How a N.J. medical team escaped Haiti

[brentspeak]

Source: The Bergen Record (NJ)

Sunday, April 13, 2008
Last updated: Sunday April 13, 2008, EDT 8:05 AM BY LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITER

At the second roadblock on their way to a remote clinic in Haiti, a group of North Jersey doctors and nurses realized they wouldn't be going any farther.

Large boulders had been rolled across the road. A crowd was yelling. Some held rocks.

(snip)

"They picked up pieces of broken cinderblock. We really thought they were going to throw them at us," said one of the doctors. They mobbed the bus.

(snip)

With that, the 13 members of a mission sponsored by Upper Saddle River's Roman Catholic Church of the Presentation headed back to the Aldy Hotel. It was their regular base on the trips the church sponsored once or twice a year to treat the impoverished citizens of southern Haiti.





Read more: http://www.northjersey.com/news/New_Jersey_medical_team_recalls_flight_from_Haiti.html

---

These excellent people from New Jersey gave up their own time and finances to help, and all they got in return were people trying to kill them. :mad:

[roody]

1. Gee, I wonder why Haitians are so angry?

[phillysuse]

2. I guess they are bitter also.

Junst like people in small towns in Pennsylvania.

[Warpy]

3. Gee, watching your children go to bed hungry and crying

really leads to some unseemly behavior. Honestly, the gall of those people.

:sarcasm:

[brentspeak]

4. So, obviously the best thing to do is to threaten

those who have come to help.

:sarcasm:

[Warpy]

5. That camera flash started it and I'm sure some in the crowd

thought it must've been a muzzle flash. That's usually the reception they get when they petition their government for redress of grievances.

If I'd been watching my children go hungry, I'd have wanted any food aboard that bus, too.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Pathetic drivel. What we could use is some sensational writing about how the citizens of Haiti

feel about having the death squads activated and outfitted and trained in the Dominican Republic with U.S. materials, and sent in to slaughter them, and overthrow their elected President the first _Bush also had removed from his elected position.

I'd like to hear from them about all the untold grief and suffering they've had to endure, and how they have been forced to work at below slave wages in American sweatshops with absolutely no hope whatsoever of ever finding peace of mind and even a modicum of shelter and security.

Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick.

I was brought up among fundie whities as a preacher's kid. All through my childhood I heard one story after another, starting with a missionary who lived in Japan and told of a drunken mob which rioted in the street and beat down the door of the building next to the one in which the missionaries were staying, and looted it of liquor, and how fortunate they were God spared their lives. On and on and on and on, different countries, different dark-skinned people, different menaces and threats to good christian lives. Jesus.

Jingoistic, xenophobic, racist shit. Ugly, ugly, ugly. Shabby, tacky, third rate crap. Consider the source.

[roody]

7. Tell it Judi Lynn!

The poor Haitians don't have any generators and cell phones to comfort them.

[brentspeak]

10. "Consider the source"???

Now the Bergen Record is "jingoistic, xenophobic, and racist..."??????? Or is it me who you're labeling as ""jingoistic, xenophobic, and racist..."? Why don't you have the courage to just come out and say it directly, instead of hiding behind coy innuendo?

This is an event that happened. It occurred. The story details the event, and cites the actual participants. That's all.

We're all aware on DU how you like to utilize Pravda-type article links and selective-editing and reasoning to rebut and counter news articles which might relay unpleasant facts that you don't want the public to know about, re. Castro, Chavez, whatever. Though I agree with some of your political stances, it must be said that your attempts at whitewashing history and attacking simple, unvarnished news reporting to artificially affect public opinion and the perception of reality are outrageous and insulting in the extreme.

[Judi Lynn]

11. It's good to hear your comments:

'We're all aware on DU how you like to utilize Pravda-type article links and selective-editing and reasoning to rebut and counter news articles which might relay unpleasant facts that you don't want the public to know about, re. Castro, Chavez, whatever. Though I agree with some of your political stances, it must be said that your attempts at whitewashing history and attacking simple, unvarnished news reporting to artificially affect public opinion and the perception of reality are outrageous and insulting in the extreme."

I would have been surprised if you had not felt insulted. If you have trouble grasping my meaning perhaps you should try to concentrate a little harder.

I heartily encourage Democrats who participate here to continue researching always, not only when there are small questions to answer, but to look any time there's a chance to find out more than our "news" media bother to write.

[Syntheto]

13. I'm sorry, I have followed your posts, nodding in agreement., but...

...My oldest son is in the US Coast Guard out of Newport News. His maintenance unit services five of the so-called "Medium Endurance" cutters that patrol the Caribbean and off the coasts of Florida. The Cutters' mission is two-fold: drug interdiction and refugee rescue.

It must be pretty bad in Haiti for whole families, clans, even villages, to load up on the most dangerous assortment of floating junk you can imagine; all in the hope of making it to the United States.

Most of the time, the people have to be taken off these craft and the thing either sunk outright with the 3-inch deck gun, or marked as a navigation hazard.

When these people are repatriated, the Coasties are the ones who get spit on by the Haitians, who also throw feces at them with some of the people even cutting themselves just to fling blood on the Coast Guard sailors.

America, despite it flaws is a good place. I'm proud of being an American. The political process gives us the chance to change things without physical violence (name-calling on these blogs makes me want to give some people such a pinch; if you know what I mean, and I think you do) unlike the majority of places in the world.

No, it's not a perfect place by any means; but is it hypocritical for humans to strive for the noble ideals and aspirations laid out in the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights or the Constitution with no real hope of every achieving them?

How many people in power have come up short of that criteria over the years our representative republic has been around? How many regular people have?

Has anyone every achieved that? Washington wanted to emulate Cinncinatus, and return to his fields after the crisis was over; he served his self-imposed two terms, knowing that it was his responsibility to set precedent, but he owned a large number of human beings, much as you would own a team of exceptionally intelligent horses.

Still, he's come as close as anyone to the basic ideals that our nation was founded on.

Haiti has been the only place in the New World where Black people successfully fought and took their independence, rather than petitioning the White power structure and reluctantly being allowed to, as would an indulgent parent finally give into a nagging teenager.

The tragedy of the extreme violence that followed with the resulting race war between Blacks, Whites and the Mulattoes destroyed Haiti environmentally and economically.

We in the New World of the Americas should be celebrating the life of Toussaint L'Overture and marking Haitian Independence Day on our calendars. (It's easy - 1 January).

The best thing that could happen to the Haitians would be for Cuba or Venezuela to attack them, take over that half of the island and institute a policy of 'civil rights abuses' against the locals. You know as well as I do that given our government's perennial antipathy toward either of those two, all they would have to do is to declare martial law in Port au Prince and set a curfew of 22.00, and our embassy would grant any and all asylum status.

That way instead of Coast Guard Medium Endurance Cutters off the coast of Haiti, you'd have the frickin' Queen Mary tied up at the dock, taking folks on. Barring that, I'd make up some story about the enormous oil reserves found right off the Haitian coast.

It's a thought...

[defendandprotect]

8. Meanwhile, what is the corporate-press saying out Haiti --- ????

Are they reporting what's happening there??

[Judi Lynn]

9. Instead of bitching and whining about what drunken savages Haitians are,Venezuelans are sending food

Venezuela sends 364 tons of food to Haiti

www.chinaview.cn 2008-04-14 09:35:48

CARACAS, April 13 (Xinhua) -- A fleet of airplanes carrying 364 tons of food for humanitarian help took off on Sunday from Venezuela to Haiti.

President Hugo Chavez said the shipment is to help relieve the crisis in Haiti that has plagued the country for the last nine days.

Since last week, Haiti has been the scene of disturbance due to a sharp hike in food prices. The situation has also led to many deaths, including a 36-year old Nigerian soldier from the UN peace-keeping forces attempting to stabilize the situation in Haiti.

The humanitarian aid from Venezuela includes tons of meat, chicken, ham, milk, vegetables, olive oil and lentils, according to President Chavez.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/14/content_7971849.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I might add that after the _Bush administration sponsored death squads to destroy Aristide's presidency, and so many Haitians were slaughtered in the streets, and in home invasions by death squads, doctors from Cuba and other countries moved to Cuba to start working every day to help save the gunshot victims.

I've never heard any reports from them that their precious lives were at risk at the hands of the terrifying Haitian people. Those doctors got in there and did some good. No one ran them off, or scared them spitless. But then, they put the wellbeing of the Haitians first.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On edit, adding article:

October 11, 2004

One Man's Democracy, Another Man's Chains
The Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti
By KEVIN PINA

A recounting of recent events in Haiti is reminiscent of a statement written by an American Marine private during the first U.S. occupation of Haiti that began in 1915 and lasted nineteen years. The homesick marine wrote:

''Dear Mother,

All is well for me here. I have taken well to my duties in Haiti but I still can't believe how they let the niggers have the run of the place.''

Haitians Running Haiti?

Now let's fast forward to last December 31, 2003 as Luigi Einaudi of the Organization of American States (OAS) is ushered into the lobby of the Hotel Montana for Haiti's bicentennial celebrations. While checking into the luxury hotel he makes this comment in front of several witnesses: "The real problem in Haiti is that the international community is so screwed up and divided that they are letting Haitians run Haiti." When questioned about his objectivity given his attendance at the opening of the Haiti Democracy Project (HDP), a Washington think-tank funded and supported by right-wing Haitians opposed to President John Bertrand-Aristide, he becomes defensive and denies he had been there at all. After it is pointed out to him that there are photos on the organization's website of him with HDP Director James Morrell he quips, "Maybe I was there, I don't remember, but I really think Morrell is a kook." The exchange turns to the question of Otto Reich's role as "fixer" for the Bush Administration in Haiti, at which time Einaudi grows red in the face and visibly angry, shouting, "You are ignorant, you don't know what you are talking about," as he makes a mad dash for the Hotel's elevator.

It is duly noted that Mr. Einaudi has since gotten his wish. Haitians no longer run Haiti.

http://www.counterpunch.org/pina10112004.html

[sce56]

14. As for the food from Venezuela I sure hope the food gets to those who really need it !

I hope Chavez's action makes a real dent and is not lost to the black marketers and other thugs!

Now if US trade laws only allowed imports from countries that were in compliance with labor laws similar to ours that prohibited child labor, enforced environmental standards and made sure the workers were paid a living wage the playing field would be flat and we could compete against those other countries!

[Judi Lynn]

12. Here's a startling remark from the end of the article. It's something to ponder.

"I feel very selfish," said Montuori, who has made 10 mission trips to the island. "I'm so happy to see my family and home, but for the Haitian people, this is just starting.

Just starting?

Where did seemslikeadream get photos like this years ago which she faithfully posted at D.U. day after day after day after week after week after month after month? DU'ers who saw this coming were almost huddled together in shock and horror as this particular catastrophe was thrust upon the people of Haiti, and seemslikeadream has had the astonishingly strong, powerful voice of outrage, grief and sorrow throughout all the time DU'ers have been watching helplessly, bitterly, in pain.



seemslikeadream (1000+ posts) Fri Mar-26-04 05:26 PM
Original message
Aid workers struggle to help quarter million lost Haitians

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1671438


Posters who were around then recall how many pages seemslikeadream filled with photos she patiently, carefully gathered to show the world just what the hell was going on there.

A page from March 6, 2004:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x446945