High Expectations, Absent Results

Haiti's anguish of dire straits shows no evidence of changing anytime soon. After the massive amounts of international aid pledged and the eagerness of the global community to do something positive for the ruined country's infrastructure and the misery of the displaced Haitians, the situation is at a standstill. With the massive amount of rubble left yet to be dealt with the business of getting on with construction and reconstruction cannot progress beyond vague planning without first clearing the sites.

Rubble still shatters the landscape. And there are many areas where rubble remains, covering thousands of corpses, where people were buried in the aftermath of building collapses during the devastating earthquake. The entire choir of the Roman Catholic cathedral was buried within the edifice, and remains there still, entombed in the rubble awaiting removal. There are no government agencies with the will and the equipment to launch a massive rubbish and rubble removal.

Rubbish, in fact, created each and every day through normal living even in these frenetic, frantic, miserable conditions, simply piles up alongside the rubble, with garbage strewn everywhere, a cesspool of unhygienic bacteria and viruses awaiting the opportunity to wreak more horrendous damage on the populace. The refugee camps with their squalid tents and stinking latrines where children play among the ruined landscapes sober the spirit already bruised with the assault of nature consolidating the neglect of the government.

A million people remain unhoused, although thanks to the presence of thousands of humanitarian groups representing various aid agencies, medical attention is now available where it had not been pre-earthquake. Potable water is trucked in daily to the refugee camps. Food is no longer liberally distributed and although 80% of the camp residents have no employment they must eke out sufficient resources through some miraculous fashion to find sufficient food for their families on a daily basis.

At night thugs roam everywhere and prey on women and children, violently assaulting and raping them. Hardly conducive to civilized normalcy, although violence and brutality always lurked in the shadows of the country whose government has never been capable of providing security let alone other normal civil services of a viably functioning country. The wholesale suffering of Haitians, the children languishing without opportunities to attend school, and men unable to find employment hardly fulfills the promise for a brighter future.

Haitians, after all, don't want all that much. They would like what most people in most decent and reasonable societies can count on: jobs, homes, education; above all security. Their sense of hope appears intact for the most part, since they remain loyal to their faith and attend church faithfully and joyously, praying, singing, celebrating life, as dreadfully hollow as theirs has been and continues to be. In a sense, their refusal to give up hope should serve as an inspiration. In a sense, it does.

But inspiration does not feed and clothe and educate a population. Unless it is backed by a resolute and trustful cadre of public servants dedicated to the task of making a better life for those dependent upon their governing capabilities. So far, the government of Haiti and its institutions has failed miserably on all indices of government initiative and responsibility. The international community has responded as best it can, but patience and hope wears thin there.

Which is why nine million Haitians continue to survive by some miracle of stubborn instinct to surmount all the difficulties and miseries that have blighted their lives generation after generation.