Life and health for a sister people

Text and photos: Juan Diego Nusa Peñalver, Special correspondent

WHILE it appears that Haiti is no longer news for some international forces who have withdrawn from the country, the Cuban Medical Brigade reaffirmed its commitment to life and heath for this sister Caribbean country, during the presentation of its annual report March 5-6, in Port-au-Prince.

Dr. Lorenzo Somarriba, head of the Cuban medical mission here, offered a broad overview of the year's work, marked by the two catastrophes suffered by this nation: the emergency produced by the devastating earthquake of January 2010, which in a matter of minutes killed 300,000 people and destroyed the limited infrastructure existent within the country and the terrible cholera epidemic which is a long way from being defeated, despite initial inroads.

The report provoked serious discussion of measures to strengthen the Haitian public health system, primary care in particular, through the Cuban-Venezuelan project and the tripartite agreement with Brazil and other nations in this sector, and how to eliminate cholera and avoid its further spread.

Noteworthy within this effort is the completion of 10 community reference hospitals, financed with funds from the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), two health centers and a storage facility for medication and equipment, staffed by the Cuban Brigade, which is already responsible for 69 Cuban-Venezuelan project centers and has personnel serving within 87 Haitian Ministry of Health and Population facilities.

Amidst difficult conditions the Cuban internationalists have, during the past year, carried out more than 1.7 million consultations (22.4% in the field), performed 37,846 surgeries and attended 10,170 births.

It is impressive that the Cuban Brigade has treated 30% of all cholera victims in Haiti, and only mourned 6% of total deaths in the country due to the disease, which speaks for its commitment to the struggle for Haitian lives.

The working strategy to eradicate this disease was delineated very clearly, how to provide services in cholera units and centers with the minimum staff strictly necessary, thus freeing Brigade members to address other medical needs.

The World and Pan-American Health Organizations and UNESCO's food program were thanked for their timely support.

Within this context, much serious discussion took place about the need to conserve resources, to provide directors with better economic training, to carefully manage equipment and promote its rational use, giving priority to clinical diagnoses.

The comments made by Dr. Alina Cárdenas, head of the Party's work group, and Ricardo García, Cuba's ambassador in Haiti, and others, devoted special attention to the preparation of those to come, looking to preserve and improve all that has been done by Cuban medicine during its 12-year presence in Haiti.

On this front, the results are clear and allow for well-founded confidence in the future.

The meeting concluded with good news: the election of Dr. Alina Cárdenas, as a delegate to the 6th Party Congress and on March 5, for the second consecutive day since the beginning of the epidemic more than four months ago, fewer than 100 cases of cholera were reported within the regions being served by the Cuban Medical Brigade.

Translated by Granma International

A Fundraiser for Haiti Medical Relief

The Hamilton Friendship Association with Cuba Proudly Presents:



Brian Gordon Sinclair’s Hemingway on Stage:
Hemingway’s HOT Havana

- A Fundraiser for Haiti Medical Relief -


Sunday, March 6, 2:00pm-4:30pm

Performance: 2:00pm-3:00pm / Wine & Cheese: 3:15pm-4:30pm



Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts, 126 James Street South



General Admission $15.00 / Student/Senior: $10.00 / Children

under 12: $8.00 / Pay what you can, no one refused entry!



Tickets are available by contacting us directly at info@cubacanada.org or at:

* Bryan Prince Bookseller (1060 King St. W. / (905) 528-4508)

* Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts (126 James St. S. / (905) 528-4020)



Don’t miss Hamilton’s only performance of Hemingway's HOT Havana. All funds raised from this exciting performance will go to the Cuba for Haiti Campaign, which supports the important work of the Cuban medical relief workers in Haiti.



Hemingway's HOT Havana is a thoroughly entertaining play, which offers rare insight into the life and times of Ernest Hemingway, his time spent in Cuba and why he so loved the old city. It is a bold, rousing adventure tale brought to life by actor, director and master story-teller Brian Gordon Sinclair. Hemingway’s HOT Havana is a superb one actor show that will make you believe Hemingway is standing right there in front of you!



Brian Gordon Sinclair, author of Hemingway On Stage, is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada and holds a Master of Arts degree in Theatre from the University of Denver. He has also studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, England and at the National Film Board of Canada. Mr. Sinclair is currently writing a six-play series, Hemingway On Stage: The Road to Freedom. The first five plays have premiered at the Hemingway Days Festival in Key West, Florida and the sixth play of the series is currently under way. A recipient of the Sir Tyrone Guthrie Award for acting at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, Mr. Sinclair has performed in Cuba, Denmark, England, Holland, Norway, Poland, Spain and the Moscow Art Theatre in Russia. He is now Artistic Director of Ontario’s “Children of Erin” Theatre Company. Mr. Sinclair is a proud dual citizen of Canada and Ireland.



About Cuban Medical Relief in Haiti



At the time of the earthquake in Haiti, 402 Cuban internationalists, 302 of them medical personnel, were already on the ground in Haiti providing free medical services. These, together with many of the 500 Haitian doctors who had been trained in Cuba free of charge formed the essential early group of lifesavers, attending to 1,102 Haitian patients in the first 24 hours after the earthquake. They have continued their work, boosted by an additional medical brigade which arrived promptly from Cuba. The Cubans do this work in Haiti purely in the spirit of helping their fellow human beings, without condition or expectation. All monies raised for the Cuba for Haiti Campaign goes directly to the relief and training efforts in Haiti. We believe that this kind of unprecedented and invaluable help which Cuba has been giving Haiti for twelve years deserves to be supported as strongly as possible! Join us to make this important work a success!

Cuban medics in Haiti put the world to shame

Castro’s doctors and nurses are the backbone of the fight against cholera
By Nina Lakhani, The Independent, Sunday, 26 December 2010

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/cuban-medics-in-haiti-put-the-world-to-shame-2169415.html #

They are the real heroes of the Haitian earthquake disaster, the human catastrophe on America’s doorstep which Barack Obama pledged a monumental US humanitarian mission to alleviate. Except these heroes are from America’s arch-enemy Cuba, whose doctors and nurses have put US efforts to shame.

A medical brigade of 1,200 Cubans is operating all over earthquake-torn and cholera-infected Haiti, as part of Fidel Castro’s international medical mission which has won the socialist state many friends, but little international recognition.

Observers of the Haiti earthquake could be forgiven for thinking international aid agencies were alone in tackling the devastation that killed 250,000 people and left nearly 1.5 million homeless. In fact, Cuban healthcare workers have been in Haiti since 1998, so when the earthquake struck the 350-strong team jumped into action. And amid the fanfare and publicity surrounding the arrival of help from the US and the UK, hundreds more Cuban doctors, nurses and therapists arrived with barely a mention. Most countries were gone within two months, again leaving the Cubans and Médecins Sans Frontières as the principal healthcare providers for the impoverished Caribbean island.
·
Figures released last week show that Cuban medical personnel, working in 40 centres across Haiti, have treated more than 30,000 patients since October. They are the largest foreign contingent, treating around 40 per cent of all cholera patients. Another batch of medics from the Cuban Henry Reeve Brigade, a disaster and emergency specialist team, arrived recently as it became clear that Haiti was struggling to cope with the epidemic that has already killed hundreds.

Since 1998, Cuba has trained 550 Haitian doctors for free at the Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina en Cuba (Elam), one of the country’s most radical medical ventures. Another 400 are currently being trained at the school, which offers free education – including free books and a little spending money – to anyone sufficiently qualified who cannot afford to study medicine in their own country.

John Kirk is a professor of Latin American studies at Dalhousie University in Canada who researches Cuba’s international medical teams. He said: “Cuba’s contribution in Haiti is like the world’s greatest secret. They are barely mentioned, even though they are doing much of the heavy lifting.”

This tradition can be traced back to 1960, when Cuba sent a handful of doctors to Chile, hit by a powerful earthquake, followed by a team of 50 to Algeria in 1963. This was four years after the revolution, which saw nearly half the country’s 7,000 doctors voting with their feet and leaving for the US.

The travelling doctors have served as an extremely useful arm of the government’s foreign and economic policy, winning them friends and favours across the globe. The best-known programme is Operation Miracle, which began with ophthalmologists treating cataract sufferers in impoverished Venezuelan villages in exchange for oil. This initiative has restored the eyesight of 1.8 million people in 35 countries, including that of Mario Teran, the Bolivian sergeant who killed Che Guevara in 1967.

The Henry Reeve Brigade, rebuffed by the Americans after Hurricane Katrina, was the first team to arrive in Pakistan after the 2005 earthquake, and the last to leave six months later.

Cuba’s constitution lays out an obligation to help the worst-off countries when possible, but international solidarity isn’t the only reason, according to Professor Kirk. “It allows Cuban doctors, who are frightfully underpaid, to earn extra money abroad and learn about diseases and conditions they have only read about. It is also an obsession of Fidel’s and it wins him votes in the UN.”

A third of Cuba’s 75,000 doctors, along with 10,000 other health workers, are currently working in 77 poor countries, including El Salvador, Mali and East Timor. This still leaves one doctor for every 220 people at home, one of the highest ratios in the world, compared with one for every 370 in England.

Wherever they are invited, Cubans implement their prevention-focused holistic model, visiting families at home, proactively monitoring maternal and child health. This has produced “stunning results” in parts of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, lowering infant and maternal mortality rates, reducing infectious diseases and leaving behind better trained local health workers, according to Professor Kirk’s research.

Medical training in Cuba lasts six years – a year longer than in the UK – after which every graduate works as a family doctor for three years minimum. Working alongside a nurse, the family doctor looks after 150 to 200 families in the community in which they live.

This model has helped Cuba to achieve some of the world’s most enviable health improvements, despite spending only $400 (£260) per person last year compared with $3,000 (£1,950) in the UK and $7,500 (£4,900) in the US, according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development figures.

Infant mortality rates, one of the most reliable measures of a nation’s healthcare, are 4.8 per 1,000 live births – comparable with Britain and lower than the US. Only 5 per cent of babies are born with a low birth weight, a crucial factor in long-term health, and maternal mortality is the lowest in Latin America, World Health Organisation figures show. Cuba’s polyclinics, open 24 hours a day for emergencies and specialist care, are a step up from the family doctors. Each provides for 15,000 to 35,000 patients via a group of full-time consultants as well as visiting doctors, ensuring that most medical care is provided in the community.

Imti Choonara, a paediatrician from Derby, leads a delegation of international health professionals at annual workshops in Cuba’s third city, Camaguey. “Healthcare in Cuba is phenomenal, and the key is the family doctor, who is much more proactive, and whose focus is on prevention ... The irony is that Cubans came to the UK after the revolution to see how the NHS worked. They took back what they saw, refined it and developed it further; meanwhile we are moving towards the US model,” Professor Choonara said.

Politics, inevitably, penetrates many aspects of Cuban healthcare. Every year hospitals produce a list of drugs and equipment they have been unable to access because of the American embargo which prevents many US companies from trading with Cuba, and persuades other countries to follow suit. The 2009/10 report includes drugs for childhood cancers, HIV and , some anaesthetics, as well as chemicals needed to diagnose infections and store organs. Pharmacies in Cuba are characterised by long queues and sparsely stacked shelves, though in part this is because they stock only generic brands.

Antonio Fernandez, from the Ministry of Public Health, said: “We make 80 per cent of the drugs we use. The rest we import from China, former Soviet countries, Europe – anyone who will sell to us – but this makes it very expensive because of the distances.”

On the whole, Cubans are immensely proud and supportive of their contribution in Haiti and other poor countries, delighted to be punching above their weight on the international scene. However, some people complain of longer waits to see their doctor because so many are working abroad. And, like all commodities in Cuba, medicines are available on the black market for those willing to risk large fines if caught buying or selling.

International travel is beyond the reach of most Cubans, but qualified nurses and doctors are among those forbidden from leaving the country for five years after graduation, unless as part of an official medical team.

Like everyone else, earn paltry salaries of around $20 (£13) a month. So, contrary to official accounts, bribery exists in the hospital system, which means some doctors, and even hospitals, are off-limits unless patients can offer a little something, maybe lunch or a few pesos, for preferential treatment.

Cuba’s international ventures in healthcare are becoming increasingly strategic. Last month, officials held talks with Brazil about developing Haiti’s public health system, which Brazil and Venezuela have both agreed to help finance.

Medical training is another example. There are currently 8,281 students from more than 30 countries enrolled at Elam, which last month celebrated its 11th anniversary. The government hopes to inculcate a sense of social responsibly into the students in the hope that they will work within their own poor communities for at least five years.

Damien Joel Suarez, 27, a second year from New Jersey, is one of 171 American students; 47 have already graduated. He dismisses allegations that Elam is part of the Cuban propaganda machine. “Of course, Che is a hero here but he isn’t forced down your neck.”

Another 49,000 students are enrolled in the El Nuevo Programa de Formacion de Medicos Latinoamericanos, the brainchild of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, who pledged in 2005 to train 100,000 doctors for the continent. The course is much more hands-on, and critics question the quality of the training.

Professor Kirk disagrees: “The hi-tech approach to health needed in London and Toronto is irrelevant for millions of people in the Third World who are living in poverty. It is easy to stand on the sidelines and criticise the quality, but if you were living somewhere with no doctors, then you’d be happy to get anyone.”

There are nine million Haitians who would probably agree.

Video review: Haiti

Haiti. Filmed in Rosey-O-Vision.

An interesting film not only because it's pre-2010 earthquake but pre-many things since this film is from 1942. Gives a quick history lesson, and a tourist's view of the nation. Has subtle racism as one person noted "... the narrator seems to be amazed that the 'negroes' can govern themselves, and seems thoroughly baffled by their culture."

Introduction to Haiti (1942. Calls in the Carribean travelogue series)





Say! don't you know that the people of Haiti are "blessed with Liberty*"?


(*TM Reg. U.S. Pat. Office)

Launch of Cuba for Haiti Fund

Canadian Network on Cuba
www.canadiannetworkoncuba.ca

January 18, 2010

Dear Friends,

In response to the horrendous suffering of the Haitian people resulting from the earthquake and its many aftershocks, many Canadians have been wondering what the most effective way to provide aid is. The Canadian-Cuban Friendship Association of Toronto has proposed the Cuba for Haiti fundraising campaign which is also endorsed by the Canadian Network on Cuba as a national effort.

Cuba has an unequalled record in helping people in crises such as the earthquake in Pakistan and natural disasters in many other countries. In fact it has set up a special emergency unit, the Henry Reeve Medical Brigade, to respond to such disasters. At the time of the earthquake in Haiti, 402 Cuban internationalists, 302 of them medical personnel, had already been helping Haitians. These together with many of the 500
Haitian doctors who had been trained in Cuba free of charge formed the essential early group of lifesavers, attending to 1,102 Haitian patients in the first 24 hours after the earthquake. They have continued their work, boosted by an additional medical brigade which arrived promptly from Cuba.

We believe that this kind of unprecedented and invaluable help which Cuba has been giving Haiti for eleven years deserves to be supported as strongly as possible. The CNC urges you to support Cuba in this work by giving a donation to “The Mackenzie-Papineau Memorial Fund,” indicating on your cheque’s memo line “Cuba for Haiti”.

Charitable receipts will be issued by the Mackenzie-Papineau Memorial Fund (Charitable Org - Revenue Canada Reg, #88876 9197RR0001).

Your donation should be mailed to:

The Mackenzie-Papineau Memorial Fund &
Friends of the Mac-Pap Battalion, Int'l Brigades
Att: S. Skup
56 Riverwood Terrace
Bolton, ON L7E 1S4

The “Cuba for Haiti” contributions will go into a special account, ensuring that 100% of all donations are used for medical support and aid to Haiti. We are working directly with The Cuban Embassy in Ottawa and the Consulate General in Toronto.

Sincerely,
Isaac Saney, CNC Co-chair & and National Spokesperson,
Tamara Hansen, CNC Co-Chair
Keith Ellis, CNC Coordinator “Cuba for Haiti”

Cuba's solidarity with Haiti

From Cuba's Granma newspaper
Left: Cuban Doctors were already in Haiti

Desolation and Death



PORT-AU-PRINCE, January 14.— Haitian Prime Minister Jean Max-Berllerive said
that one of the reasons for the high number of fatalities caused by the
January 12 earthquake is the serious degree of poverty, which forces many
families to live in precarious housing and extremely crowded conditions.

[image: Desolation and Death]The population of the Haitian capital underwent
another day of anguish on Thursday, in the midst of the chaos and desolation
caused by the collapse of a large part of the city, Prensa Latina reported.

The magnitude of the tragedy, which has yet to be assessed with precision,
is greater than authorities’ capacities, the prime minister stated in a
press conference.

"We lack a response to an event like this. We are depending on international
aid for dealing with this disaster."

Beginning on Tuesday night, other countries in the region and elsewhere in
the world, as well as international organizations, announced the
mobilization of emergency resources to aid victims.

It was learned that Cuban Joel Melo Torres, who was receiving medical
attention in Port-au-Prince and had been reported in a serious condition,
has been flown from that city to Santiago de Cuba, where he is being treated
at the Juan Bruno Zayas clinical-surgical hospital. Two other Cubans who
were slightly injured, Alberto Bravo Carbonell, director of the education
brigade, and Alina Almeida Rivera, from the same brigade, also returned to
Cuba.

Cuban doctors in Haiti have continued to work, almost without rest and as of
late Thursday night had attended to 1,987 patients and carried out 111 major
and 60 minor surgeries in an improvised field hospital, according to
reports.

ANA IVIS GALÁN GARCÍA

ON Wednesday morning, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla
received his counterpart from the Republic of Suriname, Lygia Louise Irene
Kraag-Keteldijk, who is on an official visit to our country.

As part of official talks between the two ministers, Rodríguez gave a
detailed explanation of the situation of Cuban cooperation workers in the
sister Republic of Haiti after the terrible earthquake that occurred on
Tuesday.

In that context, he clarified that there are currently "403 Cuban
cooperative personnel, 334 of whom are working in the heath sector as
doctors and paramedics," in the devastated country. He said they had been
able to confirm the status of all those working "within the city of
Port-au-Prince. Only two of them received very slight injuries, and the
others have confirmed that they are all right."

"We are verifying the situation and gathering complete information about
cooperative workers in other parts of the country. We have been able to
locate the majority of them and they are fine," he assured.

The minister added that victims have been receiving medical attention from
the Cuban brigade since the earthquake struck. He noted that "they are now
working in two campaign hospitals in our medical personnel’s accommodation
facilities."

He said that plans are underway to more emergency aid to the sister
Caribbean nation, consisting of "a quantity of medicine and heath materials.
An additional number of doctors are to travel there."

"Our ambassador and other *compañeros* working in Port-au-Prince spent the
entire night and early morning touring the city to contact our compatriots
there because communication lines have collapsed. Equally, "the team from
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working tirelessly to coordinate the
response from all of our institutions."
The Cuban foreign affairs minister reiterated Cuba’s disposition to
participate in any CARICOM effort. "In this context we are in contact with
the CARICOM mission and we will certainly work together there to provide
assistance to the Haitian people."



REFLECTIONS OF FIDEL
The lesson of Haiti


TWO days ago, at almost six o’clock in the evening Cuban time and when,
given its geographical location, night had already fallen in Haiti,
television stations began to broadcast the news that a violent earthquake –
measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale – had severely struck Port-au-Prince. The
seismic phenomenon originated from a tectonic fault located in the sea just
15 kilometers from the Haitian capital, a city where 80% of the population
inhabit fragile homes built of adobe and mud.

The news continued almost without interruption for hours. There was no
footage, but it was confirmed that many public buildings, hospitals, schools
and more solidly-constructed facilities were reported collapsed. I have read
that an earthquake of the magnitude of 7.3 is equivalent to the energy
released by an explosion of 400,000 tons of TNT.

Tragic descriptions were transmitted. Wounded people in the streets were
crying out for medical help, surrounded by ruins under which their relatives
were buried. No one, however, was able to broadcast a single image for
several hours.

The news took all of us by surprise. Many of us have frequently heard about
hurricanes and severe flooding in Haiti, but were not aware of the fact that
this neighboring country ran the risk of a massive earthquake. It has come
to light on this occasion that 200 years ago, a massive earthquake similarly
affected this city, which would have been the home of just a few thousand
inhabitants at that time.

At midnight, there was still no mention of an approximate figure in terms of
victims. High-ranking United Nations officials and several heads of
government discussed the moving events and announced that they would send
emergency brigades to help. Given that MINUSTAH (United Stabilization
Mission in Haiti) troops are deployed there – UN forces from various
countries – some defense ministers were talking about possible casualties
among their personnel.

It was only yesterday, Wednesday morning, when the sad news began to arrive
of enormous human losses among the population, and even institutions such as
the United Nations mentioned that some of their buildings in that country
had collapsed, a word that does not say anything in itself but could mean a
lot.

For hours, increasingly more traumatic news continued to arrive about the
situation in this sister nation. Figures related to the number of fatal
victims were discussed, which fluctuated, according to various versions,
between 30,000 and 100,000. The images are devastating; it is evident that
the catastrophic event has been given widespread coverage around the world,
and many governments, sincerely moved by the disaster, are making efforts to
cooperate according to their resources.

The tragedy has genuinely moved a significant number of people, particularly
those in which that quality is innate. But perhaps very few of them have
stopped to consider why Haiti is such a poor country. Why does almost 50% of
its population depend on family remittances sent from abroad? Why not
analyze the realities that led Haiti to its current situation and this
enormous suffering as well?

The most curious aspect of this story is that no one has said a single word
to recall the fact that Haiti was the first country in which 400,000
Africans, enslaved and trafficked by Europeans, rose up against 30,000 white
slave masters on the sugar and coffee plantations, thus undertaking the
first great social revolution in our hemisphere. Pages of insurmountable
glory were written there. Napoleon’s most eminent general was defeated
there. Haiti is the net product of colonialism and imperialism, of more than
one century of the employment of its human resources in the toughest forms
of work, of military interventions and the extraction of its natural
resources.

This historic oversight would not be so serious if it were not for the real
fact that Haiti constitutes the disgrace of our era, in a world where the
exploitation and pillage of the vast majority of the planet’s inhabitants
prevails.

Billions of people in Latin American, Africa and Asia are suffering similar
shortages although perhaps not to such a degree as in the case of Haiti.

Situations like that of that country should not exist in any part of the
planet, where tens of thousands of cities and towns abound in similar or
worse conditions, by virtue of an unjust international economic and
political order imposed on the world. The world population is not only
threatened by natural disasters such as that of Haiti, which is a just a
pallid shadow of what could take place in the planet as a result of climate
change, which really was the object of ridicule, derision, and deception in
Copenhagen.

It is only just to say to all the countries and institutions that have lost
citizens or personnel because of the natural disaster in Haiti: we do not
doubt that in this case, the greatest effort will be made to save human
lives and alleviate the pain of this long-suffering people. We cannot blame
them for the natural phenomenon that has taken place there, even if we do
not agree with the policy adopted with Haiti.

But I have to express the opinion that it is now time to look for real and
lasting solutions for that sister nation.

In the field of healthcare and other areas, Cuba – despite being a poor and
blockaded country – has been cooperating with the Haitian people for many
years. Around 400 doctors and healthcare experts are offering their services
free of charge to the Haitian people. Our doctors are working every day in
227 of the country’s 337 communes. On the other hand, at least 400 young
Haitians have trained as doctors in our homeland. They will now work with
the reinforcement brigade which traveled there yesterday to save lives in
this critical situation. Thus, without any special effort being made, up to
1,000 doctors and healthcare experts can be mobilized, almost all of whom
are already there willing to cooperate with any other state that wishes to
save the lives of the Haitian people and rehabilitate the injured.

Another significant number of young Haitians are currently studying medicine
in Cuba.

We are also cooperating with the Haitian people in other areas within our
reach. However, there can be no other form of cooperation worthy of being
described as such than fighting in the field of ideas and political action
in order to put an end to the limitless tragedy suffered by a large number
of nations such as Haiti.

The head of our medical brigade reported: "The situation is difficult, but
we have already started saving lives." He made that statement in a succinct
message hours after his arrival yesterday in Port-au-Prince with additional
medical reinforcements.

Later that night, he reported that Cuban doctors and ELAM’s Haitian
graduates were being deployed throughout the country. They had already seen
more than 1,000 patients in Port-au-Prince, immediately establishing and
putting into operation a hospital that had not collapsed and using field
hospitals where necessary. They were preparing to swiftly set up other
centers for emergency care.

We feel a wholesome pride for the cooperation that, in these tragic
instances, Cuba doctors and young Haitian doctors who trained in Cuba are
offering our brothers and sisters in Haiti!

Fidel Castro Ruz
January 14, 2009
8:25 p.m.


Translated by Granma International

Victims are not enemys

CANADIAN & US MILITARY SHOULD NOT TREAT VICTIMS OF EARTHQUAKE AS ENEMY

EXAGGERATED REPORTS OF LOOTING THREATEN VICTIMS

(January 19, 2010) The Canada Haiti Action Network is deeply concerned about the militarization of the relief efforts in Haiti and exaggerated reporting on ‘looting’ and potential violence.

“There is an exaggerated focus on unlawfulness,” says one the group’s representatives in Toronto, Niraj Joshi. “Taking food and water from destroyed stores does not constitute looting,” she said. “It is an instinct of human survival, caused by the failure of the international relief effort to provide timely and effective assistance.”

Many poor neighbourhoods in Port-au-Prince have yet to see any assistance. Yet reports from CHAN’s colleagues and friends in Port au Prince say that human solidarity and a quiet determination to survive prevail. Reports on CBC television and radio are saying the same thing.

Meanwhile, Canada’s emergency relief teams have been sent home, told they will not be deployed.

Roger Annis of CHAN’s affiliate in Vancouver commented, “Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs told the country on anuary 16 that its disaster relief teams are not equipped for Haiti, that only soldiers can do the job. Canadians have apparently been labouring under the false impression that its disaster relief teams are able to handle earthquake disasters.”

“Like Washington,” he said, “Ottawa has quite simply prioritized the sending of its military to Haiti over disaster relief. Are Canadians comfortable with that choice, and what is the purpose of this military show of strength?”

The group says that earthquake victims need food, water, medical treatment and shelter, not more guns pointed at them.

In February 2004, some 500 Canadian troops were dispatched to Haiti as part of a UN Security Council-endorsed mission that followed the overthrow of its elected government and exile of its elected president, Jean Bertrand Aristide. As the AP news service reported today, there is a growing clamour in the poor neighbourhoods of Haiti for the return of the only president in their recent, troubled history that took measures to alleviate their suffering.

Representatives of the Canada Haiti Action Network are available to speak to media in cities across Canada. Consult the “About CHAN” page on the website below

http://canadahaitiaction.ca/

We must stand with Haiti: Solidarity, not Help

January 18, 2010
By Alissa Trotz

Alissa Trotz is Editor of the In the Diaspora Column

It is now nearly one endless week since the earthquake that devastated Haiti, shattering lives and communities. In Toronto, where I am based, the Haitian diaspora (one of the largest outside of Haiti) has come out en masse, organizing support while mourning and searching for missing or dead relatives and friends. One event planned in Ottawa will be called “AYITI VIVAN” (Haiti is ALIVE!). These initiatives are part of a longer Haitian tradition known as konbit (collective work), and they continue on the ground and in the diaspora.

Haitians are engaged and are mobilizing as they always have, taking the lead even as they must be overwhelmed with sorrow and loss. We must demonstrate our solidarity, and not just in the short-term, when the emergency requirements are so crucial. We can all ask ourselves what might be the best ways that we can each offer meaningful support, now and in the longer-term. For example I have received distressing messages about Haitian colleagues dead or missing. One e-mail said simply and heartbreakingly that “University Quisqueya, the Université d’État d’Haïti and many high schools have collapsed, some with teachers and students.” As a teacher, one of the meaningful commitments I can make is to organize with others at our places of work and professional associations to offer support for the rebuilding of Haiti’s educational infrastructure.

We also want to know that our contributions are actually reaching the Haitian people, that the monies collected are not either being diverted elsewhere or getting lost as part of administrative overhead of the collecting agency. In Guyana there is a commendable national drive for resources. In addition to supporting this national drive, Red Thread is also continuing with the appeal it began on the night of the earthquake as part of the Global Women’s Strike, which works with grassroots women and men in Haiti. They are supporting the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund, which was established long before the earthquake

(http://www.haitiaction.net/About/HERF/HERF.html [1]) and has a demonstrated capacity to get resources to grassroots Haitians in Haiti.

You can take donations to the Red Thread Centre, 72 Princes & Adelaide Sts., Georgetown, Guyana, or make payments directly to the account, where all monies received will be promptly acknowledged: Account name: Red Thread/Haiti Emergency Fund for Grassroots Women and Families;
Signatories: Andaiye and Joy Marcus;
Bank: Citizens Bank, 201 Camp Street, Georgetown, Guyana;
Account number: 0218 567806.

In trying to think about what solidarity with Haiti might look like, I found inspiration in a statement issued by Fidel Castro on January 14th – in fact, Cuban doctors were already on the ground when the earthquake hit, and Cuba was one of the first Caribbean countries to respond – in which he also described co-operation with Haitians as consisting of “fighting in the field of ideas and political action in order to put an end to the limitless tragedy suffered by a large number of nations such as Haiti.”

This comment put into words the frustration and anger I have felt at how the mainstream media – with their immense power and reach – have been managing the tragedy, shaping our perceptions through their coverage.

There is of course the language of the extreme right, exemplified by the obscenely racist demagoguery of American televangelist Pat Robertson that the earthquake was payback for the pact Haitians made with the devil in return for an end to slavery under the French. In an interview on the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, Haitian Ambassador Raymond Joseph offered a perfect response: “I would like the whole world to know, America especially, that…when the slaves rose up against the French and defeated the French army, the US was able to gain the Louisiana [purchase] for fifteen million dollars, that is three cents an acre. That is thirteen states west of the Mississippi, that the Haitian slave revolt in Haiti provided America. Also, the revolt of the rebels in Haiti allowed Latin America to be free. It is from Haiti that Simon Bolivar left with men and boats, to deliver Gran Colombia and the rest of South America. So [the] pact the Haitian has made with the
devil has helped the United States become what it is”.

It is easy to condemn such virulent messages as the exception, while missing the subtle – and therefore more dangerous – underlying text running through most of the major broadcast networks, which have been offering up the earthquake and its tragic aftermath on a television platter, an unchanging one course meal for us to consume until the next headline. As a friend commented, it is tantamount to eating the pain of others.

In most of this coverage, we are given a familiar and racist patronizing script, in which Haiti is once again reduced to a basket case, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. In the images that flash before us on the television screens, it is the foreign press that is reporting, Western governments that are making decisions, the ones acting and doing, taking centre stage, perennial agents of salvation.

In these unending stories Haitian engagement is displaced, and Haitians are reduced to supplicants, increasingly desperate, who must be rescued by the West. Just yesterday we learned that a CARICOM emergency and technical mission that included the Secretary-General was refused permission to land by the United States, now in control of the airport in Port-au-Prince. They will probably have to go through the Dominican Republic. We will surely hear that the airport is congested, but this is the regional integration movement, of which Haiti is a member. And no-one refused landing permission to the plane carrying Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. Her visit made front page news. One can only wonder what will happen if the governments of Cuba (which incidentally granted permission for the US to fly aid and evacuation missions over its airspace) and Venezuela try to bring in supplies and technical support.

Let me be absolutely clear. The people of Haiti are suffering and need our support immediately in terms of emergency relief and in the medium- to long-term as they set about the painstaking process of rebuilding shattered lives. But the language of charity is not the model, for it springs from pity and is not based on a principle of equality. It ends up enhancing the generosity of the giver and – ironically – emphasizing the distance and disconnection between the giver and the receiver.

It also offers no wider context to situate the tragedy. In September 2008, this column commented on the vastly different outcomes of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in Cuba and Haiti (few deaths in the former, over a thousand fatalities and 12% of the population displaced in the latter). Back then there was discussion of the political crisis that accounted for the overwhelming lack of resources and absence of an infrastructure to cope with the threats of natural disasters and their aftermath. Back then there were calls to unconditionally cancel Haiti’s debt and use the payments for relief and long-term reconstruction. And here we are, less than two years later and witnessing such immense grief and tragedy in a sister nation. In his January 14th statement, Fidel Castro observed:

“The tragedy has genuinely moved a significant number of people, particularly those in which that quality is innate. But perhaps very few of them have stopped to consider why Haiti is such a poor country…why not analyze the realities that led Haiti to its current situation and this enormous suffering as well?”

What are the stories that are being told instead? A few days ago CNN and the New York Times carried reports of looters and mobs roaming the streets (this time BBC reports contradicted these security concerns), and of tens of thousands of heroic US military troops arriving to secure the country. I asked myself, who are the real culprits here who have denied and continue to deny Haitian liberation and self-determination? The Stabroek News has carried two excellent editorials that foreground the historically criminal actions that began 200 years ago when sanctions were imposed by the Americans and French on a newly independent Haiti, forced to ‘compensate’ France for the loss of its slave plantations and the cost of the war the enslaved waged to free themselves. The list is long.

What of the criminals who have authorized various occupations of Haiti? The financial institutions that bankrolled the Duvalier dictatorship for years because the government obeyed the bidding of foreign investors, but then withheld monies from the democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide when he attempted to stand up to them? The governments that engineered the kidnapping and removal of Aristide in 2004, the bicentennial of Haitian independence? Those who authorized the exclusion of Fanmi Lavalas from the supposedly democratic electoral process that was to take place this year? Those who continue to press for free trade and the opening up of the Haitian economy, policies that are patently anti-people?

In a jointly written op-ed piece in yesterday’s New York Times, Presidents Bill Clinton (who visited Haiti just recently to press for free trade, more export factories and foreign investment) and George W. Bush stated that “Crises have the power to bring out the best in people.” The title, A Helping Hand for Haiti, is telling. An excellent translation of this classic case of doublespeak can be found in a recent interview with journalist and author Naomi Klein, who talks about disaster capitalism, where profiteering scavengers prey on crises and the weaknesses they engender in affected countries to impose their own pro-business, anti-poor agendas. As one egregious example of this, Klein pointed to a conservative American think tank the Heritage Foundation, which posted the following notice on its website less than 24 hours after the earthquake (it has since taken it down):

“Amidst the suffering, crisis in Haiti offers opportunities to the U.S. In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti´s long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the image of the United States in the region.” In other words, disasters are big business. Klein warns us that the tragedy facing the Haitian people now must not be used as a pretext to further policies that prioritize corporations and saddle Haiti with more debt. We must insist that any money that goes to Haiti is in the form of grants and not loans, and is not conditional or tied aid. Transparency and accountability must not be to big business or international financial institutions and the governments that control them, but to the most vulnerable in Haitian society, the majority of the Haitian people.

In an emotional press conference, Michaelle Jean, Haitian-born Canadian Governor-General, offered these words: “Women and men of Haiti, we shall not lose hope. We have, we are known for our strength and resilience. We need to stand courageously, before this challenge that is affecting us again. And I was saying to the Haitian people that they are not alone.”

And a colleague at the University of Toronto who has lived and worked in Haiti, shared these words: kenbe fèm devan lavi, pa lage’l (stay strong in the face of life – don’t let go). It seems unfathomably obscene how much the people of this country have had to face, the price in bodies and blood they continue to pay, this island nation that liberated itself from colonialism and slavery 200 years ago, that offered solidarity to all freedom-loving people, that backed it up with material support to Simon Bolivar.

This is what Haiti has taught us, to never let go, and she has also held us, continues to hold us, even now. In return for this priceless gift, we are the ones who have let Haiti and Haitians go, over and over again. Will we do so again now, once the headlines disappear, the cameras stop rolling and the media moves on to its next breaking news story? Let us finally recognize the debt we owe, and think about what action, what responsibility recognition finally entails. If fighting on the terrain of ideas is one way, by educating ourselves about Haiti beyond the distortions of the corporate media, what will we do with that knowledge, how will we then put it to work? It is support and solidarity, not help, that is needed now more than ever. Our hearts are full for Haiti. Let it really mean something this time.