Cruise ships still find a Haitian berth
Luxury liners are still docking at private beaches near Haiti’s devastated earthquake zone for holidaymakers to enjoy the water.
Sixty miles from Haiti’s devastated earthquake zone, luxury liners dock at private beaches where passengers enjoy jet ski rides, parasailing and rum cocktails delivered to their hammocks.
This reminds me of a book I read a couple of years ago, Emergency Sex (and Other Desperate Measures), written by three young UN workers. It’s an account of their work in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti, and Liberia.
Andrew, one of the authors and a doctor from New Zealand, recounts how one day he got away from it all to head to the beach, and encounters a cruise ship full of tourists who had just disembarked. None of them had any idea of what was happening in Haiti; they didn’t even know they were in Haiti. All their maps showed was the island of Hispaniola, with Labadie Beach indicated.
He explains some of what’s going on (military coup, macoutes, and UN’s civilian human rights observer mission) to a few of the tourists. One of them (who mentioned that he used to be in the military) had this to say:
“Something should be done,” he says. “It sounds terrible. Maybe this Labadie place, I mean this Haiti place, needs an old-fashioned American invasion, you know, marines, to get the bad guys out.”
Yup. Cos that’ll fix it.
73 Notes