"A Disaster of Epic Proportion" as Violence Grows In Haiti

By Jeralyn, Section Foreign Affairs
Posted on Sun Jan 17, 2010 at 01:28:35 PM EST
Tags: Haiti (all tags)

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Despite the world-wide effort to get supplies, food, medical care and security forces to the people of Haiti, it's not happening fast enough. Violence is growing and spreading.

Apparently, the Haitian police are on the scene and they are shooting and killing looters, or leaving them to vigilante justice. Here's a dismal report from The Telegraph:

Police opened fire on a group of looters, killing at least one of them, as hundreds of rioters ransacked a supermarket. One, a man in his 30s, was killed outright by bullets to the head as the crowd grabbed produce in the Marche Hyppolite.

Another quickly snatched the rucksack off the dead man's back as clashes continued and police reinforcements descended on the area armed with pump-action shotguns and assault rifles.

[More..]

Residents in the Delmas area caught two suspected looters, tied them together, beat them and dragged them through the streets. Both were eventually dumped, motionless.

...Gangs of men on Boulevard Jean-Jacques Dessalines, their faces covered with bandannas to mask both their identity and the smell of decaying bodies, brandished machetes and sharpened planks of wood as they ran from shop to shop stealing shoes, rolls of carpet and cooking pots.

There are reports of aid workers being shot:

It is also understood that two Dominicans were shot and seriously wounded as they handed out aid.

Lieutenant General PK Keen, deputy commander of US southern Command says:

Clearly, this is a disaster of epic proportions, and we've got a lot of work ahead of us."

Update: Urban Search and Rescue today says it has not given up on finding survivors.

More than 70 people have been found alive, which is a record number for USAR operations after an earthquake. Forty-three international USAR teams, comprising 1,739 rescue workers and 161 dogs, are working on the ground around the clock, and under extremely difficult and challenging conditions.
"We haven't given up hope of finding more survivors today. Even six days later, it is still possible that we might be able to find more people alive," said Jesper Lund, head of the international USAR operations in Haiti. "

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"A Disaster of Epic Proportion" as Violence Grows In Haiti | 35 comments (35 topical)

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The more the media use the word (5.00 / 3) (#4)
by hairspray on Sun Jan 17, 2010 at 01:54:36 PM EST

"looting" as indiscriminately as they do the more people become jaded about helping. That happened in Katrina. It is more likely that people are desperate for food and water and are stealimg for survival and it should be reported more dispassionately.

CNN at least appears to be (5.00 / 1) (#24)
by gyrfalcon on Sun Jan 17, 2010 at 05:06:20 PM EST

acutely aware of this and are not sensationalizing this stuff. "Looting" is a terrible word to use for desperate people trying to keep from starving to death.

The Telegraph is a terrible source for this kind of information because they do knock themselves out to sensationalize these things. Shame on them.


I agree re food (none / 0) (#7)
by Cream City on Sun Jan 17, 2010 at 02:11:36 PM EST

and clothing, some clothing . . . but rolls of carpeting? Well, I suppose it could be to try to make it more comfortable to live outside.


Carpet might make a better bed (5.00 / 4) (#9)
by Anne on Sun Jan 17, 2010 at 02:19:26 PM EST

than debris-laden ground, which probably has broken masonry, glass, nails, and other hazards on and in it.

I'm wondering what lengths I would go to if first, I had survived the trauma of the quake and aftershocks, was living in fear of more aftershocks, and then there was no food, no clean water, no safe shelter, no electricity, and it seemed help was never going to come.

It's beyond my ability to comprehend, really.


I think that the barter (none / 0) (#13)
by hairspray on Sun Jan 17, 2010 at 02:43:22 PM EST

system may also be the only way that some could get what they need. Its hard to think that anyone in those conditions is going to get rich off of a roll of carpeting.


: Really! (none / 0) (#25)
by gyrfalcon on Sun Jan 17, 2010 at 05:07:16 PM EST

I think it's both and the media (none / 0) (#10)
by nycstray on Sun Jan 17, 2010 at 02:22:15 PM EST

I saw did differentiate between nec supplies and unnecessary items.


: Good. This so angered me about NOLA (5.00 / 1) (#16)
by Cream City on Sun Jan 17, 2010 at 02:51:34 PM EST

and the lack of understanding that when you and your family need food and water or they will die, you take the food and water.
But at least there was not such wholesale slaughter in NOLA like what Haitian police reportedly are doing there now. We were killing them more softly in NOLA.

The highly sensationalized, inaccurate reporting (5.00 / 4) (#14)
by esmense on Sun Jan 17, 2010 at 02:45:35 PM EST

that occurred after Katrina has made me leery of headlines and story arcs emphasizing "looting" and "violence." A bigger and more common story about Haitians response to this catastrophe, is most likely how, in the context of delayed foreign aid and a collapsed intrastructure, government and social structure, so many people have still managed to come together to try to retrieve the still living, aid the injured and bury the dead.

of course that's more important (5.00 / 2) (#20)
by Jeralyn on Sun Jan 17, 2010 at 03:40:41 PM EST

but neither can the violence be ignored, especially when the U.S. says its increase has in some instances prevented aid workers from delivering supplies.

It's also interesting that the Haitian police were nowhere to be found in the early days after the quake and now that they re-emerge, it's with guns to shoot. Why weren't they there helping to dig people out and provide whatever other relief they could?


: Maybe they were helping to dig people out, (none / 0) (#35)
by sarcastic unnamed one on Mon Jan 18, 2010 at 12:15:33 PM EST

you know, like their own parents and kids and stuff.
Honestly, this kind of complaining makes me crazed.
I remember the big Northridge quake out here in LA 15 years ago.
I was working as a waiter at the time, and after having been up all night from the earthquake and trying to pick through the knee-high rubble of broken shelves, TV, stereo, plates, glasses, etc, etc., in my apt I (gladly) left the mess to go work the lunch shift at the restaurant.
Many waiters couldn't show up that day and since everyone's house was a wreck and electricity and gas were shut off, a lot of people found open restaurants to eat lunch.
I'll never remember the people complaining bitterly about having to wait to be seated.
Or the one that could not comprehend why in god's name there was no rye bread for her toasted tuna salad sandwich.
"There's been an earthquake," I said, "roads are collapsed, people's homes are wrecked. The bakery trucks didn't make their deliveries this morning."
If you don't care to be part of the solution, complaining about the actions of others who are doing their best to be part of the solution is really lame, imo.

Getting U.S. military forces in (none / 0) (#1)
by Militarytracy on Sun Jan 17, 2010 at 01:34:57 PM EST

seems to be going slowly, only a 1,000 in country and hoping to have 3,000 in country tomorrow. Why does 3,000 only sound like a drop in a deep deep bucket?

Spread too thin, apparently, (5.00 / 3) (#3)
by Anne on Sun Jan 17, 2010 at 01:53:00 PM EST

and this should give all of us pause.

I know the Navy is sending the USNS Comfort (home port is here in Baltimore), but it won't get there until later in the week (Haiti is a 3-4 day sail from Baltimore), and there are two other carriers - not medical - on the way. What I don't know is if the Army can - or intends to - set up land-based field hospitals, and whether any such operation is underway.

I made a donation to Doctors Without Borders, but it seems just so insignificant in relation to the magnitude of the tragedy; wish there were some other way to help.


: MSF/Docs set up 4 'Inflatable Hospitals' (5.00 / 1) (#29)
by Ellie on Sun Jan 17, 2010 at 06:43:28 PM EST

Man, do they rock.
(The link is a few days old so presumably, the reported 4 porta-hospitals have been added-to, and the aid being bottlenecked by circumstances is getting through by now.)
Also: another reminder to check with your local Haitian community, if you have the time and would like to help locally, to see what those volunteers need too. (Wheels, food & bev, any assistance big or small goes a long way.) If the centers at Scenic Undisclosed are any indication, the ones elsewhere are no doubt running on fumes.

From what I heard this AM (none / 0) (#2)
by nycstray on Sun Jan 17, 2010 at 01:47:46 PM EST

Military will be supplying security for the aid and that's about it.


Blackwater (none / 0) (#5)
by waldenpond on Sun Jan 17, 2010 at 01:59:24 PM EST

the State Dept will put mercenaries in there for security.


: Why would they do that? (