Helpless Haitians fight for their lives

IT is almost impossible for Australians to imagine the horrors of Haiti as we draw water we can drink from our taps and flick electricity switches which we expect to work.

Even the homeless here can draw upon resources which survivors of last week's earthquake can only dream about. The greater tragedy is the situation that existed before the magnitude 7 earthquake dropped buildings in Port-au-Prince, once a city of three million, was not that much better for the bulk of the population. Historically, Haiti has never recovered from the centuries of corrupt leadership that followed the exit of its French colonists. Its home-grown rulers proved to be far more lawless, and vastly more ruthless than any of the governors sent from Paris. As the small number of security police open fire on the mobs of looters roaming the streets, when those troops are not required to provide protection for visiting dignitaries like UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, lynch mobs are taking control of whole sections of the city. One report said they were "leaving fresh bodies on streets just cleared of those left by the earthquake". As if the threat of disease from the rotting corpses of perhaps 100,000, perhaps more, victims was not enough, the earthquake also swept away the local prison releasing about 3000 criminals, some of whose acts of violence almost defy description. As President Rene Preval said before he had to go and welcome the UN's Ban Ki Moon: "We have 2000 police in Port-au-Prince and 3000 bandits who have escaped from prison. That gives you an idea of how bad the situation is." It is understood that the former prisoners immediately set fire to the Justice Ministry building to destroy the records of their crimes and incarceration. Already there are reports of UN medical teams fleeing the perceived threat from violence, with CNN's medical reporter, Dr Sanjay Gupta, noting that he saw a Belgian medical team exiting a makeshift clinic in a UN bus because UN "rules of engagement" did not extend to a security detail capable of fending off looters. Though the Belgians took most of their medical supplies with them, Dr Gupta and his camera team managed to step in and monitor the health of the abandoned patients without incident. The UN appears not to have altered its rules of engagement since former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, then head of the UNs peacekeeping office, cowardly abandoned up to 800,000 Tutsis and their friends and permitted their slaughter in Rwanda in 1994. The US, still the world's biggest provider of aid, is probably in the best position to assist the Haitians, despite its constant critics elsewhere. Former presidents George W.Bush and Bill Clinton have joined President Obama in a bi-partisan plea for assistance but it might have been more efficient for Obama to have sent in military resources to restore order and pave the way for the NGOs and the UN to deliver aid. As it is, the US is still delivering the bulk of the food and drinking water needed, though the various NGO organisations occupy the bulk of the media coverage. Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has been too busy observing the cricket and preparing to launch a children's book to have any personal involvement in the Haiti disaster, but he might be interested in following the example provided by the US on the issue of refugees from this natural disaster. While those Haitians currently living illegally in the US will not be deported at this time, their temporary protected status (TPS) granted on Friday will only apply until conditions return to some semblance of normalcy. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who screwed-up so massively after the capture of the unsuccessful underpants bomber, has also made it clear that the temporary protection status afforded Haitians in the US when the disaster struck will not be extended to those who attempt to flee now. They will be sent back, she has said. This stands in strong contrast to the weak-kneed Rudd Government's decision to abolish temporary protection visas in August, 2008, which sparked a flood of new irregular maritime arrivals seeking asylum in Australia. As Napolitano said in the wake of this extraordinary humanitarian disaster: "There may be an impulse to leave the island to come here. You will not qualify for TPS status. This is a very dangerous crossing. Lives are lost every time people try to make this crossing." If the Rudd Government had sent a similarly strong message to those planning to exploit its weak border protection policies, many lives would have been saved. As it is, an Afghan refugee group in Australia claimed as recently as the weekend that it had lost contact with a boatload of more than 100 who departed Indonesia on October 2. Optimists might hope that the disaster in Haiti could bring about a long overdue renaissance in the island nation's corrupt culture but the prospects of such a change in direction grow slimmer as the UN's involvement grows. Unfortunately for the Haitians, President Obama is now mired in a domestic political morass of his own making and is unlikely to give the Caribbean country the leadership it needs. On a global scale, the Haiti tragedy should be resolved with a committed reconstruction effort. Because the UN is involved however, the clear thinking needed to resolve the crisis is, almost by definition, lacking.