Scenes from a Disaster La Promesse School | Petion-Ville, Haiti

This is my attempt to bring some perspective to the La Promesse school disaster in Petion-Ville. I've paraphrased some remarks made at the scene by a government official, neighborhood people and rescuers and President Rene Preval. Also I've included the latest news from Ezili Danto of Haitian Lawyer's Leadership Network (HLLN) and reflections on what should happen next from Haitian activist Jean Saint-Vil.

"The situation is bad for the kids. There are some who are on top of those that are still alive. They are blocking us from rescuing the ones beneath. "

"When a person is in shock, when a person is bleeding, they need medicine. We need medicine! We've been working here all night pulling people out of the building. We need medicine! We don't have medicine!"

-- Rescuers

I have the identifications of some children, I found their telephones. The parents should call me to check the list I have, to see if they're child's names are on it. My number is... I've lived in this area for 25 years. It's a catastrophe. When they did the construction they did not analyze the area to see if it would support this sort of construction.

-- Joyzil Smith - Area resident

A government official says the school's collapse is the result of the builder's failure to comply with building regulations.

It's all of us who are responsible. In this country. We took measures. What measures are we to take? We asked these people to not construct on a hill. We asked them to take precautions during construction. They did not conform. It's your country's image. Take precautions. Unfortunately, I don't know how many children are in there.

-- Government Official

Haitian President René Preval arrives on the scene and attempts to clear the area for rescuers and emergency vehicles.

We need a radio to send an urgent message to tell the people to leave this area so that the rescuers can come and go freely. Secondly, if you look at the school, its an edifice with practically no cement to support it, that's why it fell. What's important for the families to know who have lost children–to bring help to them we must clear this alley of the cars and people. We need space so that the engineers and rescuers can work. This would be best for people under the rubble, who are suffering. Let's not invite another disaster. We have people from Canada and Washington asking; how can we help? Evaluations are going on right now to find out if they have specialist they can send from Canada and the United States.

-- Rene Preval

Ezili Danto's Witness Project reported on the heart-wrenching suffering and agony at the scene. The frantic search in the rubble for survivors by rescuers who managed to find survivors early on, but were not equipped to save the ones buried deep under heavy rubble. It was a "perfect storm" of circumstances that included hospital strikes and government regulation failures.

On Friday, May 7, 2008, the three-story La Promesse school building in Petionville, Haiti, collapsed while class was in session with more than 500 to 700 students inside. The bodies of at least 93 children killed have been recovered so far, over 200 injured have been either treated or admitted for care; as the death toll is expected to reach in the hundreds. Trinite Hospital is the only working hospital open in Port-au-Prince. The other two, General Hospital and Hospital de la Paix, are closed by strikes. Mothers of the school children and neighbors who live around the school that our Haiti correspondents spoke to late yesterday evening say the screams and moans of more students, buried in the rubble of the concrete building, can still be heard throughout the night.

*By the time international rescue teams with specialized equipment from the US and France arrived to help on Saturday, a day after the collapse, it was too late. Only four survivors were pulled from the ruins on Saturday, and no other survivors had been found since. Fortin Augustin, the Protestant minister who owns the school and church, was arrested on Saturday as authorities investigated him on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter. Fortin Augustin was denied a permit to build the school in the 1990s but went ahead with the project during the coup d'etat years of rebellion and government upheaval and anarchy that followed.

By Tuesday, Nov. 11, AP Reported "Nearly all other survivors were found in the frantic first hours by neighbors who leaped on the rubble and dug with their bare hands, sometimes with the help of U.N. peacekeepers. No survivors have been found since the U.S. and French teams arrived Saturday."

Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network, Ezili Danto Witness Project, 11.11.08, 8:08 am.

I am sick and tired of the cowardice displayed by the Haitian leaders. Kote moun yo?
Jafrikayiti a Haitian activist, performer and educator laments the lack of courage of the Preval administration in knuckling under to the demands of the colonial powers who hold the purse strings, who have refused to give Haiti debt relief.

Is there a President in Haiti?

Is there a Parliament in Haiti?

Kote moun yo? (Where are these people?)

Are there men and women with courage and decency in this country to finally do the right thing:

1. Declare Haiti to be in a state of EMERGENCY - therefore...
2. DEBT payments are to stop immediately
3. Investment in the nation's infrastructure to begin on a priority basis

How can it not be obvious, that Haiti cannot afford to be financing the World Bank and its blood-suckers international associates to the tune of $1 million a week !!!!!

When there is not even one good General Hospital on the 27 750 KM2 of the country

When there is a whole school system to rebuild from scratch

When there is a road network to be build.

When the farmers cannot expect the basics they deserve and need from their State to produce food for the nation.

It is criminal for the Haitian government to be so coward in its discussions with the former colonial powers (who now like to be called international community - in order to hide their RESPONSIBILITY in the mess nations like Haiti, the Congo etc... are living today).

Jean Saint-Vil (Jafrikayiti)

UPDATE: 11.13.08
More details have surfaced about the troubled history of La Promesse school. The former major of Petion-Ville had stopped the construction during her term in office. The turmoil and chaos of the U.S. gov't sponsored coup d'etat of 2004 has claimed these children as its latest victims.

By the time international rescue teams arrived (from Martinique and Virginia) with floodlights and with search dogs wearing huge "USAID" signs around their torso for the requisite publicity shots, by the time trucks carried oxygen and medical supplies down the mountain road, by the time international rescue teams arrived to help on Saturday, the day after the collapse, it was too late. The crane, sonar, cameras and USAID rescue dogs were too late. Only four survivors - two girls, ages three and five, and two boys, a seven-year-old and a teenager - were pulled alive from the ruins on Saturday, and no other survivors have been found since.

Fortin Augustin, the Protestant minister who owns the school and church, was arrested on Saturday as authorities investigated him on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter. Fortin Augustin was denied a permit to build the school in the 1990s, but went ahead with the project during the coup d'etat years of rebellion and government upheaval and anarchy that followed.

The mayor of Petionville has told local Haitian radio that during her previous term as mayor she had stopped construction on the school, but it resumed sometime between 2004 and 2006 when Bush regime change's Boca Raton interim government was imposed on Haiti. (See, No more victims found in collapsed Haitian school by Jacqueline Charles, Nov. 9, 2008 Miami Herald; See also, I am sick and tired of the cowardice displayed by the Haitian leaders. Kote moun yo?; Hope Fades, Grief Sets in Near Fallen Haiti School; and Haitian Families Furious Over School Collapse).

By Tuesday, Nov. 11, AP Reported "Nearly all other survivors were found in the frantic first hours by neighbors who leaped on the rubble and dug with their bare hands, sometimes with the help of U.N. peacekeepers. No survivors have been found since the U.S. and French teams arrived Saturday." (Girl, 8, recalls 12-hour Haitian school collapse ordeal)...

(HLLN Report on the School Collapse, Nov 7, 2008)

35 Ways to Leave Your President: Kucinich Lists Bush's Crimes

"The house is not in order" said the gentleman from Ohio and former Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich yesterday before for a dramatic five hours he read 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush for "High Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Kucinich also named some of President Bush's accomplices; Dick Cheney and the White House Iraq Group or WHIG -- Condoleezza Rice, Carl Rove, Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin, James R. Wilkinson, Steven Hadley, I. Lewis Libby and Nicholas E. Calleo.

Download video of Kucinich presenting articles of impeachment against Geroge W Bush

Watch an excerpt below:



Kucinich's first co-sponsor is Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida, who has been making the case for impeachment since last year. Rep Wexler will be on Keith Olbermann today.

In January of this year Kucinich introduced, then abandoned an effort to begin impeachment proceedings against Bush.

In April 2007 Kucinich introduced impeachment articles against VP Dick Cheney.

In her last act before leaving office, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (current Green Party Presidential candidate), began articles of impeachment against Bush. Cynthia McKinney was the most courageous member of Congress. She was targeted by Republicans for her persistent questions about 911 and subject to a smear campaign in the press.


To support Dennis Kucinich's impeachment resolution:
Call House Speaker Nancy Pelosy (D) at (202)225-0100
Call your US elected officials by entering your zip code at www.votesmart.org.
Call Dennis Kucinich to express your support and to thank him at(202)225-5871

Update (6/11/2008)
Rep. Wexler was not on Olbermann yesterday (they flashed his picture for two seconds). It's a first, a politician who shies away from discussing an issue he's advocating for. I guess Dennis Kucinich was busy washing his hair and couldn't make it either.

Keith Olbermann is like a storm in a teapot, when it comes down to it, he's as spineless as the Democrats who have allowed Mr. Bush to run amok.

Barackmeter to November Elections

Taking the reigns of the Democratic party. Barack Obama has impressed many with his implementation of the "no lobbyist" money rule for the DNC. He has also been praised for aligning with Howard Dean's vision of a 50 states strategy for winning the November election. Finally, many see his backing of Joe Lieberman against the wall during a Senate vote for an impromptu tete-a-tete as a show of leadership talent a la LBJ.

Undoubtedly, Barack Obama has political talent, but only time will tell whether he is a political genius as some have suggested. I reserve judgment. I am particularly disturbed by his pandering to the Israeli lobby (Jerusalem will remain the capital of the Israeli state -- from his address to AIPAC last week; a real blunder and step in the wrong direction, away from mediation to authoritarianisms).

Continuing the US foreign policy of Israel = US proxy in the Middle East is disastrous. The US cannot be an honest broker of peace between Palestinians and Israelis when its policy is to back whatever Israel does -- making the US hated and feared as a hypocrite and a warmonger.

Many have their political barometers poised and predict a win for the Democratic candidate...

"In an article last week on University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball Web site, Abramowitz declared that “it appears very likely that the Republican Party is dealing with the dreaded 'triple whammy' in 2008: an unpopular president, a weak economy and a second-term election.”

Abramowitz has tracked the effect of those variables on the last 15 presidential elections and found that they accurately predicted the popular-vote outcome in 14 and came close in the 15th.

...The Abramowitz barometer is a shortcut variation on American University professor Allan Lichtman's famed “13 Keys to the Presidency,” which adds such factors as wars, candidate charisma, scandal and the incumbent party's performance in off-year elections to the economy and incumbency.

When Lichtman published the latest edition of his book early this year, he flatly predicted that “the Democratic candidate will capture the White House in 2008 no matter the choice of a nominee."
McCain needs vision to beat Obama
by Morton Kondracke

Maybe John McCain is alarmed by such predictions. Senator McCain used the word change 33 time in his speech introducing his campaign's new slogan -- "change we need right now." In his attempt to co-opt Obama's message "change we can believe in" McCain is hoping to gain some Obama-mentum for the upcoming November election.

An insider produces a book describing "high incompetency and low deceit in the White House"... that sounds like a description of Scott McClellan's book "What Happened..." but it's not. It was a book (IN THE LAND OF THE MAGIC ASTERISK) written about the Reagan presidency by Reagan's former budget director David A. Stockman; reviewed by Michael Kinsley in the New York Times in 1986. Reagan advocated "small" government via budget cuts and tax cuts and this refrain is oft repeated by the Republicans.

John McCain is not deterred by the Reagan presidency incurring a huge national debt using just such a formula as he has proposed or by the Bush administration having surpassed all other administrations combined in the amount of debt owed by the US government. He's voted with Bush 95% of the time.

John McCain's eyes glaze over when he discusses the economy (he knows nothing about it, he's admitted -- the so-called "straight shooter, shot himself in the foot on that one!). He's no genius and his tax plan is wrong for the US economy.

Why don't the Republicans ever learn from history? Didn't they learn from the hurricane Katrina ineptitude and embarrassment? The US needs to invest in its public infrastructures to avoid such disasters happening to levees, roads, bridges, highways, schools, etc.

There's ample proof that McCain's plan to reduce the size of government to the infamous size "where we can drown it in a bathtub" is ill advised and delusional. There is no merit to his "...corporate giveaways and phony freezes and scrubs, McCain's tax agenda undermines his core political appeal" (from McCain's Delusional Tax Plan by Robert Gordon and James Kvaal).

No matter what barometer the political pundits use to gauge the political winds, it is still possible that John McCain will be our next president. I was shocked when Reagan was elected. I will be mildly amused when and if McCain is. For many reasons, but chiefly because the American "electorate" is predictably ill-informed.

If We Need A "Stimulus Package" --The US Gov't just Isn't Doing It Right

The U.S. government, robbing the poor to give to the rich. That's what they do.

While the primaries have captured the headlines, everyone is losing sight of the way this government is gaming the taxpayers everyday. This so-called "economic stimulus" package for instance is a bribe to keep the peasants from revolt, given the many ways this criminal Bush administration is ruining the economy with rising food, energy and gas costs, the lost of the US's reputation abroad (what with the sanctioning and administering of torture and war crimes -- all in the name of a war on an adjective), the continuing environmental crisis, shredding of the constitution, deteriorating infrastructure, including roads, schools, education... etc.

The media needs to focus on the many ways that the rich are gaming the system. But this is not going to happen, given that in many instances, the "corporatist" agenda is government funded and sanctioned. My definition of corporatist? The philosophy of favoring the rich to the detriment of the poor. Government welfare as long as it is done in that context is just fine and dandy in the United States of America.

War profiteering is just a tried and true method. Take a look at how taxpayers are forced to subsidize the rich, in ways that are not as obvious.

There is plenty of evidence that the average taxpayer is robbed blind by the system on many levels. The fact is, the U.S. government is run by the predominantly wealthy to profit themselves and mostly facilitates the wealth gap between them and the working class, middle-class and low-income communities.Many economist have noted the growing wealth gap; made even larger by the current Bush administration.

George W. Bush is a beneficiary from government subsidies (more on that below). It happens that his current scam at the moment is incrementally more diabolical and includes war crimes and war profiteering.

The usual government subsidy is recognized as farm subsidies for crops like corn (some diverted for ethanol production, which is causing a global food crisis). This government welfare program is justified by its proponents as a way to remain competitive in todays "global" market in spite of evidence of how it is ruining the local economies of poor countries and causing food shortages. The public are given a skewed image of the economy that leads them to believe that our economy is being compromised by immigrants, welfare mothers, the promotion of socialized medicine; therefore, some in the public don't see the need to bring quality education to public schools in the "ghetto", "barios" or inner cities of this country. Although most people see the need for "universal healthcare", they don't see it as a human right or that it should be exempt from the laws of competition.

Why do the four sports leagues get special government "welfare"; subsidies from the government that exempts them from the laws of competition. What an irony that competition is missing from an industry built for competition!

Fact: "Virtually every economic study of the issue has found that publicly funded stadiums are, at best, an inefficient investment of taxpayer dollars for the meager benefits produced and, at worst, massive payments to rich team owners and players at the expense of ordinary taxpayers." (1) Economists agree that government financing of stadiums is a bad investment for the economy. However the government continues to finance stadium constructions for the economic benefits that they are supposed to provide.

"...New Yorkers will pony up more than $200 million (to build a $1.3 billion stadium, the most expensive ever on U.S. soil), San Diegans roughly $400 million, and D.C. residents about $611 million. Just 20 years ago, that large a taxpayer subsidy would have been virtually unimaginable. In fact, Louisiana's famous Superdome, where the NFL's New Orleans Saints play, cost more than $500 million in 2006 dollars to build in 1975. At the time, the stadium was thought to be an extravagant outlier in a world where stadiums seldom cost more than $200 million in 2006 dollars. As Roger Noll and Andrew Zimbalist note in their seminal 1997 work on the subject, Sports, Jobs, and Taxes, "For a long while, this project stood out as a wild anomaly. Today, it would fit nicely in the upper range of standard experience."[8] The Superdome, 100 percent financed by taxpayers, was indeed a harbinger of things to come."
-- Stadiums and Subsidies: Home Run for Wealthy Team Owners, Strike-out for Taxpayers by Andrew Moylan of the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, 2007

Fact: In this country we are spending $2 billion a year subsidizing the big four sports: baseball, basketball, football and hockey. It accounts for all of the profits of that industry and more. There may be individual teams that make money, but the industry as a whole is not profitable. "It is shameful that the big four leagues are exempt from the laws of competition that are said to be the goal of this capitalist economy. That is; you must make a profit in order to survive and compete.

Fact: Many rich people buy professional sports franchises but don't do it because they enjoy sports, they do it to enrich themselves at the expense of taxpayers. Only the rich are given a free pass to game the system by profiteering in this way. Be it by building sports stadiums or ginning up wars for the purpose of war profiteering and empire building; the less wealthy pay a heavy price in lives lost outright or through catastrophic illness, poor health, education and other resulting social and economic inequities.

Take the plan by George W. Bush to purchase a stadium in Arlington Texas for the Texas Rangers. Bush used the “stadium-building” scam together with eminent domain abuse to transfer taxpayer money into his and his partner’s pockets. Bush himself, pocketed $17 million while failing to pay full taxes on it. Shouldn't he be required to pay or go to jail - like Wesley Snipes, for instance, who was just sentenced to 3 years for tax evasion?


Fact: In 1998 the Texas Observer called George W. Bush and other owners of the Texas Ranges "deadbeats" and "Rich deadbeats" because they failed to pay $7.5 million they owed the city of Arlington. This after Bush himself made 23 times his original investment in less than nine years from the sale of the Texas Ranges for $250 million. His original investment? $605,000.

Why are we subsidizing sports? Most of the profit goes to a privileged few and service a privileged few. In 2005, the Louisiana Superdome came to international attention when it housed thousands of evacuees seeking shelter from Hurricane Katrina. Most of the victims of Hurricane Katrina who took refuge in this stadium built with taxpayer money had never been to the Louisiana Superdome because they could not afford to pay the price of admittance at a "public" facility built with public government subsidies.

Building sports arenas with gazillion taxpayer dollars at the expense of education, housing, health and other social services are a subsidy that benefits the rich and does not benefit the community as a whole. Government subsidies that benefit a chosen few at the expense of the many are anti-democratic and should be abolished.

Source: 1. National Taxpayers Union Foundation.