Haiti Earthquake Media Exaggerations: Violence, Murder & Mayhem

This is a chapter from a book that I am wrote, the Great Haiti Humanitarian Aid Swindle (2017). I originally published as it is here on Open Salon in 2011. I think it’s important because it summarizes the role that the mainstream media played inciting panic over insecurity after the earthquake. Anyone interested inRead More

Anthropology of NGOs Part II: History of Accountability in Haiti NGO Sector

This is the second part of a three part series about accountability in the NGO sector. In Part I, I examined NGO accountability globally. In this article I trace the history of NGO accountability in Haiti. In Part III, I provide recommended actions to increase accountability among NGOs in Haiti and make them more effective.Read More

Anthropology of NGOs Part I: History of NGOs and Accountability

This is the first part of a three part series about accountability in the NGO sector. Here I examine NGO accountability globally. In Part II, I trace the history of NGO accountability in Haiti. And in Part III, I provide recommended actions to increase accountability among NGOs in Haiti and make them more effective.

Earthquake in Haiti: Reply to Schuller (long version) Death Toll and Camp Population Estimates

December 29, 2011–Professor Mark Schuller’s Smoke and Mirrors in Haiti* opens a window into the twisted truths, exaggerations and self-fulfilling prophecies that still bubble forth from post-earthquake Haiti, mostly from NGOs, UN organizations, and activists like Schuller himself. Putting aside what strike me as an almost personal attack—accusing me of leaking the report and of activelyRead More

OCHA Clusters in Haiti: Bureaucratic Path to Extinction

It is one month after the earthquake and I am sitting in the restaurant of a chic colonial era hotel using the wireless. There are two other men nearby. They are seated several tables apart having a loud cross-restaurant conversation about their respective attempts to help Haiti. They are a special kind of missionary/aid workerRead More

Gender in Haiti: Short Note on Misrepresentation of Gender in Haiti

Beverly Bell, author of the acclaimed book, Walking on Fire (2001), and one of the most vigilant contributors to the gender struggle in Haiti, illustrates how many feminist activist-scholars have tended to obfuscate gender issues in Haiti when she writes, “Haitian women place at the absolute bottom in female-male life expectancy differential, incidence of teenRead More

Gender in Haiti: More on Gender in Haiti

This is a longer version of the blog “short note on gender in Haiti.” I’ve expanded it in part because I don’t think the other blog was fair to Beverly Bell. It appeared that I was singling her out and she is by no means the first or only writer-scholar to project a Western partriarchicalRead More

Explaining Gender in Haiti: Review of the Literature

This is a much expanded version of two shorter blogs, ‘A Short Note about Gender in Haiti‘ and ‘More on Gender in Haiti.’ It sums up the radical misunderstanding that seemingly all NGOs and journalists as well as many scholars have presented of gender in Haiti before and after the earthquake.

Big Lies about Little People: The War Between UNICEF and the Orphanages, Battleground Haiti

Following the January 2010 Haiti earthquake there were a lot of exaggerations, truth-twisting and outright lies. But perhaps none exceeded those that came from the mouths of child protection workers and orphanage owners. With UNICEF and Save the Children leading the way, orphanages fanning the flames, and the press publishing almost anything anyone said–no matterRead More

Anthropology of NGOs Part III: Proposal for NGO Accountability in Haiti

This is Part III of a three part series about accountability in the NGO sector. In Part I, I examined NGO accountability globally. In Part II, I traced the history of NGO accountability in Haiti. In this Third Part, I provide recommended actions to increase accountability among NGOs in Haiti and make them more effective.Read More

Anthropology of NGOs