–US media, televangelist & CARICOM
THERE SEEMS to be a strange reluctance, if not insensitivity, by mainstream United States media — CNN and Fox News in particular — to virtually ignore the admirable efforts also of other nations — especially Cuba’s — in providing emergency humanitarian aid for earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

The reality is that for all the overwhelming focus on the large-scale involvement of America’s growing military presence — soon to reach approximately 10,000 — and its civilian personnel from various agencies — other nations are also engaged, though at lesser levels — in feverish rescue and restoration activities since life in Haiti was so fundamentally changed by that mind-boggling earthquake on the night of January 12.

Last Wednesday, the reputable Washington-based think-tank, Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), asked in a research memorandum: “Why is there almost no media coverage of Cuba’s medical assistance in Haiti?”

COHA went on to catalogue some of this assistance, highlighting in particular Cuba’s medical programme in Haiti that has been ongoing since 1998, and with the presence of some 344 doctors long before the earthquake disaster for which it had rushed an additional 30 doctors, even as other nations (including Caribbean Community states), were desperately seeking to establish priority needs, including at least one field hospital.

At that same time, the controversial American televangelist, Rev. Pat Robertson, an unsuccessful presidential candidate, teased for a ‘foot-in-mouth’ problem, was attributing the earthquake nightmare to claims of a Haitian “pact with the devil.”

Those who recall the outpouring of blame from Robertson and the now late Rev Jerry Falwell (former leader of the very conservative ‘Moral Majority’ religious/political network) against the American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU), ‘abortionists. gays and feminists’ for America’s horrible 9/11 terrorist attacks, would not be surprised by his gross insensitivity, if not ignorance.

Of course, this is the same prominent religious leader who is on record as calling for the assassination President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, only to later offer a form of ‘repentance’.

What is really surprising is not the problem Pat Robertson may have with himself in understanding others. More relevant is the concern being voiced over the very scant — worse, exclusion — of coverage by mainstream US television networks of the involvement by nations such as Brazil, China, Venezuela and Cuba, as well as the Geneva-based ‘Doctors Without Borders’.

The Caribbean region, and CARICOM in particular, seem not deserving of any coverage by North America media enterprises, despite being among the first to initiate actions for assessment teams to fly into Haiti; only to be frustrated in initial efforts to establish a field hospital, then followed by a thoughtful offer from Jamaica for its strategically-placed airports to be available for use by international aircraft carrying emergency aid to the earthquake-wrecked country 45 minutes away.

At least US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was to go on record as recognising Jamaica as being “pivotal” to the region’s general outreach to Haiti during a meeting she had with Prime Minister Bruce Golding on the evening of January16 at the Norman Manley International Airport that followed her visit to Port-au-Prince earlier that day.

With virtually every recurring major natural disaster, or political upheavals suffered by Haiti over the past ten years in particular, governments and agencies of CARICOM have reached out in providing various forms of emergency relief, outside of political/diplomatic engagements.

In the wake of the earthquake disaster of cataclysmic proportions, the Community, of which Haiti became a member in 1997, was jolted into an even more rapid response, as part of international rescue and recovery efforts in that Caribbean nation now in ruins.

There is, however, the danger of our witnessing a déjà vu scenario when it comes to involvement in the more challenging post-reconstruction demands.

Once, that is, the mass burial of an estimated 200,000 corpses have been completed; thousands of other victims have received emergency medical attention, and the more than one million desperate victims reached in time with food, water and medicine.

Pledges Vs Deliveries
The danger alluded to is a likely return to official political rhetoric by CARICOM on matters like ‘debt forgiveness’ for Haiti, or the even more sensitive issue of ‘reparations’ by France from which Haitians had won their independence in 1804.

France bears a tremendous guilt for Haiti’s current shameful status as the poorest nation in the Latin America/Caribbean region by a stubborn refusal to offer even a token response to the cries for reparations from a country where mothers have been forced to feed children on so-called ‘patties’ made out of baked earth mixed with salt.

One of President Jean Bertrand Aristide’s more significant political initiatives, before being ousted from power in 2004, was to formally petition France for reparations of approximately US$21 billion, calculated in today’s equivalent to an estimated 150 million gold francs that liberated Haitians had to compensate the French for winning their freedom.

Coincidentally, a month after his petition for reparations to the then government in Paris, Aristide was forced out of power by the USA, with the collaboration of France.

Currently, some of the political excitement over Haiti is focused on a series of ‘aid donors’ conferences, with one hurriedly hosted by the Dominican Republic last Monday, at the request of the European Union, and another planned for later this week in Canada.

The conference in Santo Domingo, attended by some CARICOM leaders, came up with proposals (‘guesstimates’ seem more correct) for
an envisaged US$10 billion restoration/reconstruction programme for Haiti over a five-year period.

Truth is, though CARICOM should not be expected to confirm it, there is much cynicism abroad in this region about these ‘aid donors’ meetings for Haiti, due to the recurring gulf between ‘pledges’ made and failures to ‘deliver’ on commitments to implement projects.

For instance, a donors conference last April that coincided with the appointment of former President Bill Clinton by UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon as the world body’s Special Envoy to Haiti, had pledged US$350 million in multilateral and bilateral assistance. But Haiti was still querying absence of ‘deliveries’ before the earthquake nightmare.

The foreign media’s coverage, and CARICOM’s apparent weakness in any consistent lobbying initiatives for ‘debt forgiveness’ — or to embrace the more challenging question of Haitian pleas for ‘reparations’ from France — are some of the harsh realities to be faced in the wake of the most horrendous natural disaster in our Caribbean region.