Port-au-Prince (Haiti), 13 January, 2010. (AFP)

A manmade disaster

As the international community scrambles to the aid of Haiti after the January 12th earthquake, Peter Hallward in the Guardian points out its complicity in the island’s enduring economic devastation, which leaves hundreds of thousands all too easily exposed to large-scale natural disaster.

Published on 14 January 2010 at 11:29
Port-au-Prince (Haiti), 13 January, 2010. (AFP)

Any large city in the world would have suffered extensive damage from an earthquake on the scale of the one that ravaged Haiti's capital city on Tuesday afternoon, but it's no accident that so much of Port-au-Prince now looks like a war zone. Much of the devastation wreaked by this latest and most calamitous disaster to befall Haiti is best understood as another thoroughly manmade outcome of a long and ugly historical sequence.

The country has faced more than its fair share of catastrophes. Hundreds died in Port-au-Prince in an earthquake back in June 1770, and the huge earthquake of 7 May 1842 may have killed 10,000 in the northern city of Cap ­Haitien alone. Hurricanes batter the island on a regular basis, mostly recently in 2004 and again in 2008; the storms of September 2008 flooded the town of Gonaïves and swept away much of its flimsy infrastructure, killing more than a thousand people and destroying many thousands of homes. The full scale of the destruction resulting from this earthquake may not become clear for several weeks. Even minimal repairs will take years to complete, and the long-term impact is incalculable.

What is already all too clear, ­however, is the fact that this impact will be the result of an even longer-term history of deliberate impoverishment and disempowerment. Haiti is routinely described as the "poorest country in the western hemisphere". This poverty is the direct legacy of perhaps the most brutal system of colonial exploitation in world history, compounded by decades of systematic postcolonial oppression. Read full article in the Guardian...

HUMANITARIAN AID

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EU mobilizes for Haiti

Europe is responding rapidly to help the earthquake victims in Haiti. Le Soirreports that "the European Commission has activated its crisis management system and provided primary emergency funding of 3 million euros," which Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen described as an "initial gesture." Hansen added that the Commission will also be sending experts to Port-au-Prince to assess the needs of the stricken population. Several member states have also reacted to the crisis. France has announced that it is sending two plane-loads of humanitarian aid as well as 130 firemen and rescue workers to Haiti, while Belgium has pledged to dispatch one military plane of emergency supplies and approximately 60 rescue workers from the B-Fast rapid intervention team. The Netherlands and Germany have released funds of 2 and 1.5 million euros respectively. Britain has announced that it is sending a team of experts. Following an informal meeting of ministers for Europe in La Granja on 13 January, the Spanish Secretary of State for the EU, Diego Lopez Garrido said "Spain is in close contact with the Europe's representative for foreign affairs, Baroness Ashton. The response from the EU will be as coordinated as possible."

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