Haiti, a REAL TRAGEDY

[lionking]

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100114/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_surviving_haiti

If the news are true then there are 100 thousand casualties.. I have a friend from there and she knows nothing about her uncle and his family... it is very desperate to loose everything in one moment.. family and wealth and house.. I hope the help is quick for them.. we faced destruction and death in wars, especially the last war.. people rented apartments until their houses were rebuilt and they were helped out by both the government[the money they got from outside countries] and Hizbollah.. I hope they can manage themselves..

[Jason]

Utah and the LDS Church are sending all the aid we can.

[gwiz]

I have to put in a word for my local charity:
shelterbox.org/
Unlike some, the overheads are low and the aid gets to the people who need it.

[smlbstcbr]

A good advice (given that I live in a country which has corruption as a standard), only give donations to well known, public organizations. Corruption knows no limits and certainly, as happened here in 1998, if the donations are not carefully accounted for, they will end in someone else's pocket. Try not to donate money.

PS: In 1998, an earthquake destroyed part of several rural towns in my department, later it was found that more than 100 camp tents (military type) were hidden in the Defense Minister's house. They never made it to the people that desperately needed them.

[lionking]

one.org/international/actnow/haiti/index.html?rc=haitifb

please sign the petition to lift Haiti's debt

[Jason]

I read an editorial in the Wall Street Journal today that theorized that helping Haiti beyond its immediate needs will only continue its dependency on foreign aid. Worth a read.

[smlbstcbr]

Jan 19, 2010 13:05:33 GMT -4 Jason said:

I read an editorial in the Wall Street Journal today that theorized that helping Haiti beyond its immediate needs will only continue its dependency on foreign aid. Worth a read.

Well, in my humble opinion, I think he's right. It's what actually happened with USAID and the coca eradication here. They paid the peasants to stop planting coca and plant something else. But instead of doing so, the peasants just went looking for another plot of land, buy it for a bargain, plant coca and then getting money to get rid of it again. NGOs supplied fresh cash to finance Morales coup d'etat to Sanchez de Lozada. Many people here argued how come that, in Morales's words, the poor, with nothing in the world, peasants (cocaleros, no idea how to translate that) could afford to block the roads (including food) for more than six weeks without food or money. Morales's explanation is that they collaborate with each other, but how if they are really, really poor? The obvious answer is: NGOs. The money that comes from them goes, first, to pay wages for the leaders, next, trips and expenditures for propaganda. Eventually the money *might* arrive to the needed. When some of them reveal how the things are handled, the "movement" as they call themselves, names them as traitors, imperialists and they are expelled from their union (that's a name they also like a lot) and their goods are retained for the movement. Just outrageous.