We Have Tried To Remain Objective But...

This week we've been seeing some particularly disturbing new developments coming from Haiti, not because of the quake or any other natural phenomenon, but because of one that is all too man made. In the absence of government, up to this point it seemed that the country had been completely overtaken with foreign troops and relief organizations. We even complained the president had been too quiet and that maybe a word or two from someone in Haiti's own leadership would at least boost morale for the people, well we should have been careful what we wished for.

This week the old guard of Haiti reared its head (well sort of, although you never get to meet or talk to the administrator who is actually in charge of any particular thing) and somehow managed to start demanding taxes on donated relief supplies (which is illegal), confiscating goods meant for the Haitian people such as medicine, clothes, tents, anything else of value (which would be stealing if they didn't promise to 'distribute it for you')... and don't think your own luggage is exempt, they started taking that too (don't worry, you'll get it back they tell you... but when?, the minister who answers that question is also a ghost).

And that was the morning and the evening of the government's first day back.

On the second day, a reporter from CNN asked: Why are you taxing relief supplies and confiscating goods meant for the Haitian people here at the airport? International law of the UN says that during a state of emergency such as this there should be no taxes collected on such goods brought into a country as relief supplies. What to do they must have said, of course, they declared that 'we are no longer in a state of emergency' despite the fact that the death toll approaches three hundred thousand, the homeless population just reached two million, we still see dead bodies in the streets, there is rubble and filth everywhere, and the entire country is still hungry needing water.

The earth shook after the second day and no one could sleep well that night.

Now i wish I could stop here because nothing else happened, but I cant. Mother of bad ideas, the shadow government is on a roll. Grumblings about aid orgs coming into Haiti with their own equipment and causing the country to have free wifi internet when it should be a paid service begin this morning. On the third day they ask the more than one hundred thousand people who left the city of Port au Prince for fear that weak buildings could fall on them to return to their old neighborhoods. Now this means the rubble where their homes once stood since most houses are completely destroyed. They actually demanded these people back who lost everything and went outside the city after the quake where there was less rubble and more space to at least pitch a tent. Until this day that rubble is still there and many areas are on hills where people cant even pitch their tents anymore. Why you might ask? When there is no state of emergency, everyone must go home (because there's no emergency, right?).

The sun went down on the third day and it rained on the homeless all night.

((I hope to be able to stop here,
because nothing else will happen...))