SUMA has nothing at all to do with PEOPLE, it is a vehicle that is used by GOVERNMENTS to "manage" international relief structures set up and run by GOVERNMENTS.
It is a system designed by beaurocrats to MAKE JOBS FOR OTHER BEAUROCRATS, complete with software packages on which government hacks are to be "trained" so that they can "manage" who gets what supplies.
Such "management" is not relevant to what is being sent to the islands now. The people of the islands can and will "manage" it.
SUMA should have nothing whatsoever to do with what PRIVATE CITIZENS and LOCAL COMMUNITIES are doing to help THEMSELVES and their neighbors.
SUMA is an excellent example of how (and it pains my 1960's liberal heart to say this) governments need to GET OUT OF THE WAY when people and communities try to help themselves. Government's job is to remove obstacles, not create them. When the people have done all they can for themselves, government can then ASK THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY NEED and to the extent possible, DO IT! Not vice versa.
SUMA is the reason why hundreds of TONS of emergency supplies sent to Honduras and Nicaragua for Hurricane Mitch relief sat and rotten in warehouses for MONTHS when it should have been dispersed to the PEOPLE who needed it.
PATTY ARCEO: Please use your influence to tell the Prime Minister that the GOB needs to GET OUT OF THE WAY, call off the paper pushers and tax collectors and LET THE PEOPLE RUN THEIR OWN RELIEF. SUMA is IRRELEVANT to what is going on now. These relief supplies are coming because of what PRIVATE CITIZENS did and the government needs to GET OUT OF THE WAY AND LET IT GO THROUGH.
AmbergrisCaye.com 
