by Shirley Pate
Yesterday, I watched news of rescue efforts in Port-au-Prince. Elite rescue teams, such as the one from Fairfax County, VA, were focusing primarily on the Montana Hotel and the headquarters of the UN “peacekeeping” force, MINUSTAH. Anyone who knows Haiti knows that the Montana Hotel is the most lavish lodging your can find in Port-au-Prince and is frequented by wealthy business people, foreign dignitaries, and served as the initial headquarters of the MINUSTAH force. Meanwhile, in the neighborhoods most heavily hit by the earthquake, Haitians, equipped with nothing more than their bare hands, dug frantically to save their families and neighbors.
The Canada Haitian Action Network is circulating an aid worker’s account that tells of this class/race disparity in responding to the injured. The aid worker says rescue teams are refusing to go into popular neighborhoods because they fear “violence.” Breathlessly, the media rotate stories of poor, injured Haitians with warnings of violent Haitian masses on the verge of a nationwide riot.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s foil to counter Michael Moore about his indictment of the US health care system in his film Sicko (Moore kicked his ass), reported two nights ago that a tent clinic in downtown Port-au-Prince was abandoned by all medical staff because of a “rumor” of impending violence. Gupta showed the CNN audience cot after cot of injured Haitians with no medical staff in sight. CNN would probably get an Emmy award if Gupta would quit playing journalist and used his time there being the doctor he was trained to be. This is not a place or time where ANY medical professional on the ground in Haiti should do anything other than treating the injured.
Those who have observed that US aid is slow getting to Haiti, such as the Navy’s USS Comfort which is leaving Baltimore, Md., only TODAY, should understand that the US is concentrating on getting military boots on the ground first. By the end of the weekend, the US will have 10,000 military troops in Haiti. Once this is done, it will be “safe” for aid workers to tend to the injured in the popular neighborhoods. As time goes on, pay attention to the back story, and you will see that the placement of these soldiers has more to do with stemming a political tsunami than helping the people.
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