One week after the nation of Haiti was hit by a massive earthquake, which killed tens of thousands and left even more homeless and injured, the Mayor & City Council (M&CC) yesterday held an extraordinary meeting to determine how the council can lend assistance.
Following about 15 minutes of discussions, which including a suggestion about “finding out the truth of the earthquake”- it was decided by Mayor Hamilton Green that a committee – headed by its social services officer councillor Patricia Chase-Green – would be set up and that a letter would be dispatched to the local Civil Defence Commission (CDC).
The letter to the commission, which is spearheading Guyana’s national response to Haiti, would seek to find out in what areas the council can assist in the humanitarian effort. The offer of human resources would also be made as, according to one councillor, the council can offer “a few constables and nurses to assist the CDC.”
The council would also issue a statement expressing condolences to the Haitian people.
Green commented that the M&CC cannot make any short-term response to the disaster as it is “beyond us” and he said that even the Caribbean lost the opportunity to do so. “We in the Caribbean talk too much,” he said and pointed to the response by American, which he admitted has more experience in this area, and also the response of Cuba which he said was “magnificent and swift.” Prior to the decision taken by Green, one councillor pointed to what he described as “snubbing” of the council as no one from the council was invited to the national stakeholders’ meeting which was convened shortly after the earthquake hit Haiti to discuss Guyana’s response. According to the councillor Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and the fact that the earthquake hit the capital – Port-au-Prince – of Haiti harder than other parts of the country the council should have been involved.
Green responded that the council should ignore not being invited to the meeting as he said there is a process at hand to denigrate the council.
Another councillor suggested that there be a donation of footwear as she had read that there is a great need for this. And PNCR councillor Zaman Ali opined that the earthquake was not a natural disaster but in fact may have been caused by “supersonic jets.” He told the council that he disagreed with the heading of the meeting’s agenda which stated the meeting was convened to discuss the “natural disaster” that hit Haiti. He said it was no natural disaster as he believes it was caused by a “supersonic jet” which had also called the so-called tsunami in Asia.
Ali, who had most of his colleagues bowing their heads as he spoke, said that there is “a lot of reasons why people are suffering and my donation to the peoples of Haiti is to seek the truth of the earthquake” adding that it is a manmade disaster.
Green told his colleague that whether the disaster was manmade or natural the fact of the matter is that people are suffering and “what we see is real and not figment of our imagination.”
Ali later suggested that each councillor donates $10,000 out of his/her pockets to assist the people of Haiti.