Haiti – Man-Made Disaster

I’ve been wondering for a few days whether or not to write anything about Haiti. The plight of the people there has surely touched us all, and many of us have contributed towards helping them. Giving money may  not be much, but for the moment it is what most of us can do, and people there need a lot of help.

Information from there of course flows across the web; in the first hours most of the first-hand broadcast reports relied on people using Skype as mobile services were down.  And days later, much of the real information is coming from the web, with broadcasts lagging behind on picking up the stories about the kind of US military takeover which is holding up supplies getting to the people who need them.

The first reports came from journalists and photographers in Haiti when the quake happened, but many Haitian journalists were unable to work because of their own personal devastation – the subject of an appeal by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

After the quake, photographers flooded in to Haiti by various routes and we’ve seen many pictures – for example on the NPR site, in the Guardian (by David Levene)  and the New York Times. And you can also look at work from agencies such as Panos and VII.

Magnum in contrast have a set of pictures from their files on Slate, the majority of which show it as an island paradise – especially for tourists – or take a rather romantic view of voodoo. Reality does creep in through some of the more recent work.

London-based photographer Jess Hurd decided to go because of her anger “as a human being and a journalist that this level of avoidable devastation [was] caused by an earthquake.” As she goes on to explain on her blog, Haiti has been impoverished by decades of corrupt and incompetent rule, supported by the USA and policies which have prevented positive development of the country for the people.

The earthquake was a natural event, but the disaster that it caused is largely man-made, a consequence of colonial policies that have impoverished the country and the people.

Report after report (especially outside the mass media) is telling us how the US Military insistence on taking military control of areas before food distribution occurs is stopping the supplies – which many of us have contributed to – to reaching the aid organisations and the people who so desperately need them.

Hurd describes her trip to Haiti as “the most harrowing story I have ever covered” and her pictures which are linked from her blog carry the disclaimer: Please view with caution, these images graphically depict the aftermath including decomposing bodies and a harrowing hospital operation. You can see more of her work from this and other stories at Report Digital.

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