Comment by orbitingpluto | Hacker News Reader

Comment by orbitingpluto | Hacker News Reader

My antecdote about corruption in Haiti.

Went to a friend's wedding in 2007. One of the guests worked at CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency). I asked the guest as many questions as I could. There was a preliminary research trip before a Canadian official made her visit to Haiti. The purpose? To geolocate and photograph the facilities. And when I say facilities, think toilets. Making sure the white Canadian could poo-poo comfortably counted as aid.

Sure Haiti is incredibly corrupt, I remember that one of the ex-president's (Not Aristide) was head of the local kidnapping ring in Port Au Prince. But that's just small stuff. America and Canada use Haiti like it's their own toilet and want it to remain that way, in spite of the intentions of a select few and the limited posturing to the contrary.

One of the most disturbing things for me is to look at Hispaniola on Google Maps. The Dominican Replublic is lush and green. Haiti is a greyed out ####-hole.

I could go on and on, but reading up on an actual humanitarian in the region, Dr Paul Farmer, and his publications is a good start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Farmer

About the difference between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and the regionally-unique levels of poverty in Haiti: I think this can be traced historically to the Haitian slave revolt of 1791-1804, and the resulting shock and revenge taken on Haiti by the U.S., France, and other powers.

Such action-at-a-distance may seem fanciful, but here's a surprising fact: Haiti was still paying reparations to France until 1947, as compensation for damage and lost property from the slave revolt, including the value of the freed slaves themselves. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_debt_of_Haiti)

Indeed. The US and Europe owes Haiti billions, but the real challenge is in getting a stable nation in place so USA and Europe can pay the reparations usefully.

> Making sure the white Canadian could poo-poo comfortably counted as aid.

Well, yes of course, it is aid.

And making sure also that this doctor can wash his hands before their next chirurgical intervention (is really so relevant to notice that is canadian, thus probably white?).

Doctors also need to go to the bathroom (is not so easy if you are a woman). Or clean itselves of vomit and blood after a hard day. Somebody need to assure that the volunteers have their most basical needs covered and can focus all his precious skills in doing the job (instead to just get ill and totally useless just 24 hours after their arrival). To study first the access to clean water and a way to avoid faeces spreading all around your clinic area and contaminating hundreds of wounded people is not corruption at all. Is to invest wisely your resources.

I'm going to counter with the fact that the CIDA worker thought that this was a complete waste of resources. Sending a team of people to look at how pretty the toilets are is ridiculous. If you can't see that, please don't oversee any charity money.

And I never said it was a doctor. And it wasn't. Just an official taking a tour.

> Sending a team of people to look at how pretty the toilets are is ridiculous

Not if you have paid big money for those toilets.

To survey and document if the work was really done is a normal procedure all around the world to increase transparency in organizations. And yes, it costs a lot of money (it saves money also).

Again, no aid was done for these toilets. Seriously, get the point. A team was sent to check out the crappers for the sole sake of the comfort of a senior official in CIDA. CIDA employee was complaining about it. Yikes.

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