Danger, Danger, Will Robinson!

[bcholmes]

Forbes magazine has named Haiti one of the world's 10 most dangerous destinations, along with Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.

The Associated Press has called Port-au-Prince the kidnapping capital of the Americas.

The U.S. government maintains a perpetual travel warning on Haiti, while diplomats, journalists and aid workers spend much of their time holed up in fortified hotels.

The image stems largely from two violent years after the 2004 U.S. ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide when the slums of Port-au-Prince erupted in gunbattles between gangs, Haitian police and U.N. peacekeepers, plus a wave of kidnappings.

Today, Haiti's reputation is undeserved, say security analysts and officials from the U.N. peacekeeping mission. They argue that Haiti is no more violent than any other Latin American country.

"It's a big myth," said Fred Blaise, spokesman for the U.N. police force in Haiti. "Port-au-Prince is no more dangerous than any big city. You can go to New York and get pickpocketed and held at gunpoint."

— Reed Lindsay, "BRIEFING: Haiti's image of fear 'a big myth' to some", The Washington Times

You don't see many articles about Haiti that suggest that Haiti's reputation as a dangerous place is over-hyped. This is one of the few.

I met with Reed Lindsay during one of my trips to Haiti (he lives there full time). He has some great journalistic insights into the country.

Comments

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

Yay for some reliable information.

Lindsay's a shill

[(Anonymous)]

Your 'friend' Reed Lindsay is a shill for the UN mission in Haiti.

http://haitiaction.net/News/HIP/4_13_8/4_13_8.html

The dire situation of Haiti's poor went largely ignored by Alexis' government and the United Nations. International press reports in the months leading to the open rebellion against hunger in the streets led casual observers to believe the situation was normalizing. The international press actually helped to obscure the reality of hunger and misery in Haiti. On March 8. 2008, Reed Lindsay reported in the Washington Times, "U.N. peacekeepers in Haiti say they are battling an image of fear that is keeping the Caribbean nation mired in hunger and disease, with little hope of attracting foreign visitors and investment.' Lindsay's fundamental point being that the only thing standing between Haiti and prosperity was merely the perception of ‘hunger and disease.'

Re: Lindsay's a shill

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I have great respect and admiration for HaitiAction.net. They've provided amazing coverage of events in Haiti for a long time, and I often look up their articles. But I think the quoted section is a bit of a simplistic reading of Lindsay's article.