22 July 2011

HAITI & CAMBODIA

I recently had the incredible fortune to visit Haiti and connect with the journalists there. By invitation of Kathie Klarreich and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), I had a unique opportunity to share my experiences and stories as a lawyer, filmmaker, and storyteller with Haitian journalists also interested in investigating, revealing, and recounting the stories in their own country undergoing massive reconstruction since the 2010 earthquake.

The original purpose of my trip was to screen INSIDE JOB to an audience of journalists and to share my experiences working as a researcher on the film. The journalists wanted to learn about how I organized my research and the challenges I faced working on the film. However, the intention changed as I began to talk to the journalists about my life and my experiences working in Mozambique, Iraq, and Cambodia. Our discussions began to slowly build around the similarities between these countries and Haiti, especially in Iraq and Cambodia.

At the height of reconstruction and during the time I was working as a legal consultant in Iraq, the US government poured $12 billion a month into Iraq. With all the money being spent, Iraqis still had no access to water or electricity. In fact, most professional Iraqis became unemployed as private contractors replaced them. Threatened and endangered, many of them fled the country.

A decade after my family fled Cambodia, the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) took over the administration of Cambodia and organized and ran the country’s first general election since the Khmer Rouge fell from power. During this time, the number of prostitutes in the State of Cambodia rose from about 6,000 in 1991, to over 20,000 after the arrival of UNTAC personnel in 1992. By 1995 there were between 50,000 and 90,000 Cambodians affected by AIDS according to a WHO estimate. Now, thirty years into reconstruction, there are over 2,000 associations and NGOs in Cambodia.



The parallels between Haiti and Cambodia and Iraq was striking. Even a year after the earthquake and four billion dollars pumped into reconstruction, very few homes have been built and many people are still living without electricity or running water in run-down tent cities that have bloomed after the wake of the earthquake. Port-au-Prince is pitch dark after the sun goes down. NGOs are taking care of social services the Haitian government should be providing. And international aid workers have introduced cholera, as opposed to HIV, into the country.





It was incredibly moving meeting with the Haitian journalists and students and sharing our stories. The journalists became encouraged to not only go out there and investigate and monitor their government and the thousands of NGOs working in Haiti, but also write stories that will help inspire the people of Haiti to rebuild their country as well as their own national identity. This is the power of journalism, of documentary filmmaking, and of telling stories – to expose and reveal, but to also help inspire and reconstruct a new perception and way of looking at the world, each other, and ourselves.

I look forward to returning to Haiti again, this time to screen LAND/WATER/RAIN and to share more stories and experiences that will hopefully shed light on other issues that may also be affecting the country.