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On
Jun. 3,
ProPublica and
National Public Radio
each published major articles, produced in partnership,
on the shortfalls and mystification surrounding how the
American Red Cross spent half a billion dollars it
raised to supposedly provide relief and reconstruction
following Haiti’s Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake.
Specifically, the two media outlets examined the
Red Cross’ claims that it built thousands of units of
permanent housing for Haitians who lost their homes to
the earthquake, new health care facilities, potable
water and sanitation systems and other vital services.
The two studies found that the claims were exaggerated
or false and that the American Red Cross tried to cover
up its failures.
The only Canadian newspaper to report the story
was the National Post, in an article by reporter Douglas Quan. (The story
was also
published in other Postmedia outlets, including the
Ottawa Citizen
and Vancouver Sun.)
The
Post article sought
to explore the Canadian Red Cross angle to the story,
but its only source was the Canadian Red Cross itself.
The Canadian agency claims that its record stands in
contrast to that of its American counterpart and that it
succeeded in building 7,500 units of permanent housing.
On Jun. 4, on behalf of the Canada Haiti Action
Network (CHAN), I wrote a letter to Douglas Quan
concerning the Canadian Red Cross claims. Here are some
excerpts:
“The story brought back memories of
difficult and ultimately frustrated efforts by our
advocacy network in 2010, 2011, and 2012 to convince
media outlets in Canada as well as members of the
Canadian Parliament to create some accountability and
reckoning of the post-earthquake aid projects of the Red
Cross and other large, aid agencies in Haiti.
“Through the course of our work, we discovered
that Canada’s mainstream news outlets as well as all of
the political parties in Parliament were only too happy
to take as good coin the claims by the large aid
agencies, including the Red Cross, that post-earthquake
recovery in Haiti was going as well as could be expected
and as well as humanly possible. The regular hearings
conducted by Parliament’s Standing Committee on Foreign
Affairs and International Development echoed the same
happy note. The hearings were always noteworthy for how
the lists of invited guests to inform the committee of
the situation in Haiti always consisted of those whose
message conformed to a ‘happy’ message. No critical
examination and no independent investigation and inquiry
was deemed necessary...
“To give one, small example of the harm created
by this lackadaisical attitude of Parliamentarians and
journalists, our advocacy network discovered during an
investigative visit to Haiti in June 2011 that the
Canadian Red Cross had recently closed a cholera
treatment center which had opened in December 2010. You
may recall that Haiti’s deadly cholera epidemic was
brought to the country by the foreign occupation
soldiers of the UN military mission called MINUSTAH in
October 2010.
“The problem with the Canadian Red Cross decision
re its clinic was not the closure, per se. It was the
fact that the agency was continuing to claim that the
center was operational. It was making this claim on its
website and even in testimony to Canadian
Parliamentarians. Not a soul in the Parliament nor in
the many media outlets we contacted upon our return to
Canada showed the slightest interest in what we reported
about this specific transgression and what it might say
about the broader information situation. The same
disinterest was shown when in September 2011 we
published (in English and French) a comprehensive report
of our June 2011 visit and findings.
“To this date, the United Nations Security
Council and the UN’s Secretary General refuses any and
all legal responsibility for this action, and the large
aid agencies have nothing to say on the subject. Cholera
has, to date, killed more than 9,200 Haitians.
“The Canadian Red Cross received the largest
share of earthquake donations by Canadians, some $110
million. Much of that amount was matched by the Canadian
government, for a total earthquake response budget of
$220 million.
“Perhaps the most harmful of the conduct of the
foreign charities (and journalists) operating in Haiti
was how they supported or acquiesced to the destructive
electoral process undertaken by the foreign powers very
soon after the earthquake. The two-round presidential
election of November 2010-March 2011 was intended to
ensure that a national government entirely beholden to
imperialist interests would be put into place. The
operation was a success, thanks, in part, to the
acquiescence of the charity nexus.
“We learned from Haiti that the Red Cross is an
emergency response agency, period. Any claim on its part
to be an agency of rehabilitation of a shattered society
is false, or at least, that was the record in Haiti....
Concerning the long-term, structural issues of Haiti’s
underdevelopment that the earthquake placed into sharp
relief, the Red Crosses serve as just another set of
charity agencies, ultimately serving to perpetuate the
conditions that cause countries to become underdeveloped
in the first place.
“I frankly doubt the Canadian Red Cross claims
that it constructed 7,500 permanent houses in Haiti. I
suspect that in typically vague language, it is speaking
of semi-permanent structures which may or may not have
fallen into disuse or been dismantled and put to
different use since they were erected. Only an
on-the-spot examination could tell.
“Below is a small selection of articles and
studies which we wrote during 2010 and 2011. In January
of this year, I co-authored a comprehensive article
examining Haiti five years following the earthquake: “Haiti’s
promised rebuilding unrealized as Haitians challenge
authoritarian rule,” by Roger Annis and
Travis Ross, January 2015.
“Our website is devoted, in part, to making known
the very fine work of many advocacy and solidarity
organizations in Haiti. They are active in promoting
human rights, political accountability, health care,
public education, agricultural development, and other
issues vital for Haiti’s national and social
development. What makes them successful is their
promotion of the two key pillars that must be at the
heart of international assistance to Haiti – meaningful
solidarity that assists social development, and respect
and promotion of the national sovereignty of Haitians.
They deserve our ongoing support, just as Haiti as a
whole deserves our ongoing attention and solidarity.”
Selection of articles published by
the Canada Haiti Action Network:
The ‘exaggerated claim’ of the
Canadian military’s ‘earthquake relief’
in Haiti, published in October
2010
Review of earthquake aid to
Haiti on the one-year anniversary of Haiti earthquake,
January 2011
Commentary on Canadian
Parliamentarians examination of conditions in Haiti,
September 2011
Report of investigative visit
to Haiti in June 2011, published in
English and in French in September 2011
(An
earlier version of this article was published on
CounterPunch.) |
