Still Waiting in Haiti

The op-ed pages mark the one-year anniversary of Haiti's devastating earthquake with empty words, a helpful suggestion or two, and not much hope.

Writing in the Globe and Mail, Plan Canada’s Rosemary McCarney has this to say to anyone asking if there has been real progress in Haiti since the earthquake one year ago. “The answer is an emphatic ‘Yes!’ … people are moving from emergency tents to more permanent and semi-permanent shelters. Many of the camps are shrinking as people are able to reclaim their lives and rebuild their homes. Malnutrition is declining, as are maternal deaths. And tens of thousands of children are back in school – perhaps one of the most tangible signs of hope.”

Soak that in folks, because everything else you’ll read about Haiti today is almost overwhelmingly bad. An Oxfam report excerpted in the Toronto Star gives some context. Apparently, things were so desperate even before the earthquake that after it struck, people whose homes were left standing started to move into refugee camps because conditions there were better than in the slums. “In the short term, it is hard to be optimistic about progress,” finds the report. “Political instability, civil unrest and prolonged government paralysis following the November 2010 elections, as well as the national cholera outbreak … have cast shadows over the immediate future.”

Sun Media’s John Tory and the Star editorial board deliver standard variations on the “Canadians have helped a lot but need to do more” theme.

The National Post’s John Moore doesn’t give Haiti’s people much credit, writing, “[i]ts population is so isolated from the North American ethos, they don’t even know how to play their plight for sympathy,” and lamenting that there isn’t a literate, political culture in the country.

The Globe and Mail editorial board has something constructive to say, urging President René to follow the advice of international monitors and remove his hand-picked candidate from the run-off vote after a corruption-ridden election left Haiti in political limbo. “The failure of leadership in Haiti has needlessly undermined its reconstruction effort, bringing further suffering and hardship to its beleaguered people,” says an editorial today. “Restoring legitimacy to the democratic process is crucial so that the country can face the momentous challenges ahead.”