The Haiti conundrum
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The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) was the first to point fingers at the UN multinational forces as the source of the cholera outbreak, specifically identifying excreta from the Nepalese contingent dumped in a river.
Originally, the UN stoutly rejected the claim and said its own early investigations had proved otherwise. However, independent tests – including a December 2010 report in the New England Journal of Medicine – indicated that the Haiti strain definitely originated in Asia, thus strengthening the claim that UN troop were the source of the epidemic that spread throughout the country like wildfire.
The UN contingent – already seen and treated by many political critics in Haiti as "an occupation force" – has, since it was also blamed for the cholera outbreak, already been the subject of several protest marches demanding their removal or withdrawal – including one in which a UN soldier shot and killed a protester.
The multinational Force remains unpopular one year after the earthquake – especially since the UN allocated over US$600 million to extend its stay in Haiti for another year, much more than was needed to contain the cholera outbreak in its early stages.
One year after the quake, Haiti is wracked by worse political turmoil than before. Indeed, it faces a major election conundrum, as there continues to be a stalemate over the results of the first round of the Presidential elections of November 28, 2010.
On January 9, 2011, the Washington-based Center for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR) issued a report in which it said its research and investigations proved the elections were too flawed to determine accurate results. The CEPR called for totally new elections in Haiti as the only way forward.
But on January 10, it emerged that the Organization of American States (OAS) team appointed by the government to review the results of the first round was recommending otherwise: that the government and ruling party's candidate, Jude Celestin, be removed from the list of two front runners and replaced by popular musician Jean-Phillipe "Sweet Micky" Martelly.
Unlike the CEPT, the OAS team does not recommend a new poll, citing costs and the inevitable delay in getting a constitutional government. But the CEPT insists that any engineering of the flawed results can only be inaccurate.
Foreign governments and institutions insist they will not deliver aid except and unless to an elected government acceptable to them. But the process of getting there continues to be plagued with intractable problems.
Following last October's cholera outbreak, Haiti is quickly being returned to its historical treatment as a pariah state from which no country wants refugees.
The U.S., in December 2010, deported a large batch of illegal Haitian immigrants. Neighboring Dominican Republic has also closed its open door policy declared after the earthquake and, citing the cholera outbreak, resumed rounding up illegal Haitians. It deported over 700 across the common border in first week of January 2011 and another 950 just days later.
One year after the devastating earthquake of seismic proportions, three months after the cholera outbreak, two months after Hurricane Tomas and less than two months since the inconclusive presidential elections, Haiti is still stuck at the international crossroads.
Still standing ahead are the same international "No Entry" and "Stop" signs that have halted its development for so many years . The red light remains brightly on, seemingly forever, as a battered poor nation and its people await a green light from the traffic police of the international donor community.
They're still waiting!
The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:
http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/node_7107878.htm
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