Although it is not Hawaii, when thinking about far off locations the Haitian disaster certainly comes to mind. Having already been hamstrung by strongman rule, environmental catastrophes, and generations of poverty, Haiti will need years to recover from the devastation inflicted by last week's earthquake. However there is something you, as an American, can do to help. There is a Haiti disaster relief fund that has been set up for those in need. Since 2004, Haiti's struggling democracy has survived mainly on international aid and the muscle of a U.N. peacekeeping mission since the revolt that ousted then President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
The magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck outside Port-au-Prince has set back efforts to get the country back on its feet numerous years. While all may not be lost it is still a very serious setback. President Rene Preval's government regrouped at a police compound near the Port-au-Prince airport after nearly all of government ministries suffered heavy damage in the January 12 quake. Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive put the confirmed death toll at 72,000 on Tuesday, but estimates of the total number of fatalities run more than twice that high. All this just when so much has been done to build a non-corrupt police force and judiciary over the past six years. Won't you help Haiti in their time of need?
On the institutional and administrative side there is much that can be salvaged. However efforts to redevelop Haiti's long-ravaged economy may have been set back by decades. Haiti's public infrastructure including schools, hospitals, sanitation systems, power, and roads was already in poor condition before the earthquake. Hospitals quickly ran out of medicine after the flimsy homes built across Port-au-Prince collapsed wholesale during the quake. Airport congestion, damaged communications, and clogged roads slowed the delivery of the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of international aid pledged in the week after the disaster.
This lead to sporadic looting and widespread frustration. Once the challenges of treating, housing, and feeding hundreds of thousands of hungry, homeless and ill people are behind them, the Haitians from all walks of society need to reach a new social compac designed to end their persistent problems The U.S.has been extremely involved in Haiti militarily, politically, and commercially for the majority of the last century, including the occupation of the country for nearly 20 years in the early 1900s. After a 1991 coup, the Clinton administration restored Aristide to power in 1994, and in 2004 a U.S. jet got him out of the country again following a quickly spreading uprising against his government.
Aristide has called his removal a U.S. backed coup, an allegation Washington has denied. Now the United States is the largest contributor to the Haitian government, while Canada, which also has a police contingent in Haiti as part of the U.N. peacekeeping mission, is the second-largest. It is time to help our fellow man. Please consider contributing to the Haiti disaster fund. Even the smallest amount will help someone tremendously.
