relief. Over one and a half million left homeless continue struggling to survive, despite billions in aid raised or pledged. It's for development, predatory NGOs, not them. That's the problem, and they suffering as a result, little media attention paid to their plight.


On September 15, Los Angeles Times writer Joe Mozingo headlined, "No plan in sight for Haiti's homeless," saying:


Where to put them is contentious, reconstruction "hang(ing) on the potentially explosive issue" of who owns the land. For example, pre-quake, tenant farmers used to plant corn and sugar cane on a wealthy family's 20-acre parcel "below the city's main transmission lines of the Delmas 33 road."


"Now an estimated 25,000 people call it home," living in one of many temporary camps, poorly protected against heavy rain, severe weather or hurricanes. When security men try to evict them, they're chased off with "rocks, sticks and machetes."


"It's not like we're comfortable here," says Katlyne Camean. "Last night when it rained, I filled three buckets of water from my house. But no one is telling us where they want us to go. I don't want to go somewhere worse."


They're pitted against an indifferent government, woefully little aid, and conditions unacceptable for anyone, including inadequate food, poor sanitation, little safe drinking water, weather-beaten makeshift shelters, too little of everything needed, no resolution of their homelessness, and the world community turning a blind eye to their plight.


Rubble is everywhere, only 2% of it removed. On September 11, AP's Tamara Lush reported that Port-au-Prince is strewn with "cracked slabs, busted-up cinder blocks, half-destroyed buildings," demolished homes, and "pulverized concrete" on streets and sidewalks. "By some estimates, the quake left about 33 million cubic yards of debris in Port-au-Prince - more than seven times the amount of concrete" used for Hoover Dam.


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