Latin America
Related: About this forumOpinion Evil is triumphing in Haiti, and the United States is doing little
December 2, 2022 at 2:26 p.m. EST
A woman uses a towel to swat flies from her daughter stricken with cholera on Nov. 11 at a clinic run by Doctors Without Borders in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Odelyn Joseph/Associated Press)
In Haiti, children recovering from gunshot wounds are lying on cardboard beds outdoors. The Coast Guard intercepted more than 7,000 people from October 2021 through September (compared with 1,527 the previous 12 months) trying to escape hell on Earth. Rival gangs kill husbands in front of wives and rape mothers in front of their children. Cholera is raging and babies are dying. Streets are war zones.
Nearly 20,000 people are facing imminent starvation. An additional 2.9 million are suffering acute malnutrition. Almost 2 million are suffering very acute malnutrition. If more food isnt made available immediately, people will die.
There is zero sense of urgency by the television media or politicians in the United States that our neighbor nations people are suffering unbearable hardships. The media, especially televised media, should report on Haitis crises. Show gang brutality, highlight people clinging to rafts made from rotted wood, make videos of dehydrated, choleric children fighting to live.
We need to send in 2,000 armed law enforcers who can protect the people attempting to deliver aid. Send in a couple hundred at a time, over six months, with little fanfare. There seems to be talk behind closed doors of what cannot be done. Good men and women, stop doing nothing. Evil is triumphing.
Pamela A. White, Orrs Island, Maine
The writer was U.S. ambassador to Haiti from 2012 to 2015 and a junior officer in Haiti from 1985 to 1991 for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/02/evil-is-triumphing-haiti-united-states-is-doing-little/
Deuxcents
(19,162 posts)Haiti. Cuba. All the islands where theres no food, no jobs, no future. These are in our back door but our history of exploitation doesnt help w/ our reputation with them. I donate to Doctors w/o Borders.. brave and selfless..I dont know how they do it
Easterncedar
(3,150 posts)They made Haitians buy their freedom. The US went along. Haiti was crippled for liberating itself. We owe them.