| |
LATIN AMERICA: From
Peacekeeping to Humanitarian Relief in Haiti
By Mario Osava*
RIO DE JANEIRO (IPS) - Two planes from
Brazil carrying 21 tons of food and water
were to head to Haiti Thursday, as part of
an air bridge to provide humanitarian
assistance to the Caribbean island nation in
the wake of the deadly earthquake that has
claimed an untold number of lives.
U.N. peacekeeping troops from Brazil,
Uruguay and other countries, meanwhile, are
fully engaged in the rescue and relief
effort.
The Brazilian air force plans to send six
more planes with food as well as medicine,
civil defence professionals, doctors and
sniffer dogs. Brazil will also donate 15
million dollars to the humanitarian relief
operations, Foreign Minister Celso Amorim
announced.
Brazilian Defence Minister Nelson Jobim and
military chiefs flew to Haiti Wednesday,
accompanying the team of civil defence
personnel, to assess the situation on the
ground in order to help plan Brazil's
assistance to the victims of Tuesday's
quake, which measured 7.0 on the Richter
scale.
The death toll for the disaster, which
shattered the capital, Port-au-Prince, is
feared to be above 100,000, while up to
three million people in this deeply
impoverished country of nine million are in
need of aid.
The biggest contingent in the United Nations
Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) is
made up of the 1,250 troops from Brazil,
which heads the mission that was created in
2004 and includes soldiers from 16
countries.
Latin America
The 1,162 troops from Uruguay are the
second-largest force in MINUSTAH. The small
South American country has also sent police
officers to help train local police.
Although communication with Haiti was only
possible by satellite phone, and then only
sporadically, the Uruguayan administration
of Tabaré Vázquez reported Tuesday night
that all of the Uruguayan members of
MINUSTAH were safe, and were taking part in
the rescue and relief operations, along with
the rest of the U.N. peacekeeping troops.
The government is studying the type and
volume of aid that it will dispatch to
Haiti.
Mexico also sent its Tlatelolco
International Rescue Brigade - nicknamed Los
Topos, or "the Moles" - known for their
expert volunteer rescue and recovery work at
disasters around the world such as the 1986
earthquake in El Salvador, the 9/11 terror
attack on the Twin Towers in New York in
2001, and the December 2006 tsunami in
Indonesia.
The Brigade emerged after the Sept. 19, 1985
quake that devastated Mexico City and
claimed around 10,000 lives.
"We're preparing our trip, seeing how to get
to Haiti via the Dominican Republic (which
occupies the eastern half of the island of
Hispaniola; Haiti is in the west)," Omar
Flores, one of the 15 volunteer Brigade
members heading to the earthquake-stricken
country, told IPS.
They will be joined by rescue workers from
the United States, Bolivia and Peru.
In addition, Mexico's Deputy Foreign
Minister Salvador Beltrán announced that "a
group of experts and consultants, along with
medical specialists in injuries caused by
collapsed buildings, search and rescue
experts, damage assessment experts and
experts in emergency administration" would
be sent to Haiti.
On Wednesday, Venezuela sent an airplane
with humanitarian aid - including doctors,
water, medicine, fire fighters, and search
and rescue and damage assessment experts -
to Haiti.
Cuba said the 400 medical staff at its
existing field hospitals in that country had
treated hundreds of victims, while a medical
brigade especially trained for disaster
situations reached Haiti on Wednesday,
carrying medicine and provisions.
Peru said it would send two planes carrying
50 tons of food and other humanitarian aid,
as well as doctors, nurses and two field
hospitals. Chile sent an aircraft with
medical aid and food, while Colombia,
Guatemala and Bolivia also pledged
assistance.
Mourning Brazil's Mother Teresa
At least 11 Brazilian, three Jordanian and
one Argentine peacekeepers were killed,
while dozens of U.N. workers were still
unaccounted for.
Brazil is also mourning the death of Dr.
Zilda Arns, a pediatrician who saved
millions of Brazilians from malnutrition and
infant mortality at the head of the Pastoral
Care for Children, a Catholic Church-based
foundation she created in 1983.
Arns, who was known as Brazil's Mother
Teresa and had been nominated for a Nobel
Peace prize, was in Haiti as part of her
work coordinating the Pastoral's
international efforts.
The Pastoral Care for Children, which has
played a key role in significantly cutting
Brazil's infant mortality rate, provides
assistance to over 1.9 million pregnant
women and children under six and 1.4 million
poor families in 4,063 of the country's
5,560 municipalities, thanks to over 260,000
volunteer workers. The organisation's
working methods have been replicated in
several countries.
Arns also founded the Pastoral Care for the
Elderly in 2004, which has 14,000 volunteers
so far.
The governments of the southern states of
Paraná, where she lived, and São Paulo
declared a three-day mourning period for
Arns, the sister of Cardinal Paulo Evaristo
Arns, the archbishop of São Paulo who led
direct campaigns against Brazil's 1964-1985
military dictatorship.
Brazilians are doing "a great job" in Haiti,
Haitian agronomist André Yves Cribb remarked
to IPS. Cribb has been living in Brazil
since 1992, when he first came to study and
then stayed on with the Brazilian
Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA),
while also taking part in missions in his
home country.
A Brazilian NGO, Viva Rio, has also been
working hard in the slums of Port-
au-Prince, initially involved in efforts to
alleviate water shortages by helping local
residents build rainwater collection tanks -
an initiative that first took off in
Brazil's semi-arid impoverished northeast,
said Cribb.
But the overall aim is to "reduce social
tensions," he added, explaining that the
Viva Rio project has expanded into skills
training, especially for women as health
workers, as well as art and sports
programmes.
"It is very sad" for a country that carried
out a great revolution 200 years ago, making
Haiti the first independent black republic
in the world and the second independent
nation in the western hemisphere (after the
United States), to be hit by such a
tremendous tragedy, that only exacerbates
the terrible misery and poverty of the
Haitian people, said Cribb.
An estimated 80 percent of Haitians live
below the poverty line, in a country that
has suffered decades of dictatorship,
political instability, foreign meddling and
the indiscriminate exploitation of its
natural resources, and which has no real
construction standards, little
infrastructure and a barely functioning
state.
Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas,
was hit by four hurricanes in 2008, which
caused over 900 million dollars in losses.
Based on his knowledge of the concentration
of population in Port-au-Prince and the
city's topography, Cribb said "It is quite
possible that well over 100,000 people have
died," as Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max
Bellerive said.
The lesson is that "Haiti needs solidarity
within the country, from Haitians living
abroad, and from friends overseas to get
through this," the agronomist said.
He lamented that his fellow Haitians "had
not been taking full advantage of Brazilian
aid, especially in agriculture and the
environment," areas in which this South
American country has developed many
technologies that would be useful to Haiti.
*With additional reporting by Emilio Godoy
in Mexico City.
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
