P U L S E

While people from all over the world were scrambling to get donations in to Haiti, the Guardian reports that passengers of a Florida cruise company were sunning themselves 60 miles from Port-au-Prince on Friday, at the heavily guarded private resort of Labadee.  Granted, there was a notable division among passengers, some of which could not bring themselves to dislodge from the cruise in light of the recent tragedy brought on by the earthquake, but not all were so moved:

“I’ll be there on Tuesday and I plan on enjoying my zip line excursion as well as the time on the beach,” said one.

Tourism is an important source of revenue for Haiti and the author of the article mentions that Royal Caribbean International employs 230 Haitians and has even pledged 100% of the proceeds from the call to the relief effort.  However, the image of vacationing tourists enjoying themselves on a private beach forbidden to the native inhabitants of a country remains a telling metaphor for the vast disparity that exists in this world we live in, especially when the leasing of the peninsula to the resort also speaks to the inequitable privatization of the impoverished country’s coastline.

Meanwhile the United States and other countries like Canada have been sending armed soldiers to the country in the name of ‘security,’ and Jeremy Scahill reports that even private mercenary firms have been offering their ‘services.’  All this while the US has been hindering aid and relief workers from entering the country on a timely basis by annexing off the airport.  Fortunately, Democracy Now! has recently entered Haiti and has been providing excellent ongoing coverage of the event while also including badly needed context which helps explain Haiti’s state of destitution, something that almost all mainstream outlets have mostly avoided.  On her Facebook and Twitter page Amy Goodman has also been providing telling status updates about the Haitian people’s suffering and the despicable way in which some groups have been responding to the chaos on the ground:

Helicopter on ground in Leogane took off to throw down food packets! Haitians stomped on the bread. They scream “we are not dogs”

Goodman also describes the scent of death in the air which is heightened at night when the country is most in need of electricity:

At night, Haiti is plunged into darkness. people suffer yet sing. so much death. I never thought I would get to know its smell so well.

Tourists vacation of the coast of Haiti while children, men, women and elderly patients endure unimaginable pain and suffering.  How long will people continue to see no evil?

Tagged: Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, Haiti, Jeremy Scahill, Port-au-Prince