Four years to the day after the
devastating Haiti earthquake that killed perhaps a quarter of a million people,
the government is facing heavy criticism over the slow pace of reconstruction.
In the capital, Port-au-Prince,
the cathedral and the presidential palace still lie in ruins. Prime Minister Laurent
Lamothe said last week he was going to ‘press on the accelerator’, but the
opposition accused the government of failing to implement the recovery plan
negotiated with foreign donors.
Both parties agree, though, that
a lot of the money went on emergency aid rather than rebuilding, and they also
say that some of the promised funds never arrived. Mr Lamothe has asked for a further
$9bn in aid.
Nearly 200,000 people are still
living in very poor conditions in temporary shelters, while anti-government
protests have been growing.
*A Spanish website has reproduced
the section on the Rape of Nanking from my Historia mundial de los desastres (A Disastrous
History of the World) -
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