I'm going to go out on a limb here and state outright that this is the biggest humanitarian crisis since Rwanda. The number of fatalities is not quite as high, somewhere in the range of 200000, but the number injured or displaced is in the millions. The official number affected is around 3 million, but if you count the fact that all those displaced people are crowding back into the rural homes of their parents, relatives, or friends, I would hazard to say that there is hardly a family in the country that is not affected. Not to mention the uncounted that are fleeing to the Dominican Republic, the US, Canada, and other places. I would go even further to say that if you are reading this blog post, this event has also impacted you in some way. It is really amazing, the way the global community has responded to this event, giving financially, volunteering, sending materials, planes, relief experts, etc. I have even noticed that Google has now added Haitian Creole to their list of languages on their Translate tool. No doubt this is also a response to the earthquake.

That is one (of several things) that contrasts this event from Rwanda. Maybe we all trying to make up for our lack of response to Rwanda. I think Bill Clinton has admitted as much with respect to his own record. I don't think this is a chance to make up for past sins. Acting out of guilt usually goes no where good in my experience, but this may be a chance to learn from past mistacks, mistakes.