Who will remember Haiti in a few months?

In his cartoons each day Forges repeats “and don’t forget Haiti”. And he’s right in doing so, because he remembers how fast we forgot about the tsunami of December, 2005; the earthquakes of Peru, China… and Darfur… and the events that devastated Haiti only fifteen years ago. At that time I wrote:

The last soldiers

left

and peace broke out

in your lives,

with no reporters

to record

how you live and die

each day.

You will no longer appear

on TV screens

to ruin

the parties and festivities

of the rich.

You will no longer die

of bullet wounds.

You’ll return to dying

of neglect.

As always.

“Who will remember Haiti when the photographers have gone?” asked Milagros Perez Oliva, the Readers’ Ombudsman, in an article entitled “The Terrible Images of a Tragedy” published in “El País” on January 24.

In view of what happened in Haiti, would some of you reporters please stay? Let us not forget other terrible catastrophes of raging nature and, the worst, those caused by the fury of human beings: the genocide in Cambodia (two million deaths between 1975-1979) and Rwanda (800,000 victims)… and the immense suffering, in addition to millions of deaths, resulting from wars and, above all, let us not forget the 60,000 people, our brothers, who die of starvation and neglect each day.

Let no one else die of neglect. Let us all join together against the disproportionate military spending (3,000 million dollars daily, I’ll never tire of repeating that figure!) and let’s implement an economy of global sustainable development.

Otherwise, in Haiti and in so many other parts of the world, thousands of people will continue to die of neglect. As always.