January 17, 2010
updated
Dr Sanjay Gupta speaks with Secretary Hillary Clinton on the ground in Haiti.
Found the first part of the transcript at the State Department.
TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS
QUESTION: What were your first thoughts as you flew over today and (inaudible)?
SECRETARY CLINTON: So many things went through my mind. Obviously, I have a lot of memories going back many years. And for the last year as Secretary of State, we’ve been working so closely with the Haitian Government and had a very positive agenda for the changes that we were going to help them make.
It’s tragic. The Haitians can’t seem to get a break. Last year a hurricane, this year an earthquake. It is something that you just find hard to fathom. But at the same time, they are strong resilient people and they deserve our help.
QUESTION: You and the former president had your honeymoon down here.
SECRETARY CLINTON: We did. We did.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) great affinity for this place. And obviously, a lot of discussion about this being the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Why is Haiti so poor?
SECRETARY CLINTON: It’s been a series of reasons, Sanjay. I mean, it was a colony. It was largely populated by slaves. It was never recognized – the United States didn’t recognize it when it won its independence. Other countries didn’t help it. We even occupied it for a period of time in the 20th century. They had a series of bad leaders who didn’t really help the people.
It’s just an unfortunate confluence of events. And yet, we know that Haitian Americans are some of the most successful people we have in many of our communities from Florida to New York. So the ingredients are all there, and what I want to see is a good partnership with the Haitian Government and the international community to help the people of Haiti now build bigger, better into the future.
QUESTION: We’re talking a lot about the humanitarian mission. Is a natural disaster in Haiti the same as a natural disaster in another country, in terms of the U.S. response?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think because it’s a neighbor, we feel a real need. But we respond. We’ve responded in the past in our own hemisphere and obviously around the world. The tsunami in 2004 is the last great disaster that we had. But I think, too, that there’s a special connection. There are family connections and personal experiences. I can’t tell you how many Haitian Americans have called and emailed – doctors and nurses and teachers and business leaders who have family here, who come back here all the time. The Catholic Church is very important here, and many other faith organizations do mission work here. So it’s really remarkable how many people feel a personal connection to Haiti in our country.
GUPTA: How long do you think this is going to take and how do you measure success?
CLINTON: Well, I think today we measure it day by day. How many pallets of food, how many bottles of water, and how many people rescued. We are measuring it in that kind of very personal terms, but we are going to start looking at, are we getting the electricity up and going, are we getting the roads unclogged? Are we getting some shelter for people? Then what are we doing to help Haiti reconstruct and how can we reconstruct it so that it is stronger and more functional going forward.
GUPTA: All the people that have been displaced, essentially now. They have lost their homes or too fearful to go to their homes because of concerns about aftershocks. During this rebuilding process, what happens to them?
CLINTON: Well, there has to be accommodations provided. Usually, it is tents or some kind of temporary housing. I’ve seen that in many other settlings where people have been displaced. But that’s one of the highest priorities, how do we get people off the streets into some place that whatever belongings they still have, they can begin to call it home.
GUPTA: Is that the goal, to make it even better than before the earthquake?
CLINTON: Well, you know, in talking with President Preval, we do have an opportunity now with the unfortunate destruction that existed to take the lead of the Haitian government to try to bring in the international community so that we are not just taking a building that is half demolished and trying to patch it together, but thinking about what should this whole street look like, what should this neighborhood look like. That of course is what the Haitians are asking the international community to help them do.
GUPTA: Haiti could become better as the result of this?
CLINTON: I think so, I really believe that.
GUPTA: When you sort of think about the future here, issues like orphanages, for example..American citizens trying to adopt. It has been difficult in the past. Could that be something that can be more streamlined?
CLINTON: Well in fact, there are several hundred children who have gone through the process who are waiting final clearance to actually be adopted and transported to the United States. You know, that’s something that I have worked on for many years, and I’m personally directing that we do everything we can to try to find and identify those children who are already adoptable. They have parents waiting for them, a new family in our country, and to try to expedite all the paperwork that has to be done to get them to their new homes.
GUPTA: You mentioned (inaudible) about a 15-day-old baby. When you see a piece like that, being a mom and also being in the position that you are in, what goes through your mind?
CLINTON: There but for the grace of God go any of us. And in a moment of such grave need, I think everybody feels that common humanity. I mean, you are a dad, I’m a mom. You know how you would feel if your child was injured, if your wife had been killed, the mother of your children, and how desperate you would be and how you would go anywhere, to anybody, to try to get help.
So I think that we can talk about the plans we have to make and how much it is going to cost and who is going to do what, but the most elemental response that I have is these are people in need. One of the great things about our country is how we respond to that need. We do it through our government, but more significantly, we do it through our personal efforts as well.
GUPTA: So glad you’re down here.
