Has the American Red Cross got Haitian Blood on their Hands?

Imagine you are the trustee of a hospital run entirely with donations.  You have decided that you prefer to keep this donated money for yourself. Let those dirty disease ridden people die - they do not matter anyway! Could you be accused of wrongdoing at the very least?

This is how the American Red Cross executive and most large NGO's have been operating with seventy five per cent of the funds donated to Haiti, since a year ago now and refuse to let go of this money. Of the twenty five percent that was spent, there is not much to account for.[1]

Had the total 494 million dollars collected by the American Red Cross been directed to empowering grassroots organizations on the ground to build freshwater wells, washrooms with incorporated workshops, the cholera epidemic would probably not have spread. There would have been by the most conservative estimates of 10,000 US dollars per unit, some 50,000 units with permanent independent wells and washrooms.[2]

What would that have meant for the state of the nation of Haiti today? Would there even have been a cholera crisis to begin with? The neighboring Domincan Republic has seen 82 cases of cholera thus far and not one death, only 9 hospitalized. [3] Clean water and hygiene are the most fundamental antidotes to the spread of any disease, regardless of its origins. Leaving people to live in squallid and unhygienic conditions a sure recipe for disaster.

The American Red Cross executives have decided to keep the money donated to the people of Haiti. Collecting 90,000 US dollars interest on top of that, which will not go to Haiti is more than severe, it is borderline criminal. How many lives could have been saved with the availability of clean running water and hygienic sanitation? 

"Relief organizations raised $4 billion in private donations since January; another ~$11 billion was given or pledged from other sources. Ten months later, the relief organizations have spent maybe half. Major NGOs self-identifying as contributing to water and sanitation relief together spent 27% of the money they raised as of June 9, 2010 (the last available collected data)." [4]

What about the Haiti Funds currently stiill being withheld by Clinton Foundation, Catholic Relief Services, Oxfam, Salvation Army, Food for the Poor, Mercy Corp., International Medical Corp., World Vision, and Care? Is there no accountability in this kind of outright looting?

In the wake of a corrupt election recently held in the nation and more than half of the Interim Haitian Reconstruction Commission [5] being foreign business people - a comission which requires 100 million dollars to be seated on, alone, we can not wait for corruption to dissipate from the Haitian geography before getting this desperately needed help to ailing people it was precisely intended for.

We, in the US, who donated - rich or poor - can not let what seems to amount to grave negligence on behalf of the American Red Cross executive be ignored. Neither will we ever shake the images of Black New Orleanian’s being deprived of water and shelter by the Red Cross and National Guard, separated from their families on buses as they were forced to relocate to undisclosed cities after days left starving and neglected, and forced out at gunpoint in a time of crisis and urgency. There seems to be a familiar pattern to this activity.

The American Red Cross and other NGO's have demonstrated that they are incapable of implementing the processes for rebuilding under turmoil. Perhaps they should turn this money over to the Cuban doctors, Builder without Borders and a Host of Grassroots Haitian organizations already in gear on the ground doing great work for their nation. This would also create living wage jobs in Haiti.

The Racist, cruel and inhumane policies towards Haitians as practiced by the American Red Cross as those of all NGO's must go. We the undersigned demand that the American Red Cross and all NGO's and 50 Nations release funds pledged to Haiti for the sole purpose of saving lives effective immediately.