![]() Haiti has been ‘in development’ for more than 50 years and the overwhelming evidence on every available measure is clear: complete failure. The issue is what kind of development: by whom, for whom, with whom. Haiti is, in one UN official’s words, ‘a humanitarian problem for which there are only development solutions’. In other words, the pre-existing condition – a desperate lack of housing, sanitation, healthcare, education, all made much worse by the earthquake – has now, post-relief, to be confronted, if not treated. The disaster was what doctors call ‘acute on chronic’. It all demonstrates that the abiding truths about Haiti are the same post-earthquake as they were before it. A much smaller number have accepted small cash sums from landlords or officials to move elsewhere – anywhere else. Threats and violence from landowners and even municipal officials determined to ‘cleanse’ occupied space (in the words of one local mayor) have seen tens of thousands evicted in total defiance of Haitian law. Many have returned to badly damaged, unsafe structures some are housed in the transitional T-shelters springing up where rubble has been cleared, and some have just formed other ‘unofficial’ (read, ‘uncounted’) camps. ![]() ![]() No-one keeps track of where they have gone – the aim here is to show ‘results’ in closing down camps, not the consequences of such a strategy.
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