In this crumbling world, it is understandable to feel like we cannot believe in anything. We are so accustomed to being over-promised and under-delivered that we expect to be let down; we expect very little from others, from the world. And the danger is that we soon become comfortable with failure to bring change. So whenever we cannot deliver the goods, we simply say, what do you expect? I’m only human…what do you expect? People are crooks…what do you expect? End world hunger? Today I ask you to bring in a new perspective. Let’s step out of this culture that is always providing us with less than promised, let’s think of a different question to ask…

On Jan. 12, 2010, a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, reducing much of its capital to rubble, killing about 300,000 people, and leaving 1.6 million homeless. Haiti, which occupies the western third of the island of Hispaniola, used to be known as “The Pearl of the Antilles” because of its beauty. Nowadays, people mostly remember Haiti as the poorest country in the western hemisphere and as one of the least developed countries in the world. Haiti in recent years has struggled with challenges from constant political upheavals to economically crippling embargoes. But despite all, resilience and optimism has always been a part of that culture; many Haitians still believed in a better world, a better life, one day… perhaps tomorrow…

Even after that earthquake, the optimism and the positive attitude did not die. However, this inherent belief in a better day was shaken some more with the outbreak of cholera six months after the earthquake. Currently, hundreds of thousands of Haitians are still without homes, without work and without a clear sense of how or when their lives might change for the better. They have to call these squalid camps, which are exposed to storms, thieves, and diseases like cholera, their home. Help is greatly needed. Have you thought about how you could make a difference? This month, on the one-year anniversary mark of the earthquake that ravaged the country, when you read or heard about Haiti in the news, did you feel helpless or did you want to make a difference? Did you decide to be an activist, a “slacktivist”, or a non-believer?

Indeed after the earthquake, humanitarian aid from around the world has streamed into Haiti. Yet, most of the communities, which needed aid the most, did not have access to it. There is no question that the private and public donations were critical in saving many lives in Haiti. But the aid needs to also be backed up with active trade and means to earn a living for the local community. While being critical of the foreign aid based on the results seen thus far, let’s not quickly categorize the situation as hopeless. Instead, I encourage you to quickly do more than send money, do more than send clothes or food, do more than write an article, do more than a debate, and do more than have compassion. I am encouraging you to think of innovative ways of helping the Haitian people help themselves.

While we are thinking about ways to improve Haiti’s situation, let’s not forget about Haiti’s important role in world history. In 1791, the African slave population in Haiti revolted, eventually winning independence from Napoleon Bonaparte’s France and becoming the world’s first black republic on January 1st, 1804. Haiti’s independence also led the way to freedom for the rest of the hemisphere as Simon Bolivar left from Jacmel on April 10, 1816, to liberate countries like Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador. It is also documented that, Haitians, under the command of French military officers, fought at Savannah, Georgia in 1779 and helped the Americans to escape the siege by the British. And lastly, after having been defeated by the slaves in Haiti, Napoleon Bonaparte decided that his strength should be focused on the war in Europe and signed over Louisiana (the Louisiana Purchase) to the new American nation. In conclusion, Haiti is an important part of world history; it has contributed to the freedom and the hope of many. Do you believe it’s worth it to try to help Haiti maintain itself?

Ask yourself how you want to be remembered in this world and what your purpose is. Hopefully as you are asking yourself these questions, Haiti will be part of your genuine focus on the world at large. And if it is, let’s share our ideas with each other, so that we can work together to realize our potential.

By Elle Jean
Elle Jean is a native of Haiti and a PhD student at Vanderbilt University. She is a leader in the Middle Tennessee Community Haiti relief efforts. She can be reached at Haitiniger@gmail.com.

References
WSJ.com – A Marshall Plan for Haiti Raymon
NPR.com – Hope Fades As Recovery Drags On In Haiti
NYtimes.com – Opinion: Ladders for the Poor

Here’s CNN video of his today’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Below is the full text of his statement.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, my name is Sean Penn. I have been in Haiti as Director and CEO of my NGO J/P Haitian Relief Organization, and have been on the ground in Haiti since the first week following January’s earthquake. Since that time, my team and I have lived in a tent camp in the Bourdon area of Port au Prince, adjacent to and administering aid to a 55,000 person IDP camp, one of the largest ad-hoc camps in the country. My organization has been designated by the UN International Office of Migration as camp management for this IDP camp.

From our first days in Haiti, my team and I witnessed amputations without anesthesia or IV pain medication, things we soon were able to supply to hospitals and clinics throughout the city and the country. Limbs severed in spontaneously raised tent operating rooms, dusty and mosquito ridden. Limbs severed from children with tools more familiar to our local hardware store than to those we traditionally expect in the hands of surgeons. It is true that this stage of post quake trauma and drama has largely subsided.

Only 2 weeks ago however, a less tangible, visible or fundable emergency raised its head. Our camp clinic diagnosed what became the first confirmed case of diphtheria. I rode in the back of the ambulance while the patient was refused from several hospitals because the 15-year-old boy, Oriole Lynn Peter, was diagnosed with a disease for which those hospitals had no treatment capability. In this city of ruins, 5 fully functional hospitals have been allowed to close despite these emergent disasters, facing financial under-support and over-scrutiny.

In many cases, the bureaucracy of international aid is protecting people to death. Diphtheria is among the first five things that an American traveling to Haiti is inoculated against, and yet, in this devastated country with hundreds of millions of American donated dollars of dedicated emergency aid and billions pledged for reconstruction, there were no isolation wards, few ventilators, and despite the all out last minute efforts of the American Red Cross, the administrations of every major hospital in the city, the dedicated and beyond job description effort of the commander of the US military forces in Haiti (Major General Trombitas), the WHO, USAID, and the CDC, along with a fractured Haitian Ministry of health, it took 14 hours between all of these organizations to locate a single patient dose of the immunoglobulin that would likely have saved this 15 year old boy’s life had it been readily available.

As we rode through the rubble and traffic blocked streets in search of his care I held the ankle of an animated and normal 15-year-old boy who to his own knowledge was merely suffering from a sore throat and a bit of a fever. He couldn’t have known that the grey hued bacteria would kill him within a day and a half and it did. Since that day, a series of diphtheria cases have come to light, including another one in our
camp brought to our hospital four days ago. But diphtheria is only one of many diseases that threaten, in particular, the 1.8 million displaced today, living in compressed and unsanitary camps, where tent to tent construction would take one match to create the inferno that could incinerate thousands.

In a city with nearly no access to electricity there is little fuel to run generators, few lights to generate, and the rapes of women and children occur at will. It will be the rain of this season that spreads the diarrheal diseases that globally finds its victims – 80% among children under 5. There are hundreds of thousands of them in Port au Prince alone. It should be said that while there are claims to grand programs of immunization it is the simple truth that most Haitians remain unprotected and that there is little evidence that those that have been immunized have records or access to establish boosters and follow up necessary with all immunizations.

It should also be said that in a city the size of Port au Prince, as with all the densely populated areas in Haiti, the idea that, as in the case with the diphtheria immunoglobulin, a single warehouse maintains what little supply may exist is an unacceptable acceptance. Prevention is difficult to get people excited about. But cold chains for the transport and preservation of these necessary immunizations and treatments must be established throughout Port au Prince and Haiti, as must stockpiles of the necessary remedies for the dehydration that comes with diarrheal diseases. It must also be said that the quality and training of pre quake health care in Haiti was already at a minimum and that with the death and flight of so many among the most capable in the Haitian medical community, that it will be some time before the international medical staff will be relieved of the humanitarian and training demand.

I come here today as a witness not only to a state of current emergency but also to the heroic efforts of United States and international doctors, soldiers and relief workers, of the NGOs in partnership and service with the great Haitian people and their government. I come here today in the hope that we will address, with bold clarity, the razor’s edge upon which Haiti lies, so that all that our own country has given in sacrifice and service will not be washed away with this rainy season and leave bright and dancing Haitian eyes to go still in death from disease and flood, and God forbid the man made disaster of violent unrest. From President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton and Secretary of Defense Gates and throughout the policies and generosities offered to this situation to date, the United States can hold its head very high.

The compassionate and no nonsense posture of our military has been moving and inspiring. But, with the official “emergency phase” declared over, as most of them redeploy into other struggles, we owe it to all of them and to ourselves in re-establishing the character of American foreign policy to stay the course in Haiti.
Make no mistake, this is a war against our ally and neighbor, and we have only this chance to show the world that we are willing to fight that war to save its victims and are not dependent on hating and killing their assailant. It is a war against the diseases and preventable disasters caused by nature and poverty. We must also not underestimate the likelihood, known to all of us on the ground in Haiti, of violent social unrest.

As Americans, we should call on the Government of Haiti and on our own government, to acknowledge that a state of emergency still exists. To demand FULL TRANSPARENCY in the way that aid is distributed and accountability for how aid organizations advertise themselves in the solicitation of funds. Full and total transparency.

Now is the time for all concerned parties to acknowledge that an “emergency phase” is simply an economic determination, and that the prevention of foreseeable human tolls on massive levels, in particular young children, cannot be summarily dismissed by the aspiration of a monumental reconstruction, offering empowerment, demanding independence and governance, or claiming it as a distraction from the rebuilding of a country that in many ways was never built in the first place.

The Haitian people are as strong and resilient as any I have ever seen. There are great lessons of character for our country to learn from Haitians. President Preval and his administration have proven in their pre-quake efforts the will of Haiti to overcome its devastating legacy.

But to demand of them, or encourage their demand of a fractured society’s independence prematurely, will be murder by another name. Issues of equity in distribution of aid are a fine aspiration, but when the emergency room has got a line out the door and the hospital pharmaceutical stockpile has not been inventoried, we have to find a way to treat patients while the counting is done and not leave them at the door to die on the street.

I am, and I believe I speak for all responsible aid workers, in full support of parallel planning in reconstruction and the nurturing of an independent peoples self reliance. But as we punish those who are lazy, punish those who are corrupt, so shall we kill the innocent and the willful. In an emergency, donors offer money and expect it to be spent helping people. I hope we are here today to encourage just that. Thank you.

Please continue to support our neighbors in Haiti. – Sean Penn.

Event Web Page: http://www.askyourmama.com/index2.htm

Venue: The Rose Theater in Frederick P. Rose Hall
Venue Address: 33 West 60th Street, New York, NY 10023-7905
Venue Phone: (212) 258-9500‎

Subway: 1/A/B/C/D to 59th St/Columbus Circle Station

Concert featuring music and poetry. All proceeds from this Performance will be donated to Partners in Health and The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.

Jean Victor Nkolo

Journalist and Spokesperson for the President of the 64th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Jean Victor Nkolo, who was born in Cameroon, speaks to AfrobeatRadio on the role the UN is playing in response to the Haiti earthquake and on UN’s disaster response generally.  The interview was conducted on February 1, 2010, roughly two and half weeks after the earthquake. This segment was broadcast on AfrobeaRadio on WBAI 99.5 FM on March 6, 2010.

He has been the Spokesperson for the President of the 64th Session of the United Nations General Assembly since 15 September 2009. Mr. Nkolo has served as an International civil servant for 17 years, working in the areas public information and the media; peacekeeping; Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration of Combatants (DDR); humanitarian emergencies; children and armed conflict; and international peace and security. He is a recipient of several Human Rights and Peace Awards. This segment is co-produced by the Dowoti Desir of the Ogun Task Force for Haiti. 

The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Magnitude earthquake, with an epicentre near the town of Léogâne, approximately 25 km (16 miles) west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. The earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The earthquake left 3 million people in need of emergency aid.

The Haitian Government reports that between 217,000 and 230,000 people had been identified as dead, an estimated 300,000 injured, and an estimated 1,000,000 homeless. They also estimated that 250,000 residences and 30,000 commercial buildings had collapsed or were severely damaged. The death toll is expected to rise. The UN headquarters hosting the stabilization mission for Haiti (MINUSTAH), at the Christopher Hotel in Port-au-Prince, suffered a devastating collapse. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has confirmed that 83 UN staff members had died,  including mission head Hédi Annabiand deputy head of the UN mission in Haiti, Luiz Carlos da Costa. 32 remained missing. UN’s MINUSTAH’s had 9,000 troops and police, and other personnel in Haiti at the time of the disaster. There were also a large number of foreigners in Haiti, including non-governmental workers, businessmen, Christian missionaries, and foreign passport holders of Haitian descent. Foreign casualties included government workers, members of the diplomatic corps, employees of international companies, religious missionaries, and aid workers.

The earthquake caused major damage to Port-au-Prince, Jacmel and other settlements in the region. Many notable landmark buildings were significantly damaged or destroyed, including the Presidential Palace, the National Assembly building, the Port-au-Prince Cathedral, and the main jail.

Over 20 countries sent military personnel to Haiti, with Canada, the United States and the Dominican Republic providing the largest contingents. Many countries responded to appeals for humanitarian aid, pledging funds and dispatching rescue and medical teams, engineers and support personnel. Some 9,000 UN peacekeepers have been in Haiti since 2004.

Photo courtesy: Natasha St. Germain

Posted by AfrobeatRadio

Knowing that there is not enough medical help available on the ground, it was not clear to me if they will even survive after being successfully rescued: medical complications are always probable and include long-term environmental risks such as bacterial infections. The feeling, I experienced at that moment, seemed to simultaneously contain a sense of despair and hope. I realized then that I don’t know any single word that encompasses both feelings at once. More so, I can only imagine how much more intense is the simultaneous feeling of despair and hope felt by people living through the disaster of such magnitude and after. Soon after  an idea for a blog post containing only poetry and images was conceived to help me explore in some way the despair+hope feeling; however, I was still missing images that could somehow reflect it.

Few days later, I received an email from Philippe, a Haiti-born friend, that contained a link to an on-line photo album compiled by his cousin Natasha, a Haitian-American NOAH NY volunteer, one of so many selfless heroes saving the world – one injury, one person at the time – in spite of a logistic nightmare on the ground. Among the photographs, I spotted three picturing children in their daily post-quake surroundings, consisting mostly of the rudimentary temporary shelters, that showed a trace of normalcy with children interacting and playing. Feel free to click on three smaller images below to view full-size pop-up version of each picture. Thank you, Philippe, for forwarding the photos and help with translation.

The post below, containing three separate sections – two of them use poem fragments based on this blog page – is dedicated to the kids of Haiti who, just like all children experiencing disaster, know best what the despair+hope is because they live it every day.

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Click image to see full-size pop-up

Frankétienne, born Franck Étienne in Haiti, is an author, poet, playwright, musician and painter. He has written in both French and Haitian creole. As a painter, he is known for his colorful abstract works. He was a candidate for 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The night is thick, the night is tough. But still our hope

is kept safe in the depths of our hearts.

A high yellow moon is rising behind the hill; it

grabs a tuft of naked trouserless cloud.

Each evening we eye the stars.

Franketyèn, from Dezafi 

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Click image to see full-size pop-up

Carvens Lissaint is a young poet and performer from New York City. Below is video that poem titled HAITI: Every Drop Counts. Carvens wrote it a year ago in response to the previous natural disaster in Haiti, however, the poem remains amazingly relevant to the recent earthquake disaster.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Click image to see full-size pop-up

Boadiba is a pen-name of a Haitian-born poet, translator, dancer, model and performance artist who currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She arrived in the United States in the 1980s.

For my birthday I want

The whole country

Covered with rivers that are singing again

So that all the waterways resound

With the shouts of children bathing.

Boadiba, from Madam La Prezidant

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Written by Mark Bajkowski.
Mark, born in Poland, is a Jack of all trades, master of none, who lives in New York since 1979. Mark has an unusually wide range of interests and is known to relate well to the people half of his age. Since his early childhood, he felt a curious relation to Africa, which unavoidably brings up the controversial subject of multiple life experiences.

Toussaint Louverture, from a group of engravings done in post-Revolutionary France. (1802)

Haïti will still need all the help it can get for months and years to come but reporters are already taking their microphones and cameras away in pursuit of the next big story. American soldiers will stay behind though, and soon, instead of reluctantly doling out aid, they will be pointing their guns at Haitians who will grow tired of the occupation. This is what you get for having the audacity to aspire to freedom from slavery, and achieve it.

This country achieved something in its history that few others have accomplished and that is, to gain their freedom from imperialists who enslaved them by defeating them militarily. Most other countries in that situation were “granted” their freedom. The official beginning of the struggle to throw of the imperialist yoke began with a religious ceremony circa 1791.

This ceremony was conducted by the legendary priest; Boukman. By 1804, the army of Napoleon, the strongest in the world at that time, was defeated in Haïti by the Africans. That victory meant the end of one struggle but the beginning of another. The French lost on land but blockaded the new country by sea, holding it hostage for ransom. This ransom the Haitians have paid by the millions for more than a century.

The American president; Thomas Jefferson, feared that the Haitian example would replicate itself in the United States. The idea of losing land, power or easy access to raping his slaves was a nightmare for Jefferson. For these reasons, he sided with his white, colonialist brothers and worked to isolate the island. Nevertheless, the young country continued on but even an innocuous existence was intolerable to the Americans.

In 1915, Woodrow Wilson invaded the country and deposed leaders. For seventeen years he pillaged the country for the benefit of Americans. He stole land from peasants and gave them to American corporations. When they left in 1932, the Americans installed weak puppet governments whose job it was to run the country like the Americans, that is, to secure American “interests”. Their reward was a cut in the profits and entry into the economic upper class.

This long line of American puppets included the father and son tyrant tag team; Jean-Claude and Baby Doc Duvalier; the worst of the lot. The hundreds of millions that they stole from the people’s treasury could help Haïti right now. The Haitian people threw these kleptocrats out themselves and eventually elected a populist priest; Jean-Bertrand Aristede, who had headed a new party, the Lavalas party.

Twice this man was elected with more than 66% of the vote and twice he was forced to leave office, a plurality that Bush 2 could only have dreamt of getting. The first time was through a US backed military coup while Bush 1 was in office. Clinton brought him back on suicidal conditions; no grain reserves, no support for domestic agriculture, no tariff barriers to US goods. Privatise! Privatise! Privatise! The state owned communication company, flour mill, and cement factory were all sold to Americans.

In a move reminiscent of when GM bought the electric car and then killed production of it, some state owned companies that were sold were immediately and deliberately closed so that only American imports were available. Cheap US rice and Tyson chicken parts entered the country for the first time in a deluge, overwhelming the local production and driving farmers out of business. When US gunboat policies fully decimated these local economies, the imported rice and chicken was no longer cheap.

This sabotage was very reminiscent of when, in the seventies and eighties, America forced Haïti to kill all the pigs in the country. Some of the pigs were infected with Asian swine flu. These pigs were first brought into the country as far back as the 1500s by the Spanish and had become acclimated and inured to a hardscrabble existence. They were a staple in the diet of the peasants also brought in small sums of money. With the eradication of the local pigs, a new population of pigs had to be imported to replace them. Even a tyro following this narrative could guess where the new pigs had to come from.

Port-au-Prince is a city built for a population of 50,000. With peasants losing their livelihoods in the countryside, they came poring into the capital looking for work. The population ballooned to two and a half to three million. The Machiavellian plans of the Americans were working just as they had intended. Here was a poor and desperate populace who could easily be drafted for slave wages in American sweatshops.

All this happened under Aristede. His hands were tied. When he tried to untie them by doing something for the people, that is, raising the minimum wage, that was the last straw for American sweatshops owners. They complained to the White House saying that they could not freely do business in Haiti with this little priest in power, attempting to implement socialist policies.

The perfect storm of a discontented populace and an American backed insurgency cause the pretext for Bush 2 to justify the second removal of the pesky priest. Incidentally, one of the chief reasons for the disposal of Manuël Zelaya from power in Honduras last year was his proposal to raise the minimum wage.

The earthquake of January 12 was yet another a tragic misfortune heaped upon all the other man made and natural disasters that have befallen the people. Haïti deserves to rise up again and be free with a robust economy, a healthy and happy population, true democracy and an ability to defend themselves against invasion from foreign despots.

The only obstacle standing in the way of that is the rapacious, imperialist, parasitic superpower; the United States of America. It is obvious that the Obama government is using this tragedy to take the opportunity to make sure that Haitian aspirations are never achieved because that would be antithetical to American interests.

There are only about 300 US doctors in Haïti, but 12,000 US soldiers have invaded the country. Contrast that with the thousands of search and rescue teams and medical personnel sent by Cubans, Venezuelans, Icelanders, South Africans, Jamaicans, even Nicaraguans.

About the soldiers, are these people who have been deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq multiple times? Are they capable of turning off their killer instinct to help Haitians? What does this opportunistic occupation mean for the people? What is it exactly that they are “securing”? Why are American soldiers standing guard at the entrances of hospitals?

The militarization of the relief effort had the effect of slowing down and under-serving the victims. Many survivors died because of this. This can be nothing but deliberate. Soldiers have NO BUSINESS doing this kind of work. That’s what charities and non-governmental organizations are for. Soldiers have taken over the airport. They decide who can land and who can not.

Aid agencies who have been allowed to land with their supplies are being told to off load, but to turn over distribution to the US army. Why can they can not distribute it themselves when this is what they are accustomed to do? In the meantime, the Americans are not distributing the aid in an efficient manner. Is this deliberate? Why? Will aid spoil in the hot tropical sun on a hot tarmac the way food aid intended for Katherina victims was left to rot in warehouses? Who will benefit from this? It is outrageous that the first truckload of bottled water to leave the airport was transported to, are you ready for this? the US embassy! I did NOT send my donations for the benefit of US embassy staff.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Haitians are leaving Port-au-Prince for their home towns and villages without getting even one sip of charity water. Aid agencies are now landing in the Dominican Republic and trucking their supplies across the Dominican border as a way to avoid the Americans in Port-au-Prince.

Amputations are being performed at an alarmingly high rate. Many of them could have been avoided if US soldiers were not performing the role of obstructionists. Survivors with compound fractures and broken bones sticking out out of their bodies were left to a horrible fate by the criminal inaction of the Americans. Amputations are being performed without anesthesia! and with hacksaws bought at hardware stores which are then “sterilized” with rum or vodka.

In the meantime, medical supplies such as anesthetics are piling up on the tarmac. It’s Obama’s right to decide that he does not want an influx of refugees flooding his country. US Navy ships and helicopters have been surrounding the country, patrolling the waters, broadcasting messages saying that anyone who tries to leave by boat will be caught and brought back to Haiti but what if Haitians decide to take a boat to Cuba or Venezuela? Will they also be returned? Are Haitians not free to leave their country at all? Is Obama trying to make Haïti into a Gaza?

Despite this new blockade of people, Americans are seizing the opportunity to kidnap children out of the country. Some Haitian children have already been “adopted”. Others have been missing from Haitian hospitals. Have they been sold on the international market? Will they end up as sex slaves or work slaves? Will they be killed for the international trade in internal organs? All of this is possible because all of this happens everyday the world over.

Ten people from the American state of Idaho were arrested yesterday trying to steal children across the Dominican border. How clueless can these dumb asses be? First of all, the Dominican Republic is the LAST place one should take “orphaned” Haïtian children. The visceral, virulent racism that these people display to anything African would put Bull Connor to shame.

In 1937, Trujillo; the Dominican dictator, tried to cleanse his country of Haitians by massacring thirty thousand! Many people think that they can tell the difference between Haitians and Dominicans just by looking at them. They will disabuse themselves of that notion if they knew that Trujillo himself could not.

Parsley and scissors were used as part of the litmus test to differentiate the peoples. If you could not pronounce “perejil” or “tijera” properly, you were Haitian. Thus did all those people perish. The legacy of that continues up to today and can be seen in no better example than Sammy Sosa whose new white skin typifies the Dominican attitude.

The leader of this band of Bible thumping savior of overseas black humanity, is a woman whose profile needs to be exposed. Laura Silsby lost her home to foreclosure in December 2009. According to state records, her internet “business” has had fourteen complaints against it for unpaid wages. Employees won nine of those complaints and the state had to put a lien on the company’s bank account to secure the money to satisfy the judgments. She is currently involved in two more lawsuits as the defendant. This person is unfit to adopt even a goldfish.

Oh, but God [there he/she/it goes again] told her to go to Haïti and rescue these poor, starving African orphans. This conflicts with the message I had with God who told me that this woman and her accomplices are CRIMINALS! who saw $$$ in this tragedy. Just imagine, a major catastrophe hits some white state in this country, and many white children are homeless, hungry and maybe, orphaned. A group of Koran thumping Arabs barges into the country and tries to steal white children over the Mexican border with the ostensible plan to set up an orphanage there. How would European-Americans react? Exactly!

Meanwhile, conversations with ordinary Americans prove to me what I have always suspected, and that is, deliberately mendacious and Bismarkian media reportage have had the desired effect of allowing the dumb masses to smugly feel that they are the only ones that are helping and that these “poor, poor people” are really cursed.

Who knows what the denoucement of this tragic saga will be but right now the situation stinks to high heaven, in more ways than one.

Written by Akenataa Hammagaadji.
Akenaata Hammagaadji is an African music expert and cultural critic. He is the radio host of First World Music; an African music programme broadcast from WVKR. His insightful music reviews, which goes beyond music into cultural dissections, can be found in his weekly First World Music Newsletter, now a blog on afrobeatradio.net.

People gathering at public squares and building temporary shelters after the earthquake.

Listen to the January 23, 2010 program on AfrobeatRadio live on WBAI focuses on the earthquake crisis in Haiti. With the help of Haitian expats and analysts, we explore Haiti’s old and recent history. What is the West’s primary goal for the unprecedented support? We will also take a look at the American media coverage of the earthquake and what roles African governments have played to support the Haitian people.

Haiti Sak Pase! Segment 1 from AfrobeatRadio on Vimeo.

Haiti Sak Pase! segment 1 from AfrobeatRadio on Vimeo.

Segment 1 features speakers including, Myriam Augustine of NY Haitian Educators AD-HOC Committee, Lily Cerat of Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, Daniel Huttinot of The Haitian Information Center, rof. Nicole Falade of the Foreign Languages and Literature. Department at Long Island University, LIU, and NYC Council Member Dr. Mathieu Eugene.

Haiti Sak Pase! segment 2 from AfrobeatRadio on Vimeo.

Segment 2 features speakers, Dowoti Desir of DDPA Watch Group, Lionel Legros, Carl Dix of the Communist Party USA, and Ronald Auborg of the Consortium for Haitian Empowerment.

Haiti Sak Pase! Segment 2 from AfrobeatRadio on Vimeo.

Red Cross in Haiti

Tragedy of historic proportions is happening in our backyard – please consider skipping lunch for one day and save a life in Haiti by sending your contribution to the below charities via text message from your cell phone. This will also allow you to avoid scams that are on the increase.

The text message donation is a convenient way to help. While  message donation is still a gray area because many people have not heard of it, in the wake of the earthquake that hit Haiti, the American Red Cross and singer Wyclef Jean’s Yele Haiti project amongst others are encouraging donors to text a keyword to a specific number, which will automatically donate $5 or $10 to earthquake relief and bill it to the user’s cell phone. The organizations listed below are legitimate campaigns to text message contributions to. They are safe, so do not hesitate to save a life. Thank you.

Text “HAITI” to “90999” to donate $10 on behalf of the American Red Cross.
Text “YELE” to “501501” to donate $5 on behalf of The Yéle Haiti Foundation.
Text “HAITI” to “20222” to donate $10 on behalf of The William J. Clinton Foundation.
Text “HAITI” to “85944” to donate $10 on behalf of the Rescue Union Mission and MedCorp International.

If you want to help the earthquake-devastated Haitian people, who cannot return home from the US to the dire conditions in their country, to get Temporary Protected Status (TPS) please sign this email petition to the White House.

Satellite image of Port-au-Prince earthquake damage

Click here to explore zoom-able & pan-able GeoEye satellite image which will open in a new window on your browser. The GeoEye image was taken Wednesday at 10:27 a.m., a day after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti’s captial and surrounding area. The actual resolution of the GeoEye image is  illustrated below.

People gathering at the promenade near Rue St. Martin to build temporary shelters.

AfrobeatRadio invites your comments and messages to the affected.