OPINION:As Haiti sets its earthquake death toll at 230,000, even greater international action is needed – put Bill Clinton in charge with wide powers to act, writes JOHN O'SHEA
CONFRONTING THE biblical scale of devastation in Haiti one is dumbstruck. There are no convenient soundbytes to adequately capture the enormity of the suffering.
A tell-tale sign of a full-blown disaster is that because everything has been wiped out, anywhere is a good place to start. But as we enter our second month since the catastrophe, there is no immediate end to the nightmare.
In the short term there is the overcrowding, infection and sickness. Throw in the combination of poor sanitation and contaminated water, and you have a scene where disease could spread like wildfire. The rains will come over the next eight weeks and these too will bring new dangers. Difficult though these problems are, the aid agencies are making progress and their efforts have rightly won acclaim.
The challenges are daunting. The spine of the country has been snapped. Who will take care of the one million homeless and the million and a half who need to be fed? Port-au-Prince resembles a mini Dresden that has been bombed from above and below. A tragedy of such proportions is way beyond the scope of aid agencies; only an international global response will be sufficient.
There is no doubt Haiti’s agony has been compounded by the fact that no one took overall responsibility. In the past few days we have seen some hope. The appointment of Bill Clinton by the United States and the UN to play the role of a latter day Eisenhower to help Haiti was a major step. Another welcome development was the agreement by the G7 to cancel Haiti’s debt.
Of course, neither of these two steps were sufficient to deliver Haiti from its darkest hour. What is required is full commitment by a major western power such as the US to rebuild this shattered country. With so many homes, schools, hospitals, and factories, buried under debris, who can Haitians turn to?
A disaster of such proportions will demand some very bold thinking. Clinton carries sufficient clout on the international stage to put pressure on world leaders to get out their chequebooks and give the signal the world’s poor have been waiting for. This is a one-off opportunity to show that people do care; and that as a community, the world is capable of acting in concert for the common good.
Clinton will also have a job on his hands on Capitol Hill. He will need to persuade Washington, which has already been extremely generous to Haiti, that there is much more to be done.
Haiti needs someone to take command of the operation to rebuild the country. The global leadership vacuum has exacerbated the suffering in almost every emergency that has occurred in recent years. When it was critical that some central authority be vested with responsibility to assert control, no one stepped forward. What we do not now need is for Clinton to be sent on a mission impossible, only to be followed by Ban Ki-moon with the aid agencies bringing up the rear. Clinton must be given the resources and authority commensurate with the scope of his enormous task.
Emergencies require emergency reactions. On the ground in Haiti the situation is pathetic; people continue to take shelter huddled under sheets, blankets and curtains. Clinton must use his new role to re-energise the UN and get its members to recommit to its ideals and give the organisation some real meaning.
Crucially, his remit must run until the job of rebuilding Haiti is complete. A tall order, perhaps. But this could be a defining moment for the world’s poor.
John O’Shea is chief executive of Goal