Feral Jundi

   Thanks to Matt for sending me this.  My question on all of this, is where is the Main Stream Media? I mean they were all over Haiti when it was cool and made for great coverage. Disaster relief is a marathon, not a short race, and there are stories that are just not getting the coverage they need.  Like the thousands of prisoners that escaped, and the slow and steady increase of crime or assaults. By now, we should have had any deficiencies in security corrected–either with more UN or Haitian police, or with private security.  There is plenty of money for such things, and there is absolutely no excuse for not implementing effective security solutions for the Haiti.

   I also think that this stupid book on ‘disaster capitalism’  called Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, is actually making things worse for the Haitians. Aid companies now think that contracting security or private industry is somehow a bad thing, and that paying for such things is ‘disaster capitalism’.

    Meanwhile, their employees on the ground are getting kidnapped or sexually assaulted, all because they are afraid that contracting security would offend their donors.  How totally irresponsible and pathetic is that? I also think it is irresponsible of those in the media who have promoted such things, because now you are helping the criminals of Haiti with your reportage. And what really kills me is that none of these aid organizations or main stream media groups get the label of disaster capitalists?

    To me, their entire existence depends upon disasters, and they certainly need them in order to get donations or viewership.  Make another dollar off the suffering of Haitians…. and you guys label my industry as disaster capitalists?  Pfffft.  At least my industry does something other than making media spectacles out of that suffering, or begging for money to support massive aid organizations.

   Below, I also posted the excellent commentary by the IPOA in regards to this ‘Shock Doctrine’ fear mongering that the Juice Box Commandos out there have been spewing. Bravo to JJ Messner and company for calling it the way they see it. The ideas of Naomi are contributing to more suffering in Haiti, and it needs to be put in check. Maybe I should start a Facebook page called ‘The Shock Doctrine Fear Mongering Club–Support Crime And Instability In Haiti!!’. –Matt

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UN: Kidnappers release Belgian taken in Haiti

By MIKE MELIA

Fri Mar 26, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Kidnappers have released a Belgian businessman who was grabbed as he drove through Haiti’s capital, a U.N. police official said Friday.

Philippe Van Reybrouck, a longtime Haiti resident, had been in captivity for about 24 hours and was freed in good condition Thursday after a ransom was paid, said Michel Martin, the Canadian chief of the U.N.’s criminal intelligence unit in Haiti.

“The victim was released without any bodily harm,” Martin said. “There was some stress and shock.”

A lull in crime that followed Haiti’s devastating Jan. 12 earthquake is giving way to signs of growing insecurity. Eight kidnappings have been reported so far this month, up from two in all of February, according to U.N. statistics.

Aid groups that flocked to Haiti following the quake imposed dusk curfews following the kidnapping earlier this month of two European aid workers for Doctors Without Borders. The two women were released after five days.

Haitian police have also been targeted, with at least four officers killed since the quake that allowed more than 5,000 prisoners to escape from collapsed or damaged jails.

Morgue records at the General Hospital show a dramatic increase in fatal shootings across Port-au-Prince since last month. But authorities say the situation is under control.

“It’s too early to say that it’s going to get worse,” said Gary Desrosiers, a spokesman for Haiti’s national police.

In the most recent kidnapping, assailants grabbed Van Reybrouck and contacted his family with a ransom demand. Martin said Haitian police were handling the investigation.

Once rare in Haiti, kidnappings soared in the chaos that followed the 2004 ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The bandits often targeted foreigners, but Haitians were taken in much larger numbers.

By the time of the earthquake, crackdowns by U.N. and Haitian police had dramatically curbed the number of kidnappings. The crime is still below pre-disaster levels. The eight kidnappings reported this month by the U.N. compare with 13 last March.

Some aid groups say desperation is to blame for the rising violence, with hundreds of thousands of Haitians still homeless more than two months after the quake.

“If we don’t provide adequate shelter and food and sanitation for people and allow them to start focusing on their livelihoods, the security situation is going to worsen,” said Joia Mukherjee, medical director for the nonprofit Partners in Health.

Story here.

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Haiti’s Emergency Response Must Include Protection From Widespread Sexual Violence, Says Amnesty International

WASHINGTON, March 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Thousands of women living in temporary camps around Haiti are threatened by sexual violence and have inadequate protection from any authorities, Amnesty International said today after concluding a three-week visit to the country.

Sexual violence is widespread across the hundreds of spontaneous camps that sprung up in the capital and other affected areas of Haiti following the massive earthquake that struck the country in January.

Amnesty International said that the lack of measures to prevent and respond adequately to the threat of sexual violence is contributing to the humanitarian crisis and urged the Haitian authorities to take immediate and effective measures to curb sexual violence and protect women living in the camps.

“Sexual violence is widely present in camps where some of Haiti’s most vulnerable live,” said Chiara Liguori, Caribbean researcher at Amnesty International from Port-au-Prince. “It was already a major concern in the country before the earthquake, but the situation in which displaced people are living exposes women and girls to even greater risks.”

Insecurity, overcrowding and inadequate sanitary facilities are putting women and girls at great risk of abuse because they are exposed and without protection. The lack of capacity of the police forces and the justice system in the aftermath of the earthquake means that perpetrators are unlikely to be punished.

“Authorities in Haiti must prioritize strengthening the police presence in camps, especially at night, including capacity to protect women and girls from sexual violence and to respond adequately to reported cases,” said Liguori.

There is a general feeling of insecurity inside and around the camps, particularly at night. Women and girls living in makeshift shelters feel vulnerable and are afraid of attacks.

Most victims of sexual violence interviewed by Amnesty International were minors. One eight-year-old girl was raped when alone in her tent at night. Her mother had gone out of the camp to work and did not have anybody to look after her daughter during her absence. A 15-year-old was raped when she went out of the camp to urinate, as there were no latrines within the camp.

Lack of adequate protection mechanisms for women and girls is discouraging them from denouncing the violence. A local women’s organization reported 19 cases of rape in just one small section of Champ-de-Mars, one of the biggest camps in Port-au-Prince. None of the women and girls had reported the attacks to the police for fear of their aggressors and instead moved out of the camp.

“There are no shelters in the country where victims of sexual violence can be protected and have access to services. Shelters for women and girl victims of violence must also be part of the emergency response and the international NGOs, massively present in Haiti, can only make this possible with the coordination of the Haitian authorities,” said Liguori

Background Information:

Amnesty International’s delegation visited eight camps of displaced people in Port-au-Prince, and the cities of Jacmel and Lascahobas, some of them more than once.

Amnesty International’s delegates met government authorities, including the president of the Republic, Rene Garcia Preval, and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive. They held talks with the head of the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and with various U.N. agencies operating in Haiti, local and international human rights organizations and the ambassadors of Brazil, Canada, and France.

Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.

For more information, please visit: www.amnestyusa.org.

SOURCE Amnesty International

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IPOA Director: Critics of private contractors “don’t understand what the industry does”

Senior stability operations figure believes that contractors must endeavour to educate the public on the facts.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PR Log (Press Release) – Mar 25, 2010 – In recent years, the demand for stability operations has risen sharply, coming from both NATO and many struggling nations. Yet the majority of publicity tends to cast a negative shadow over private contractor involvement in these regions, claiming that governments are faced with a conflict of interests in involving contracting companies in the formation of defence budgets.

Sometime-cynics include David Isenberg of The Huffington Post, who has written extensively on both the pros and cons of the PMC emergence. Yet for vocal opponents like author and activist Naomi Klein, such firms are seen to merely exploit disaster-struck countries for profit. The Facebook group “No Shock Doctrine for Haiti”, based on Klein’s condemnation, has well over 37,000 members.

J.J. Messner, Director of the International Peace Operations Assosciation (IPOA), the umbrella association for the stability operations industry, described this view as a “very unfortunate” way of seeing the matter.

 

Speaking to DefenceIQ, Messner spoke of the support that contractors offer in terms of freeing the army to deal with foreign policy affairs and focusing on the suppression of insurgents, actions fundamental to transitioning a region out of warzone status. Likewise, disaster-hit areas can benefit from the speedy action of these companies in the immediate aftermath of the emergency.

 

“Ultimately what we can see is that – in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti – there was an immense amount of suffering, there was an immense amount of capacity needed at very short notice, and some private contractors were able to provide airlift support, medical support and logistics at very short notice.”

 

With the resources of the US military already strained across Afghanistan and Iraq, and with this situation coinciding with a period of military downsizing, Messner holds that IPOA’s companies can provide peace-keeping support and expertise that otherwise wouldn’t be there or are not so widely available in non-profit organisations.

 

He also addressed the misconception that private contractors in conflict zones are dominated by private military companies such as the extremely controversial and former-member Blackwater.

 

“It becomes abundantly clear with many of the critics of the industry that they really don’t quite understand what the industry does. If you look at the industry as a whole, I think it’s probably fair to say that 90% of the industry concerns itself with logistics and non-security services, whereas the average man on the street will often think it’s all about heavily armed security contractors.”

 

“Those kinds of perceptions are very important to tackle because – when it comes to a public perception point of view – if you are sending a number of contractors into a particular country, if the public at large believe that those contractors are going to be heavily armed security contractors…their amount of support is probably going to be different than to if they act knew that the vast majority of them are going to be providing services such as logistics, or medical support, or air lift.”

 

He added that re-balancing the argument for private contractors and making the public aware of the positive aspects of the firms “really is one of the key roles that IPOA has to fill over the years – an educational role”.

 

As for critics who argue that the actions of contractors need to be transparent, Messner couldn’t agree more.

 

“You tend to see the criticism focused a lot more on, for example, oversight and accountability, and we would completely agree that those are areas really do need to be addressed and those areas are very important to get right, rather than [debating] the industry’s existence in the first place.”

 

Expanding the role of the private sector in reconstruction operations alongside the future of stabilisation operations in Africa and the necessity of harnessing the support of local populations in post-war reconstruction will be discussed at the CIMIC and Reconstruction Operations conference on 20 – 21 May 2010, to be held in London.

 

Other confirmed speakers for the event include:

 

Major General (ret’d) Alan Hawley, Director of Disasters and Resilience Centre

Guy Sands-Pingot, Assistant Inspector General, Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR)

Colonel Antonello Vespaziani, (ITA Army), Multinational CIMIC Group

 

To listen to the full podcast visit:

 

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