President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is scheduled to visit Honduras at the end of the month, and people are wondering whether he will make a side trip to diplomatic ally Haiti. On Saturday, Ma was in Changhua County inspecting a freshwater clam farm hit by the recent cold weather. He said that since the situation in Haiti was extremely serious and the country was one of our 23 diplomatic allies, he hoped to visit. The situation in Haiti is dire, and Ma was right to show concern on behalf of all Taiwanese. However, a personal visit is not a practical idea.
The UN has said it has never confronted a disaster of such magnitude. US forces are running the airport in Port-au-Prince and refusing landing permission to anything but rescue teams and relief supplies. There is not enough tarmac space or fuel for all the planes that wanted to land. A Taiwanese rescue team was quick to depart Taipei for Port-au-Prince, but could not land at the airport in the midst of the chaos and had to fly to the Dominican Republic and travel to Haiti by land. If Haiti’s fragile infrastructure can’t handle the arrival and dispersal of rescue teams and relief supplies, how could it provide the necessary arrangements and security for a visiting head of state?
Haitian President Rene Preval’s office was destroyed in the quake and his government has almost ceased to function. The Republic of China embassy has been reduced to rubble. Tens of thousands of people have been killed or injured, and corpses lie uncollected. Sanitation is terrible and the risk of epidemics is high. The Haitian government’s priorities are disaster relief, epidemic prevention, medical services and law enforcement. Visits by foreign dignitaries are the last thing it needs right now.
Ma’s arrival at this point would not console anybody. It would be an unwanted burden and only serve to add to the chaos.
Only half a year has passed since Typhoon Morakot caused havoc in central and southern Taiwan in August. The experience should be fresh in Ma’s mind. He should consider for a moment how his government would have responded if a foreign head of state had wanted to visit in the midst of the disaster. Given that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs initially declined offers of help from abroad, it would hardly have welcomed foreign dignitaries.
As if this were not enough, Morakot proved that visiting disaster zones and consoling victims are not Ma’s strong point.
There is no need for Ma to visit Haiti, but there is a need for Taiwan and Taiwanese to show their concern by providing assistance to our ally. Ma would be better off visiting the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispanola with Haiti, and delivering relief supplies to Haitian officials there. He could also meet Taiwanese expatriates, including Ambassador to Haiti Hsu Mien-sheng (徐勉生), who was injured in the quake and is being treated in a hospital in the Dominican Republic.
If Ma wants to visit Haiti and console the victims, then he should wait until the situation on the ground has been restored to normality. His next visit to Central or South America might be the right time for such a gesture.
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