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NEWS & LETTERS, Janurary-February 2010
World in View
Haiti's unnatural disaster
Haiti: thousands upon thousands dead, thousands more dying--trapped in wreckage, unable to receive medical care as hospitals are destroyed--and the vast shantytowns where tens of thousands lived have collapsed and hillsides are strewn with destroyed houses.
The unnaturalness of this natural disaster cannot become buried with the vast loss of life. The conditions of human life that have made the Haitians particularly vulnerable to the consequences of this massive earthquake are not "natural," and have been growing for many decades. Vulnerability to natural disasters is almost a direct function of poverty. ''Impacts are not natural nor is there a divine hand or ill fate,'' noted Debarati Guha-Sapir, director of the World Health Organization's Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. ''People will also die now of lack of follow-up medical care.''
Poverty is the principal reason for the poor construction of Haitian homes. People who make on average $2 a day can't afford to build something that can withstand earthquakes and hurricanes. Cement is often mixed with excessive sand to keep the cost down. Steel reinforcing is barely used. Lumber isn't used in most construction because of the vast deforestation, as Haitians cut down trees for charcoal for cooking. The environmental disaster that is Haiti has been created over decades. Poverty isn't a home-grown fact of Haiti, but an imposed condition brought about by dozens of countries' complicity with or indifference to the deplorable conditions of life and labor that Haitian masses face every day. The rush to save lives is of first priority. But continued "aid" to Haiti, done in an external manner that denies self-determination for Haitians, will only perpetuate Haiti's man-made tragedies.
--Eugene Walker
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