Haiti Modern Latin America

Haitians are no strangers to hunger. But even the resilience of the hemisphere's poorest citizens can be pushed too far, and with world food prices spiking this year due to shrinking harvests, burgeoning demand and skyrocketing fuel prices, it should be little surprise that Haiti is once again erupting in angry violence.

All businesses, schools and government activities have ground to a halt, reminiscent of bloody protests that have plagued this country for the last several decades — most recently in 2004, when former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown.

The cost of staple foods has risen some 50% in Haiti since last year, a crushing trend in a country where three-quarters of the population lives on less than $2 a day.

WANDA BIANCHINI, training consultant: What we have are a lot of students that have never worked at all any place. They need to learn everything, from the work ethic, to running the machines, to sewing, to threading. The very first day, they were a little intimidated by it.

KIRA KAY: This initiative is being funded with U.S. government dollars. It represents a significant rethink of foreign aid, harnessing the potential of the private sector to rebuild a fragile country alongside more traditional humanitarian assistance.

Haiti is still a struggling country, to be sure. But, for the first time in years, there is a palpable feeling of hope here. And ground zero is this industrial park, where factories mothballed during years of instability are now being brought back to life.

The U.S. government has forecast 14 to 18 tropical storms will form during the six-month season that began on June 1, more than the historical average of 10. Josephine was already the 10th, forming before the statistical peak of the season on September 10.

In Haiti, heavy rains caused severe flooding in the northern port city of Gonaives, where thousands of people died four years ago during a similar catastrophe."The city is flooded and there are parts where the water gets to 2 meters (6.5 feet)," said civil protection director Alta Jean-Baptiste. "A lot of people have been climbing onto the tops of their houses since last night to escape the flooding."

Before hurricane Ike hit, Haitians were already suffering from skyrocketing food prices that sparked nationwide protests and forced out the prime minister in April.

Now, nearly two weeks after a muddy deluge killed more than 100 and left tens of thousands homeless in this city, hunger is rampant as humanitarian aid is delayed and prices soar even higher.

Four years ago, tropical storm Jeanne killed some 3,000 people in this city and the surrounding area. The death toll from Hanna has not been as high, but Gonaives residents and aid workers say that in many ways the devastation has been worse.

He called the result "a catastrophe of major proportions." The capital city is surrounded by hills to which "little flimsy houses" were struggling to hold on, he said.

Eighty percent of Haiti's 9 million residents live under the poverty line and more than half -- 54 percent -- live in abject poverty, according to the CIA Factbook.

In 2008, four tropical storms damaged the transportation infrastructure and agricultural sector, on which two-thirds of Haitians depend, mainly as subsistence farmers.

Neighbors suspected the building was poorly rebuilt after it partially collapsed eight years ago, said Jimmy Germain, a French teacher at the school. He said people who lived just downhill abandoned their land out of fear that the building would tumble onto them, and that the school's owner tried to buy up their vacated properties.

But the rescue effort was chaotic and disorganized from the start. The throngs of grieving and screaming onlookers made it impossible for U.N. peacekeepers, Red Cross workers and Haitian authorities to bring trucks and heavy equipment for much of the afternoon.

Fanmi Lavalas, President Aristide’s political party, the most popular and strongest political party in Haiti, has again been banned from participating in elections. Gaillot Dorsinvil, president of the Haitian Provisional Electoral Council, selected and operating at the whims of Haitian President Rene Preval, said that Fanmi Lavalas’ registration papers did not meet all legal requirements.

Still, that the majority of Haitians are EXCLUDED from participating in elections is of no great concern to key stakeholders like U.N. Envoy Bill Clinton, George Soros, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama.

We need to start not throwing money at the problem but starting investing more in the solutions and try to create a social business where people don't feel they're entitled to free things but try to create a system - very difficult, it's easier to say than to do - but trying to create a social business where people don't expect everything for free, that they have to start working and creating a system where they will feed people by making sure that the economy is helped by buying locally. Let's not send more food. Let's send food the first week, but after, let's work with the local farmers to make sure that those farmers become part of the solution of creating jobs, of making sure that the economy is self-sustaining. And this is - this should be the beginning of, hopefully, a long but beautiful recovery.

Mr. ANDRES: Very conflicted. What the last caller mentioned, it's what's happening, but you know, it's - as he said, it's part of the economy of rebuilding. Unfortunately, this is part of our world - is people that have everything, and these people that have nothing. I mean, a place like Haiti, you see everyone working side by side. You're in a hotel having a perfect meal, and right across from your hotel, literally two meters, three, five meters away from the door, you have a camp. And that makes you think. That makes you think. And this is why I came back and I incorporated these organizations that right now we are only three, four people, all central kitchen, with the intention of feeding the world in a clean sustainable way.

What I realize is that the people feel as if they're not getting involved in the solution to the problem. They're just waiting around, not knowing what's going on. Until, as the chef just said, until we get them involved, until we show them the solution have to come from within, no matter what we do, we will not bring about the solution to that situation. As he said, we - the people will feel a sense of entitlement, as if everything is owed(ph) to them, or we're going to bring everything free to them. If you give me every day, I'm going to hope to get something from you every day. If you do not show me how to fish, when you're not around, how am I going to survive? If my economy is not sustainable, doable, how I'm going to survive when you're not around to bring me food?

As more earthquake survivors get their hands on much-needed aid, international donors have been urged to support Haiti for at least five to ten years.

“We must think about relocating part of the population, redeploying public services and economic structures differently to take account of the physical and environmental constraints from a sustainable development point of view,” he said. “To achieve that, Haiti needs massive support from its international partners in the medium and long term. The scale of the task demands that we do more, that we do better and, no doubt, that we do it differently.”

Some 300,000 people are receiving water and food rations every day, with the latter number expected to jump to 1 million a day by the end of the week, according to Haitian health officials. After an initial lack of medical supplies that left some Haitian doctors performing amputations without anesthesia, thousands of life-saving surgeries have been performed and medical supplies are generally plentiful.

One thing is clear. Haiti has suffered an unprecedented blow to all sectors of society. Only a few short days ago, positive stories were emerging from Haiti. People were talking about political stability, nascent economic growth and a long-deserved and hard-earned sense of optimism about the future. Businesses were reinvesting in the nation, bringing new jobs; and elections were scheduled for the end of February. The timing of this tragedy could not have been worse. Despite the recent gains, the earthquake and its deadly impact pose the greatest threat yet to the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.

The sheer scale of physical destruction, economic devastation, and human suffering is enormous, and carries with it not only the obvious immediate challenges, but more serious long-term implications for the country's future. Haiti will need a major realignment of its infrastructure as well as its strategies to ensure more effective implementation of policies that can eventually mitigate the impact of natural disasters.

The solidarity and support from sister countries throughout the Americas will also be instrumental in fostering a climate of peace and security. This support will be even more important in the months and years ahead as Haiti works to simply return to its condition prior to the earthquake. Haiti's private sector and civil society, as well as its diaspora communities, will have to assume a major role in the country's reconstruction through an injection of human, social and financial capital.

ut as tenacious as oppression and deprivation have been throughout Haitian history, the country’s highly organized grassroots movement has never given up the battle its enslaved ancestors began. The movement is composed of women, peasants, street vendors, human rights advocates, clergy and laity, workers, and others. The mobilizations, protests, and advocacy have brought down dictators, staved off some of the worst of economic policies aimed at others’ profit, and kept the population from ever fitting quietly into anyone else’s plans for them.

“We’ve shared our pain and our suffering,” said Mesita Attis of the market women’s support group Martyred Women of Brave Ayibobo. “If you heard your baby in the ruins crying ‘Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,’ 14 people would run help you. If you don’t have a piece of bread, someone will give you theirs.”

“The tremendous chain of solidarity of the people we saw from the day of the earthquake on: That is our capacity. That is our victory. That is our heart. From the first hour Haitians engaged in every type of solidarity imaginable—one supporting the other, one helping the other, one saving the other. If any of us is alive today, we can say that it’s thanks to this solidarity.”

Much is at stake in this key election, scheduled for November 28. The winner will be responsible for the colossal task of rebuilding the nation’s shattered infrastructure and psyche after the January 12 earthquake.

However, international elites continue to support and fund an election that openly excludes the political party Famni Lavalas, the party founded by former Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristide.

Not only has Lavalas been excluded from Haiti’s political process by the country’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), its supporters are continually intimidated and violently suppressed by a United Nations army that continues to be in Haiti six years after the 2004 coup that ousted Aristide from the presidency.

After arriving for a two-day visit on Friday, Josette Sheeran said feeding the victims is a top priority, but she also urged agriculture officials to buy seeds and other produce from local farmers to revive the economy.

"Haiti wants to grow its own food and to be self-sufficient, not just waiting on food assistance while they recover from this devastating storm," Sheeran said.

Rene Preval, Haiti's president, told the United Nations General Assembly on Friday that his country requires long-term reconstruction efforts, beyond immediate food and disaster relief. "We have to break this paradigm of charity in our approach to international co-operation … because charity has never helped any country to get out of underdevelopment," he said.

They clearly need more doctors and nurses, but seemed to have enough oral rehydration solution and IV fluids for now. They obviously need specialized supplies like "cholera beds"—cots with holes cut in them for easier defecation. I asked an 8-year-old named Ritchie if it was hard to "faire toilette" in public (it's all out in the open), and he looked embarrassed and said, "Yes." That got to me.

The bug behind this devastation—the bacterium Vibrio cholerae—is a fascinating and frustrating creature. Fascinating, because of its role in the development of epidemiology and what we're still learning from it. Frustrating, because it ought to be relatively simple to treat and prevent infection. We know what to do to help a cholera victim survive. All it takes is access to clean water and the most basic medical supplies. The trouble here isn't science, it's poverty.

Today, cholera is all but non-existent in developed countries. Not because we're immune. Not because we have access to a miracle drug. It's simply about money. Money, and the will to build public sanitation systems that treat the poor and the wealthy to an equal level of separation between what we drink and what we excrete.