Foreign Policy

January 13th, 2010

“A Lot of Important Things Became Unimportant Today”

Written by: Adele Wick, Columnist

Haiti has been hit by an earthquake registering 7.0 on the Richter Scale.  This magnitude combined with geology and poverty to devastate the country. Haiti is situated over two fault systems, in a boundary region separating the Caribbean and North American plates.  The earthquake’s epicenter was only 6.2 miles below the surface, so the violence caused by plate tectonics wasn’t attenuated by depth, and the earthquake was more powerful than the scientific rating of its scale would otherwise imply. Even the presidential palace was destroyed, and it was built to code.  Poor people can’t afford to build to code, and 80% of Haiti’s population is poor. Poverty exacerbated the damaging force of Nature.

No one can yet come close to estimating the loss of lives and property.  We do know, however, that one of the aftershocks registered 5.9.  It would be categorized as a wicked earthquake on its own had it not followed so closely the 7.0 blow.  Because it wallopped already weakened structures, its damage will also prove to be even more appalling than its seismic rating.

The United States is responding with the public and private generosity we have come to expect from our country.  Thank goodness we’re more nimble than a bureaucracy like the UN, because we have only some 36 hours to find and rescue people stuck in the rubble and only about 75 to help those stuck without water (and food, and shelter). These time constraints are even worse than they look.  With the control tower down, no one can fly in, or out of, the country. Getting to Haiti alone is difficult.

Haiti’s ambassador to the United States called first and foremost for medical aid.  We are sending our “U.S.N.S. Comfort” hospital ship, currently in Baltimore.  We are also sending the carrier ship “Carl Vinson” from Norfolk to bring in helicopter squadrons for other kinds of help.

Fortunately, some people can still communicate through the internet, and they are.  That’s where this column got its title — from someone who survived the earthquake and its aftershocks.

That’s also how we know that the Central Plateau facilities of Partners in Health (PIH) sustained no major damage or injuries. Several staff members, however, were traveling in and around Port-au-Prince, and we don’t know whether they are safe, trapped, or dead.

Haiti’s location puts this poorest country in the Western Hemisphere at risk not only from earthquakes but also from hurricanes.  In 2008, Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike devastated the country, in hideous prelude to the wreckage of 2010.  Geography and poverty again combined to magnify the damage.  Because of deforestation, the hillsides had lost 98% of their cover.  Absent this natural flood control, water damage was severe.  In addition to direct death and property destruction, the hurricanes had their own kind of aftershock: with floods wiping out 70% of their crops, Haitian tolls included dozens of extra deaths due to malnutrition.

These deaths, of course, are on top of the deaths already caused due to regular malnutrition, itself both a direct and indirect killer as it weakens the ability to ward off disease or recover from it.  The problem of water was already acute before extra pollution from the earthquake made it even worse.  The underlying health of the country was fragile well before January 12.  Indeed, Dr. Paul Farmer founded PIH because of the appalling incidence of TB in Haiti, and AIDS is another major problem for the populace.

One cannot – or should not – look at pictures of the presidential palace, magnificent pre-earthquake and devastated post, without wondering about the contribution of corruption in the leadership to the current state of chaos and misery.  Even in a country like ours not known for its attentiveness to foreign affairs, the list of foul leaders is legendary — Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier, Prosper Avril…even Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former priest who campaigned with a golden tongue and led with slum gangs he armed to attack his opponents.

Dr. Farmer has been talking about “the structural violence of poverty” for years.  It’s very good of us to respond generously and as quickly as we can to the dramatic crises Nature creates around the world.  But it’s poverty that makes them so acute, and poverty, a complicated and huge problem of politics and economics, is violent every day in a country like Haiti.

Thousands of Haitians have responded to general political and economic violence by trying to emigrate to the United States.  Last March, the NAACP urged President Obama to offer temporary protection status (TPS) to nationals to prevent their deportation back to countries with severe economic or political difficulties.  They were thinking particularly of Haiti, whose problems are much worse now than they were a year ago.  Before 2008’s hurricanes and 2010’s earthquake, hundreds and hundreds of Haitians were so intent on finding better lives for themselves that they risked and often lost those lives by setting to sea in leaking crafts in search of Florida shores.  In one period, from 1989 to 1996, only 8.4% of their asylum claims were granted.  This rate was a quarter lower than for any other country.

The United States must not only help our neighbor to the south with fast aid as a response to the earthquake.  We must also start immediately to develop policies to respond to matter of Haitian refugees and immigration policy.  It’s been a big problem for decades, and it’s likely to be an even bigger problem now and in the future.

The nation building we are embarking on in Afghanistan and Iraq should be considered for Haiti as well.  Yesterday’s earthquake should already have reminded us that much of what we’ve considered important is not so.  Important as our response to this natural disaster is today, however, we must recognize and remember the human elements that magnified its damage, and realize that working to change them is even more important.  Both our global humanitarian goals and our national interests are at stake tomorrow.