Tomorrow, I'll travel to Haiti for the second time since the earthquake to meet with Haitian leaders and UN officials, visit a local clinic, and deliver much needed supplies to the region, including food, medical supplies, generators, tents, and plastic sheeting.
More than three weeks after the earthquake, the relief efforts in Haiti are being rapidly increased to meet the staggering needs, but the long road to recovery has just begun.
In mere moments, the earthquake not only turned buildings to rubble in Port-au-Prince and communities west of it and took the lives of nearly 200,000 people, it set back the impressive progress Haiti had been making to overcome 200 years of poverty, neglect and oppression. What we do now and in the weeks and months ahead to help the people and the government of Haiti will have an enormous impact on the country's future. A coordinated and sustained response by the international community, in partnership with the Haitian government can make the difference between whether Haiti "builds back better" -- or just builds back unsafe buildings that can't survive hurricanes and earthquakes; a fragile and stagnant economy; a health care system with gaping inequalities; an education system with the lowest enrollment rates in the Western hemisphere; and continued and rampant deforestation. Before the earthquake, the Haitian government had adopted a comprehensive development plan designed to build a stronger country in the aftermath of the 2008 hurricanes. The Haitian people supported it. They don't want to go back and so we must help them move forward.
The success of Haiti is deeply personal to me. As President, my administration helped restore democratic leadership in Haiti and supported peacekeeping and efforts to grow the economy. After I left office, I continued my commitment to Haiti through my Foundation, working with the Haitian government to strengthen health systems and decrease the prevalence of HIV/AIDS and other diseases. After four hurricanes ravaged Haiti in 2008, I asked members of the Clinton Global Initiative to make commitments to help rebuild the country -- in response, businesses and individuals pledged more than $100 million toward that end.
In early 2009, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asked me to serve as UN Special Envoy for Haiti. For months before the earthquake, I worked alongside the people and government of Haiti, international donors, business leaders, NGOs, and the Haitian diaspora to help the country implement its development plan. I remain committed to completing my mission, and in spite of the quake I still believe Haiti can break the chains of poverty and desperation.
In a recent press conference, Secretary-General Ban detailed the UN's immediate and mid-term priorities of providing humanitarian relief and aid, providing security and stability, and helping reconstruct the Haitian economy.
But as we've learned after past disasters, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, it will take more than governments or UN agencies alone to move beyond tragedy. In the days immediately following the earthquake, my Foundation set up a relief fund and I personally delivered food, water, and much needed medical supplies to Port-au-Prince and the General Hospital there, and met with Haitian officials to inform our continued response.
President Obama also asked President George W. Bush and me to lead a joint fundraising effort to engage Americans and citizens around the world in supporting recovery and rebuilding efforts. We established the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, with funds allocated for reputable organizations providing direct relief and assistance to survivors, including medical care, food, water, shelter, and education, in areas like Port-au-Prince, Jacmel, Saint Martin and Martissant.
Already, we've raised more than $20 million from people like Robert who has been unemployed for seven months; Frank, who is giving what he can from his social security check; and Dawn's class of third-graders who saved $31.74 in pennies for an ice cream party, but decided to donate it to Haiti relief instead. You can donate at www.clintonbushhaitifund.org.
In addition to private citizens and NGOS, the international business community is playing an enormous role in recovery, not just in aid but for job generation. Several sectors will be ripe for opportunities to do business, including agribusiness, tourism, textiles, crop processing, call centers, and alternative energy. Jobs could be generated by addressing other challenges throughout the country, including projects focused on rural infrastructure and communications, rural access to power, and reforestation.
Before the earthquake hit, I believed for the first time in my life that Haiti finally had a chance to create a modern economy and a just society, a nation worthy of the abilities, hard work, and dreams of its people. The President and Prime Minister remain committed to that goal. Continued support from government and international donors, NGOs, the private sector and individual citizens can still give Haiti that chance. But we have to stay focused on the work ahead; we have to keep the aid and assistance flowing; and we have to do so in a way that is coordinated, effective, transparent and accountable, to help the most people in the short run and do the most good over the long run.
In the midst of an awful tragedy, the Haitian people are reimagining a future that the Haitian government is committed to build. It won't be easy, it won't be quick, but it can be done. And we can help.
Haiti - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Haiti News - Breaking World Haiti News - The New York Times
Below is a preview of a documentary of Haitian women in their own voice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lHDUPAC7D0&feature=player_embedded
To get the entire DVD go to :
http://www.potomitan.net/
I
Many rich businessmen and corporations in Haiti and around the world are reaping immense profit on the back of the Haitians poor while they toiled day in and day out in modern day slave plantations and subsiding on less than $2 a day with a cost of living comparable to that of industrialized countries.
This vast inequality have consequences that reverberates throughout Haitian society among them are extreme poverty, high illiteracy rate, highest infant mortality rate and lowest life expectancy in the western hemisphere, corruption, weakness of the Haitian state, no infrastructure capable of sustaining an earthquake of magnitude of 7 or higher, hurricanes, and landslides.
The response of the international community before and after the earthquake have been to further weaken the Haitian state, and the turn the Haitian people into perpetual beggars.
Sooner rather than later this charity will dry out. A long term solution that incorporate Justice in the form of fair wages for the world most vulnerable citizens is sorely needed.
Let's face it how many mansions, private jets, and cushy lifestyle that someone needs at the expense of someone else?
During your two terms, you used my tax dollars to mobilize "our" military to wring profits out of Haiti's poor black bodies.
Aat the very least, you could have publicly protested the coup carried about by the same military, this time under the direction of your successor.
Whatever horrors are occurring in Haiti, I blame you, everyone who voted for you, and everyone who bought your book. Come and get me. Nothing you do will ever result in anything good for the Haitian people.
Sincerely,
Terris Linenbach
Where were you in helping in destroying your own country to NAFTA, GATT, North American Union, and WTO? How come you go to Bilderburg Meetings which breaks the Logan Act?
How come you said "How dare you!" that 9/11 was an inside job? Where's your proof?
How come you are not contributing funds to your own country then Haiti which the US helped destroy on your Watch?
Mr.Clinton you are also a war criminal for bombing Serbia during the Yukoslavia civil war. How do you sleep at night?
You are gifted speaker and very intelligent Sir; however, what price did you sell out your soul out to your own countrymen?
Help Your Country Out before Helping Out Haiti? What about New Orleans? Where were you then in helping out that city?
Regards,
SamSeven
Let it go, mon.
maybe we could get the church people excited
If only American politicians, both past and present, would give the U.S. a chance without utter corruption from financial lobbyists that pay off politicians at the expense of the U.S. tax payer!
If anyone believes "Capitalism" is alive and well in the U.S., I suggest this belief is delusional. Capitalism is about letting companies succeed AND fail!
Instead, the U.S. Tax Payers have been royally screwed for decades by "elected" officials that implement policies allowing Wall St. to privatize profits, and socialize losses.
The economic weight of countries have shifted to China and India because policies coming out of Washington D.C. provide incentives for outsourcing. This means U.S. workers get fired and wages are stifled at the expense of exploiting workers in the developing world.
And there you have it. The genious of Capitalism in the most inefficient country in the world, the U.S., where tax payers and their off spring are perpetually in debt due to utter incompetence and greed!
http://www.france24.com/en/20100127-african-nations-offer-cash-land-solidarity-stricken-haiti
http://standwithhaiti.org/haiti/news-entry/we-are-all-haitian/
May I suggest you read other news sources beside US MSM.
You've were quoted on AP http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/05/laura-silsby-missionary-l_n_450957.html as saying:
"I think what's important now is that the government of Haiti and the government of the United States to get together and go through this because the government of Haiti, as I understand it, is not looking for a fight. They just want to protect children," he said during a visit to an AIDS clinic.
"The only thing I ask is both sides try to work through it as soon as possible."
Why the rush?
There is another angle to this kidnapping story that has yet to be investigated. According to the NY times http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/world/americas/03orphans.html?src=tp, the villagers
" trusted the Americans, they said, because they arrived with the recommendation of a Baptist minister, Philippe Murphy, who runs an orphanage in the area."
Murphy, is far from being a Haitian last name. A search on the web reveal a Pastor Philip Murphy co-founder of an orphanage in Haiti called House of blessings in Callebasse, Haiti:
http://haitihouseofblessings.org/
As the UN special envoy to Haiti, your contribution to this case ought to provide the Haitian government the financial assistance they need to locate this American Pastor so he too can be interrogated and his church investigated.
Right, then please don't send him any money ;-)
For aid to reach the impoverished masses, we can no longer afford to operate from the old socioeconomic paradigm. The human cost is too high.
Justice must be the premise from which everyone (Haitian government and elite, NGOs, foreign governments, foreign corporations, foreign troops, UN, International banks(IMF, IDB, World Bank) participating in the relief and rebuilding efforts must operate.
Why is it that Sanjay Gupta would have to go himself to the airport to collect medical supplies in a plastic garbage bag to take back to a clinic, while you have able bodied personnel being paid with our tax dollars sitting around and cooling off in tent. If this is your kind of help. The people will surely die.
----Joseph Campbell
Way to go, Big Dog!