Al Jazeera reports on the global response to Haiti’s earthquake:
The PBS Newshour reports on the disaster relief efforts of the UN peacekeeping force in Haiti (MINUSTAH):
And the New York Times elaborates on the Pentagon’s response:
Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that 9,000 to 10,000 American troops were expected in Haiti, on shore and off, by Monday, and that the Pentagon was poised to send more.
Speaking at a Pentagon news conference, Admiral Mullen said that about 5,000 would be ground troops, who would help with security and logistical support, among other duties; the rest would be on ships. He said that an American aircraft carrier, the Carl Vinson, arrived off Haiti early Friday with 19 helicopters aboard, and that it would serve as a staging area for relief flights, purified water and other supplies.
Why is any of this happening? Is there an emerging international behavioral norm of disaster relief? The last major earthquake in Haiti was in 1860, and while scouring the internet reveals little about the 19th century tragedy other than its existence, one suspects that the contrast between the Buchanan Administration’s 1860 response and the Obama Administration’s current response would be stark. On the other hand, international disaster relief is not a new phenomenon in international relations, as demonstrated by the international response to the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Ana Cristina Araujo writes:
…On the eve of the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), the destruction of such an important trading city as Lisbon – given its position on the Atlantic routes and its role as a global trade centre – together with the annihilation of the splendid court of King João V, generated a kind of “revolution”. The political climate of insecurity and instability posed a definite threat to “the balance of Europe”, as defined after the Peace of Utrecht (1713).
After the Lisbon earthquake, Portugal was in no condition to take either the English or French side. Nor, without help, could it effectively fend off any hostile act. But despite the doubts, Portugal’s position was still an important one, especially for its ally England (Boxer 1956; Estorninho 1956). For that reason, and also for philanthropic motives, the main European powers offered material aid, both in kind and money, and made available other kinds of help, sending specialists and observers to Lisbon (Araújo 2005).
So perhaps there is nothing extraordinary about international disaster relief in the modern era. Though Haiti is not as strategically important to the world today as Portugal was the Europe in the 18th century, perhaps humanitarian aid can be explained by a combination of materialistic and altruistic motives. As Stephen Walt writes, like with the 2004 tsunami, the U.S. can seize this opportunity for image control:
The Bush administration’s initial response to the Indian Ocean tsunami was initially quite niggardly (our first pledge of aid was a paltry $15 million or so), but Bush & Co. eventually got its act together and the U.S. Navy in particular performed very effective relief operations in Indonesia. Some accounts credit the Navy’s effort with helping reverse the slide in America’s image in that country, which had fallen to very low numbers before the disaster struck. So this is a case where we can do good for beleaguered Haitians and for ourselves by responding rapidly and generously, and it appears that the Obama administration is trying to do the right thing from the start this time.
According to Robert Gates, the goal is to halt a slide toward internal instability:
The key is to get the food and the water in there as quickly as possible, so that people don’t, in their desperation, turn to violence or lead to the security situation deteriorating. And that’s why there’s such a high priority now in — in getting food and water in to people. But, at this point, other than some scavenging and minor looting, our understanding is, the security situation is pretty good.
Perhaps, as Noam Chomsky has argued about the Responsibility to Protect, there is nothing new and novel about this seemingly new disaster relief norm. As Chomsky notes, saving Native Americans was a significant legal, moral, and political justification for British imperialism in North America, as demonstrated by the Massachusetts Bay Colony seal:
And the history of U.S.-Haitian relations should not be ignored, as it has been. As one article notes of Woodrow Wilson’s 1915 intervention and military occupation, which lasted until 1934:
This was also a financial occupation as President Wilson would admit later. The Haitian economic system was taken over, beginning with: the custody of the gold reserve, the Haitian customs, the control of Haiti’s national Bank etc… From that point almost all fiscal and financial matters had to be approved by the state department of the occupying forces. There was also a quasi take over of all Haitian ministries by US generals originally of the mostly still segregated US deep south. A general even headed the Haitian ministry of Education. During the occupation, Haiti lost its pride and autodetermination as a sovereign nation, and seems to have lost also the control of its destiny as the sister republic nation, which had as much right to be guided by the aspiration of its own people, as its strong neighbor on the North would want for its own people.
The US agricultural company and merchants on Wall street stand to benefit the most from the US occupation. The small Haitians family farm were sold to large US company such as, Mc Donald, HASCO, Standard etc… Who would then create large plantations of bananas, sugar cane, rubber trees, sisal etc. A large section of the Haitian forest would be lost during clearing for plantation, thus marking the beginning of Haiti’s environmental problem in the arena of visible deforestation of trees. Part of the peasants population began to suffer from malnutrition “No land, No food”. Most of them no longer had their small farm to cultivate and harvest to feed themselves, or sell or make exchange to survive, as the founder of the Haitian nation, Dessalines had planned and envisioned during his short live agrarian reform. In search of a better economic life, poor Haitians started their mass exodus and began to migrate legally and illegally to other neighboring islands of the Caribbean, such as Cuba and the Dominican Republic, etc.
Haiti’s ambassador to the U.S. is careful to downplay the significance of Haiti turning over control of its main airport to the U.S.:
But perhaps due to growing public awareness of global events, fueled by modern communication technology, nations must respond in some way to natural catastrophes in order to retain their aura of legitimacy amongst the world populace.
