Related: from Democracy Now on January 22, Sister Mary Finnick who runs an aid mission called Matthew 25 House in Port-Au-Prince had this to say about the lack of adequate aid following the earthquake.
SISTER MARY FINNICK: "If we had gotten aid by even Wednesday night—what is now going to take place and what’s going to be on American television are the riots, the shooting, and that’s exciting for people to see, but it should not have happened. It didn’t have to happen. If we had gotten the supplies, people, by now, would be more than likely out of the city of Port-au-Prince. There’s plenty of places in Haiti for them to go to. We didn’t have any fuel. We can’t get them to get their cars out. They wanted to go out.
There was truly a very organized plan on the part of the Haitian people. But what you’re going to see now are the riots. When the food comes in, if you’ve been hungry for a whole week, if your child is dying of malnourishment—over and over again we said we have to have a plan. Well, disasters don’t do well with waiting for a plan. And I’m afraid what I think is going to happen is what the American people will see are undisciplined, horrible Haitian people, who are probably the best in the world with dealing with their adverse poverty. Their spirit is just fantastic. And I’m just sorry that that’s not what’s going to be seen, because nobody was here to film it. Nobody was here to watch how they organized themselves. What they’re going to see is how they are disorganized, and that’s such shame."
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