Frontline: The Battle for Haiti, 2011

[Elizabeth502]

Anyone see this PBS program?

What a horrendous situation. No leadership there. The “rule” of anarchy, thorugh gangs. The invasion of the tent cities by those in the slums, and the control of tent cities by gangs of escaped prisoners. Just heartbreaking. The most vulnerable are unquestionably the women – young and old.

The incapacity of their (mostly absent) data systems/records. Inadequate governing systems, politicians caring only for themselves (according to one official), and in bed with the gangs, which are part of the “ruling class” there. Escaped prisoners control the tent cities through terror, raping and beating the women as they choose, including orphaned girls (!).

Very, very difficult stuff to watch. Heartbreaking in fact.

It’s also a very, very typical example of the way the First World approaches natural disasters in Third World countries which are already impaired due to weak governments and other institutions. It approaches these newborn democracies as if they’re as sophisticated as the Western democracies are, not considering how aid will be diverted, misappopriated – not to mention what aid these people really need. One of the commentators – the U.N chief there – said that there are two parallel “governments” there now: one is the fragile Haiti system of life, such as it is; the other is the collection of NGO’s, which are not interacting with the Haitian structures in any meaningful way, but merely layering on disparate forms of aid.

I wonder if anyone saw this program and if so, what your reaction was. The orphaned 19-year-old really broke my heart. I wanted to swoop her up and take her home with me.
:bighanky:

It’s being followed right now by 'Children of Haiti," but I think my emotions are saturated for one evening!

 

[Musicadmirer]

I watched it online after the TV airing. The program incites rage in me. The mercilessness of the acts of violence (especially sexual violence) is traumatizing and at the same time you want to get in battle gear yourself and wipe out the filth that are preying on the severely vulnerable homeless women and children who are living in absolute squalor. Some women have been visited upon more than once since the earthquake.
Of course, there is widespread corruption, with the police not going into the “tent cities” to patrol. And when victims go to them for help, they refuse to do anything.

It reminds me of what happened during and after the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Frontline did a documentary on that as well, which is called “Ghosts of Rwanda”. I feel that the current situation in Haiti is much like that of what happened in Rwanda.

 

[Elizabeth502]

The program incites rage in me.

Ditto. I alternated between heartache/compassion and outright rage. But the program is illustrative of how fragile newborn democracies are, before effective administrations are really in place, and before real leaders with a will to do whatever it takes to ensure order, step up and commit, and do so with courage and altruism.

There’s always controversy about whether/how much First World countries should share, influence these nominal power structures. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. Called imperialistic and accused of ‘puppet governments’ if we do; if we don’t, the country is often left to its own impotent resources, particularly any impoverished country.

But the point is this: We should know this by now. For decades we have been distributing aid to countries devastated by natural disasters – famiines, floods, earthquakes, and too often that aid gets diverted to those who need it less or deserve it least. And overseas NGO’s should make themselves aware of it, too. We should be working hand-in-glove with the U.N., which is especially concerned with internal governing structures, to see to order and law enforcement. One man on the show said that as soon as the people with (slum) abodes figured out there was free food in the tents, they went for it in the tent cities, leaving the newly homeless to compete for scarce resources.

As you saw, there is zero security. No new prison yet, no homes for the homeless. It seems to me that the U.N. could have passed a measure allowing for U.N. forces oversight over the tents until some secure housing could have been built.

Very discouraging.

 

[Elizabeth502]

UPDATE:

Not to that program, but to the fact that, on this the one-year anniversary, NPR ran a segment on Haiti and the aftermath there. It was interesting that a physician was interviewed and had a similar (negative) perspective on what I saw last night among those interviewed: There are actually some ways in which the fate of the quake victims is more dangerous now than a year ago. He spoke specifically of the cholera (which was not addressed on the PBS show). He said that Haiti’s water supply has always been one of the most compromised of all countries, and now that cholera arrived after the quake, the conditions became ideal for the bacteria to “set up shop,” as he described it. Even he was “discouraged,” as he put it, and “frustrated.” The only reference to it on the program last night was simply the fact that one of the children (I think on Children’s segment which followed the first show) said that the absence of public restrooms means that people use the out-of-doors as their restroom.

Again, from our very advantaged perspective in the First World, we tend not to think of these essential things when offering aid to countries whose stage of development (economically, politically, administratively, practically) is a far cry from the essentials we take for granted. And this approach to situations like this has been going on for more than a century.

If I didn’t have two daughters already, I would seriously seek to adopt the 19-year-old who was featured last night. She is completely on her own, trying to eke out an existence, can you imagine? It was mentioned last night that most of the females in the country are illiterate. I really wanted to swoop her up in my arms.