In Reply to 22 AUG 2011 Post: Haiti's Questionable Earthquake Death Toll

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Brian McMichael

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Aug 25, 2011, 11:59:03 AM8/25/11
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U.S. State Department Report: Scientific, It Is Not
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Category: International
Published on Monday, 30 May 2011 10:24
 

Department Spokesman Mark Toner [file]

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Late Friday night, a report commissioned by the U.S. State Department was leaked to the AFP. The report presented itself as a scientific analysis of data that would suggest widely accepted earthquake figures of 17 months had been significantly offset.

The report claims the death toll from the January 12 2010 earthquake is not on the order of 250,000 to 300,000, as most had come to believe, but was at about 66,000. The numbers of displaced persons was also challenged, going from 680,000 to as low as 5% of that figure.

Commissioned by the U.S. State Department, dated May 13 (or March 13), and entitled, "Building Assessments and Rubble Removal in Quake-Affected Neighborhoods in Haiti", the report, although well presented, lacked the scientific integrity needed to make such claims.

The lack of integrity, comes from the authors of the report, Timothy Schwartz, Eric Calpas and a Dr. Yves-Francois Pierre. It's writer Schwartz has a record of bias that should have discounted his participation on its face. The contributors Calpas and Pierre, are compromised by very notable conflicts of interests that span from disarming Haiti to selling off its land to corporations.

The original article, written by Emily Troutman, listed the names of the authors (4th to the last paragraph) but since the first release, the names of the authors had been omitted, as the original article was modified .

Defend Haiti documents and maintains records of the Haitian culture, its experience and the way it is portrayed. Following the modifications and upon further research, it is again reaffirmed that the record keeping is for good reason.

Authors of the Report

A writer at Open Salon, a website that provides space for people to publish their opinion pieces, in March of 2011, Timothy Schwartz posted a chapter of a book that he is writing. A chapter entitled "Rape, murder and voodoo on the Island of the Damned."

Schwartz's chapter talks about his experience in Haiti after the earthquake, where he helped U.S. soldiers of the 82nd airborne load thick, heavy metal plates into the back of a pickup truck. These plates were body armor. Schwartz and the rescuers were apparently anticipating a "break down in society." Schwartz also noted that "all foreign embassy personnel and their families had to leave the island" as he was arriving with the 82nd, "the US's most elite fighting forces."

The writer at Open Salon is especially concerned with anticipating violence and chaos in Haiti. He calls the first reaction of the press on January 13, "an appropriate one," as he begins to make notice of articles written.

Schwartz quotes, "machete-wielding young men who roam the streets, their faces hidden by bandanas", "survivors making barricades out of bodies" and "violence has been increasing."

Perhaps the most interesting of Schwartz quotes were "providing humanitarian aid requires a safe and secure environment." An interesting take as, if there is a safe and secure environment, chances are humanitarian aid is not needed in the first place. This was the justification for tons, upon tons of aid sitting in the Haitian airports as the citizens of Haiti, were made to wait by the gates, in long lines, with growing impatience after an apocalyptic disaster.

Other writings by Schwartz include titles such as:

"Short Note on Misrepresentation of Gender in Haiti." In this piece Schwartz discredits the hardship of women in Haiti.

"Development and Decline of Social Science: Haiti Case." This composition is part of a book Schwartz wrote entitled "Fewer Men More Babies: Sex, Family and Fertility in Haiti." The over arching opinion that Schwartz hopes to make is that Haitians engage in polygamy, which can be seen by another title of another post that he calls "Gender in Haiti: the Case of Polygyny."

The other two contributors to the U.S. State Department report turn up questions as well.

Eric Calpas, is part of the United Nations Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (UNDDR) organization who is aiming for the disarmament of Haiti. His organization, although for the disarmament of Haitians, does not question the arms of MINUSTAH and other foreign forces.

The second of the two contributors to the report is Dr. Yves-Francois Pierre, Haitian and the only person with academic credentials to be a research and analyst but his current and previous work is not above reproach. Dr. Pierre is a consultant for the Gonave Development Corporation and currently holds this position. The GDC as it is called has been working with the Former President, Rene Preval, administration for some time in an effort to buy the island of La Gonave for foreign corporations. This may also the coincidental publishing of the State Department's report, May 13, the day before the inauguration of the new President Michel Martelly.

Scientific, this report is not.

It is befuddling that the State Department would commission a scientific report, dealing with numbers, data and their analysis critical for a neighboring nation's development, from a writer of opinions and contributors that present significant conflicts of interest.

It has been a year and half since the devastating earthquake of January 12 took the lives of a quarter-million people and left nearly a million homeless. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, the Head of the United Nations Envoy to Haiti has been working on the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission of Haiti charged with planning the disbursement of billions of dollars. Many people find it hard to believe that these international groups, the Former President and the United Nations would not have had a better grasp of the specifications before getting involved.

One side is lying. Either it is the international community that now wants to lead off the reconstruction of Haiti, without participation or representation of the Haitian people, or it is the State Department and the writers of their report who also have their own gains and interests, that do not regard the Haitian people.

It seems as there is conflict amongst themselves.

On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 9:51 PM, <haitiprp...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Group: http://groups.google.com/group/haitiprp/topics

    "haitiprp forum" <hait...@gmail.com> Aug 22 10:09PM -0600 ^
     
    http://open.salon.com/blog/timotuck/2011/05/29/haitis_questionable_earthquake_death_toll
    MAY 30, 2011 12:20AM
     
    Haiti's Questionable Earthquake Death Toll
     
    Timothy Schwartz
     
    This is a response to a report that I wrote for USAID regarding the Haiti earthquake death toll. I don't know if I am even free to discuss the report because it's not official yet. However, what I can do is discuss the validity of the Haiti earthquake death toll count and whether or not a low death toll estimate should come as a surprise. The answer is "no," it should not be a surprise, not to anyone in Haiti. Here's a review of how the government arrived at the death toll and summary of data I compiled from elsewhere and that bears on the death toll.
     
    On the 14th of January, day two after the Earthquake, President Preval said that estimates of the number dead ranged from 30,000 to 50,000 but concluded that, "It's too early to give a number," (CNN 14).
     
    On the 16th of January the Red Cross estimated 45,000 to 50,000 dead and PADF 50,000 to 100,000. They based it on their volunteers.
     
    On the 16th of January, the very next day, the government tripled the number, issuing an official declaration of 140,000 dead.
     
    On the 23rd, after Belgian disaster response expert Claude de Ville de Goyet noted that "round numbers are a sure sign that nobody knows." The government almost immediately offered a precise figure of 111,481 dead.
     
    But on the next day, January 24th , they upped the figure to an even 150,000 killed, an increase of 38,000 over the day before. The same day, Secretary-General Edmund Mulet of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti, put the figure at 112,350 dead, 194,000 injured. It was not clear what he based his estimate on.
     
    One week later, on Saturday the 31st , the Haitian government added a rather exact 100,000 to the UN figure, saying the death toll was 212,000.
     
    Three days later, Wednesday February 3rd, Ministry of Communications raised the official death toll to 230,000 and then President Rene Preval added another 40,000 to the count, saying that the government had buried 270,000 bodies.
     
    When Michelle Faul of the AP called and inquired regarding how the government was arriving at its figures, the press secretary withdrew the statement, saying there was an error. Within minutes it was re-issued.
     
    The next day, under pressure to explain, the ministry again said that it was a typo, the number should have read 170,000. But in the same conversation the Minister concluded that, "For the moment we count 230,000 deaths,"-60,000 more than she had said the day before. But even that was not definitive, "It's a partial figure."
     
    When Michelle Faul tried to figure out how they arrived at the new figures, she was told that the government organization CNE was counting. CNE officials referred questions to the prime minister's office. The prime minister's office referred questions to the Prime Minister's Secretary-General. The Prime Minister's Secretary-General could not be reached. Someone along the way said that it was not CNE that was counting, it was CP (Civil Protection). CP director Alta Jean-Baptiste referred questions to Ministry of Interior Antoine Bien-Aime who assured Faul that, "CP is doing a precise count and the numbers they give out are numbers that are proven." When Faul asked how they arrived at the numbers, he couldn't say.
     
    When Faul went out to the government sites CNE drivers and workers told her that, "no one has been keeping tabs." One of the workers told her that, "The trucks were just dropping people wherever, and then we would move in and cover them up.It was impossible to do a count."
     
    Assad Volcy, a spokesman for the National Palace, tried to clear matters up. "experts" he said, had devised a formula to calculate how many quake victims have been buried. When asked what that formula was, Volcy said he didn't know.
     
    On the 15th of Februrary, CP officially declared 217,366 people died from the 12 January earthquake. They also said that 1,301,491 people were living in tent cities.
     
    The only news agency to ever question the death count issue again was Netherlands Radio Worldwide http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/haiti-quake-death-toll-well-under-100000 whose journalists carefully checked all the Government sources, visiting cemeteries and burial grounds, and concluded on February 23rd that even if 30,000 people were still under the rubble and another 10,000 disposed of privately or burned, there were still no more than 92,000 people killed and probably less. They pointed to gross inconsistencies, such as that the Central government reported 20,000 to 30,000 deaths in Leogane, while local Leogane authorities claimed to have buried 3,364 (two weeks after the earthquake they had told me 1,600). The Central government also claimed 4,000 dead in Jacmel, while local Jacmel authorities reported 300 to 400 dead (ACTED a French NGO whose workers were involved in burying the dead reported 145).
     
    On February 21, President Preval raised the total body count to 300,000
     
    It seems pretty clear that no one, not the government nor anyone else, had any idea how many people were killed. But the interesting thing is that, while I am not impugning any motivations, almost everyone who had anything to do with any type of official agency or NGO seemed deliberately bent on skewing the numbers as high as they possibly could. And they did so with total disregard for the evidence.
     
    The UN--which on the anniversary of the earthquake posted on their website,"The quake killed more than 200,000 Haitians and left more than two million homeless"-- lost 101 out of 9,151 international staff in Haiti at the time of the earthquake (1.1%). The US embassy which also repeated the government death toll of over 200,000 lost 1 of 172 foreign staff members (0.58%) and 6 of 800 staff members (0.75%). Of the 43,000 US citizens and residents in Haiti at the time the embassy was able to determine that 104 had been killed; 2,000 they could not locate (not unusual at the best of times). The Canadian Embassy reported losing 58 of 6,000 citizens in Haiti at the time (0.97%). The Dominicans lost 24 of 2,600 (0.92%), some 22 of whom were female sex workers who died in a single building.
     
    The Haitian Government, which to this day issues varying claims of 17 to 30% of all civil servants killed, never has provided precise lists, not to anyone. The only thing we know for sure was that the parliament and the police were hit very hard. In the days after the earthquake, Mario Andresol, the Chief of Haiti's 8,000 member police force had said "We lost 70 police officers, nearly 500 are still missing and 400 were wounded." When all was said and done we know that 77 policemen were killed (that's 0.73% of the 10,544 police in Haiti, and if we figure that 80% are in Port-au-Prince-standard-- then its about 0.9% of those in Port-au-Prince were killed. We also know that two of 2 of 100 senators were killed and no congressman or ministers.
     
    After the second or third week journalists were no longer asking aid agencies about how many staff they had lost and the agencies were deferring to the Haitian Government for their figures. The United Nations, which had early on declared that it would come up with an official estimate, subsequently declined to conduct its own count. The Red Cross was mum. No other NGO ever questioned the figures again. On the contrary, as with the UN and the embassies, they invariably latched on to and restated the government figures.
     
    In June 2010, the home page for Oxfam, which lost one of its 100 employees in Port-au-Prince at the time of the earthquake, was citing the government figure of 230,000; CRS lost none of its 100 employees in Port-au-Prince but was citing the same figures; World Vision lost none of its 95 staff in Port-au-Prince but implied there were more, saying "at least 230,000 dead;" MSF lost 7 of its staff of 800 but said the earthquake, "killed hundreds of thousands of people." The Red Cross was the same, they lost no one. God's Littlest Angels, featured on CBC, ABC, CNN, and Larry King, same, they lost no one either. Most NGOs lost no one. Businesses were the same: Triology lost 5 of 576 (0.9%); Digicel, 2 of 900 (0.02%); CEMEX, 0 of 115; Petion Ville Golf and Tennis Club 0 of 100, not a single employee even lost a home.
     
    Intellectually, I really don't care how many people got killed in the earthquake. The draft report for USAID was simply a job I was performing with a team of some 20 University educated professionals, including two other PhDs. But personally, for me, in terms of the tragedy, less is better. And at about 60,000 dead, that's still a huge tragedy.
     
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Brian McMichael, M.D.
PGY4, Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation
Tufts Medical Center
800 Washington St., Box 387
Boston, MA 02111
Pager 781-226-0112 / In-House 8424

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