By In the wake of this weeks earthquake that has devastated Haiti the Korean government has decided to donate $1 million dollars in earthquake relief which the Chosun Ilbo is not happy about:
A 7.0-magnitude earthquake that rocked Haiti on Tuesday is estimated to have left between tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people dead. Red Cross officials said 3 million people or one third of the country’s entire population has been affected. Countries around the world have pledged millions of U.S. dollars in aid and sent rescue workers to the Caribbean nation.
The Korean government also announced a $1-million aid package for Haiti on Thursday. In such disasters it is crucial that aid arrive quickly to save lives, so the government’s quick decision should be lauded.
But the government needs to bolster its official development assistance (ODA) programs for developing countries, which include emergency aid packages for natural disasters. Last year, Korea donated some $800 million to ODA programs, well below the amounts donated by other OECD member countries with smaller economies, such as the Netherlands ($7 billion), Switzerland ($2 billion) and Finland ($1.1 billion). Korea has said it plans to boost its ODA this year to 0.13 percent of its gross national income, but that is still less than the average 0.3 percent of the member countries of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) at the OECD. The nation’s per-capita ODA in 2008 amounted to $16, which is just a tenth of the DAC average of $134. This is a paltry amount for Korea, which is the 15th-largest economy in the world.
This year, the government set aside some $8 million for emergency overseas aid through the Korea International Cooperation Agency. Brazil has pledged $10 million in aid to Haiti alone. Even though Brazil may have more regional interests in Haiti than Korea, it is shameful that Korea has pledged just a tenth of that amount. Brazil and Korea both rank among the world’s top 20 economies. How can Korea boost its image overseas if it shows such little consideration for other nations? [Chosun Ilbo]
I can understand where the Chosun Ilbo is coming from with their editorial, but is Brazil, the Netherlands, and the other countries mentioned forced to subsidize the North Koreans like the ROK is? Additionally South Korea has to spend huge amounts of money on defense due to the North Korean issue which these other countries mentioned do not. South Korea has wasted billions in aid and military spending related to North Korea, so I think it would be interesting to see how much South Korea development aid would be if all the money, goodies, and defense spending due to North Korea is included?
12:52 am on January 16th, 2010 1
Oprah and her Angel Network donated the same amount.
Why doesn't some rich korean do the same?
And please, the government of the 13th richest nation in the world can't afford more than 1 mil?
Give me a break.
1:29 am on January 16th, 2010 2
I can't find the statistic right now (though I did find this one
) that shows the per capita individual charitable contributions, but it has Korea at or near the bottom.
6:31 am on January 16th, 2010 3
they can give give more than a million, rok. when i looked at that number, i felt a bit of shame. it's so paltry.
8:43 am on January 16th, 2010 4
http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/108.html
9:09 pm on January 16th, 2010 5
How much did the rich oil Arab nations give to Haiti?
2:02 am on January 17th, 2010 6
I heard it was to be given in a boatload of Kimchee. After all, the Koreans feel that stinking weed is the cure all of the world.
12:22 pm on January 17th, 2010 7
While with the 1st Bde of the 101st I deployed to Haiti in 1995. We provided SASO for the Aristide "government" (if that's what you could call it.)
That country was worthless then and here are some first hand experiences I had while there.
1. Garbage (meaning rotting food stuff) piles 10 feet high in the middle of the street and running the length of the streets. The government even with the tons of money pouring in from the U.N., U.S. and countless other nations was going straight into the pockets of the mulatto ruling class(they lived in the hills above Port au Prince. It is impossible to describe to someone who does not want to believe-teen age children with nothing to wear except a tattered t-shirt and nude from there down searching for food in the piles of rotting garbage.
2. While on a patrol we received a call of a disturbance and responded. What had happened was a community hacked to death with machetes a 4 year old girl and gouged her mother's eyes out using sticks before beating her to death and chopping her to pieces with the machetes. Neither the Haitian National Police (HNP) nor the patrol I was on did anything. The reason the community committed such an atrocious act is they believed the woman to be a witch who had taken the life of a little girl in the community who had recently died and given that life to her daughter (the 4 year old who was hacked to death).
3. The morgue had so many indigent corpses they were stacked one on top of the other. The corpses at the bottom of the stack were no more than two inches thick. The more disturbing seen within the morgue was the corpse of the infant being used as a door prop.
4. A truck load of sugar came to the Light Industrial Complex (LIC) once a month. The flatbed-truck carried sugar in 50kg sacks that the Haitians would stab the sacks and then scrape the sugar up off the ground. Eventually the company hired armed guards to kill the Haitians stealing sugar.
One bright spot and "Jewell" of Haiti is the runway at PaP airport. Part of the easement of the runway had eroded and revealed a slab of concrete four feet thick.
For all you MG Joe Kinser fans out there here is a bit of trivia: While MG Kinser was in command of the U.N. forces in Haiti a plane crashed on take off from PaP airport. The 101st QRF immediately deployed and started pulling people from the burning wreckage. MG Kinser ordered the QRF stop and immediately depart so the Haitian's could handle the situation. There is no telling how many lives this decision cost. (MG Joe is also the genius who ordered baseball size gravel placed in the Cuban detainee camps in Honduras). However, MLB scouts quickly headed to the camps to scout those Cubans with the best arms hurling the stones at the MPs, HMMWV's and other personnel and implements.
Haiti is a worthless piece of earth with a few million unfortunate lives. The luckiest Haitian is the one who dies today. That may be a tough pill to swallow for some, but I'll bet they haven't been to Haiti.
12:25 pm on January 17th, 2010 8
BTW, if $1,000,000 worth of food was to actually reach the Haitians who need to eat, that would feed every Haitian there is for a month. You can figure it out this way, the average Haitian consumes 400 or less calories a day.
6:35 pm on January 20th, 2010 9
Random racist comment FTW. I know this site consists of dudes from Missouri on the GI Bill, but seriously, the US military truly gets the best of the best. Make us proud.
10:21 pm on January 20th, 2010 10
Ed (John.Kerry@Ihate.the.us.com),
Your deck chair on the Any Gil is open. In 6 years of closley wathing this site I have never seen a "racist" comment that wasn't, A Removed removed qickley by the site operator and, B condemned. I am begining to suspect you "Look at my Screen shot!".
10:43 pm on January 20th, 2010 11
Lemmy, I don't believe you. There is no way to measure what you said.
If only the Hatians were in a landlocked situation where another country with the same resources thrived? With not perfect but decent governance…
Er.. wait…Hispanola is an island with two nations! One does very well, has low crime rates, doesn't blame the US and puts its military to purpose defending from the Hatians. The other has been hell on earth since 1800,..
Alex I would like to solve the puzzle, yes Alex it is the Domican Republic. Hard working people, plenty of normal problems, not blaming all their problems on eveyone else(US).
12:04 am on January 21st, 2010 12
Lemmy,
Did you go up to the chain link fence and trade BJs with the native teen/preteen girls… not for an MRE but for the gum or cookie from an MRE?
Your stories are terrible… but the stories of exploitation and abuse I have heard from other guys have been much, much worse.
But, as per my last post on the subject, I agree… pull back and nuke 'em from orbit. Give what's left to the Dominicans.
11:53 am on January 21st, 2010 13
This should probably go on the forums…
…but the ChickenHead Haiti Aid Fund is now taking donations to assist Haitians in need.
Your donation of only twenty-five cents can end the suffering of a single Haitian and go a long way to reducing the cycle of poverty, violence, disease, corruption and environmental destruction which has plagued Haiti for its entire existence.
A single quarter can stop a baby from being hungry, stop an unwed mother from enduring a life a poverty or end the suffering of an old person. Your twenty-five cent donation can get a homeless person off the street, can free a hospital bed and can reduce the security burden on our military and aid workers.
I urge you now to help. Donate twenty-five cents.
Buy a Haitian a bullet.