Is this a possibility?

Those were my thoughts exactly HB and maybe out of all this pain and misery, Haiti will have a brighter future than it had before the quake!

While I don't disagree with Black Dog, I can't possibly see a dicrease of Haitian presence in the DR. It simply won't happen. Period.

I don't buy into the "rebuilding" argument.

There's more than enough men & women to rebuild, with foreign aid.

Haitians in DR are here to stay, whether we like it or not.

That said, the interesting part of this terrible disaster is that Haiti is slowly "unofficially" turning into a US protectorate, which is not bad...

A "re-colonization" is de-facto Haiti's only hope...

HB- when you consider millions of Haitians hungry and dehydrated, how far will a billion go? Consider the human factor alone as it concerns food and water.

That billion will evaporate quicker than water on the Sahara desert.

CNN reports disaster relief experts mirroring my same concerns.

Squat said:

That said, the interesting part of this terrible disaster is that Haiti is slowly "unofficially" turning into a US protectorate, which is not bad...

A "re-colonization" is de-facto Haiti's only hope...

Click to expand...

Didn't they already have something similar with 9,000 UN peacekeeping troops and dozens if not near a hundred varying humanitarian organizations?

I doubt the US will rebuild Haiti completely. Louisiana still has great swaths destroyed after Katrina.

Amtrak is still waiting for money from the GOV to rebuild its RR lines leading into NO from Miami.

I'm sure there will be more forthcoming!

Squat said:

That said, the interesting part of this terrible disaster is that Haiti is slowly "unofficially" turning into a US protectorate, which is not bad...

A "re-colonization" is de-facto Haiti's only hope...

Click to expand...

I agree. I can see no other realistic alternative to rebuilding Haiti.

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime". As opposed to the handout culture that existed before the earthquake and many NGO's enabled.

This is an opportunity to make a difference in Haiti, it just needs the right people, sustainable plan, billions $$$ and many, many years.

Haitians have been used as the primary labor force on all the major constructions in the DR in recent years, so I have no doubt that will be the same with any re-building work in Haiti.

Onions/Carrots said:

I doubt the US will rebuild Haiti completely. Louisiana still has great swaths destroyed after Katrina.

Amtrak is still waiting for money from the GOV to rebuild its RR lines leading into NO from Miami.

Click to expand...

New Orleans is still damaged, but this has a lot to do with residents re-settling outside of Orleans Parish, i.e. Metairie and the West Bank, where the population has exploded after the storm. Something to consider in regards to PAP.

Also, Amtrak doesn't own any of the rail lines in the region, and CSX rebuilt the bridge at mobile bay, so I'm not sure what to make of that.

Speaking of New Orleans, the influx of money after Katrina drew thousands of out-of-state contractors, undocumented workers, and do-gooders to the city, many of whom are still there. Suppose the international community decided they were going to stick around awhile and rebuild the infrastructure enough to give Haiti a chance at success. Could "reverse-flow" include Dominican workers crossing the border to get a piece of the action? Now that would be something.

Chris

Robert said:

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime". As opposed to the handout culture that existed before the earthquake and many NGO's enabled.

This is an opportunity to make a difference in Haiti, it just needs the right people, sustainable plan, billions $$$ and many, many years.

Haitians have been used as the primary labor force on all the major constructions in the DR in recent years, so I have no doubt that will be the same with any re-building work in Haiti.

Click to expand...

Agree.

Just to elaborate that the right people are those who can think with their minds and not their feelings, people who can take widespread discrediting, criticism and personal attacks and still march forward with the plan. What has to be done in Haiti is not pretty, its not easy to swallow, and its not "touchy feely", but it will save that country in the long run.

Haiti needs real leaders who are willing to be demonized while they are alive by those who can't see past their emotions, leaders that can handle that gut wrenching feeling of knowing you are doing the right thing but there are plenty of people criticizing you to a degree not unlike the inquisition, leaders that can handle knowing that in the short run most people will not like them and can still look at people in the eyes while he (or she) knows they may be thinking lowly of him.

That's the basic problem with finding true leaders. Being a leader is not making the decision that feels good or that will make you popular, its making the decision that needs to be done and taking the personal blow it comes with it.

People are like kids when you take them to the doctor to get vaccinated. They may hate you at that moment, they may think you are doing them harm by putting them through the pain a syringe creates, and it may affect you to think that your kid may be thinking lowly of you at that moment for putting him/her through that experience. The only consolation you'll have is knowing that he/she will live a longer, healthier, better life because of that decision you made with your mind and not your feelings.

Of course, kids don't hold grudges for long, so may be that's not the best example, but it makes my point.

With time people realize that what a true leader did was the right thing, but of course, in most instances that time comes after the leader is dead.

Haiti doesn't need attention starving people, it doesn't need the get-rich-quick starving people, it needs people that know what they should be doing and not what will make them popular or liked or rich or give them that warm fuzzy feeling inside.

I fear Haitians will , like electricity, will naturally migrate towards the way of "least resistance". Again, in that environment, the way of least resistance is certainly NOT cake walk!
I fear that their perception of "least resistance" will be to leave and go where things "are" believed to be "better".
I am sorry to say this in these times of hardship, but the Haitians have acted like the locust in their own country for decades before and after dictatorships and certainly until January 12th.
I would love to be able to embrace Hillbilly's positive thinking. I fear however it will go under as wishful thinking. I hate to think that, specially when I like to think of myself of somebody who seeks and finds solutions... however, I don't see anything which would remotely qualify as one.
Far worse, I fear, January 12th may be remembered in history as the date everything on Hispaniola island changed. I fear hunger at large scale, civil unrest and even a war, not of armies but of nations... of "cultures" and peoples.
On an other thread on that very subject, an article out of a large paper in the US was quoted, questioning the need of a new culture in Haiti.
One may want to define "culture" first, but I think, that the open minded will get the general drift. I don't just think that it may be needed in Haiti, but here as well.
While Haitians have made a name for themselves as hard working men and women in the construction sector, they have failed as a nation to make a name for themselves as constructive minded people. Sure, they have had their unfair share of bad luck, but somehow, their general "culture", education or lack thereof has shaped them into a nation which has grassed off their country to the last resource and beyond and failed to remember to re-seed, build, better and re-build.
As huge an impact as the recent event is and will be, I fear it will not be enough to nudge a nation's global mindset into a more constructive one.

Education, education and re-education will be needed. The problem with that is, that it will take years, not to say a decade at least for such a re-set operation to start to show fruit. What shall be of them until the results start to kick in?
This is the main reason I see, politicians even here, choose to bypass this evidently vital option; the rewards would only be seen long after their political lifespan has long evaporated.

I wished, I could contribute a more positive image, idea or theory so much, I envy Hillbilly for being able to have generated these hopes.

... J-D.

Robert said:

Haitians have been used as the primary labor force on all the major constructions in the DR in recent years, so I have no doubt that will be the same with any re-building work in Haiti.

Click to expand...

This is the problem with foreign intervention in state building. The contractors that we have in Iraq and Afghanistan overcharge the federal government and for the most part have done an abysmal job at reconstructing their infrastructure. In Baghdad they are still without 24-hour electricity, their hospitals and schools are still understaffed and under-supplied and potable water is still a pressing issue. That is disgraceful given the amount of taxpayer money that has been poured into both those countries.

And we're talking about a country (Iraq) that is oil wealthy. Imagine in Haiti. Yes, there are many Haitians involved in the construction business in the DR who have plenty of experience and expertise. But will they be hired to be nothing more than cheap labor?

The international community needs to let the Haitians do it themselves from start to finish. Hiring foreign contractors is going to lead to fraud and abuse, just like we have in the Middle East. If we are going to have an imperialistic mindset as to who gets these contracts, you will see that in a few years time the money spent will not equal the progress that should have been made. Just like in Iraq.

And then we will have the same arguments over and over again. There is no excuse that such a proud, hard-working people should not be responsible for rebuilding their own country when the fact is they do work in the DR no Dominican would EVER do. With that type of work ethic Haiti can be rebuilt and in the near future they could be on their way towards forward progress.

The problem is not the Haitian work ethic but building without following a building code, and at the same time using substandard building supplies. There needs to be watch dogs to ensure two things: money goes to where it should, and infrastructure is correctly built.

Berzin said:

There is no excuse that such a proud, hard-working people should not be responsible for rebuilding their own country when the fact is they do work in the DR no Dominican would EVER do. With that type of work ethic Haiti can be rebuilt and in the near future they could be on their way towards forward progress.

Click to expand...

Just to add: at the prevailing wages.

Dominicans are doing those jobs... outside the DR. And, except for cutting sugar cane, Dominicans have been until the last 10 to 20 years the main source of labor for every sector that is currently dominated by Haitian laborers.

Haitians can rebuild their country, but they need to want to do that. Its interesting to see people, some of whom are in this website, already looking for excuses to explain why they will fail before they even start. People hardly achieve anything with that type of attitude.

Our world community needs a common humanitarian effort just like this one to realize we are one human family.
May the right people emerge as leaders in Haiti to bring us to realize it, and make a visible difference.
MKohn

Rebuilding Haiti

I drove 6 of my Haitian construction workers to the border as they had no news of their families. Only two have come back with awful news of dead family members. Yesterday I asked the remaining workers if I had the opportunity to find a reconstruction contract in Haiti, would they be interested in being part of the team...The response was a 100 percent excited YES.

The Haitians in DR are never going to leave.

NEVER, they have come and been allowed into the country and see what is here and once they've tasted that what to them is paradise. They aren't going to want to return to that, all they remember is hunger, misery, aftershocks and people begining to devour one another for what they believed we're expired crackers. Once they see that the Dominican Immigration authorities can't touch them and that they can get away with literal murder, set up shops on any corner to sell phone cards, platanos or those gosh darn beautiful paintings. They aren't going anywhere except to the Cedulas office.

Have any of you ever tried to reason with one of those people and talked to them. It's like talking to a stubborn mule, a wall, a flower pot, they repeat the same thing, yell and do that sorry fearful silent nodding his head humble victim act, yet once they feel safe the haitian springs on you. I've seen it as a boy as a Haitian refugee from the fall of the Duvalier's called Habichuelitas, showed up in the neighborhood and people gave him food and clothes, "la pobre criatura" they called him. He camped in a field nearby, the owner of a colmado gave him work and eventually Habichuelitas killed him for some pesos and disappeared, who knows where. Of course many will ask but what did he do to poor Habichuelitas, he deserved to get stabbed 5 times, because the poor immigrant was a victim of the dictatorship.

The Haitians in Dario Contreras arrived there in the hundreds, bathing and cooking in the hallways, in hallways of a hospital!!!!!!!!!!

The hospital is now on lockdown, that is just a microcosm of events that will take place soon. I see bad things happening with these hordes coming over to STAY...I live partially in Miami, been there for over 20 years and when the Haitians first got here it was the same thing, the areas where they lived became slums from one day to the next. The streets paralyzed everytime they wanted to protest their "rights", while they robbed us ours to live a peaceful existence. Welcome to the future of the DR.

I want the BEST for Haiti but not at the expense of the DR.
So get ready guys it's gonna be a bumpy ride for us all.

Lando calrisian said:

The Haitians in DR are never going to leave.

NEVER, they have come and been allowed into the country and see what is here and once they've tasted that what to them is paradise. They aren't going to want to return to that, all they remember is hunger, misery, aftershocks and people begining to devour one another for what they believed we're expired crackers. Once they see that the Dominican Immigration authorities can't touch them and that they can get away with literal murder, set up shops on any corner to sell phone cards, platanos or those gosh darn beautiful paintings. They aren't going anywhere except to the Cedulas office.

Have any of you ever tried to reason with one of those people and talked to them. It's like talking to a stubborn mule, a wall, a flower pot, they repeat the same thing, yell and do that sorry fearful silent nodding his head humble victim act, yet once they feel safe the haitian springs on you. I've seen it as a boy as a Haitian refugee from the fall of the Duvalier's called Habichuelitas, showed up in the neighborhood and people gave him food and clothes, "la pobre criatura" they called him. He camped in a field nearby, the owner of a colmado gave him work and eventually Habichuelitas killed him for some pesos and disappeared, who knows where. Of course many will ask but what did he do to poor Habichuelitas, he deserved to get stabbed 5 times, because the poor immigrant was a victim of the dictatorship.

The Haitians in Dario Contreras arrived there in the hundreds, bathing and cooking in the hallways, in hallways of a hospital!!!!!!!!!!

The hospital is now on lockdown, that is just a microcosm of events that will take place soon. I see bad things happening with these hordes coming over to STAY...I live partially in Miami, been there for over 20 years and when the Haitians first got here it was the same thing, the areas where they lived became slums from one day to the next. The streets paralyzed everytime they wanted to protest their "rights", while they robbed us ours to live a peaceful existence. Welcome to the future of the DR.

I want the BEST for Haiti but not at the expense of the DR.
So get ready guys it's gonna be a bumpy ride for us all.

Click to expand...

Chill

The UN is setting up a hospital site for 10,000 on the border

Massive international aid is coming in

Leonel and the EU and the US and everyone is going to get a ten year plan together

do not spout your ugly xenophobic views here when your countryman are being so open hearted and generous

this is a TRAGEDY for ALL of us HERE
stay safe in MIAMI
and take that rant over to the OTHER board where it is welcomed

The truth is ugly sometimes Annie. This black DOMINICAN with dark eye's, bembon and cabello malo stands by his statement.