Again--Amy Wilentz's Article on Haitian Earthquake Number Two--August 2021
from Reuters, video still
Oh, mesi, Bon Dye, one can imagine Ariel Henry, the interim Prime Minister of Haiti, saying this morning. Thank you, Lord… not because Henry likes earthquakes or doesn’t care about the people of his country but because a 7.2 earthquake just off shore—with hundreds of buildings down, and more than 300 counted dead so far and doubtless several thousand more to come, and roads impassable, and a possible tsunami rising, and a tropical storm on the way to create mudslides and more destruction and death—is easier to deal with than the investigation of the July 6 assassination of President Jovenel Moise. The quake also struck on an important day for Haitians: today, August 14, which is the day when a legendary Vaudou ceremony was held at Bois Cayman in 1791, inaugurating Haiti’s world-changing revolution against France. Demonstrations against Henry’s government were planned for today. Cancelled. More for Henry to be thankful for.
Dealing with the judicial system in a highly squirrelly political assassination is difficult and dangerous, and the assassination investigation already shows signs of a probe that will be interminable and probably fruitless.
On the other hand, Haitian governments know how to deal with earthquakes: They invite the international community in.
Not much more that they can do: you can see it all online today. They can pick up rubble with their bare hands, and they are doing that and rescuing people. You can bring them to local clinics that haven’t fallen down, and they are doing that. You can give them first aid yourself, and they’re doing that, using the water in their personal water bottles to wash wounds, among other acts of generosity and personal kindness. You can run from the possible tsunami toward the hills, and they’re doing that.
But the kind of resources that, say, Western European nations have for dealing with natural disasters (the stuff we saw in Germany during their floods, for example) Haitians don’t have, in large part because their state has been stolen from them by nefarious and manipulative businessmen, about ten to twenty of them in this era, who wheel and deal and steal, have taken over almost every important sector of the economy, and have convinced the international community that they are critical to Haiti’s development, when in fact they are the roadblock that stands in the way.
All of Haiti’s helicopters, for example, are privately owned, and there’s not much money in the national coffer to pay the private sector for the emergency use of these things, the treasury having been massively looted during the previous two administrations of Presidents Michel Martelly and his protegé, the late President Moise. Of course, some of the members of this business mafya, as they are known in Haiti, will come through during an emergency, presenting themselves as patriots and offering things for free. But every favor in Haiti is paid for down the line.
Another problem for Haitians trying to help each other during the earthquake’s aftermath are the gangs that have taken control of the southern exit of the capital and who thus block all access to the country’s biggest hospitals and best services. Today an ambulance carrying eleven victims was stopped by a gang and turned away from the southern entrance to Port-au-Prince in Martissant, which has been run by gangs for the past two months. Its passengers were held for ransom. Meanwhile major international media outlets had to rent helicopters to avoid the gangs and get out to where the damage is worst.
These street gangs are the leftovers of the Martelly/Moise era, and have been underwritten and armed by members of the mafya and their government cronies; they’re an essential part of the mafya’s business plan.
Soon, the U.S. will be back down in Haiti with a relief and recovery effort, along with Canada and no doubt others, same cast as after the even crueler earthquake of 2010, which struck at a shallower depth under the overcrowded, underconstructed capital of Port-au-Prince and killed an estimated 200,000 plus. This time the effort will be run by Samantha Power, chief of USAID under Biden. Last time it was Bill Clinton, who ran the huge American response to the 2010 Haitian earthquake under Obama, during which millions of dollars went unaccounted for and Haitians didn’t get much relief. Clinton along with his wife, who was then secretary of state, set the stage for all that has followed in Haiti: they helped certify the questionable elections of both post-earthquake presidents and thus allowed the rise of the corrupt and negligent Martelly-Moise administrations, and their criminal supporters… and the consequent ascension of the angry young shantytown gangs who now control the streets and highways of Haiti.
Prime Minister Ariel Henry
This morning, President Biden said, “I have authorized an immediate US response and named USAID Administrator Samantha Power as the senior US official to coordinate this effort.” We like to believe that Biden at least discussed this with Henry first, but… In any case, we can only hope and pray that Power does a better job than the Clinton duo. The last earthquake came at the end of the two-decade on-and-off relay of the presidency between Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his protege René Préval. The questionable 2011 election of Martelly signaled to Haitians that the era of trying (though perhaps not achieving) real democracy had come to an end, and that the international community was now, again, willing to put its considerable weight behind Haitian politicians who seemed to have as their primary goal a kind of hard-line pro-business stability, even if voters didn’t much like them. In the end, during the Martelly/Moise regnum, stability was nowhere on the agenda—no measures were taken to achieve it.
Biden and Power
Perhaps this earthquake will lead to a similar and more profound changing of the guard. (Hands clasped together in fervent prayer…) For the moment though, the Moise assassination has left the same element in charge of Haiti who were in charge when Moise was alive. Only that one chess piece has been eliminated, but the rest of the team is still in place. Indeed, the earthquake seems to have offered Prime Minister Henry a backdoor to a new U.S. military intervention in Haiti, which is something that was proposed immediately after he took office, with US benediction, in early July. That proposal was rejected by Haitian civil society, but now things have changed. Steeples are fallen in the roads, hotels pancaked, schools destroyed… and perhaps Haitian sovereignty, as well.
Anyway, now Henry can work with Power to help Haitians cope with the earthquake, while possibly turning away from the supremely difficult task of naming, arresting, and trying the perpetrators of the Moise assassination. The earthquake is virtually a gift from God for him. Politically, bringing the assassins to justice is almost an impossibility for Henry, who was part and parcel of the governmental apparatus surrounding the late president, and would be risking… a lot …. if he actually were to hunt down and prosecute the real perpetrators and intellectual authors of the crime. Because, and I will say this only once, the dead president, his friends, and his enemies were all part of the same corrupt group that’s been running Haiti for a decade. Any one of Moise’s cohort could have helped authorize the killing. Already members of the investigative team looking into the assassination have had to go into hiding because they know or might reveal facts about the crime. For now, the probe continues, and investigators scratch their collective chin. Who did it? Well let’s say this: Someone knows. Will it ever be revealed? Ask the killers of Lebanon’s Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated in a massive explosion on a main street in Beirut in 2005. As Marlise Simons wrote in The New York Times this week, a tribunal established to prosecute the assassins of Hariri failed to show who ordered the attack, or why, after twelve years of investigation and $800 million spent.
That probe is now closed.
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My Comments--
"Dealing with the judicial system in a highly squirrelly political assassination is difficult and dangerous, and the assassination investigation already shows signs of a probe that will be interminable and probably fruitless."
Dr. Ariel Henry is the new Haitian Prime Minister who was chosen after the assassination of Haiti's President Jovenel Moise on July 7, 2021. Some think that the US pushed Dr. Henry to be selected as the new PM. He had been picked by President Moise to be the new PM just several days before Moise's death. Wilentz's point is that dealing with this horrible earthquake will be distracting for Dr. Henry and the nation and take the attention away from the probe looking into the death of President Moise. Like Wilentz says, someone knows who did the killing and who paid for the killing, but will we ever know?
And most poor Haitians just want to feed their families. And they don't know what justice is because they have never experienced justice in their lives. And most poor Haitians know that they will NEVER know who killed their president.
"They can pick up rubble with their bare hands, and they are doing that and rescuing people. You can bring them to local clinics that haven’t fallen down, and they are doing that. You can give them first aid yourself, and they’re doing that, using the water in their personal water bottles to wash wounds, among other acts of generosity and personal kindness. You can run from the possible tsunami toward the hills, and they’re doing that."
Yes, poor Haitians are helping poor Haitians. That is what they do. They have no one else. The hospitals on the southern peninsula are filled with patients from the quake. I have heard that Pestel and Baraderes, two quaint villages on the northern coast of the are severely damaged. Some medical providers are there, like in Corail on the northern coast, but the medical supplies are not there. So people use their own band-aids and do the best they can. Yesterday, the main road leading north out of Cayes was blocked from mudslides after the quake. And this road is important because it is the main corridor from Cayes in the south, to Jeremie, a large city on the coast of the northern peninsula. Seems to me that people and material will need to be flown in soon by helicopters. This reminds me so much of the devastation after Hurricane Matthew in 2016. The Grand South was on its own then, too.
"Another problem for Haitians trying to help each other during the earthquake’s aftermath are the gangs that have taken control of the southern exit of the capital and who thus block all access to the country’s biggest hospitals and best services. Today an ambulance carrying eleven victims was stopped by a gang and turned away from the southern entrance to Port-au-Prince in Martissant, which has been run by gangs for the past two months. Its passengers were held for ransom. Meanwhile major international media outlets had to rent helicopters to avoid the gangs and get out to where the damage is worst."
Yes, you read this correctly. Injured earthquake victims being held for ransom in Port au Prince. A new low? And this area in the capital, Martissant, has been blocked by gangs for several months. This is the only road leading from Port au Prince to the south. How will supplies reach the south if this road stays blocked besides the air? How does one fly tractors through the sky along with people? This road has to be opened and secured. Will Dr. Henry's association with the United States help lead to US military intervention now after the quake?
"This morning, President Biden said, “I have authorized an immediate US response and named USAID Administrator Samantha Power as the senior US official to coordinate this effort.”
Man, I hope Administrator Power can get the job done this time. Haiti aid didn't go so well in 2010 after Earthquake Number One--the first unnatural disaster. Have we learned from our mistakes?
John A. Carroll, MD
www.haitianhearts.org
The symbolism of the occurrence of the 2021 earthquake on the same date as the onset in 1791 of the unparalleled revolution will surely not be lost on the people. In China, a coincidence of such great magnitude has been a signal that the current regime must go.
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