Bdos: Shameful Caricom lets spite trump charity

The editorial is charmingly titled Tell Haiti we’re sorry, and the writer is trying to make up for Caricom's failure to act or even send condolences to Haiti.

At this point in time, I'm very glad I'm not Haitian. For, if I were, I would be spewing obscenities on the page like young mangoes in a high wind. As it is, I have to practice restraint.

CDERA, Caricom's emergency response group, is headquartered in Barbados, and the best that the editor of the Advocate can come up with, on behalf of CDERA and Caricom, is a lame "tell Haiti we're sorry"?

On behalf of the Haitians, let me tell CDERA and Caricom, keep your bloody sorries to yourself. Words don't help worth a damn when people are suffering and dying.

Haiti needs action and Caricom countries have consistently failed their poorer sister by failing to act. Choked with puerile spite over Aristide and Latortue, Caricom prefers to let Haitians suffer than to help; for, if they were to help, they would be seen as supporting Latortue whom they regard as illegitimate.

What do the media do? Send a message to Haiti via some unspecified third party. "Tell Haiti we're sorry"! What about holding CDERA and Caricom accountable? What about demanding action? What about starting a fund drive? What about shaming the Caricom spiters into action?

Haiti would do well to turn its back on Caricom.

The one piece of good news in this editorial is the writer's concession that U.S. forces actually rescued Aristide from "certain assasination by insurgents." I have yet to see this admission in any other Caribbean paper.

FOR all the righteous concern expressed by CARICOM officials and commentators about Haiti at the time of President John Bertrand-Aristide’s departure from office three months ago, there has been little or no evidence of any sympathy for citizens of that Caribbean state now that a horrific natural disaster has struck them. Several thousands are dead or missing and thousands more homeless after torrential rains swamped much of the island of Hispañola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic. In the absence of assistance from other sources, it has been left mainly to those Americans, whom many love to hate nowadays and who critics say should not have been there in the first place, to provide the bulk of relief to starving and stranded Haitians.

It is easy to imagine a sadder fate for the living, and surely many more deaths, had US forces not remained there in substantial numbers after rescuing Mr. Aristide from what seemed certain assassination by insurgents. But most are due to leave this month.

Neither Canadian nor French contingents possess the logistical capability that the US readily offers in times of tragedy, especially near to its own doorstep. Nor did we expect CARICOM to fill the breach left by the United Nations whose slow response can be traced to its complicated bureaucracy.

Even so, the least one might expect from CARICOM’s Secretariat is a word of sympathy to survivors of this catastrophic flood. Nothing of the sort has been forthcoming although food (which the US is airlifting) and rehabilitation are the people’s principal priorities.

Chances are that before CARICOM gets around to a minimal effort many more Haitians will perish in the continuing deluge.

It is not even obvious how the Community might respond without appearing to give legitimacy to a provisional government which it has refused to recognise. It seems CARICOM is hoist on its own petard.

However, the regional organisation cannot remain silent without losing respect. Surely some gesture of compassion for the Haitians is called for. When Mozambique suffered a similar catastrophe three years ago a Barbados state agency sent help. It is doing nothing for Haiti whose 200-year-old revolution it professes approval.
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So Haiti’s immediate salvation lies elsewhere, primarily within this hemisphere, with co-operative Western states, with North America, France and with a United Nations system that finally kicked into gear by sending troops yesterday.

It may now think the unthinkable: a leading role for the US until the worst of this catastrophe is over.