Vol. 75/No. 19      May 16, 2011

“In the months following the terrible quake, Haiti seemed to be ripped apart by the governments of the most powerful and industrialized countries that were distributing their aid, in an arbitrary and arrogant fashion, via their voracious companies and some of their wealthiest NGOs [nongovernmental organizations],” he noted.

“What Haiti needs is substantial and impartial aid … that contributes to its development,” said Rodríguez.

Rodríguez pointed as a practical example to Cuba’s contribution to public health, from saving lives during the first days after the quake to treating the cholera epidemic that has swept the country, killing more than 5,000 people to date. Cuban doctors at 67 treatment units have cared for “more than 73,000 patients, a third of all cases in the country. Of these only 272 have died,” he stated, a fraction of the overall 2 percent death rate for cholera patients in Haiti.

The vast majority of the $5.3 billion pledged at the UN Donors Conference in March 2010 has yet to arrive.

Much of the aid that does trickle in is channeled through the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC), cochaired by former U.S. president William Clinton and Haitian prime minister Jean-Max Bellerive. On the anniversary of the UN Donors Conference, some 40 groups in Haiti, including peasant and community groups, called for the elimination of the IHRC “whose existence is an affront to our collective dignity” and undermines Haiti’s sovereignty.

Of the 10,000 international agencies and charities operating in Haiti today, less than 2 percent regularly report to the government’s planning ministry.

Some 80 percent of the rubble has still not been cleared more than a year after the quake. According to UN figures, 680,000 Haitians are headed into a second hurricane season still living in makeshift camps.

“I’m hearing a lot of talk about reconstruction, but have yet to see any action,” Tony Jeanthenor, vice-chair of the Haitian community group Veye Yo in Miami, told the Militant. Virtually no houses have been built. Most of those who have left the camps have either moved in with relatives in other regions, or returned to damaged homes.

Since a U.S.-backed coup in 2004, “the masses have been pushed out of the political process by the international community,” particularly the governments of the United States, France, and Canada, Jeanthenor said. “These same international forces are in control of the money and the NGOs.”

The Cuban medical teams “seem to have a real interest in helping us. I hope they stay,” Emmanuel Losier, a patient in one of the treatment centers, told the Miami Herald in February. A March 1 article in that paper noted that Cuban doctors are the main medical providers in rural areas.
 
 
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