Academic

Haiti's Resettlement Policy

By firstamendmentblogger

I'm back from Haiti where the situation is still apocalyptic yet somehow more dire than it was a month ago. Humanitarian aid in most of the camps we visited stopped two months ago. In those where aid is being provided, however sparingly, people are being harassed and beaten by the police until they leave to . . . who knows where.

Bulldozers and pick up trucks showed up at Carradeux one night, a camp outside of PAP.  At first residents thought they were there to level the ground or create a drainage ditch that would spare them from flooding rain.  But then armed guards jumped out of the trucks yelling at people to come out of their tarps and get on the ground.  Shots were fired, and they completely razed the settlement.  They pushed the original settlers up hill to make room for about 500 families at the bottom of the valley.  Some provisions of food and water are being distributed to the newcomers, but the officials now in charge of the camp (still not exactly sure who they report to) are not allowing the people they bulldozed up the hill to access those services.  Every day, the people up the side of the hill look down at the trucks offloading food and water that they can't get.

And so they starve.

It's evil genius, really.  Rather than work towards viable solutions to mass displacement, just pit earthquake victims against other earthquake victims until they kill each other over a bag of rice.

-Kathleen Bergin

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on May 26, 2010 (boomark / email).