You are absolutely correct, Mike.
We, who have a heart for Haiti, may be the best advocates. Wisdom and
common sense in traveling is still #1 but the overall image needs to
be re-configured.


Grace and peace,

Pix


Pix Mahler
pix@...
http://www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/profiles/mahlerp.htm
PCUSA Haiti Partnership Facilitator
1022 Floyd St.
Lynchburg, VA 24501
434-385-9486


On Mar 5, 2008, at 11:33 AM, Michael Thurmond wrote:

> Thanks for sharing that piece of information. Given the number of
> groups
> that continue to travel to Haiti I suspect many would agree with that
> assessment. The question is how can we help overcome that image. It
> sounds like the Haitians need a good public relations firm.
>
> Mike
>
> Pix Mahler wrote:
>> Haiti's image of fear 'a big myth' to some
>>
>>
>> March 4, 2008
>>
>>
>> By Reed Lindsay - PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti —
>>
>> U.N. peacekeepers in Haiti say they are battling an image of fear
>> that is keeping the Caribbean nation mired in hunger and disease,
>> with little hope of attracting foreign visitors and investment.
>>
>> Forbes magazine has named Haiti one of the world's 10 most dangerous
>> destinations, along with Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.
>>
>> The Associated Press has called Port-au-Prince the kidnapping capital
>> of the Americas.
>>
>> The U.S. government maintains a perpetual travel warning on Haiti,
>> while diplomats, journalists and aid workers spend much of their time
>> holed up in fortified hotels.
>>
>> The image stems largely from two violent years after the 2004 U.S.
>> ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide when the slums of Port-au-
>> Prince erupted in gunbattles between gangs, Haitian police and U.N.
>> peacekeepers, plus a wave of kidnappings.
>>
>> Today, Haiti's reputation is undeserved, say security analysts and
>> officials from the U.N. peacekeeping mission. They argue that Haiti
>> is no more violent than any other Latin American country.
>>
>> "It's a big myth," said Fred Blaise, spokesman for the U.N. police
>> force in Haiti. "Port-au-Prince is no more dangerous than any big
>> city. You can go to New York and get pickpocketed and held at
>> gunpoint."
>>
>> Reliable statistics are scarce in Haiti, but U.N. data indicate that
>> the country could be among the safest in the region.
>>
>> The U.N. peacekeeping mission recorded 487 homicides in Haiti last
>> year, or about 5.6 per 100,000 people.
>>
>> A U.N.-World Bank study last year estimated the Caribbean's average
>> homicide rate at 30 per 100,000, with Jamaica registering nearly nine
>> times as many — 49 homicides per 100,000 people — as those recorded
>> by the United Nations in Haiti.
>>
>> In 2006, the neighboring Dominican Republic notched more than four
>> times more homicides per capita than those registered in Haiti: 23.6
>> per 100,000, according to the Central American Observatory on
>> Violence.
>>
>> Even the United States would appear to have a higher homicide rate:
>> 5.7 per 100,000 in 2006, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
>>
>> "There is not a large amount of violence [in Haiti]," said Gen. Jose
>> Elito Carvalho Siquiera, the former Brazilian commander of the U.N.
>> military force in Haiti. "If you compare the levels of poverty here
>> with those of Sao Paolo [Brazil] or other cities, there is more
>> violence there than here."
>>
>> The U.N. peacekeeping mission, known as Minustah, arrived in Haiti in
>> June 2004, three months after U.S. troops whisked Mr. Aristide into
>> exile amid an armed rebellion.
>>
>> The U.S.-backed interim government then waged a campaign against Mr.
>> Aristide's supporters, igniting two years of gunfights in Port-au-
>> Prince's slums.
>>
>> A wave of kidnappings also swept panic through the capital. From 2005
>> until 2006, Minustah registered 1,356 kidnappings.
>>
>> Kidnappings have become common in many Latin American countries, but
>> were rare in Haiti before Mr. Aristide's ouster.
>>
>> "The kidnappings shocked everyone because they hadn't happened in the
>> past," said Mr. Blaise, the U.N. police spokesman. "Still, when you
>> compare the number of kidnappings here, I don't think it's more than
>> anywhere else."
>>
>> Security improved markedly last year. The number of kidnappings
>> dropped by nearly 70 percent, and the U.N. peacekeeping mission
>> wrested control of Port-au-Prince's battle-torn slums from armed
>> groups.
>>
>> President Rene Preval, elected in a landslide in February 2006, has
>> mollified Haiti's political opposition.
>>
>> Gunshots are now seldom heard in Port-au-Prince. Violent crime in the
>> countryside has always been rare. Attacks on foreigners are few and
>> far between, and in recent months American Airlines flights from
>> Miami to the capital have been packed with Christian missionaries and
>> aid workers.
>>
>> Even when the instability was at its peak, observers say, violence
>> usually was limited to a few Port-au-Prince slums.
>>
>> "If you compare Haiti to Iraq, to Afghanistan, to Rwanda, we don't
>> even appear on the same scale," said Patrick Elie, who heads a
>> government commission studying the creation of a new security force.
>>
>> "We've had a tumultuous history, that is true, one characterized by
>> political instability," said Mr. Elie. "But except for the war that
>> we had to wage to obtain our freedom and independence from the
>> French, Haiti has never known a level of violence comparable to that
>> which has been waged in Europe, in America and the European countries
>> in Africa and Asia. Our country has been one of the least violent."
>>
>> Viva Rio, a Brazilian-based violence reduction group that came to
>> Haiti at the request of the U.N. mission's disarmament program, has
>> found Port-au-Prince's armed groups more receptive than those in Rio
>> de Janeiro's slums.
>>
>> Last March, the organization persuaded warring gangs in Bel Air and
>> neighboring downtown slums to sign a peace treaty, in which they
>> swore to abstain from violence in exchange for youth scholarships.
>> Since then, the area has been peaceful.
>>
>> "This would be unthinkable in Rio," said Rubem Cesar Fernandes, Viva
>> Rio's director.
>>
>> The humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders classified the
>> "raging violence" in Port-au-Prince as one of the world's 10 most
>> underreported stories in 2006. Even then, only one of every 10
>> patients at its trauma hospital was the victim of a bullet wound.
>> Most had been injured in car crashes and domestic accidents.
>>
>> "It's not the insecurity, not the bullets, not the conflict between
>> gangs and police," said Yann Libessart, the former head of the
>> Doctors Without Borders mission. "What's killing people in Haiti is
>> not being able to give birth to a baby in a hospital or not having
>> access to medical care because they don't have enough money to pay."
>>
>> While the international community has made security the priority, the
>> dominant concern for most poor Haitians is the rising cost of food.
>> The prices of staples such as rice and beans have nearly doubled in
>> the past three years, a devastating trend in a country where about 80
>> percent of the population earns less than $2 a day.
>>
>> "Our problem isn't violence," said Yvner Meneide, an artisan living
>> in downtown Port-au-Prince. "If we were violent, we would organize
>> demonstrations every day, we would be destroying things. But the
>> Haitian people are very moderate. We might be hungry, but we are
>> calm."
>>
>>
>> ________________________________________________________________
>>
>> Forwarded as a service of the Haiti Support Group - solidarity with
>> the Haitian people's struggle for human rights, participatory
>> democracy and equitable development - since 1992.
>>
>> Web site: www.haitisupport.gn.apc.org
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Pix Mahler
>> pix@...
>> http://www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/profiles/mahlerp.htm
>> PCUSA Haiti Partnership Facilitator
>> 1022 Floyd St.
>> Lynchburg, VA 24501
>> 434-385-9486
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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