Developing countries say the catastrophe in Haiti has taught them some important lessons on how to get noticed by the international community. "We're hoping for a volcano, or at least a mud-slide," said the Foreign Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo. "Clearly it's a natural disaster or nothing."
According to the DRC official, Jean-Luc Propakanda, Haiti had gone "overnight from being one of the most horrific places on earth where people eat mud flavoured with cooking oil, to the world's darling.
"We want in on that action," he said.
The DRC leapt to contribute $2.5 million in aid, a move questioned by DRC citizens who currently survive on a diet of diesel fumes and boiled artillery shells.
However Propakanda defended the move.
"It's not so much a donation as a consultancy fee for advice on how to replicate Haiti's tremendous publicity coup and maybe voodoo up an earthquake of our own."
He said that the DRC was doing everything it could to gain the world's sympathy.
"We've got child soldiers, a rape pandemic, we blow away gorillas on sight. Hell, we've even resorted to cannibalism. We've killed 5 million people in the last 14 years. And what do we get? Nothing. Not even a whiff of a CNN correspondent."
Other "worst places on earth" including Afghanistan and Sudan, have expressed an interest in following Haiti's formula for getting attention and aid.
"If we had any water we'd organise a tsunami," said Sudan's Deputy Minister for Closet Genocide. "But somehow spraying people with a hose isn't quite the same."
A spokesman for CNN, who wished to remain anonymous, confirmed that Sudan would not be appearing on television for some time, as "drought and pestilence just aren't sexy any more".
Haiti spokespeople were too busy pulling dead bodies from the rubble to comment.
hayibo.com
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