Aid STILL not getting to Haitians

For those who have a concern about Haiti and the activities occurring there now, current, pertinent and correct information is available on an on-going basis through Democracy Now!
This independent TV/radio news program hosted by the highly respected Amy Goodman, is investigative journalism at its finest, and is aired over 800 stations. You can watch/listen to any portion of any show at any time at www.democracynow.org.

While the mainstream media is for the most part white-washing what is actually going on in Haiti, news reports from independent radio stations are telling it as it really is.

On February 2, 2010 Democracy Now! interviewed Bill Quigley, legal director at the Center for Constitutional Rights who had just returned from Haiti.

Three weeks, to the day, after the quake, survivors are still desperate to receive aid, with food, water and medical relief not reaching the areas it is needed most.
"Tragically, there was very little international assistance available in any of the neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince where we were. We saw tremendous examples of Haitians helping Haitians and sharing what they had, trying to take care of each other, but tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people living what I think the media has called “tent cities,” what really are sheet camps, that people don’t even have tents. They have sheets strung on ropes, with people under them.

And I really think that any person in the United States, any person in the international community that was dropped into any neighborhood in Port-au-Prince and walked two blocks would be shocked at the absence of international assistance there, because I think there was such an outpouring of individual charitable response, and—but that is just not getting to the people of Haiti."

Concerning the issue of holding off letting critically injured Haitians into the Florida hospitals in United States, he said: "That is just disgraceful. It is just unbelievable that the state of Florida, the United States, the medical communities around the country, couldn’t figure a way to take these most critically ill, but still savable, people in… But I think it is a good example of exactly what’s going on, magnified by a thousand, of what’s going on in Haiti itself."

In reply to Amy Goodman's question about the Associated Press reporting that the Haitian government is receiving less than a penny for each dollar the United States spends on aid efforts in Haiti. Thirty-three cents of every dollar goes to the US military. Quigley had this to say: "Yes. Everybody who’s concerned should take a look at that brief report, because a third of it goes to military response, another third of it is going through and that, that—who knows how much of that money is actually getting into the hands of Haitians? And only one cent.

When asked what is the best way to get aid to Haiti, he recommended that assisting Haitians in the United States to get money directly to family members in Haiti is very important.

When asked about the massive mounds of aid that were piled high over two weeks ago at the airport, Quigley's response was: "Well, there is a sense that some of the aid has been brought into the country, but it is being held in secret storage places, because whoever has it hasn’t figured out how to distribute it yet in a fair way. But in the meantime, literally, there are babies dying of malnutrition. There are elders who are dying from the shock and untreated wounds that they have had. And this is not something that we can’t do something. We can do it. But there seems to be a lack of a will. There’s lack of communication, lack of coordination."