Haiti earthquake: looting and gun-fights break out

[FarCenter]

As anger and fears of violence grew amid desperate shortages of food, water and medical supplies, bands of machete-wielding earthquake survivor yesterday roamed through the ruins of Port-au-Prince.

By Philip Sherwell and Patrick Sawer
Published: 7:28PM GMT 16 Jan 2010

Sporadic violence, looting and gang-related gunfire broke out under sweltering Caribbean skies even as thousands of US forces awaited deployment from a newly-arrived aircraft carrier sitting in the waters off the city.

In chaotic scenes, United Nations food trucks were rushed by hungry people clamouring for handouts of nutritional biscuits and water purification tablets. Children and the elderly were pushed aside in the crush.

UN peacekeepers patrolling the capital said frustrations were rising and warned aid convoys to add security to guard against looting. Yet despite the tensions, survivors lined up patiently at other UN food and water distribution centres. A teenage boy working for the charity foundation of Wyclef Jean, the Haitian-born hip-hop superstar, was shot dead as he drove a truck-turned-hearse away from a cemetery.

"Somebody wanted to carjack him," said Mr Jean, who arrived in the city on Thursday and put his staff to work clearing bodies. "Two shots."

In one particularly shocking incident, a looter was spotted hauling a corpse from a coffin at a city cemetery so that he could drive away with the wooden box. There were reports of armed gangs setting up roadblocks to demand money and essential supplies from passing lorries and the UN said that the poor security situation meant it could not reach outlying areas with aid operations.

In the Iron Market, one of the poorest neighbourhoods, teenage looters scuttled over the concrete debris and ignored piles of dead bodies on the street in their desperate bid to dig out supplies.

"People are hungry, thirsty. They are left on their own," said Leon Meleste, an Adventist sporting a white "New York" baseball cap.

"It is increasingly dangerous. The police doesn't exist, people are doing what they want."

<SNIP>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/haiti/7005554/Haiti-earthquake-looting-and-gun-fights-break-out.html

[timeforpeace]

1. Makes it sound like war might break out.

[vadawg]

4. no are you kidding i got told yesterday that people would be peaceful and co operative

though ive never seen an aid station where there is not some undercurrents... remember this is a society that has collapsed...

[FarCenter]

13. The Haitian elite may have a difficult time keeping a lid on the underclass

Political and Economic History of Haiti

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/haiti.htm

[Skink]

2. It's not looting if people are starving.

[vadawg]

5. it is if you are using force and your stealing food from the mouths of babes etc

[haele]

11. It's looting if they're stealing food and drink to sell on the black market,

in a situation like this, it's foraging to find food to feed yourself and your family. If you plan on profiting on taking more than you need by force, then it's defiantly looting.

Of course, it's difficult to determine the difference when it's an individual doing it, but if you have a group of young men walking around with machetes, sporting attitudes, causing havoc and coordinating their "foraging" to carry as much off as quickly as possible, then continue their "foraging" in other areas where there are soft targets, it's probably safe to say they're looters(hate to sound sexist, but it's generally young men with nothing better to do that end up as looters).
It should settle down some now that there's more coordination on the ground and the logistics to get food and supplies out safely to the people who need it.

Haele

[timeforpeace]

15. It's undocumented shopping, right?

[virginia mountainman]

3. Guns are banned in Haiti....This is impossible... nt

[HBravo]

6. Hello, Blackmarket.

:sarcasm:

[Hannah Bell]

7. "teenage looters scuttled" & "ignored dead bodies". right, this is fine journalism.

what else "scuttles"?

[vadawg]

9. as its a brit paper and the term is pretty much used dailly to describe moving id say

lots of people do...

[Hannah Bell]

14. i'd not say.

[vadawg]

23. probuably because you dont speak the particular vernacular that the brits do

[RaleighNCDUer]

22. That line caught me, too.

IMO, if they are digging through rubble for food and water, they are NOT looting. They are surviving.

[leftygolfer]

8. Don't fall for this trap

If we engage in the discussion about "looting", that becomes the storyline. How about the media focus on saving people, not degrading them. Are there some instances of desperate people taking matters into their own hands? Probably. I would too. So would you. But the story should be about help, not indicting people at their worst hour. This is why I do not like to watch the news.

[niyad]

17. welcome to DU

all of this talk reminds me of katrina--lurid stories of looting, violence, etc., that turned out later to be false. sadly, I don't trust much in the way of "reporting" right now, certainly not from msm--and haven't had a chance to see international coverage yet.

[gateley]

10. Understandably, some people aren't in their right minds. Let's hope things

become more organized soon.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

12. Two men from the DR who drove to the scene

to distribute food were seriously shot. One man was shot in the face and chest. This will cause more
tension between the two countries that exists in normal times.

People are desperate at this point. I hope they are able to get the military in place before the end of the weekend..

[Odin2005]

16. Gee, black people "looting" where did we here THAT before? Oh yeah, New Orleans.

Where the White folks were described as "finding" food, while Black people "looted" it.

[tabasco]

18. This post has all the turfers in one place!

Drop a nuke mods!!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. They're also shooting at helicopters and raping girls in the Superdome restroom.

When asked how Haitians could be in the Superdome when that's not in Haiti, the Telegraph correspondent replied, "they're very shifty."

[frustrated_lefty]

20. I think a lot of people have blinders with regard to this topic.

The MSM obviously DOES display racial bias in describing "looting" vs. food "acquisition." That's deplorable. However:

It was a week before my kids and I were evacuated from New Orleans, and I can't imagine the devastation in Haiti. This is not an attempt to compare the two, aside from to make a simple observation regarding human nature: catastrophic disasters bring out the absolute best AND the absolute worst in people. The vast majority are simply trying to survive, protect their families, and find some escape from the chaos. But that doesn't mean the worst of humanity isn't capitalizing on the lack of order. It's another thing a lot of these people are having to survive through, and we do them a disservice by pretending it's not real.

[Skittles]

21. CORRECT