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The earthquake devastated Haiti in January 2010, killing, according to Oxfam International, 250 000 people and injuring another 300 000.
Three hundred and sixty thousand Haitians are still displaced and living from hand to mouth in 496 tent camps across the country according to the International Organisation of Migration.
Most eat only one meal a day.
Cholera followed the earthquake.
Now widely blamed on poor sanitation by UN troops, it has claimed 7 750 lives and sickened over a half a million.
The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and their Haitian partner Bureau des Avocats Internationaux have filed legal claims against the UN on behalf of thousands of cholera victims. Recently, the Haitian government likewise demanded over US$2 billion from the international community to address the scourge of cholera.
Haiti was already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with 55 percent of the population living below the poverty line of US$1,25 a day.
About 60 percent of the population is engaged in agriculture, the primary source of income in rural areas.
Haiti imports more than 55 percent of its food. The average Haitian eats only 73 percent of the daily minimum recommended by the World Health Organisation. Even before the earthquake 40 percent of households (3.8 million people) were undernourished and 3 of 10 children suffered from chronic malnutrition.
In November 2012, Hurricane Sandy levelled yet another severe blow to the hemisphere’s poorest country. Wind and 20 inches of rain from Hurricane Sandy killed over 50 people, damaged dozens of cholera centres, and badly hurt already struggling farming communities.
Despite an outpouring of global compassion, some estimate as high as US$3 billion in individual donations and another US$6 billion in governmental assistance, too little has changed.
Part of the problem is that the international community and non-government organisations (Haiti has sometimes been called the Republic of NGOs) has bypassed Haitian non-governmental agencies and the Haitian government itself.
The Centre for Global Development analysis of where the money went concluded that overall less than 10percent went to the government of Haiti and less than 1 percent went to Haitian organisations and businesses.
A full one-third of the humanitarian funding for Haiti was actually returned to donor countries to reimburse them for their own civil and military work in the country and the majority of the rest went to international NGOs and private contractors.
With hundreds of thousands of people still displaced, the international community has built less than 5000 new homes.
Despite the fact that crime and murder are low in Haiti (Haiti had a murder rate of 6.9 of every hundred thousand, while New Orleans has a rate of 58), huge amounts of money are spent on a UN force which many Haitians do not want. The annual budget of the United Nations “peacekeeping” mission, MINUSTAH for 2012-2013 or US$644 million would pay for the construction of more than 58 000 homes at US$11 000 per home.
There are many stories of projects hatched by big names in the international community into which millions of donated dollars were poured only to be abandoned because the result was of no use to the Haitian people.
For example, internationals created a model housing community in Zoranje.
A US$2 million project built 60 houses which now sit abandoned according to Haiti Grassroots Watch.
Deborah Sontag in the New York Times tells the stories of many other bungles in a critical article which reported only a very small percentage of the funds have been focused on creating permanent housing for the hundreds of thousands displaced. Many expect 200 000 will be still in displacement camps a year from now.
The majority of the hundreds of thousands of people still displaced by the earthquake have no other housing options. Those who were renters cannot find places to stay because there is a dramatic shortage of rental housing. Many of those who owned homes before the earthquake have been forced to move back into their despite the fact that these homes are unsafe. A survey by USAID found that housing options are so few that people have moved back into over 50 000 “red” buildings which engineers said should be demolished.
One new program, 16/6, promises to pay a one-time $500 maximum rental subsidy for a family to relocate from tent camps but this program will only benefit a tiny percentage of the displaced population because it is currently available only for about 5percent of the people displaced. It is limited to those living in the six most visible public camps in Port au Prince.
Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans and Associate Director of the Centre for Constitutional Rights. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). This article is reproduced from www.trinicenter.com
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