After two weeks in Haiti, many of the 550 rescuers from the Civil Security and the 108 policemen dispatched immediately after the earthquake have returned to France. They will be received Monday by the Prime Minister. Many, like the sergeant-Dubois, confessed having been confronted with scenes and emotions of uncommon violence. “It was like a war film,” recounts Colonel Franck Louvier which has issued from county firefighters Val-d’Oise, coordinated two weeks during the intervention of French physicians in four hospitals Port-au-Prince. Equally shocked, a policeman evokes “a performance comparable to that of cities destroyed by bombing during the Second World War.” Still others describe “a gigantic project in its area”, “terrible injuries”, a “nightmare” …

Committed to 7 am to 20 hours or more each day since their arrival, often inexperienced, some soldiers have sometimes struggled to hide their fatigue. Met January 15 at the foot of the ruins of the Hotel Montana, a master physician had waived such restrain her tears. There was fatigue, frustration and genuine sadness. In the morning, the officer had to admit his impotence. The young woman he had tried for eight hours to save the rubble had died. Yet he had tried everything, still kneeling under tons of concrete to general anesthesia. “Part of his body was crushed by debris,” he explained. She did not survive the extraction. ”

Expert-rescue excavation, Lieutenant Christopher Carrier, assigned to the intervention unit of Nogent-le-Rotrou tempers: “Sure, it’s difficult to spend several days to explore the ruins but could find survivors. Sometimes we even come to say we did not do the job … And then, fortunately, we found the energy to leave each morning and it finally paid off. “In total, the men of the French Civil Security extracted from the rubble 15 of the 134 survivors recovered from the earthquake. On January 28, fifteen days after the earthquake, they have saved such a young girl of 16 who was in a state of extreme dehydration. “At the moment, we were so focused on the need to go fast you did not quite woken up to this miracle,” says Lt. Carrier. Only after quarter of an hour I suddenly was gone chills … ”

A “huge cohesion

Responsible for the field hospital located in the gardens of the Embassy of France, where nearly 140 surgical procedures have been performed since January 17, the physician-Colonel Michel Orcel believes that the “enormous cohesion of his unit is its main asset. “Of course, we all suddenly slack when we lose a patient of 20 years for which we fought for hours using all our means of resuscitation, says he. But whenever one of us falters really, it was immediately supported by the other. “Less categorical, a young lifeguard says that despite years of training, he did not expect to fully “it” – that is to say to the thousands of corpses encountered on his way since his arrival in town. “Whenever we enter the ruins we crossed one or two. In the end it becomes hard. “The awareness of his own limitations has also been a test. “We should take time to rest, it is human. But we also knew that there were dozens of Haitians, perhaps children who were trapped under the ruins, waiting for us and had little time … ”

Faced with an unprecedented wave of open fractures, deep wounds and other ground, the French doctors were often hung up with “beautiful moments of life” occurring here and there. “We have made several deliveries that every time we restore some strength,” smiled the Colonel Louvier. Christophe Carrier testified that he was “stunned” by the ability of people to bounce the reopening of small markets everywhere – while on the roadside, there were still dogs and pigs eating human remains. A military finally welcomed the “great dignity of the Haitians meet their physical pain.”

“Through their training, we at present feel that our staff are pretty well cashed the coup,” says Damien Deluz, the psychologist firefighters Val-de-Marne. For all practical purposes, all the soldiers involved have been imposing a “debrief” of 24 hours in Fort-de-France. An individualized psychological They were also proposed. “For us, the military, it is not obvious to use such support, however, said Chief Warrant Officer Eric Dubois.

The raids of the werewolf in the Champ de Mars, however, have the gift of enervating Max Beauvoir, the supreme head of the Voodoo religion in Haiti. ” “This fable is imported by Western evangelists. There never was a wolf on our island or in Africa where we come from. “Max Beauvoir declared. The gray hair can be spotted all over his head, he wears a robe over his trousers and moccasins quality shoes . He is a hougan, a  Voodoo high priest. Also called ati. “It means the great forest tree whose shadow protects small. Its major branches are used as repository for birds that foul, but fortunately the rain washed, developed the high priest.

The great days, he puts on his costume. The recent holiday season, those Makaya back in late December. They were spent in baths. An opportunity to purify themselves for the coming year. The next, those of Papa Loco, are scheduled for March. We will honor the spirit that operates the peristyle in Mariani,  a place of worship founded by Max Beauvoir.

“Divine justice is implacable”

But this well-ordered schedule is disrupted by the earthquake. Part of the temple collapsed. Luckily, the Potomitan (The main Beam) the sanctuary where the ritual takes place, is intact. The voodoo priest allows visitors to cross. “It is not a desecrate ceremony,” says Max, The “lab”, as called  by Max Beauvoir, a chemist by training, has also taken a blow. The hougan treats in this room, by techniques mysterious, the soul of its visitors. It heals a patient, for example by transferring the disease to an animal. It also conducts offerings. But the aviary was dislocated. The white doves are the sacrifices that have surged.

Sitting on the steps of the temple, a craftsman restores a statue damaged by the earthquake. It depicts a man bent on goat’s head on his shoulders a macaque. “It is very dangerous,” he warns. “He meant that divine justice is inexorable,” corrects the hougan without dwelling on the subject. He prefers to speak of the wooden effigy of Cousin Zaka, the divinity of the work, Ogou, the god of cataclysms and Dambala, the wooden stick representing the serpent god. This is unusual to deprive of speech or the use of his legs a person “owns”.

“It considers himself fortunate. Voodoo temples have fared better than the churches and the cathedral. They are still standing. I presented my condolences to the Catholic and Protestant representatives who have suffered so much, “said Max Beauvoir recalling its counterparts, the Archbishop of Port-au-Prince and the pastor of the Protestant churches, have perished in the disaster. The hougan attributes the resistance of places of worship voodoo to their hardiness, but also natural selection. “Nature has put things afloat by beating us,” says he. We have an unjust society since the death of the Emperor in 1806 (General Dessalines, the first head of state after independence, Ed). The Vatican and the major Western powers have banded together for Christians working in the deletion of voodoo, the religion of origin. All this must change. The earthquake marks the beginning of a new era. ”

Max Beauvoir is often a tone and postures Tribune. He believes, like the bishops, as the senior representative of a religious community that wants to impose on the national scene. In search of fame, he likes to show the gallery of photos that decorate the meeting room of the community. On one shot, he poses alongside Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the UN. On Monday, President René Préval has received in his office with him to prepare the ecumenical ceremony commemorating the victims provided February 12, one month to the day after the earthquake. “We will hold parallel celebrations around the meditation deities of courage, strength and love,” says the hougan.

Max Beauvoir is part of a reformist current of voodoo. He wants an occult practice exploded into many communities and families an institution like the others. An approach challenged, even feared by many observers. “This decision brings the” Voodoo on the market for competing religions with Christianity, Hinduism or Islam, is Guy Maximilian, a historian of religions. Beauvoir is a hougan that followed an initiation, but it is in its way a usurper, because the voodoo has always worked without a single direction. ”

Voodoo is the survival of the ritual events of former slaves deported from Africa. It is a cult rather complex, with its pantheon of deities, the lwa. “These mysterious and powerful entities are from the first wonder and terror of the first individual to nature. They still evoke the archaic parts of rights which poetry and religion are addressed, “said Guy Maximilian, who is also an expert in Sanskrit.

Measuring the voodoo influence on society, he said, impossible. For he would marry opposites. Confession of the shadow, it attracts and repels. “I think very few Haitians fear to join the voodoo as a religion, but they are afraid of her magic,” says William Seabrook in The Magic Kingdom, a cult novel published in 1929 with a foreword by Paul Morand . That voodoo that opens the fantasies with people turned into zombies, black magic, poisoning her, her dolls stuck with needles, his charges of gunpowder. His defenders see themselves as victims of an enterprise of demonization. “Satan is a Christian creation. We have nothing to do with it, slice Max Beauvoir.

Religion of intimate

Renowned plastic surgeon, Patrick Vilaire outlined some years ago at the Fondation Cartier in Paris. In 2008, he has presented in Amsterdam a work entitled prescient: The Potomitan or the Richter scale. The metal sculpture shows the central axis of the sanctuary of a temple shook. The column that makes the connection between the servant and God is maintained by the outstretched hands. “In conducting this work, I meant they were going to a big problem. It is home to an imbalance in our culture due to a policy and an economy that led to disaster, “he said. He added: “The earthquake has destroyed the physical and moral frame. He crushed the places of worship. It is experienced by the mass of believers as a divine punishment. People think that the voodoo gods have expressed their anger. ”

Patrick Vilaire is a sort of mystic atheism. After the earthquake, he went with some friends in mass graves for the bodies out of mass graves and bury them more acceptable. He mined the corpses, wrapped and covered in earth. Then he planted a cross on the mound. In the voodoo ritual, the dead are regarded as a carnal envelope that deserves respect. Their departure has to do with dignity. According to tradition, the spirit of the dead meets the sea are to believe Max Beauvoir, who built his temple on the coast, “a soul back sixteen times on earth to eight lives as a man and woman in eight lives. Then it becomes a pure spirit who travels at the speed of light and protects the living. ”

The Vaudouism are convinced that some of the lost tragedy of January 12 will be reincarnated in November, the month dedicated to the worship of ancestors. This is an opportunity for the deceased to pass messages to the living and ask questions. Practitioners will meet with the family. The ghost takes possession of a participant. Like every year, these celebrations of the dead will be chaired by Baron Samedi, the god of the dead, and his wife, Brigitte Grande. They are animated by Guede. “These are people who suffer unbearable not regulations. They orchestrate lascivious dances that Catholics disavowing “notes Elizabeth, wife of hougan Port-au-Prince. In the temple, a statue symbolizes the reunion: she is a woman hugging a skeleton.

The incident occurred yesterday in a suburb of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti devastated by the earthquake of January 12.

Six marine approached me, surrounded me before taking my camera in my open work bag. They then left with it, “he told the photographer Homer Cardichon, cited by the defense organization of journalists based in Paris.
“An hour later, one of them returned to photograph me and returned my camera. I found later  that soldiers had destroyed some of the photos I took,” said the photographer.

Denouncing “an act of blatant censorship,” The organization of Reporters Without Borders said that “information is essential to the reconstruction of Haiti and to the mobilization of citizens for their own future.”

More than 10,000 U.S. troops have been deployed to help Haiti after the earthquake that claimed over 200,000 lives by government.

So far, Laura Silsby, of the charity ‘Refuge for a new life for children, based in Idaho (north-western United States), was presented as the group leader. “We have come only to help children. We had good intentions,” she said.

The ten members of the group were arrested Friday near the Dominican border along with 33 children whose the youngest is 2 months old and the oldest of the 12 is 14 years old, according to sources. some have since been claimed by people posing as their parents.

Mr. Bellerive, who was speaking during a meeting with senators who have called for accountability for managing the situation, said that the government acted in its composition ACUELL can not cope with the situation.He offered as an alternative formation of an executive crisis with a redefinition of the mission of Ministers or the Cabinet minuistériel keeping with the creation of a national crisis committee.

Jean Max Bellerive asked senators to think about the 2 proposals.

He also said that more than 200,000 bodies had been counted to date, adding that this assessment does not take into account bodies still under the rubble and buried them by their own families.

For that aid is effective, it must “converge on the international level” and “internal coordination” to ensure the control, which requires the strengthening of central authority in Haiti, said Dominican President Leonel Fernandez. “First, the emergency humanitarian aid must continue, but there are logistical problems to solve. (…) We need a central authority in Haiti, which oversees the support that is happening for the ‘Humanitarian aid the desired effect, “he said.

Participants at the meeting also proposed to assess the economic impact of the earthquake and to establish a priority list in the island. Mr. Fernandez suggested that the amount of the debts of his country to be assigned to a fund for Haiti, once paid. “The Dominican Republic has a debt with the Paris Club [an informal group of official creditors that meet regularly in Paris, and whose role is to find coordinated and sustainable solutions to payment difficulties experienced by debtor nations, Editor's note ]. We will honor this debt, but we hope that this payment can be channeled towards the creation of a special fund for Haiti, “he said.

According to the Vice-President of the Spanish Government, Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, presented at the meeting, “the government and people of Haiti must be major players in the reconstruction process,” but “the involvement of the whole community International “is” necessary “.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) plans to give Haiti’s debt, about $ 480 million, said in Santo Domingo Manuel Labrador, spokesman for the institution in the Caribbean country, which also announced the provision of 364 million dollars. France also calls the cancellation of the remainder of Haiti’s debt to Paris Club creditors of key public, announced Friday the Minister of Economy Christine Lagarde. Haiti has accumulated in 2009 a debt of over $ 1 billion, mainly vis-à-vis the World Bank and IDB, but also towards the countries of the Paris Club, according to the Department of Economics Paris.

The Haitian president, René Préval, was held at the beginning of the meeting that his country’s reconstruction could be done only from the outside and passed by the “political and economic stability.” “We must strengthen democratic institutions,” he had launched. A meeting of contributors to help with Haiti will be held in Montreal January 25.

“There is no real problem with their presence. They are not trying to dominate the country militarily, they have no other purpose than the relief operation, told the press on sub – UN Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes.

“We are very happy they are there,” he said. “They have done things that we were not able, like managing the airport, help repair the port or by air transport very heavy objects that we could not carry ourselves in the first weeks.

Holmes acknowledged that American troops would sometimes help the Mission of the United Nations Stabilization in Haiti (MINUSTAH) to provide security during food distribution or, more rarely, to protect aid convoys.

But “the force keeping the peace is the primary responsibility for safety is so since the beginning and nobody disputes,” he said, estimating that U.S. and Canadian troops should not stay more than ” few months “in Haiti.

“I think that as as the UN and the normal aid is increasing, and this is beginning to accelerate now, their presence is less and less necessary and will be happy to retire,” Did he said, asserting that the U.S. military and Canadian “have other things to do.”

The United States has deployed some 20,000 troops on land and sea to participate in humanitarian aid after the earthquake of 12 January which was 170,000 deaths.

This deployment has been criticized by some South American states, including Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, who see it as an “occupation” of the poorest country in the Americas.

The Supermodel NATICO help raise money by dropping her clothes.

Picture courtesy of Kompamagazine

I can go back to the moment at 9:45pm when Anderson explained that he would need someone to take over the broadcast because he was catching an 11pm flight to the Dominican Republic to be sure to make it into Haiti in the morning. I asked myself “Where did this love for Haiti come from?” I mean in this pale skinned, thin White man, stood this glowing center of hope for my people. “Why this interest, when usually the world simply turns the page when they hear the word Haiti?” But sure enough in the morning, after 10 agonizing hours of calling family and friends with no success, it was CNN who was first on the ground. Anderson Cooper, without a red cape, with no Gold S on his chest, simply an ash grey t-shirt which somehow symbolized the grayness of the country shown behind him as he reported. First on the scene, like a doctor scrubbing into surgery, Anderson Cooper was there. Day and night it seemed he headed our plea. He became our voice. He spoke to us, thru us and for us, so that the world would listen. He represented the majority, when in reality people were not ready to see the devastation brought to my minority.

The days turned into weeks and as his images and those of Dr. Gupta continued to ravish our minds and shake our souls, we could not just sit here and do nothing. These two gentlemen become our bulldozers, they showed us what we didn’t want to see, but should see, they told us about the stories that needed to be heard, not what was scripted by CNN Studio Producers. Larry King joined the fight as Gupta and Cooper continued everyday to devote their lives to our cause. The dynamic duo is what I called them, but it is more than super hero powers that kept them at the forefront of our minds, hearts, souls, thoughts and prayers. Sheer humanity helped those men endure for us. They automatically become the face of this terrible tragedy, the light at the end of the tunnel, knowing that we could make a difference, that we would rise above everything and Live again.

Many joke that Anderson Cooper is now an Honorary Haitian, and many would love the opportunity to shake his hand, to hug him, to invite him to dinner and to simply say THANK YOU – for not leaving us behind. Thank you for coming to our rescue, Thank you for being there when no one else was, like a best friend at a time of desperation. Thank you for caring and for being the type of person we all should strive to be.

These two men, Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sonjay Gupta will receive awards from every angle, every Haitian-American association, and they will continue to receive journalistic honors for their commitment to being the eyes and ears of an entire nation. But today, I needed to genuinely and unconditionally put finger to keyboard to say, MESI AMPIL! For reminding me that it is not my country’s title of destitute, its generalization of illiteracy or blackness, nor is it its negative view from the outside of the world’s window that matters, but it is the generosity, purity, strength and determination of my people from the inside of its throbbing heart that keeps me, my children, my parents and my family alive. Through your magic lens and your surgical prowess gentlemen, the world now knows that Haiti exists and will once again pridefully stand and prevail.

–
Mia Lopez
M.I.A. Media, Inc.
Image Management-Public Relations