As with Katrina, aid has been available. Just, no one is doing anything with it. No crews are in the capital, no medical supplies are sent in, and the only people that are actually getting flown out of Haiti are American citizens. Sounds more and more like a "black" thing to me. Like the American military aid ship off the coast just sitting there.
Lack of medical facilities and doctors for tens of thousands of injured people in the decimated Haitian capital is one of the major problems facing aid efforts in the aftermath of Tuesday's earthquake. U.S. Naval officials said earlier Saturday that the Vinson nevertheless didn't plan to take on care of earthquake victims, and was awaiting arrival of a ship with more operating rooms to arrive Sunday or Monday and a hospital ship to arrive a few days later on Thursday.
[snip]
Cmdr. Alfred Shwayhat, the senior medical officer who is an endocrinologist, said he had a plan to "treat 1,000 Haitians if necessary," when interviewed aboard the ship on Saturday. But he had received no orders to do so. "If the captain authorizes it, I will take anyone," he said. The Vinson's facility, he said, "exceeds anything in the civilian sector, bar none."
Now where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, Katrina! Everyone was allegedly available for help, but no one could do anything until there were "orders" from higher up.
We are just one fucked up country when it comes to actually helping black people and catastrophic events. Seems when faced with help or death, our country errs on the side of death.
It has been a week already, and only private (and very small) groups have actually made it into the capital to assist. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Doctors Without Boarders, and a few others, but that's about it. "Logistics" and "orders" seem to be the excuses made by the Americans who are apparently in charge, and as with the false reports regarding Katrina and all the "killing, raping and pillaging" that was supposed to have been going on, and which, in the end, proved untrue, the excuse in Haiti is that before any help goes in, it has to be "secured."
I am appalled at this country's inability to do anything right over the last ten years. And I would seriously advise the rest of the world to think twice when the next emergency occurs before they decide to let "the Americans" be in charge.
2 comments:
It's funny, after spending the past few days reading the hogwash at the dailyKOS and amricablog or whatever, yours is still the only site that claims Haiti is a black thing. Katrina was not a black thing nor is Haiti a black thing. How any intelligent person could turn either disaster about race is amazing. Unless of course you believe that blacks are somehow less able to assist in their own well being and needs white americans to bail them out. Just sad on your part.
What you are reading on the other blogs is the appreciation for the turnout for relief. What you are reading from my blog is the dissatisfaction of what is happening with that relief. How come most of the food, water and medical supplies are still on the tarmac at the airport? How come it took someone a whole week to figure out "hey, let's just air drop the aid in to the capitol?"
My take, as with Katrina, is not that this country and other countries were swift with providing the aid, it's the fact that those in charge (the U.S.) have been derelict in providing the aid, i.e., that it actually gets to the people in time.
The images of black people in Katrina being forced not to leave the city, being forced to hole up at the convention center, and the fact that even the Red Cross wouldn't deliver aid to the city based on rumors that it was not safe (and unfounded rumors, at that) is starkly reminiscent of what we are seeing on TV in Haiti. The relief is there, just the Americans "need" to justify "safety" as a priority, as opposed to giving food and water, damn it. And the black thing is readily apparent. I just may be one of the few that doesn't shy away from calling a spade a spade ... pun intended.
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