By Isabel Macdonald - January 29th, 2010
Published in The Nation
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In the wake of the earthquake that has killed more than 100,000 people in Haiti, the foreign ministers of several countries calling themselves the "Friends of Haiti" met on Monday in Montreal to discuss plans for "building a new Haiti." Participants in the Ministerial Preparatory Conference on Haiti, who included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; representatives of international financial institutions including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund; and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive came to what Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, the conference chair, referred to as a "road map towards Haiti's reconstruction and development."
However, the Latin American countries of ALBA--the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas--who held a counter-conference, and several grassroots Haiti solidarity organizations, who organized protests outside the conference, expressed skepticism that the "Friends of Haiti" and the international financial institutions would work to further the interests of ordinary Haitians.
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One of the groups protesting the conference, Haiti Action Montreal, issued a statement warning that "There is a danger that these major powers will try to exploit the earthquake to further narrow pro-corporate ends, if reconstruction of New Orleans after Katrina and in Asia following the tsunami are any indication."
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As Naomi Klein has observed, this process is already underway. The Heritage Foundation think tank's initial response to the earthquake clearly followed the pattern she documented in her book The Shock Doctrine, by which neoliberal reformers seek to impose an agenda of privatization in times of crisis. It was less than twenty-four hours after Haiti was hit by an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude that the Heritage Foundation issued a release recommending that "In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti's long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region."
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That sentiment was echoed by James Dobbins, former special envoy to Haiti under President Bill Clinton and director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation, who stated in a recent op-ed in the New York Times, "This disaster is an opportunity to accelerate oft-delayed reforms," including "breaking up or at least reorganizing the government-controlled telephone monopoly" and restructuring the ports, which also represent two of Haiti's few remaining state enterprises.
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The World Bank also observed an upside to the catastrophe in Haiti; in a January 18 blog post titled "Haiti earthquake: Out of great disasters comes great opportunity," a World Bank disaster management analyst recently stated that "there is a silver lining to this great tragedy. Looking back in history, great natural disasters are often a catalyst for huge, positive change." Even calls for the expansion of Haiti's sweatshop industry are being made in the media.
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The possibility of a repeat of the kinds of corrupt corporate profiteering that Klein documented in Iraq in the initial months of the 2003 US occupation have not been lost on Dan Senor, an adviser to the Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003 and 2004. In a January 17 op-ed in the New York Times, Senor recommended the adoption in Haiti of the same fund used under the Coalition Provisional Authority--"a discretionary fund that American officers can dip into for development projects and crisis response without constantly looking over their shoulders at monitors in Washington."
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As one financial analyst observed in a particularly frank article titled "An Opportunity to Heal Haiti," published a day after the earthquake in The Street, "Here are some companies that could potentially benefit: General Electric (GE), Caterpillar (CAT), Deere (DE), Fluor (FLR), Jacobs Engineering (JEC)." And that's not to mention the mercenary companies that, as The Nation's Jeremy Scahill has observed, are now setting their sights on Haiti.
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The chair's opening remarks at the conference Monday suggest that corporate interests are being well represented in the planning stages for the "new Haiti." In his introductory speech at the ministerial conference on Haiti, Cannon stated, "We also have with us today some members from the private sector who have given generously to the humanitarian appeal but will also play an important role in Haiti's future." Singling out several sectors of the Haitian economy (including the ports, electricity and telecommunications) that have historically been state-owned, he added that "They [members from the private sector] will be accompanying and supporting us in rebuilding the national infrastructure of ports, roads and power generation and in re-establishing essential services from electricity, to banking and communications."
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When I asked the World Bank's vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean, Pamela Cox, to elaborate on what kind of private-sector role was being envisioned for Haiti's future, she said, "You'd have to talk to the private sector...in the sense that they're the ones who would be putting their money in so they'd have the decision. What we want to hear from them is what kinds of things they need, so that they can come back." Cox cited "one proposal" that she'd heard vis-&gravea;-vis investment in the "garment manufacturing industry"--a sector that has long been associated with sweatshop labor practices in Haiti.
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For anyone familiar with Haiti's experience of this sweatshop-based, pro-corporate development model over the years, it is clear that the road map the banks and "Friends" are charting for the "new Haiti" is not in the least bit new. And, for the Haitian people, who have always paid the price for these failed policies, it is nothing less than disastrous.

By Naomi Klein - February 11th, 2010
Published in The Nation
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If we are to believe the G-7 finance ministers, Haiti is on its way to getting something it has deserved for a very long time: full "forgiveness" of its foreign debt. In Port-au-Prince, Haitian economist Camille Chalmers has been watching these developments with cautious optimism. Debt cancellation is a good start, he told Al Jazeera English, but "It's time to go much further. We have to talk about reparations and restitution for the devastating consequences of debt." In this telling, the whole idea that Haiti is a debtor needs to be abandoned. Haiti, he argues, is a creditor—and it is we, in the West, who are deeply in arrears.
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Our debt to Haiti stems from four main sources: slavery, the US occupation, dictatorship and climate change. These claims are not fantastical, nor are they merely rhetorical. They rest on multiple violations of legal norms and agreements. Here, far too briefly, are highlights of the Haiti case.
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The Slavery Debt. When Haitians won their independence from France in 1804, they would have had every right to claim reparations from the powers that had profited from three centuries of stolen labor. France, however, was convinced that it was Haitians who had stolen the property of slave owners by refusing to work for free. So in 1825, with a flotilla of war ships stationed off the Haitian coast threatening to re-enslave the former colony, King Charles X came to collect: 90 million gold francs--ten times Haiti's annual revenue at the time. With no way to refuse, and no way to pay, the young nation was shackled to a debt that would take 122 years to pay off.
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In 2003, Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, facing a crippling economic embargo, announced that Haiti would sue the French government over that long-ago heist. "Our argument," Aristide's former lawyer Ira Kurzban told me, "was that the contract was an invalid agreement because it was based on the threat of re-enslavement at a time when the international community regarded slavery as an evil." The French government was sufficiently concerned that it sent a mediator to Port-au-Prince to keep the case out of court. In the end, however, its problem was eliminated: while trial preparations were under way, Aristide was toppled from power. The lawsuit disappeared, but for many Haitians the reparations claim lives on.
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The Dictatorship Debt. From 1957 to 1986, Haiti was ruled by the defiantly kleptocratic Duvalier regime. Unlike the French debt, the case against the Duvaliers made it into several courts, which traced Haitian funds to an elaborate network of Swiss bank accounts and lavish properties. In 1988 Kurzban won a landmark suit against Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier when a US District Court in Miami found that the deposed ruler had "misappropriated more than $504,000,000 from public monies."
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Haitians, of course, are still waiting for their payback--but that was only the beginning of their losses. For more than two decades, the country's creditors insisted that Haitians honor the huge debts incurred by the Duvaliers, estimated at $844 million, much of it owed to institutions like the IMF and the World Bank. In debt service alone, Haitians have paid out tens of millions every year.
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Was it legal for foreign lenders to collect on the Duvalier debts when so much of it was never spent in Haiti? Very likely not. As Cephas Lumina, the United Nations Independent Expert on foreign debt, put it to me, "the case of Haiti is one of the best examples of odious debt in the world. On that basis alone the debt should be unconditionally canceled."
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But even if Haiti does see full debt cancellation (a big if), that does not extinguish its right to be compensated for illegal debts already collected.
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The Climate Debt. Championed by several developing countries at the climate summit in Copenhagen, the case for climate debt is straightforward. Wealthy countries that have so spectacularly failed to address the climate crisis they caused owe a debt to the developing countries that have done little to cause the crisis but are disproportionately facing its effects. In short: the polluter pays. Haiti has a particularly compelling claim. Its contribution to climate change has been negligible; Haiti's per capita CO2 emissions are just 1 percent of US emissions. Yet Haiti is among the hardest hit countries—according to one index, only Somalia is more vulnerable to climate change.
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Haiti's vulnerability to climate change is not only—or even mostly—because of geography. Yes, it faces increasingly heavy storms. But it is Haiti's weak infrastructure that turns challenges into disasters and disasters into full-fledged catastrophes. The earthquake, though not linked to climate change, is a prime example. And this is where all those illegal debt payments may yet extract their most devastating cost. Each payment to a foreign creditor was money not spent on a road, a school, an electrical line. And that same illegitimate debt empowered the IMF and World Bank to attach onerous conditions to each new loan, requiring Haiti to deregulate its economy and slash its public sector still further. Failure to comply was met with a punishing aid embargo from 2001 to '04, the death knell to Haiti's public sphere.
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This history needs to be confronted now, because it threatens to repeat itself. Haiti's creditors are already using the desperate need for earthquake aid to push for a fivefold increase in garment-sector production, some of the most exploitative jobs in the country. Haitians have no status in these talks, because they are regarded as passive recipients of aid, not full and dignified participants in a process of redress and restitution.
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A reckoning with the debts the world owes to Haiti would radically change this poisonous dynamic. This is where the real road to repair begins: by recognizing the right of Haitians to reparations.

Boston Globae
By James F. Smith
2/12/2010
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Defying odds, 8 victims of quake arrive in Mass.
Haiti quake opens road to transformation, Paul Farmer tells Harvard Companion of student missing in Haiti found dead In his first public forum since the Jan. 12 quake, Farmer challenged an overflow audience at Harvard Medical School to work with Haitians to attack the impoverishment that made the suffering from the disaster far worse than it needed to be.
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“Might addressing the acute needs of the displaced and injured afford us a chance to address the underlying chronic condition?’’ he asked. Invoking medical metaphors, Farmer described Haiti as an “acute-on-chronic affliction - evident, at last, to the entire world.’’ He said postquake Haiti was “an already bad problem rendered immeasurably worse by the gravest natural disaster to befall this part of the world in centuries.’’
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Farmer, cofounder of the Boston-based nonprofit Partners in Health and also a United Nations deputy envoy to Haiti, stopped short of offering a specific treatment plan. He said that is the job of the Haitian people. “How often in medicine have we learned that plans for patients must be, if they are to succeed, made with patients?’’
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But he said institutions in Boston and beyond now have a rare opportunity to not only help Haiti treat its immediate wounds, but also to help generate the longer-term development that Haiti desperately needs.
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Farmer cited several specific challenges for research institutions and the hordes of nongovernmental organizations working in Haiti before and since the quake.
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For example, he said doctors are now seeing cases of tetanus that are “a reminder of the chronic failure to inoculate with an effective, safe vaccine that costs pennies.’’ He said that Dr. Natasha Archer, a Haitian-American physician from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, was part of a team that confronted an emergency surgery case probably caused by typhoid.
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“Natasha warned, correctly, that a lack of proper sanitation in the coming days and weeks and months would lead to more such cases,’’ Farmer said, “and I was thinking, with some shame, that a decade before, I had reviewed the scant literature on typhoid in Haiti, which revealed the same high burden of the disease, and came to the same conclusion.’’
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Farmer also pointed to the crisis of clean water in a country that, one year before the quake, was declared the most “water-insecure’’ nation in this hemisphere. The biggest challenge is to get people working, he said, and some aid groups have begun implementing “cash-for-work’’ programs. These have generated about 35,000 jobs, he said - far short of the 500,000 paying jobs that are needed. “This is the only way to move resources from the self-described donor nations to the survivors who are able-bodied and anxious to work.’’Continued...
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Apart from testifying before Congress soon after the quake, Farmer has had few opportunities to speak publicly on what happened in Haiti and what needs to be done. Farmer first worked in Haiti when he was a Harvard medical student in 1983, and he cofounded Partners in Health in 1987. The nonprofit employs about 4,000 people in Haiti, more than half of them community health workers who have built a network of services reaching villages across the Central Plateau. When the quake hit, Partners in Health became the go-to international group for coordinating the emergency medical response.
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In part because of Farmer’s personal prominence as a crusader for better health care in Haiti and 10 other countries, Partners in Health has attracted worldwide attention and has raised more than $52 million for earthquake relief and longer-term rebuilding. Harvard’s president, Drew G. Faust, opened the meeting by acknowledging the contributions from across Harvard to the relief effort. She asked those who had done volunteer work in Haiti since the quake to stand up, and more than a dozen people in the hall rose to their feet to applause.
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She also recognized Farmer’s critical role, as cofounder of Partners in Health as well as chairman of the medical school’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine and chief of the global health equity unit at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
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Faust told Farmer: “You were there with an understanding of the context, the culture, and the history that would enable you to be focused and effective amid the chaos all around you, and to bring order out of that chaos.’’ But in his address, Farmer acknowledged the risks of overstating any doctor’s role. Although he saluted the heroism in Haiti of doctors, nurses, and citizens, he said, “What we need are teams, and above all, systems to deliver services effectively.’’
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Farmer said he was reluctant to offer a prognosis on Haiti’s future. Instead, he cited the opinion of two young Haitians he met who answered an old man’s plaint that “Haiti is finished.’’ The two young people answered, “No, Haiti will never be finished,’’ Farmer said. “Haiti’s is not a terminal illness.’’
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James F. Smith writes about Boston’s global ties. His blog is at boston.com/worldlyboston. He can be reached at jsmith@globe.com.

Reuters
By Patrick Markey
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BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) -- Haiti's interior minister on Monday toured a Colombian town rebuilt after a huge 1999 tremor as his own country considered plans to reconstruct its wrecked capital city after last month's devastating earthquake.
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Haiti says more than 200,000 people were killed in the January 12 earthquake that shattered much of Port-au-Prince and left over 1 million people homeless, either sleeping in the streets or in makeshift camps. Haitian Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime visited Armenia in Colombia's coffee region, where a decade ago an earthquake killed at least 1,200 people, left tens of thousands homeless and destroyed 65 percent of the city's buildings.
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That quake prompted what Colombia has termed a model reconstruction involving the creation of a public entity called FOREC to better coordinate and channel international, state and private reconstruction and donation efforts. "What we are proposing is a kind of FOREC international where the reconstruction can be carried out just as the Haitian people want it, but with each country assigned a responsibility under a general plan," Colombian Interior Minister Fabio Valencia told reporters as he accompanied Bien-Aime.
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The Colombian FOREC program won a United Nations prize for reconstruction. The debate in Haiti on how to help those left homeless by the quake is becoming urgent with the approach of the country's rainy season in March when the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation is often battered by floods and landslides.
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The Haitian minister said his government's three-part plan will move some of the 1 million homeless people out of the capital and help to allow others to stay near destroyed homes or in provisional shelters.
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"We will move a part of the population that is now living in the streets of the capital," the minister said. "Secondly we will help the people in temporary shelters so they can protect themselves from the rain, and thirdly help people stay in their neighborhoods in the shelters where they are now."
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Haiti's disaster, which toppled part of the presidential palace, the Congress and many ministry buildings, has opened discussion over how to reconstruct the capital as experts warn about the dangers of another earthquake hitting the city.
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"The decisions on reconstruction have not been completely defined," Haiti's minister said. "We know we are going to empty Port-au-Prince partly and take people to other areas. But we can't say we are going to shift the capital completely."

BY HENRI E. CAUVIN
Washington Post Service
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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Haiti's criminal justice system was brought to a standstill by last month's earthquake, which leveled the capital city's courthouse. But crime did not stop, and that has left police commanders with jail cells full of frustrated inmates who have not been given a chance to go before a judge. At the main police station, which was damaged by the quake, more than half of the 81 prisoners are being housed in a makeshift cell set up in a small courtyard. It is a pit of anger and squalor. With 46 people crowded inside, there is no room to lie down and no reason to think that would be safe.
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``It's hell. H-E-L-L,'' Bouzy Archange Jr. said from behind bars. ``I'm in hell.'' A few steps behind him, two younger inmates began to swing at each other. ``They are fighting all the time,'' Archange said. ``You have to watch yourself.'' Like many in the cell, Archange had been there longer than the 48 hours allowed under Haitian law. In his case, it had been three days since he was arrested, accused of stealing a police officer's uniform.
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But since the earthquake crippled the government, the rules don't exactly apply. ``You have to understand it's a crisis,'' the station's commissioner, Michel Ange Gedeon, said as he sat in a police vehicle a few steps from the outdoor cell. ``We can't do anything.'' Administering justice is one of countless government functions that have been upended by the quake, which killed more than 150,000 and laid ruin to much of downtown Port-au-Prince.
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In addition to the courthouse, which was known as the Palace of Justice, the headquarters of the Ministry of Justice was also felled. More than a dozen employees perished. Buried in the rubble with them were troves of vital documents that officials are trying to recover or re-create. In a country that has struggled to control crime, the need for a functioning criminal justice system is not lost on officials. They have been looking at sites that could temporarily house court hearings, and they are scheduled to meet with judges this week to map out a plan for resuming some basic judicial functions.
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``We're doing the best we can,'' said Antoine Andri, the Justice Ministry's director general, who was named to his post hours before the earthquake struck. Until the court system is back in operation, though, options are limited. ``We can't just let them go,'' he said.

The national police have been praised for helping maintain relative calm and stability in the quake's aftermath. But 4,000 inmates escaped from the penitentiary during the earthquake, and few have been recaptured. Food and other relief supplies have been slow to reach the millions in need.
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Without functioning courts, the pressure on the police and in the lockups will only mount. Judges have begun reviewing pending cases to identify people who could be released, and Gedeon said he is pushing for that to happen as swiftly as possible.
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``It's not normal to keep people this long. . . . They still have the rights,'' he said. But he acknowledged those rights were not being honored.
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For the men who are locked up a few feet away, the restoration of those rights cannot happen quickly enough. ``I can't sleep,'' Gilin Fayette, 22, said. ``I don't close my eyes.'' As he spoke, other inmates pushed up against the wrought-iron fence, desperate to offer their own take on the conditions they were enduring. There is no food or water, several pointed out.
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Relatives who might have brought such provisions are coping with their own earthquake-induced crises or, worse, are dead. `Most of us have no families here,'' said Dorcelus Saint Vertil, 38, who is from Carrefour and was visiting a relative when he was arrested after fighting with other men over a found $20 bill. ``Most of my family here died.''

Senate Foreign Relations Committee
February 4, 2010
Transcript Courtesy of Interaction
http://www.interaction.org
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Witness List:
-Robert Maguire, Director of Programs in International Affairs, Trinity Washington
University
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-Mark Schneider, Senior Vice President, International Crisis Group
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-Charles MacCormack, President and CEO, Save the Children
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The Honorable Dr. Robert Maguire, Director of Programs in International Affairs at the
TrinityWashington University, stated that in order to successfully reconstruct Haiti the US and the international community must be fully cognizant of past mistakes. The key to ‘building Haiti back better’ is to work toward a more balanced nation with less poverty and inequities, less social and economic exclusion, greater human dignity, and a commitment of Haitians and non-Haitians toward these essential humanistic goals.
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With this, he continued, Haiti can also achieve and sustain a rehabilitated natural environment; stronger public institutions; a national infrastructure for growth and investment; and relationships between Haitians and outsiders that are based on partnership, mutual respect, and respect of the value and aspirations of all
Haiti’s people. In accordance with these ideals, he offered the following recommendations:
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1)de facto decentralization through the welcoming of dislocated persons
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2) Supporting the creation of a National Civic Service Corps
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3) Strengthening of the Haitian state institutions through accompaniment, cooperation and partnership
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4) Getting money into the hands of poor people
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5) Seeking-out and supporting Institutions, businesses, and leaders who work toward
greater inclusion, less inequality, and enact socially-responsible strategies for investing
in Haiti
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The Honorable Mark Schneider, Senior Vice President of the International Crisis Group, commences his testimony by stating that in the wake of Haiti’s devastating earthquake, the international community and the US must help Haiti to build back better, to ensure that recovery and reconstruction leave the country less vulnerable to the consequences of naturaldisasters. Subsequently, Haiti’s vulnerability, he pointed out, is also a result of two decades of bad government, inequitable and centralized political and economic power structures in Port-au-Prince, and not-always-benign foreign interventions. Taking all this into consideration, he offered the following five principles of successful reconstruction that could transform Haiti’s political institutions and economic options:
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1) Forge a new Haitian Social Compact for reconstruction
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2) Build a modern Haitian state
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3) Ensure economic and political decentralization
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4) Use environmental protection and disaster preparedness standards for all reconstruction projects
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5) Guarantee massive, coordinated assistance between the US and ensuing international response
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He continued by suggesting that the five principles be applied to these five priority areas:
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1) Implementation and enforcement of law and security
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2) Support in building a nationwide system of free public elementary and secondary education – not just in Port-au-Prince but across every department.
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3) Renewal of Haitian agriculture to keep the migrants from Port-au-Prince in their communities of refugees
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4) Meeting Haiti’s energy requirement by advocating a shift away from charcoal – as fuel for cooking and for small business energy generation
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5) Engagement of the Haitian diaspora in the Haitian Social Compact for reconstruction
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The Honorable Charles MacCormack, President and CEO of Save the Children, stated that the difference between Haiti’s disaster and previous ones is that NGOs, the UN and other foreign aid agencies were also crippled due to a loss of their own staff and facilities, among other things. In order to properly respond to this disaster, he continued, Save the Children suggests the following principles:
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1)A framework that takes into consideration a 10-year rebuilding process
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2) Adequate resources from the US and the international community in the frame of a
public/private partnership
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3) Put Haitian employment at the forefront of the reconstruction strategy
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4) Encouraging a joint operation that will bring together the Haitian government, the bilateral (particularly, the US government and NGOs), the UN and other international actors.
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In questioning, Sen. Menendez (D-NJ), expressed his concern for garnering accountability in ensuring that the billions of dollars pledged by a multi donors fund would be properly used for relief and reconstruction efforts in Haiti; he posed the question of what the role of NGOs would be in responding to this issue. Mr. Schneider responded by saying that, in order to ensure accountability, the management of the multi donor fund should be overseen by co-chairs of a UN representative and a Haitian government representative, and a board of directors made up of major donor representatives. Dr. MacCormack and Dr. Maguire second Mr. Schneider’s
principles regarding this issue.

IPS
By Jim Lobe
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Three weeks after Haiti's devastating earthquake, nearly 100 U.S. lawmakers joined with key civil society groups here Thursday to urge the Group of Seven (G7) leading western nations to commit to cancelling all of the Caribbean country's multilateral debt.
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On the eve of Friday's meeting by G7 finance ministers in Iqaluit, Canada, 94 members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that also called for "the provision of assistance to Haiti in the form of grants so that the country does not accumulate additional debts."
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That call was echoed by a several non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including Oxfam, Jubilee USA, and Avaaz, which said they plan to deliver hundreds of thousands of individual signatures on petitions appealing for debt cancellation from across the world to this weekend's ministerial meeting.
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"(While) the international community has acted rapidly and generously to provide for Haiti's immediate emergency needs," said Emma Seery, Oxfam's campaign manager, "the G7 must now also make sure that Haiti is not left saddled with crippling debts as it recovers and rebuilds."
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"They must agree to all new financial support being in the form of grants, not loans, and commit to a clear plan to cancel what remains of Haiti's debt," she said. The push on the G7, which, in addition to the U.S., includes Canada, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the European Union (EU), comes as Haiti struggles to clean up and begin recovering from the cataclysmic Jan. 12 earthquake that is estimated to have killed at least 150,000 people, and possibly tens of thousands more.
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In addition to damaging much of the country's infrastructure, the quake, the most lethal in the Americas' recorded history, also rendered nearly one million of its nearly 10 million people homeless, creating unprecedented challenges for the government of President Rene Preval, humanitarian NGOs and foreign aid groups, and more than 10,000 U.S. troops and U.N. peacekeepers. With the vast majority of the population living on less than two U.S. dollars a day before the earthquake, Haiti has long been the western hemisphere's poorest country. The quake was the latest in a series of natural disasters, including devastating hurricanes in 2008 and again in 2009.
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Last June, 1.2 billion dollars in Haiti's external debt, including that owed to the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), was cancelled after the Preval government completed a three-year Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) programme.
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Over half of that debt had been incurred by Haiti's dictatorships, notably the Duvalier dynasty that ruled the country from 1957 to 1986. But the cancellation covered debt incurred by Haiti only through 2004. In the last five years, the country has received new loans – some of them to help it recover from the floods and other hurricane damage – totalling another 1.05 billion dollars.
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Some two-thirds of that total is owed to multilateral agencies, including some 447 million dollars to the IDB, 39 million dollars to the World Bank, and some 165 million dollars to the IMF.
The remainder is bilateral debt, most of it owed to Taiwan (92 million dollars) and Venezuela (167 million dollars). Haiti also owes the Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) another 58 million dollars.
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While the terms of the multilateral loans are concessional – most of them carry only nominal interest rates and can be repaid over as much as 50 years - servicing of the IMF and IDB loans by themselves alone would normally require Haiti to pay more than 100 million dollars over the next decade, a sum that it can ill afford in the wake of last month's earthquake, according to the NGOs.
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Oxfam and the Jubilee USA Network, veterans in the campaign to gain debt relief for the world's poorest countries, began calling for comprehensive debt cancellation immediately after the earthquake. In the days following the earthquake, officials at the IMF, the World Bank, and the IDB - whose governing boards are dominated by the G7 countries - said they were sympathetic to that appeal.
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On Jan. 21, the World Bank announced a waiver of Haiti's pending debt payment for five years and said it would explore ways that the remaining debt could be cancelled. The IDB has said it is engaged in a similar effort and will present alternatives for reducing or cancelling the debt to its board of governors.
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On Jan. 27, the IMF, which lacks the authority to provide outright grants, announced that it would give Haiti a 102 million-dollar loan at zero-percent interest and that would not be subject to any of the Fund's usual performance conditions.
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Last week, all three international lenders reported to an emergency donors' conference in Montreal on debt relief for Haiti, but no further announcements were forthcoming. In their letter, the lawmakers, who were led by California Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Florida Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, called on Geithner to push hard on his colleagues.
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"We welcome recent statements from officials at the multilateral financial institutions of their intentions to consider cancellation of Haiti's remaining debts," the letter stated.
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"We urge you to use the voice and vote of the United States on the Executive Boards of these institutions to secure cancellation of all of Haiti's remaining multilateral debts. While arrangements are worked out for cancellation, we urge you to support a moratorium on debt service payments from Haiti to these institutions, without the accrual of interest."
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Melinda St. Louis, Jubilee's deputy director, said action was urgent. "This weekend the G7 finance ministers must respond to the mounting global consensus to drop Haiti's debt," she said. "It's time our leaders announced their commitment to cancel Haiti's debts once and for all, including the new IMF loan. Debt cancellation is a critical step in the long road to Haiti's recovery."

United Nations Human Rights Council
04 Feb 2010
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GENEVA (4 February 2010) – The UN Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights, Cephas Lumina, called Thursday for an immediate cancellation of Haiti's debt with multilateral creditors, and the provision of unconditional grant-aid, "not new loans whatever the degree of concessionality."
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The UN expert welcomed the recent announcement by the Paris Club - an informal group of 19 creditor countries - that its members would cancel the US$214 million debt owed to them by Haiti. However, he warned that "the decision is insufficient to assure the country's sustainable recovery effort, given that the bulk of its external debt is owed to multilateral creditors."
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Haiti currently owes about US$890 million to international creditors. Approximately 70 per cent of its total external debt is owed to multilateral creditors, mainly the Inter-American Development Bank (41 per cent) and the World Bank (27 per cent).
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"What is required is an immediate moratorium on debt service, as UNCTAD and others have recently argued," said Mr. Lumina, who has been mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to monitor the effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of all human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights.
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"In addition," he stressed, "Haiti's remaining multilateral debt must be unconditionally cancelled as a matter of extreme urgency in order to afford the country the necessary fiscal space as it recovers from the recent devastating earthquake and moves towards reconstruction."
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Mr. Lumina warned that the IMF was ignoring its own advice by the recent approval of a 'highly concessional' and 'interest-free' loan of US$114 million to Haiti, repayment of which is due after a five-and-a-half year 'grace period.' The IMF loan is an augmentation of Haiti's existing $178 million programme under the Extended Credit Facility.
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"What Haiti needs is urgent, unconditional grant-aid, not new loans - whatever the degree of concessionality - as well as guaranteed local ownership of the national policy agenda. A new build-up of unsustainable debt must be avoided," Mr. Lumina said, noting that independent assessments indicate that it will take at least ten years for the country to recover from the devastating earthquake.
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"The extension of Haiti's loan programme in circumstances where the IMF acknowledges the country's high risk of debt distress, and particularly in view of the fact that the country's economy has collapsed and its debt service capacity is non-existent, runs counter to the IMF's own advice and is profoundly inappropriate," the UN expert said.
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In July 2009, the IMF stated that Haiti's risk of debt distress would remain high even after debt relief and that therefore 'new borrowing policies must remain cautious'. "It is unrealistic to expect that the people of Haiti can muster the resources to start servicing this debt in five years' time. It is also inappropriate to make Haiti pay back its emergency assistance," the Independent Expert said. "Haitians have already endured much suffering - as a consequence of repression, lack of ownership of the national policy agenda, poverty, natural disasters and unsustainable debt levels - for much of their history as an independent nation."
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Mr. Cephas Lumina was appointed Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of all human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2008. He is independent from any government or organization and serves in his individual capacity. The mandate covers all countries.

Huffington Post
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I want to thank the people of the United States for their extraordinary generosity in the wake of the catastrophic earthquake that has devastated Haiti. The magnitude of the loss of life and destruction is hard to fathom; the human toll is impossible to comprehend; the impact on Haitian life is heart-breaking and makes disaster relief all the more challenging.
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With the miraculous help of governments and nongovernmental organizations, many victims of the earthquake have been rescued and treated. As long as one more life can be saved, we will persist in our efforts to reach anyone still trapped alive.
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At the same time, we are focusing increasingly on relief for the injured and displaced. More medical facilities, supplies, and personnel are needed to ensure the proper treatment and safety of survivors, who continue to face grave threats from lack of medical care and appropriate housing. We are working hard to speed up relief and coordinate with the many governmental, intergovernmental, and private agencies involved. Our one-runway airport in Port-au-Prince was built to handle at most 40 flights a day. With U.S. assistance, we have increased that capacity to 140 flights a day, but we still have a backlog of 1400 relief flights.
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We are developing plans to move as many as 400,000 people to tent cities outside of Port-au-Prince, while doing everything possible to restore a sense of normalcy in the capital and other devastated areas. We're taking steps to restore electricity, provide potable water, distribute medical supplies, and provide more and more temporary shelter. Several banks and transfer facilities have re-opened. Telephone communications are being re-established, roads cleared, and 20 additional health care facilities are now functioning.
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With virtually no government buildings left standing, and the grounds of some others, including my own Office, turned into temporary refuge for the internally displaced, responding to this extraordinary calamity has been a herculean task. Despite the devastation, the Haitian people are resilient. Haiti has been knocked down but not out. We will rebuild, and we will be stronger for it. We are already creating plans to put Haitians to work in the relief and rebuilding processes.
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With the staggering extent of the physical damage done by this earthquake, it's hard to conceive that its total damage is even broader, but an additional tragic reality is that it occurred just as Haiti had succeeded in convincing the world community that our nation was in the midst of creating a stable democratic society with a business-friendly environment. Over the past three years, world banking institutions recognized our progress and relieved our indebtedness. Private companies had begun to build factories and advance new industries. Hotels had expanded capacity. Now, Haiti must restart that effort as well.
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Last week, I attended a meeting of a dozen nations in Montreal to prepare for an aid-pledging conference to be held in New York in March. The meeting was very encouraging. While we don't yet know the total cost of reconstruction, we are very appreciative of the immediate help that has been provided by so many nations, including the United States and our neighbors in the Caribbean.
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The rebuilding process in all of its dimensions will be a lengthy ordeal, requiring sustained support, and we ask all of our donors and investors to take a long view: international agencies, nations, businesses, and countless individual friends. That said, we will report regularly on our progress. Donors will see the impact of their support. We expect to be held accountable - not only by our supporters but by our citizens and by the memories of so many lost loved ones.
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For individual Americans, we ask that you continue giving regularly to whatever charity serving Haiti that you choose. We also look forward to a time in the not-too-distant future when we can again promote tourism broadly and welcome you as visitors, so that you can witness first-hand the hospitality and beauty of our country. A major focus of our rebuilding will be providing jobs for the people of Haiti, and tourism will be an important component of that effort.
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Businesses interested in investing in Haiti, and taking advantage of preferential trade agreements with the United States, should not be deterred by the earthquake. Rebuilding our nation is now a global cause, and there can be no more meaningful investment. And Haitians living abroad, we need your help. We hope that you will consider returning to help with the rebuilding. We need your skills, your knowledge and your experience to build government capacity and develop fair economic and social structures.
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The earthquake that has destroyed so much has also brought much-needed attention and goodwill to our nation. In honor of all those who have died in this monumental tragedy, we vow to create a new Haiti that is stronger and more vibrant than ever before. Soon, the reporters and photographers will leave, and television and newspapers will turn to other stories. We hope that, like us, you will keep your eyes on the prize and stay the course. We will still need your help.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,675299,00.html
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Der Spiegel Online 2/02/2010)
Preparing for the Next Earthquake
By Clemens Höges
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Haiti's official seismologist, who predicted the recent earthquake, has warned that an even stronger one is likely to hit Port-au-Prince within the next 20 years. Now the Haitian government is debating how and if the capital should be rebuilt -- or if it should be moved elsewhere.
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Claude Prépetit had seen it coming in his figures. He had done the calculations, in millimeters and in centuries, he had calculated the pressure that was building up beneath his feet, and he had estimated the energy that would eventually be discharged. And when the earth finally did shake, and falling concrete ceilings, stone walls and wooden beams killed at least 170,000 people within the space of 40 seconds, that was when Prépetit thought to himself: "This is it -- this has to be a seven."
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He had predicted an earthquake with a magnitude of about 7.2 points on the Richter scale, and the actual quake measured 7.0. For years, he had taken precise measurements and performed careful calculations, and he had done his job exceedingly well.
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When the earthquake struck, he was sitting at home in front of his computer. He jumped up and took shelter in the doorframe, because good doorframes are more capable of standing up to an earthquake than walls, something that Prépetit knows well. In fact, as the Haitian government's official seismologist, he knows everything about earthquakes.
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In those 40 seconds, his brother-in-law and some of his friends died. Shortly afterwards, his father-in-law also died. Prépetit survived. After having spent years warning about the possibility of an earthquake striking Haiti, he can hardly be blamed for what happened there.
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Prépetit, a tall man with a wrinkled face who is wearing sneakers, now says, quite calmly, that the earth beneath Port-au-Prince will shake again, but first it will happen farther to the north. The next quake, according to Prépetit's calculations, will be even stronger, probably measuring about 7.6 on the Richter scale. He predicts that it could happen in 20 years' time, give or take a few years.
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Prépetit has divided Haiti into risk zones, based on information his staff has compiled and applied to a map of the country. Seismologists looking at the map can immediately recognize that the most dangerous place in the country is the capital. "We have to make this clear to people, and they have to understand it," says the scientist. "A lot of people have to get out of here."
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The Haitian capital may be tomorrow's deathtrap, but it is currently today's nightmare. The bodies still lying in the wreckage are decomposing in the heat, while the survivors simply step over them. Looters are clearing out the ruined buildings, hunted by police officers on motorcycles wielding pump guns. The hungry survivors fight over every bag of rice tossed down from the trucks of international aid organizations.
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The United Nations estimates that 75 percent of the city will have to be rebuilt, and that well over 500,000 people are now living in the streets. The more fortunate of the newly homeless have plastic tarps, mattresses or wooden boards to build tents for themselves. The drone of American Blackhawk helicopters can be heard overhead.
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The Haitians have been promised $2 billion (€1.43 billion), both for the immediate disaster relief effort and to pay for the reconstruction of the country and its capital. Now the question is how to go about it. There are two possible approaches, one dangerous and the other audacious.
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The Haitians could rebuild the capital to look more or less the way it did before the quake, except with more stable official buildings, naturally. That would be enough -- until the next major earthquake. Or they could use Prépetit's map, embark on a bold exodus from Port-au-Prince and build a new capital elsewhere. The latter approach would resemble what the Brazilians did in 1960, when the government moved to the newly built city of Brasilia, deep in the country's interior.
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In 2001, Prépetit's prediction that the fate of Port-au-Prince is to be destroyed again and again was confirmed when a group of French seismologists came to the island, bringing along state-of-the-art instruments. Prépetit helped them distribute 30 measuring stations around the country. Then the scientists waited, monitoring their instruments, and eventually the equipment began spitting out data. Using the data, the seismologists could calculate how much energy will be released when there is a sudden shift in the two tectonic plates that come together near the capital, the kind of shift that is likely to happen repeatedly. The only problem is that no one can predict when these shifts will take place.
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Should Prépetit have spoken up more loudly? And even if he had, could he have convinced the government to do anything? "Resettling hundreds of thousands of people is very expensive and very difficult. Haiti is a poor country. And besides, I didn't know when it was going to happen. What if it hadn't happened for another 30 years?" But now Prépetit wants to talk, and he wants people to listen to what he has to say.
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An earthquake already destroyed the city once before, in 1751, and the survivors rebuilt Port-au-Prince. The next major quake came in 1770. "We cannot invest a cent in Port-au-Prince; it would be a waste of money," says Bernard Etheart. "We can't afford to lose everything once again. We must take advantage of the opportunity we have today." Sitting in a radio studio, Etheart takes off his headphones and runs his hand through his tousled white hair. He laughs a lot and, at 72, moves like a much younger man.
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Etheart studied in Munich, where he met a young female journalist, also from Haiti. The two returned home to Haiti, but before long then-Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, known as Baby Doc, expelled them from the country, as part of an effort to do away with his critics. After 18 years in exile, they finally returned home.
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Etheart was a professor for many years, and he now runs the government's institute for land reform. Agriculture is about the only industry that functions in Haiti, which produces sugarcane and coffee and not much else.
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Haitians have little choice but to listen to Etheart, whose wife owns one of the most influential radio stations on the island, which, of course, gives Etheart a forum for his views. About 50 percent of Haitians are illiterate, and many are too poor to afford a television set. But the one thing they can do is vote, which is why radio is such a powerful medium in the country. The Ethearts also publish a newspaper.
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Etheart believes that the earthquake must now force Haiti to finally stand on its own feet. Of the country's population of 9 million, about 2 million live in the crowded Port-au-Prince valley, at a population density of 5,000 people per square kilometer. The capital is a population magnet, and yet it is incapable of feeding so many people. The conditions contribute to the growth of slums, like the ones that have crept up the hills surrounding Port-au-Prince. When the earthquake struck, the poorly constructed houses on these hillsides quickly slid downhill, burying the inhabitants in the process.
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Etheart has a plan that could solve the country's problems. He opens a file and pulls out a piece of paper, a graph taken from a study conducted by a colleague. It illustrates Haiti's vicious circle: The government invests its money in the capital, but this only aggravates the country's poverty. As the capital becomes more attractive for migrants from the countryside, the state is forced to spend more money, becoming even poorer in the process.
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"It is now time to break through this vicious circle," says Etheart. "We must invest in the country's small cities." But it would be unacceptable to forcibly displace people, he adds. "We have to offer them incentives" -- jobs, schools, hospitals, anything with a future.
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Of course, the earthquake could also help Etheart press forward with his dream of major land reforms. The government is already sending thousands of people to rural areas. Initially buses and trucks left the chaos of the capital on a daily basis, transporting passengers to the countryside at no cost. The only catch was that no one was given return tickets. But now very few city residents are taking the government up on its not-too-subtle resettlement offer.
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This is not surprising, since the refugees have little to look forward to in the countryside: no jobs, no place to live and not much to eat. "What am I supposed to do in the countryside?" asks Cynthia Saint Fort. The 22-year-old nurse wants to go to medical school, and the country's only university is in Port-au-Prince. Of course, she adds, she is also afraid to stay there, in a place where she has seen so many people die. She says that she is only alive today because someone else died. When the houses began breaking apart, she started running and tripped, and a man fell on top of her. As he was lying there, a piece of concrete fell on the man and killed him.
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For Saint Fort, Port-au-Prince is still the only place where she feels useful. The hillside house she and her brothers lived in before the quake was destroyed, but the family has now built a makeshift shelter in the ruins with mattresses, furniture and tarps.
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They plan to rebuild the house, and they hope to receive government assistance to do so, but like everyone else, they have no idea what the future will hold. She spends her days tending to her patients in a makeshift hospital set up in the courtyard of a house. Death was yesterday. Now her life is in Port-au-Prince.
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Etheart is familiar with all of the reasons why Haitians are unwilling to leave the capital. But he also believes that if all the money that is now being pledged to Haiti is invested in smaller cities, life outside Port-au-Prince could also become more appealing.
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A small research facility, the only building left of the country's Ministry of Public Works, lies on the outskirts of downtown Port-au-Prince. Jacques Gabriel, Haiti's minister of public works, transportation and communication, walks with a stoop as he enters his new office. It is empty, with the exception of a desk, five moving boxes, and a framed map of Haiti leaning against the wall. His ministry literally disappeared beneath his feet.
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When the earthquake struck three weeks ago, Gabriel tried to make it to the door, but it was jammed. A hole opened up in the wall, and when the ground shook he was thrown to the floor. Another tremor flung him outside, bruised but alive. He doesn't see very well now, after losing his glasses in the quake. He hasn't been able to find his optometrist.
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Gabriel moved to the research facility, where he was given an office, and he is thankful that his old Nokia mobile phone still works. The building now serves as the ministry's control center.
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Other ministries are in similar shape. The president and his cabinet are working in makeshift offices in a police barracks near the airport. They have little more than mobile phones, which explains why there is so little evidence of any government presence in Haiti, and why United Nations peacekeepers and US soldiers are running the city.
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Gabriel says that the cabinet doesn't know -- and cannot possibly know -- what the future has in store for Haiti. "We need brainstorming, and we need advice." But one thing, he says, is clear: "We cannot rebuild Port-au-Prince the way it was built before. We will have to resettle a lot of people, and we have to start thinking about other cities." He wants to develop a new seismographic institute, but that will require prompt assistance from foreign experts. Prépetit cannot possibly accomplish this task alone.
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At some point, the government and the parliament will have to decide whether to stay in Port-au-Prince. "We must consider the pros and cons," says the minister. If the capital was in the interior of the country, he argues, "we would lose our direct contact with the port."
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Is it even possible to simply abandon a capital? Wouldn't it be preferable to rebuild, using lighter materials and safer construction methods?
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President René Préval is familiar with Etheart's plan. The two men are old acquaintances, but the president is still skeptical. He calls the former professor "Dessalines," a reference to Jean-Jacques Dessalines, once of Haiti's liberators. In 1803, he defeated the French colonial masters with an army of escaped slaves, who eventually founded their own country. Dessalines made his capital at Marchand, a small town in the country's interior.
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Dessalines, who later proclaimed himself emperor of Haiti, using Napoleon as his role model, was murdered in 1806. Today, his statue stands in front of the ruins of the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince, which his successor turned into the capital.
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His old capital, a city of about 15,000 people, is now called Dessalines. Etheart believes that a place like Dessalines could now become the country's new capital. As ludicrous as it sounds, he knows that the idea makes sense. According to Prépetit, the plain surrounding Dessalines is, seismologically speaking, one of the safest areas in the country.
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- Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

By Damon Winter
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Haitians desperate for basic necessities have left calls for help. Relief organizations that were in the country before the quake found themselves suffering surprising logistical problems.
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Women hide them away in their bosoms. Aid workers count them furtively in the back of S.U.V.’s. The government wants control over who gets them, while schemers have already created counterfeits.
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The food coupons are akin to diamonds: they are precious because sustenance is scarce. For three weeks since the international effort to feed millions of Haitians has been dogged by confusion, transportation snags, security problems and a lack of coordination. Before the coupon program started on Saturday, food giveaways had become a Darwinian sport — with biscuits and bottles of canola oil or biscuits thrown like footballs from the backs of trucks to masses of men jockeying for position.
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Many are still hungry. As of Sunday, 639,200 people had received a meal from the United Nations’ World Food Program, 32 percent of the two million estimated to be in need.
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Aid groups say that they have been knocked back on their heels by a catastrophe they describe as more difficult to manage than famine in Africa or the tsunami in Asia.
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Rarely if ever, they say, has a natural disaster so ravaged the crowded capital of an already poor country, devastating both the government and the international agencies that usually step in.
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And yet the food crisis is not simply a natural disaster. Interviews with aid groups, United Nations officials, experts and Haitian government leaders reveal that communication was not a top priority early on. Inexperience and a go-it-alone approach — by groups Haitian and foreign — contributed to the dysfunction.
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In many ways, the new food distribution program is an improvement, with its stepped-up security, emphasis on women as recipients and its plan for 16 fixed locations. But the disorientation that immediately followed the earthquake has been especially hard to cure.
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Two weeks after the quake, in a khaki tent on the United Nations campus in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s interior minister led a meeting of bleary-eyed officials from the government, the United Nations and a half-dozen other agencies assigned to such issues as food, water and shelter.
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Almost immediately, confusion surfaced: they were not working from a common map. Several people at the meeting complained that they were not getting reports fast enough from organizations on the streets to help keep an accurate tally of which areas were getting assistance.
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Numbers were tossed about, all of them adding up to staggering challenges. The shelter cluster reported that it had only 4,000 of the 200,000 tents requested by Haitian authorities. Food rations — a basic meal — had been distributed to less than half of the people the government believed needed them. And while potable water was reaching about 500,000 a day, only 20,000 had been given access to latrines.
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“How do you provide toilets to makeshift camps,” Guido Canale of Unicef said in an interview after the meeting, “in a city that did not have sufficient sanitation to begin with?”
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The meeting revealed how aid groups were struggling with an unexpected development: in a country where many of them had worked for years, they were starting from scratch. Sophie Perez, the country director for CARE, for example, said that 80 percent of her 133 employees had lost their homes to the quake.
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The government, weak in the best of times, was incapacitated, and three of four United Nations warehouses with stockpiles of rice and other staples had been damaged. Food, more than anything else, became the pressure point. Haitian officials pushed to get off the sidelines; aid groups, fearing rampant corruption and violence, sought to limit their role.
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The World Food Program started out by trying to feed as many people as possible, wherever, whenever. But by Week 2, some aid groups and Haiti’s interior minister, Paul Antoine Bien-Aimé, were saying that without better coordination, “it’s like we are shooting in the dark.”
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Anthony B. Banbury, a high-ranking United Nations logistician, said that it had become clear that distributing food properly would bring peace, while mistakes could lead to unrest.
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“One of our main tools to achieve security is also a source of insecurity,” he said after being sent to Haiti to speed the relief effort. “We need to do it in a well-planned, well-organized and well-coordinated manner.”
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That, however, proved to be immensely difficult. The collapse of the headquarters of the United Nations mission here robbed the relief effort of a central command.
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Some of the groups that had rushed into the void were competent veterans. Others were what organizers from larger groups described as “humanitarian tourists”: nongovernmental organizations full of good intentions, but with limited supplies and experience.
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“They added to the confusion,” Mr. Canale of Unicef said, “not to the solutions.”
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The dysfunction was all too obvious to besieged Haitians. Sheets and splintered plywood with painted calls for help began to appear on the streets of Port-au-Prince just a few days after the quake. “We need food,” said one sign, then 6, then 20.
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The coupons have provided some order to the distribution process, which often involved food being tossed out of trucks and collected by the mightiest men. Most were in English, Spanish or French. The underlying message was not just that Haiti’s people were desperate — they also had no idea who was in charge or how to get help. Voltaire Samuel, like many others, concluded that perhaps the foreigners needed some direction.
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Last week, with one arm in a sling, he and a half-dozen neighbors put up another S O S sign in the median of Delmas Street, outside downtown.
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“They are giving food to other places,” Mr. Samuel said. “Here, they bring us nothing.”
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Many of the residents in the district of Delmas 1 said last week they had not eaten in days. They hesitated to go too far in search of food because they feared that someone would steal their last remaining possessions, so they selected five men from among them to look.
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But it did not work for them, or for thousands of others. At the most visible food distribution site in the capital, near the collapsed presidential palace, the line typically lasted hours, with a swell of hungry Haitians leaving empty-handed.
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After several days of trucks coming and leaving without serving the entire group, chaos engulfed the process. Marcus Prior, a spokesman for the World Food Program, said that around 60 police officers and United Nations troops usually managed security at locations where as many as 5,000 people crowded around trucks with food.
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On at least two days last week, United Nations troops used tear gas after a mass of men rushed the food distribution point and began grabbing what they could. In a separate case, one World Food Program truck stuck in traffic was robbed by men on motorbikes.
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Violence was more the exception than the rule, but food was still given out first come first served. A truck would drive up and men would run toward it. After awhile, women and those who lived a few blocks away did not even bother.
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“They are treating people like dogs, just tossing things at them,” said Séjour Jean Rodrigue, 38, one of the leaders in Delmas 1. “We don’t want anything to do with it.”
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The new system for food distribution, devised to address these problems, has two major changes: coupons and a focus on women, who are supposed to be the only ones collecting rice.
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The process also shifts power from Haiti’s government to foreign aid groups; and from men throwing food from trucks to local leaders giving out coupons, like Rigaud Joachin, 48, a gregarious bookkeeper with the national telecommunications company who lives in one of the few houses still standing in the neighborhood of Nazon.
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He was responsible on Sunday night for handing out 300 coupons to a list of families, and he took his job seriously. Inside his porch at dusk, he bellowed for each person to come forward.
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“Lafleur Fernande!”
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“Renette Briole!”
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Before long, the crowd was 15 people wide and 3 deep. But Mr. Joachin, a respected neighborhood figure, had little trouble keeping order.
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The next day, his 300 coupon holders and hundreds of others lined Poupelard Street, as two women at a time walked away with sacks of rice.
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Security Still a Problem
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Other locations have had a harder time. Security has been stepped up for food distribution, but twice since Saturday Haitians have set up blockades to try to stop United Nations supply trucks from passing, and pressure on coupon holders has intensified. On Monday afternoon, a crowd of several hundred people rushed workers from Catholic Relief Services as they tried to hand out coupons near the presidential palace, forcing them and a small team of American soldiers to flee.
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One woman, Marcelin Cristana, admitted that she had gamed the system. “I bought the coupon for 20 Haitian dollars,” she said, or about $2.50 in the United States. At a park in the wealthy suburb of Pétionville that day, the food arrived late, after thousands without coupons had already gathered. Brian Casey, an emergency coordinator with Goal, an Irish aid group, explained that there had been a problem obtaining fuel. His loaders also failed to show up, leading him to pull 23 men with coupons out of line, offering them $5 each.
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The biggest problem was the location: the driveway of a police station that was wide open, with no natural entrance or exit. Aid workers and United Nations troops set up a perimeter with orange plastic fencing, and the area where people left with rice felt as chaotic and aggressive as the food lines before the new program had started.
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Meanwhile, theft occurred almost openly. Partly because workers were trying to move quickly — letting men, not just women, pick up the rice — pairs of off-duty police officers slid in to collect what they had no right to take.
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“I’ll make a note of it,” said a United Nations police officer who had pulled one of the men aside. “But he’s a policeman, so nothing will happen.”
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Many people nonetheless left pleased. Bernadette Volcy, 54, said she was “so happy the Americans are helping us.” But, she added, “it’s not enough.”
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United Nations officials agree. As of Tuesday morning, the new program had handed out enough rice to feed about 212,000 people, according to United Nations figures — more than 100,000 people short of its initial goal. Of the 16 sites chosen for distribution, only 9 were up and running on Sunday, increasing to 12 on Monday, and 14 on Tuesday.
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Hundreds of thousands of people are still waiting. When the empty trucks left Pétionville, Haitians from the camp walked around looking for another gathering, holding up small strips of paper with their names written in careful script.
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Desperate, hungry and still not satisfied, they said they were looking for the white men in control of food distribution. They needed coupons. They needed to eat.

CDC is working with others in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), various branches of the U.S. military, and other federal and international agencies to help communities in Haiti recover from the powerful earthquake that struck the country on January 12, 2010. CDC's current response focuses on collaborating with national and international partners to meet urgent public health needs and establishing liaisons and coordination needed for successful, long range public health programs in response to the earthquake. As of January 30, 2010, 330 CDC staff are currently engaged in response activities, of these 24 CDC staff are deployed to Haiti and other response agencies.
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CDC staff members in Haiti are serving on multiple international teams and projects to help mitigate and address public health issues. They are participating on teams conducting rapid assessments and ongoing surveillance of health conditions in Haiti. Teams are creating snapshots of the current situation related to water safety, food supply, shelter conditions, and other health threats at over 50 sentinel surveillance sites. These data will be used to develop and prioritize immediate interventions.
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CDC experts have developed a public health surveillance instrument with the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the US Incident Response Coordination Team, the Haitian Ministry of Health, and the Pan American Health Organization for ongoing assessments of numbers and types of cases of disease, injury, and other health conditions. The form is being piloted over the next week in hospitals and other health facilities engaged in surveillance activities across Haiti. Data are being collected by internet, where power is available; telephone; and paper forms.
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Results of the surveillance will be used to prioritize public health interventions, project resources needed by health care facilities as they care for patients, and assist in long-range planning for the reconstruction of the country’s health care system.
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CDC is also partnering with the Government of Haiti to restore capacity at Haiti’s National Public Health Laboratory. In collaboration with USAID, CDC is sending laboratory supplies including microscopes, rapid diagnostic tests and other critical equipment and reagents. These supplies will increase the ability of Haiti’s laboratorians to diagnose diseases like tuberculosis and malaria and to detect and respond to outbreaks.
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Additionally, CDC is developing guidance and communication materials for travelers and people providing care for travelers that can be found on CDC’s Haiti Earthquake and Travel website. Resources include guidance for travelers to Haiti, information about health threats associated with the earthquake, and travel warnings.

THE MASSIVE international response to Haiti's earthquake has brought more than $2 billion in aid to the stricken Caribbean nation, by the United Nations' reckoning. That's a stunning figure, but it comes with a giant asterisk: So far, the vast majority of the aid, more than 85 percent, has been earmarked or promised but not yet delivered or disbursed.
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That's not as shocking as it may sound; after all, channeling $2 billion into a country as poor and broken as Haiti takes time, and if done too quickly it might cause new problems. Still, there is a cautionary tale worth considering even as development experts and the world's rich countries debate how to rebuild Haiti. Unless there is an effective mechanism for raising, coordinating and disbursing aid, arguing over spending priorities and approaches will be a waste of time.
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The cost of rebuilding Haiti will be enormous, possibly beyond $10 billion. A major international donors' conference, set for next month at the United Nations, is expected to produce a funding target attached to a rebuilding blueprint. The actual dollar figure will grab the headlines but may be less important than ensuring that donor countries and institutions make good on their pledges.
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The U.N. conference will be the third such meeting of Haiti donors in less than four years. The last one, which took place last April after devastating hurricanes and tropical storms, was not an unalloyed success. Of $402 million pledged by multilateral organizations and major donors -- less than half what Haiti requested -- just $72 million has been given out so far, and most of that has just gone to plug holes in Haiti's budget. The remainder, more than 80 percent of the amount promised, has been earmarked but so far not spent, or is simply pending, awaiting reports, reviews or approvals from various boards, governments, agencies and legislatures in the United States, the European Union, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Japan and elsewhere.
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None of this, sad to say, is unusual, and some of it hinges on Haiti's government, which even before the earthquake was not a model of efficiency. Typically, the disbursement window for such investment projects is four to seven years. Borrowing from the American lexicon, one aid expert told us that in Haiti, there is no such thing as a shovel-ready project. It did not help that Haiti's prime minister was summarily dismissed by the Haitian Senate last fall in a rancorous all-night session.
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After January's devastating earthquake, there must be no repeating the lack of urgency that has marked the international response to Haiti's previous calamities. One way to ease the flow of aid would be to establish a multi-donor trust fund, modeled on the one that collected nearly $1 billion for the reconstruction of Aceh, Indonesia, after the 2004 Asian tsunami. The trust fund could hold donors' feet to the fire to make them meet their funding commitments; act as the main international coordinator for projects with Haiti's government; ensure transparency and accountability once the projects are underway; and monitor results. Rebuilding Haiti will be a long-term enterprise. Better to tackle it with a streamlined mechanism in place from the beginning.

Caribbean Net News
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WASHINGTON, USA -- During a meeting on Monday of the Group of Friends of Haiti, the Assistant Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) and Chair of the Group of Friends of Haiti, Albert Ramdin, presented a report on his recent visit to the earthquake-devastated country that included meetings with Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and other Haitian government authorities, and suggested future steps for recovery action.
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OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza and Member State representatives also attended the meeting, held at OAS headquarters in Washington, DC.
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Ramdin said there are five areas where the OAS has an opportunity to assist Haiti in its rebuilding process, including: support in the area of governance and support to state institutions; technical assistance to the electoral process, including continuing a civil registry program that should be expanded to other parts of the country; capacity building in trade, tourism, and investment; and the promotion of education opportunities through scholarships and agreements with various universities of the hemisphere.
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Ramdin identified food security and short-term job creation as critical issues for the country. He also mentioned the importance of unified coordination on the ground, and the need to focus on sustainability and structural planning, as well as defending the human rights of the youth and the elderly.
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“In terms of the next steps we will continue to bring support to the Government of Haiti, we will be reestablishing and strengthening our office in Haiti and the Dominican Republic as this office is going to provide support to our operation in Port-au-Prince, and we will continue with the inter-American collaboration and coordination on the ground and working jointly with the United Nations,” Ramdin said.
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OAS Secretary General Insulza reported that the OAS Secretariat for Integral Development is working on a series of programs related to education and sustainable development so they may be integrated with countries’ efforts to help Haiti during its reconstruction process. “We will be basically adding to the work we were doing before the earthquake, and will continue to have a strong coordination with Haiti National Police,” Insulza said.
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OAS Member State representatives underscored the positive leadership role the OAS has played during the crisis and the need for a guiding map that outlines the OAS role in the country’s future and political stability, mainly in the areas of human rights, democracy building and national elections.
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“The need is evidently enormous, the task is complex, still in our visit we felt that the government and the people of Haiti are very appreciative of the support they have received from all the countries,” said Ramdin, who also took the opportunity to highlight the support and commitment of the people and government of the Dominican Republic after the catastrophe.

WASHINGTON, USA -- Organization of American States (OAS) Assistant Secretary General Albert Ramdin, says that the following the massive earthquake in the Caribbean nation on January 12, every effort will be made to ensure that “Haiti remains the highest priority within the OAS.
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“We should not forget Haiti. While we recognize their resilience, we should not leave the Haitians on their own. This is a singular opportunity for the international community to support Haitians and help Haitians help themselves,” the Assistant Secretary General said, after returning from Haiti where he led an inter-American delegation on a one-day visit.
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While in Port-au-Prince, the Assistant Secretary General also invited Haitian Foreign Minister Marie-Michele Rey to address the OAS Permanent Council in Washington on the situation and needs of the Caribbean nation that was ravaged by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake.
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“We will remind member states that have made pledges—very generous pledges—at the beginning, political commitments, expressed as well as financial commitments,” Ambassador Ramdin said, following the visit. “We will remind them of those pledges so that Haiti can count on the OAS as an advocate for their own needs.”
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Ramdin renewed the inter-American support and commitment to helping the recovery and rebuilding in Haiti, stressing the Organization’s interest in an active involvement by the Haitian diaspora. He also referred to the Organization’s interest in mobilizing the hemisphere’s private sector in a conference to partner with Haitian private sector.
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The delegation that went to Port-au-Prince on Thursday comprised, among others, the Executive Director of the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF), David Sanbrailo; Deputy Director of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), David Hatch; and Inter-American Defense Board Director General, Brigadier General Ancil W. Antoine.
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The Haitian Foreign Affairs Minister described the meeting with the OAS officials as very positive, noting that “we exchanged views on the next steps of what has to be done.” She said they also reviewed the emergency and reconstruction phases in which “coordination is a key factor in helping the people,” in addition to ensuring that the Haitian view is taken into consideration.
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Minister Rey welcomed the initiative to invite Haitian diaspora to be integrally involved, explaining that the diaspora, as “our brothers and sisters, they are suffering as much as we are.” During the one-day visit, the OAS Delegation also met with Edmond Mulet, head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and reviewed a series of key issues.
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In his overview of the visit, Ramdin further noted the enormous devastation he and his delegation witness in the Haitian capital city, with many fallen buildings and a huge death toll. He observed the sad and painful reality faced by the people of Haiti, who have had to continue working, with little time to grieve and to mourn their loved ones. But he also commended the remarkable collective resilience of the Haitian people in terms of their own restraint in waiting for assistance and for relief items.
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Amidst the rubble, Ramdin noted that Haitians—both the people and government—are making a lot of progress in organizing themselves. They are clearly taking the lead in setting the priorities for the country, he said. “It is an opportunity for the Haitian government to make bold decisions; to look at the long-term perspective; to look at fundamental changes and improvements in how they organize themselves and society.”
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“Reconstructing is not going to be enough,” said Ramdin. In moving forward, there is an opportunity to try to build a future which is going to take in account the weaknesses of the past, a fact he said was acknowledged in his conversations with Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive, who is very much aware that they cannot build where the conditions are not favorable. The government is looking at certifying any kind of reconstruction or physical infrastructure or buildings. “That is a good sign that the government is aware that it cannot be business as usual, It is time for change, and there is an opportunity for change,” the Assistant Secretary General remarked. He added that an important issue also discussed related to rebuilding and decentralizing to more urban areas to ease some of the pressure on Port-au-Prince and allow other communities in the country to develop as well.
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We need to mobilize all stakeholders in the process—in the first place, the people of Haiti, the Haitian government, support from neighboring countries, the Dominican Republic, CARICOM, who have a moral authority to advocate Haiti’s needs internationally. He specially commended the Dominican Republic, which was among the first to provide response, through a massive operation to deliver support and relief aid to the people of Haiti.
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The PADF’s John Sanbrailo witnessed the Foundation’s operations at its warehouse in Port-au-Prince, and commented that despite the tremendous constraints, supplies have begun to flow to the neediest. He recognized the many Haitians volunteering alongside PADF staff, and thanked the many donors so far, but stressed the need for more help for the PADF, the 48-year old disaster relief arm of the OAS, which is moving to launch a cash-for-work program in a major clean-up effort for which donations are needed. He specially acknowledged the more than $30,000 in personal contributions from OAS employees, delivered by the Secretary General and the Assistant Secretary General.
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Sanbrailo underscored the most immediate needs in Haiti for tents, and other humanitarian supplies, food, tarps, plastic sheeting, bedding, and water purification supplies, in addition to cash. He said the PADF is ready to receive those types of contributions and to ship them very quickly to the earthquake victims in Haiti.

BY AUDRA D.S. BURCH AND ELINOR J.BRECHER
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Hours after the earthquake in Haiti, South Florida emerged as a natural staging area for an epic relief effort to a nation now tragically defined by loss. Just as naturally, the region promises to shape Haiti's recovery -- part think tank, part supply depot.
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As shell-shocked Haitians still seek firm footing, a community bound by blood yet separated by 750 miles of ocean is just starting to consider its role -- and the price of being a good neighbor. Just who will pick up the tab has already caused turmoil. U.S. military flights stopped bringing trauma patients to Florida on Wednesday after Gov. Charlie Crist asked for federal aid. The state, he said, has already spent $10 million.
Officials were trying to work out a compromise Saturday so flights could resume.
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``There's a thin line between local and global, between Miami and Haiti,'' said Mark Rosenberg, president of Florida International University. ``Long after the cameras are gone in Haiti, South Florida will have to stand tall and be aggressive in the rebuilding effort.''
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Understandably, those efforts haven't yet coalesced into an agenda; many of the estimated 268,000 Haitians in South Florida are still at square one, searching for lost loved ones or mourning their dead. But in some ways, relief is progressing to recovery.
Miami-Dade's school board is considering building classrooms in Port-au-Prince. The University of Miami's field hospital is settling in for the long haul. Archdiocesan Catholic priests are in Haiti to bring spiritual healing to those in anguish. And on the Miami River -- a narrow ribbon that has long tied South Florida to Haiti -- boats laden with relief supplies and marketplace staples chug toward open water.
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Already a lifeline to Haiti, this 5.5-mile waterway will become even more important as the cheapest, most efficient way to transport construction material to the ports. South Florida's demographics and geography position it squarely at the intersection of recovery dialogue, strategics, mobilization and commerce.
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``With such a large Haitian community, there's obviously going to be investment from here,'' said Alex Stepick, FIU professor and director of the Immigration and Ethnicity Institute. ``Pragmatically speaking, the imports are going to come through Miami, so there is no question we will play a pivotal role in the rebuilding.''
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The Diaspora has always been one of the Haitian economy's most solid pillars, sending $1.17 billion a year in remittances, ``more than any foreign aid,'' said Marleine Bastien, executive director of Haitian Women of Miami and co-chair of the Haiti Relief Task Force.
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``We have a unique opportunity to get it right,'' said Dr. Rudolph Moise, a Miami activist and, like Bastien, a candidate for the congressional seat being vacated by U.S. Senate hopeful Kendrick Meek. ``Haiti has been neglected for 200 years. . . . Haiti needs everything.''
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With an estimated 25,000 government offices and businesses and 225,000 residences either damaged or destroyed, the mission to make Haiti whole is almost unimaginable, especially without insurance coverage to handle most of the heavy lifting.
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Still, Moise, who spent 10 days there post-quake, envisions Haiti as ``the most modern country in the Caribbean and getting tourism back again.''
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After the disaster, a patchwork of individuals, companies and institutions donated generously to the relief effort -- from bottled water to corporate jets, municipal money to a native son's talents. The city of North Miami, where about 30 percent of residents are Haitian, pledged $25,000 from its general fund to the American Red Cross and shipped containers of relief supplies to hard-hit Delmas, its sister city.
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The cause couldn't be more personal for Christian Surena of Kendall, a 25-year-old music producer who attends American InterContinental University in Weston. His father, Dr. Claude Surena, a pediatrician, heads the Haitian Medical Association and Rotary International's disaster preparedness committee. Dr. Yolene Surena, his mother, works for Haiti's Public Health service.
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Their two-story home in Pacot, a Port-au-Prince suburb, somehow withstood the earthquake. When Surena arrived on Jan. 15, he founded a makeshift hospital in the back yard.
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For 10 days, he shuttled back and forth to the Dominican Republic in a diesel pickup truck, buying food and supplies. Surena and Haitian rapper Ogan Izgi created Tribute to Haiti and an original song called Out of the Rubbles over a slide show of Haiti images pre- and post-earthquake, available on Facebook and YouTube.
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``People need to hear positive things right now,'' said Surena, part of a group planning a South Florida Haitian benefit arts festival and auction. South Florida also opened its arms to hundreds of injured and a handful of orphans. By Friday, 526 medical evacuees were being treated at hospitals around the state, including 413 here.
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Now, as the region begins to envision Haiti's transformation, leaders face complicated conversations about leadership, moral obligation and limited resources.
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``So much of the discussion has been about the emergency effort, about food and water, now it's starting to shift to long-term planning,'' said Bill Diggs, president/CEO of the historically black Miami-Dade Chamber of Commerce. ``We have to invest in Haiti. Miami is the testing ground for the conscience of the United States.''
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In no other region are the stakes higher or potentially costlier than in South Florida. While no one is predicting a huge influx of Haitian refugees, even modest population shifts between Haiti and South Florida are sure to cause social and economic ripples.
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Dr. Michel Dodard, associate professor of medicine at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine and a Haitian-American family practitioner, said an internal migration is under way ``to all the cities that were not affected,'' as well as toward the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas.
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``I don't see it going toward South Florida because how would they go? There are only limited evacuations by the military now,'' said Dodard, a founder of Project Medishare for Haiti, which has operated clinics in Haiti since the mid-1990s. Not since Hurricane Andrew, a monster that ravaged whole swaths of South Dade in 1992, has South Florida been involved in such a monumental reconstruction project.
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Among the enduring lessons of Andrew: Great rebuilding needs great leadership. With much of South Dade a flooded, wind-swept husk of once-vibrant neighborhoods, the late Alvah Chapman Jr. -- civic giant and retired chairman of Knight-Ridder -- mobilized community leaders to form We Will Rebuild. The massive private effort raised and distributed $27 million and played a defining part in the redevelopment and reshaping of South Dade.
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``The question is how can this community help Haiti build a stronger nation. It is about nation-building,'' said David Lawrence Jr., president of the Early Childhood Initiative Foundation in Miami and a former Miami Herald publisher. ``What experience can we bring to bear, what dollars, what resources and how can we do that in a coordinated way?''
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The Haitian community is already responding to the call -- and hopes to influence Haiti's future. ``We want to be part of the master plan,'' Marleine Bastien said. ``It's not fair for us to give money all those years and not have a voice.'' How much of a voice depends largely on the Haitian government's willingness to share control over reconstruction plans and finances. To many in the Diaspora, handing over billions in aid to the current government is a recipe for disaster. In a recent poll published in The Miami Herald, an overwhelming majority of Diaspora Haitians lacked trust or confidence in the country's leadership. Four days after the quake, FIU's Rosenberg assembled a group to discuss ways the school could be part of the recovery. The Broward Haiti Relief Task Force is also working on a long-term plan.
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``Beyond taking care of my family, I keep thinking, how do you use your skills and your experiences to contribute to your homeland?'' asked Thamara Labrousse, a consultant with Strategic Partners, a Miami firm that helps organizations develop and strengthen their infrastructures.
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``I think all of us who have been blessed to have the opportunity to come to the United States and study and become professionals feel a responsibility to do something.''
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Richard Champagne, a Fort Lauderdale attorney and president of the 250-plus-member Haitian Lawyer's Association, says his group is working to help restore the Haitian justice system. ``The Haitian people deserve a working legal system,'' he said.
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``As in every other community, as the rebuilding efforts continue, the Haitian people will have disputes and disagreements that need to be resolved through the courts.''
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Champagne says the group hopes to underwrite 10 temporary courts and eventually rebuild the Palais de Justice, the main courthouse in Port-au-Prince.
For now, Haitians here and on the island are struggling to view the crisis through a prism of hope.
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``People are coming from this very emotional period of grief and pain and surrealism,'' said Gepsie Metellus, executive director of the Sant La Haitian .Neighborhood Center in Miami's Upper East Side
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``But we also see this as a defining moment for Haitians not just in South Florida, but throughout the world.''
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``What are we going to do to contribute to realizing a new vision for Haiti? There is something like a clean slate now. This catastrophe presents an opportunity.''
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Miami Herald staff writers Lydia Martin, James H. Burnett III, Luisa Yanez, Nadege Charles, Jose Pagliery and Elisa Santana contributed to this report.

Time
By TIM PADGETT
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The image on Falk Amelung's laptop screen looks like 1960s psychedelia. But the interferogram, a composite radar snapshot of Haiti captured by Japanese satellite before and just after the Jan. 12 earthquake, is a trove of geological information. And much of it has surprised the University of Miami professor of geology and geophysics. "In theory, this should have been an earthquake of simple left-lateral movement along the fault line," says Amelung.
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Then he points to the kaleidoscopic color contours rippling from the quake's epicenter, west of the capital, Port-au-Prince, which indicate vertical quake movement as well. "It's more than we would have thought to see in this region," he says. "We're puzzling over this."
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As a result of that anomaly and others they've seen so far, Amelung and many of his colleagues are urging Haiti's government and international donors to consider relocating the capital, which was largely reduced to rubble by the quake. The most important infrastructure should be rebuilt at a site well away from a fault line that they believe will rupture again within the next generation or two but even closer to Port-au-Prince. "If this were a typical earthquake, the risk of future incidents would decline over the next few months," says Tim Dixon, also a geology and geophysics professor at Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. "The stress would be relieved, and we could all go back to sleep for another 250 years," which is about how long ago Haiti's Enriquillo Fault last convulsed. "But that's not the case here — our findings suggest another shoe has to drop."
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That's largely because of the limited length of the fault-line rupture that caused the January earthquake. Amelung and Dixon, working with two other University of Miami geologists, Sang Hoon Hong and Shimon Wdowinski, say the quake exhibited quite a bit of odd behavior. Its rupture, for example, did not reach the earth's surface — unusual for its powerful 7.0 magnitude. But the more important question is why only the western half of the Enriquillo Fault segment that ruptured in 1751 fractured this time. (That half, about 25 miles in length, lies right under the city of Léogâne, the Jan. 12 epicenter, which is about 20 miles west of Port-au-Prince.)
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As a result, the eastern half of the segment — the one much closer to Port-au-Prince —is subject to that much more stress, which may cause another major quake to come sooner rather than later. "Even if the next earthquake is the same 7.0 magnitude," says Amelung, "it will still be more damaging to Port-au-Prince" than last month's quake was.
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Amelung wants to explore how, if at all, the quake's unexpected vertical motion may have affected the January rupture's short length and potent magnitude. But whatever the cause, the scientists say Haiti can escape the devastation of a seismic sequel. Says Dixon: "We feel we have enough knowledge gathered now to recommend that [Haiti] should rebuild critical infrastructure farther to the north, out of harm's way," where the ground often has stable rock instead of the more alluvial soil around Port-au-Prince.
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The earth scientists' case for moving the capital may actually dovetail with the arguments of social scientists. Haiti is the western hemisphere's poorest country, which is a primary reason Port-au-Prince, with some 2 million residents, is one of the world's most densely populated cities. This combination of factors helps explain why as many as 150,000 people were killed in last month's quake. Many development experts believe that the city's population needs to be halved, and the rebuilding process may offer an opportunity to resettle some half a million people outside the metropolis to new or existing communities that offer jobs and infrastructure.
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Moving an entire capital, of course, is another matter, even if the collapse of the National Palace and other key government structures makes it more possible to contemplate. It's hardly unprecedented and could even serve as a driver of development. The earthquake "creates opportunities for development elsewhere in the country," says Jocelyn McCalla, a development adviser to the Haitian government. "Haiti has to be engaged now in a major decentralizing effort."
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Brazil did just that in the 1950s, when it moved its capital, with all the associated buildings and bureaucracy, from Rio de Janeiro to Brasília, some 600 miles away on the country's relatively unpopulated central plateau. Most Brazilians today agree that the move helped spread political and economic power.
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Amelung and Dixon say it behooves Haiti to at least consider relocation scenarios, perhaps moving government, medical and education infrastructure as far north as the port city of St. Marc. Although scientists traditionally take several months to publish such findings in a peer-reviewed journal, the geologists say the urgency of the policy choices facing Haiti right now demanded that they get the word out quickly. Data from the Japanese satellite's synthetic aperture radar imaging are reaching the broader scientific community in a timelier manner, thanks to new digital supersites developed last year by Amelung and other members of the international Group of Earth Observations (GEO), including JAXA, the Japanese space agency. GEO is working to break through the bureaucratic logjams in which such data often become mired.
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The Haiti information, which is also being studied by NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab as well as the U.S. Geological Survey, indicates that "this [tectonic] plate boundary is way more complicated than we previously thought," says Amelung. The Caribbean isn't generally known for seismic catastrophe. But scientists, including Dixon, began seriously scrutinizing the Enriquillo Fault in the 1980s, eventually determining that it was a major quake hazard. Known formally as the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden Fault, it forms a boundary between the North American and Caribbean plates — and a sort of volatile spine running along the southwest peninsula of Hispaniola, the island Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic.
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Port-au-Prince has experienced at least two large aftershocks since Jan. 12. Geologists like Eric Calais of Purdue University are trying to ascertain whether they are a sign of the fault settling or a setup for a bigger earthquake in the near future. Calais told the National Science Foundation last week that he and his team are also "concerned for the Dominican Republic, as our preliminary models show that the continuation of the fault in this area is loaded."
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Whether or not Haiti and its international donors agree to move the capital, the geological findings mean they'll have to give serious attention to proposals on population relocation and to tightening Haiti's abysmally shoddy construction codes, which allowed the quake to wreak greater havoc than it should have. That disaster may have caught authorities unprepared, but they no longer have that excuse.
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Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1953379_19534...

The New York Times
BYLINE: By STEPHANIE STROM
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Before the earthquake, the American Red Cross had 15 people in Haiti working on projects like malaria prevention and measles vaccines. Partners in Health, a charity based in Boston, had more than 700 doctors and nurses among a staff of almost 5,000 operating a hospital and multiple clinics in the country.
Yet the Red Cross has raised nearly $200 million for its relief operations in Haiti, and Partners in Health about $40 million.
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Disaster fund-raising rewards organizations for their marketing prowess and name recognition as much if not more than for the scope, relevance and quality of their emergency services.
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Now, as the total giving for Haiti exceeds $560 million, relief workers and charitable groups are revisiting a fund-raising model -- last seriously discussed after the 2004 Asian tsunami -- to pool disaster donations across the United States and distribute them to organizations best placed to deliver relief.
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The push to consider a new approach is being driven in part by relief groups that feel eclipsed by the Red Cross and frustrated at being frozen out financially right when their expertise could be best put to use.
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''So often after these major disasters, marketing alone -- divorced from the quality or importance of the work an organization is doing -- will drive support,'' said Thomas Tighe, chief executive of Direct Relief International, a group that provides medical supplies and equipment, and often shares with other groups the money it raises after major disasters.
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Many donors also say after every major disaster that they lack the wherewithal to make informed decisions about which organizations to support and feel compelled to go to the Red Cross, which has one of the world's strongest brands.
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''I don't mean that I don't think the Red Cross has a purpose -- it does,'' said Bill Mitchell, who advises donor organizations about giving and supports exploring alternatives to the current system. ''But the Red Cross's reputation in the last eight years has been really checkered. Can they effectively use all of this money that they are raising?''
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Small-scale versions of the sharing model are already in place. The recent Hope for Haiti telethon, which raised more than $66 million, used a pooled fund. An advisory board will decide how to spread the money among seven participating organizations, including the Red Cross and Unicef.
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The State of Louisiana created the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, a pooled fund in response to Hurricane Katrina, and the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, recently set up by the White House and also a beneficiary of the telethon, is raising money to be parceled out to organizations working in Haiti.
But the only large-scale efforts to pool fund-raising across an entire country have occurred abroad, in places like Britain and Canada.
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''It would be more complex to do in this country because of the much larger number of organizations and more fragmented media market, but I think it is an appealing concept,'' said Peter Bell, the former chief executive of the American arm of CARE and a senior research fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University.
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The Red Cross, as the largest single fund-raiser after any major disaster in the past decade, stands to lose the most. Suzy DeFrancis, a spokeswoman for the organization, said the Red Cross was not categorically opposed to a pooled fund but had many concerns. She said the organization had incurred minimal expenses to raise money for Haiti.
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''If you add another layer between the donor and the people who need the aid, does that eat up time? Does it add cost?'' Ms. DeFrancis said. ''Those are the concerns we would have because we want to get aid there as fast as possible.'' If the past is any guide, advocates of a pooled approach face significant obstacles, even from some American nonprofit relief agencies that are affiliates of international organizations participating in pooled funds abroad.
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''We've had lengthy discussions and negotiations around the concept of establishing a pooled fund, but it confronts a number of challenges here,'' said Samuel A. Worthington, chief executive of InterAction, an umbrella organization representing 190 aid agencies, 82 of which are working in Haiti. ''Will this increase or decrease the pool of resources? How will the resources be divided? Which organizations will be included in the pool? Who will make those decisions?''
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Even in Britain, where the pooled approach has been used for decades, organizations consistently challenge decisions about the allocation of money.
''Most of my phone calls are people complaining,'' said Brendan Gormley, chief executive of the Disasters Emergency Committee, which distributes relief money in Britain. ''We call it a robust dialogue.''
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Founded in 1963, the committee mounts a single ''appeal'' that raises money to support relief services after a major disaster. It distributes the money to member organizations according to a formula calculated to ensure that it goes to those best placed to deliver effective and timely relief to people most in need.
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The committee also accepts donations designated for specific members, but those typically account for a small part of the amounts raised, Mr. Gormley said.
It has 13 member organizations, including the British Red Cross and World Vision, and the committee is working on a plan to distribute more than $75 million raised so far for relief in Haiti. The money is distributed over 18 months or two years, which supports rebuilding efforts long after the cameras have moved on.
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The model grew out of a similar effort in Canada and has been adopted in modified forms in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Mr. Gormley said that New Zealand and several Arab states in the Persian Gulf were considering similar funds.
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Tony Pipa, a consultant who started the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, said the funds offered donors credibility and accountability. ''Money is shared with different actors with different strengths and different experience on the ground in different places,'' Mr. Pipa said.
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The American Red Cross itself acted as a pooled fund after the Asian tsunami. It ended up passing on 46 percent of the roughly $581 million it raised to other organizations, like the World Food Program and the International Organization for Migration, Ms. DeFrancis said. It has already committed $30 million to the World Food Program in Haiti.
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Mr. Bell, the former CARE leader, said that example and others could serve as a template for a larger pooled program. But the effort would also require a significant shift in the competitive culture of relief agencies.
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''You do see, in the response to the Haiti catastrophe and other recent disasters, some elements of joint fund-raising coming together,'' Mr. Bell said. ''But it is a very complex issue here, where organizations are programmed to compete for dollars.''

By Joachim von Amsberg
The World Bank
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The official death toll of the recent earthquake in Haiti is more than 110,000. That tens of thousands more may have been killed puts this tragedy on par with that wrought by the tsunami that struck South Asia in December 2004, killing about 200,000 people and displacing more than half a million just in Indonesia's Aceh province. There are other parallels between these disasters. Haiti is a poor country long plagued by governance issues.
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Even though Indonesia is a well-functioning state, Aceh at that time had been ravaged by decades of conflict between the Indonesian government and Acehnese groups fighting for independence. Whatever government had existed in Aceh was severely diminished by the tsunami.
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Yet Aceh today is a vibrant place where families live in houses and communities, children attend school and farmers tend to their fields. Its reconstruction is widely recognized as a success, and that work could offer a silver lining for Haiti.
In Aceh, about 140,000 houses have been rebuilt, 2,500 miles of roads have been constructed, and 200,000 small and medium-size businesses have been supported. Indonesia concluded an agreement seven months after the tsunami with the independence fighters that gave important autonomies to Aceh in return for a peace that has lasted.
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That pact laid the foundation for the investment and economic development that have taken place.
While the memories of the tragedy linger, what can be rebuilt has been rebuilt. In numerous trips to Aceh over the past 2 1/2 years, I have seen enough redevelopment and spoken to enough local people to know that Aceh has been built back better than it was before the tsunami. Today, Aceh has functioning local and provincial governments that work together with the national government to provide services for its people. There is a functioning state in Aceh. By no means is it flawless, but it holds promise for more social and economic progress and development.
Aceh's experience provides hope that at least the physical and economic damage from natural disasters can be overcome. Hope that out of the desperation of disaster can come the desire for reconciliation after conflict and for establishing an effective state or nation that can address the challenge of rebuilding. No two disasters are the same, but a few keys to success from the Aceh tsunami reconstruction experience should be kept in mind as international support is channeled to Haiti:
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First, local and national leadership count. While Aceh's local government was decimated, Indonesia's national government led the recovery and reconstruction efforts. The president appointed a personally trusted, experienced leader to manage the reconstruction and created an agency with overarching powers to coordinate billions of dollars of investments by 350 organizations in 12,500 projects. International partners may have to take the lead in Haiti during a transition period, but there is no substitute for national leadership in the long run.
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Second, empowering people is key. In Aceh, strong top-down leadership was complemented by the empowerment of the people and communities. Victims became development workers. Aid recipients and former combatants became community facilitators. Displaced families became workers who rebuilt their houses. By channeling a large share of reconstruction funds directly to communities, the people of Aceh's problems were transformed as they became part of the solution. Their hard work meant that houses were built faster, at a lower cost, and better met the needs of the people.
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Third, coordinating global aid is critical. International development partners supported reconstruction through coordinated approaches that were aligned behind government leadership and Aceh's priorities. Fifteen donor countries and donor organizations pooled $700 million in a multi-donor fund administered by the World Bank. Instead of 15 separate housing and road projects with different procedures and criteria, which would have overstretched the limited capacity of local institutions, one well-coordinated program was implemented by communities, government and U.N. agencies, and respected nongovernmental organizations.
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There are, of course, many differences between Haiti today and Aceh five years ago. But as we found in Aceh, recovery is possible. The first priority, as it was after the tsunami, is the vast humanitarian task that is underway. But if the international community comes together, aligns its efforts and coordinates support that prioritizes the interests of the people affected by disaster and puts them in the driver's seat, Haiti's future can look much brighter than its past ever did.
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Joachim von Amsberg, the World Bank's country director for Indonesia since 2007, oversees the bank's management of the Multi Donor Fund for Aceh and Nias

Three weeks after Haiti’s earthquake, the search for survivors has been called off, the TV crews are trickling home, and the celebrity telethon is over — usual signs that the floodwaters of compassion will be ebbing soon. The United States, Canada and other nations, meeting in Montreal last week, vowed that wouldn’t happen. They began to map out a 10-year recovery plan and set the stage for a big donor conference in March.
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Leaders there also acknowledged the difficult truth: It will take years of sustained help, and aid alone will never pour the foundation of a new Haiti. In old Haiti there is still mostly horror. It is a nation of the homeless and maimed. Despite a stunning global surge of aid, many survivors still lack water, food and tents. Thousands sleep outdoors in Port-au-Prince, in terror of aftershocks. Roads, ports, communications — all in terrible shape before — are shattered. Managers and civil servants needed to help run the recovery are dead; the buildings they would run it from are flattened.
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And yet there are reasons for optimism in the rubble. Well before the quake, experts like Paul Collier, an Oxford economist who was a special adviser on Haiti to the United Nations, were disseminating sensible proposals for rebuilding Haiti. The quake altered the landscape but not the validity of these ideas.
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Here are a few that donor countries and Haitian leaders should take a hard look at in coming weeks:
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PROMOTE SELF-SUFFICIENCY Professor Collier has noted that Haiti has considerable economic advantages, like low labor costs and a law that grants its goods preferential access to the United States market. Extending that law and encouraging investments in industries like garment-making and tourism could swiftly create tens of thousands of jobs. Rebuilding and modernizing agriculture to grow staples and export products like coffee and mangoes would mean food, cash and employment.
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OPEN UP THE COUNTRYSIDE Dispersing the population beyond overbuilt, overburdened cities, like the now-shattered capital, is a good idea now cloaked in urgency. Haitians need to get out of disaster-prone areas, and well-placed development could enable them to lead sustainable lives in rural areas and new small towns instead of as the huddled, jobless urban poor. They also need help with tree-planting and topsoil restoration projects, which could create jobs and begin to undo the profound environmental damage that has left the countryside so impoverished and vulnerable to natural disasters.
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REBUILD (AND MAINTAIN) INFRASTRUCTURE Haiti obviously needs homes, schools, roads, a reliable power system — but it also needs the money to maintain them, instead of the usual practice of building projects and leaving them to rot. Technology offers hope here, too. Instead of waiting for someone to build an expensive, centralized power grid, donors could think more flexibly on a smaller scale, using solar panels and LEDs to provide electricity and light cheaply, portably and quickly.
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TAP THE DIASPORA Haitian immigrants in the United States, Canada and elsewhere already send home hundreds of millions of dollars every year. They surely will be sending more, now that the Obama administration has wisely, if belatedly, granted temporary protected status to undocumented Haitians in the United States. Haitians in Canada proposed another excellent idea: government-paid leaves of absence to allow expatriates (employed in government or the private sector) to return and rebuild civil society in their place of birth.
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In a country scarred by endemic corruption and waste, relief funds and projects need to be carefully monitored. Those who know Haiti well note that in the years before this latest disaster, civil order had already begun to take root. President René Préval is far more capable than his predecessors, although we wish he would be a lot more visible to his own people and a lot more assertive. Haiti needs strong and honest leadership.
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Expert analysts like Jocelyn McCalla, a Haitian-American development consultant, noted an encouraging upswelling of political good will and common purpose after the devastating hurricanes of 2008. This, he says, helps explain why Haitians have endured these horrific weeks with relative calm.
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It will take a lot of money, creativity, and vigilance and sustained commitment to rebuild Haiti —from Haitians and from the world. There are smart people thinking about how to do it. And that is a start.
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Note: An earlier version of this editorial misspelled the surname of the Haitian-American development consultant as McCallan.

At a Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing on Thursday and in a "separate teleconference by relief organizations," officials said international aid to Haiti has been delayed by the "island nation's inept government, a lack of coordination by aid organizations and the legacy of past U.S. policy failures," McClatchy/Miami Herald reports.
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At the hearing, Paul Farmer, the U.N. deputy special envoy to Haiti pointed to disconnect between relief efforts and the country's ability to take in the aid, according to McClatchy. Farmer also said, "Where we are creating 4,000 jobs in cleaning rubble, we must create 40,000 jobs." He added, "We must hasten our efforts to get tents, tarpaulins and latrines or composting toilets to Haiti." If the poor sanitation situation continues, cholera and other diseases could spread, according to Farmer, the news service reports (Sahoo, 1/29).
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"Asked by the panel's chairman Senator John Kerry how much of the city needed rebuilding, Farmer replied: 'The majority of it. Seventy-five percent,'" Agence France-Presse writes (1/28). Farmer also noted U.S. policies that he said had weakened Haiti's government. "Over the past two decades, U.S. aid policies have seesawed between embargoes and efforts to bypass governments, including elected ones not to Washington's taste,'' he said. "Farmer said the U.N. is considering 'some direct budgetary grants to get the government back on feet,''' McClatchy/Miami Herald writes.
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"Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., also blamed previous Haitian governments for the present crisis. 'The failures and corruption of past Haitian governments contributed greatly to the stress felt by the Haitian people before the earthquake, and the limitations of the current government constrain the prospects for recovery,' Lugar said," according to the news service (1/29).
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At the hearing, both Republican and Democratic Senators "made clear … that piecemeal, 'willy-nilly' (to quote Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn.) reconstruction efforts won't be enough to rebuild – and in many ways, build from scratch – the island nation," according to the National Journal. Foreign Relations "committee members seem eager to take the reins to make sure Haiti's reboot is done right. … 'I don't know how you get this done with any semblance of normality in terms of the approach,' said ... Kerry ... 'This has to be a kind of ... D-Day invasion'" (Herbert, 1/28).
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To help the country rebuild, Farmer said funds should be committed and disbursed into a "recovery" fund that the Inter-American Development Bank or a similar organization could oversee, AFP reports. "'Such an account could be managed ... with partners such as the U.N. and, of course, Haitian leadership ... to design and implement recovery plans coordinated at central and local levels,' he said, adding that the effort also would include the United States and other leading nations" (1/28).
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Also Thursday, "Chris Dodd, a Democrat who is chairman of the Senate banking committee, and ... Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate foreign relations committee," introduced legislation that aims "to write off Haiti's foreign debt, increase trade and create an infrastructure fund to help the quake-hit country rebuild quicker," Reuters reports.
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"The Dodd-Lugar bill also calls for an infrastructure fund for Haiti that would invest in rebuilding roads, water, sanitation and power grids. Additionally, it said aid to the government should be provided through grant handouts rather than loans that would add to the country's debt burden," the news service writes (1/28).
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Dodd said, "The United States and the international community have already contributed tremendously to short-term relief efforts in Haiti, but it's critical that we commit to Haiti's long-term recovery as well," according to a second AFP article. Lugar said that "sustained international participation in Haiti is vital for its recovery" (1/28).
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"As the only member of Congress who has lived in Haiti and speaks the Creole language, Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) is understandably worried about the country’s future in the wake of the disastrous Jan. 12 earthquake," The Hill writes in an article examining Oberstar's thoughts on the U.S. role in Haiti's reconstruction (Eisele, 1/28).
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U.N. and U.S. aid officials said "urgent" operations in Haiti are slowing down, Bloomberg reports. "International efforts are shifting toward helping sustain Haitians, including the estimated 800,000 residents of the capital Port-au-Prince left homeless by the Jan. 12 quake. About 250,000 people have already left the city for the countryside, and locally grown food is beginning to arrive in the capital, said David Wimhurst, a U.N. peacekeeping mission spokesman," the news service writes. The article also looks at the delivery of aid, water and sanitation and the challenges facing children who were orphaned in the quake (Green/Varner, 1/28).
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NPR's "Morning Edition" looks at the move to deal with longer-term needs. "Some banks and stores are re-opening, people are searching for jobs, and once again, there's food for sale in some markets. And the medical needs are beginning to move on from dealing with broken bones and amputations to more long-term issues" (Silberner, 1/29). The Associated Press/New York Times published an overview of the situation on the ground (1/28).
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The delivery of aid in Haiti continued to be slow and Air Force Gen. Douglas Fraser, who leads the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, said, "We're still not up to meeting the needs of the Haitian people as far as the amount of supplies that are there. And so, there have been some instances, isolated, where we've been out to give distribution to citizens, there hasn't always been enough food," CNN reports.
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"We haven't anticipated the demand, I guess, at each site as we've gone out because the Haitians have – have migrated around, if you will, from distribution site to distribution site, so we're finding pockets that we haven't been able to get in to," Fraser said. He also noted that "the relief efforts improve every day" (1/28).
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In a second CNN article, Fraser discussed plans for temporary 3,000- to 5,000-bed hospital on land in Haiti because Haitians receiving care on the USNS Comfort are requiring treatment for longer than anticipated. "The effort that we have ongoing right now for the discharge is looking to put together a facility where we have the ability to recover those patients – and be able to provide them with that recovery space and time that they need," Fraser said.
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According to CNN, "He said the initial effort would be to make a temporary facility on land the Haitian government has identified, with the facility consisting of tents and cots and whatever other resources can be scrounged together" (Mount, 1/29).
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The Wall Street Journal looks at the delivery of food aid and examines why it has been difficult to get the aid to reach earthquake survivors. "It's not typical for so much to go wrong on a major operation like this – in fact, on Thursday, the Army successfully delivered the cargo, in the largest single-day food distribution here. But a diary of Wednesday's journey reads like an anthology of the obstacles stifling efforts to deliver aid since an earthquake turned the Haitian capital to rubble two weeks ago," the newspaper writes (Rhoads, 1/29).
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"With aid still only trickling in despite a vast international relief effort launched after the January 12 quake, hundreds of thousands of homeless people in tent camps are not only short of food but also at risk from rising crime," AFP reports in an article looking at the risk of violence and rape in Haiti.
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Mario Andresol, the national police chief, said that because Port-au-Prince has an electricity shortage, "bandits are taking advantage to harass and rape women and young girls under the tents." Anthony Banbury, the deputy head of the U.N. mission in Haiti, said sometimes violence erupted while survivors waited for aid. "While the influx of aid was vital after the quake, which killed around 170,000 people, 'at the same it can be a source of insecurity because it attracts big crowds and there can be disorder around food distribution,'" he said (Montet, 1/28).
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"Basic medical supplies such as antibiotics and painkillers are running dangerously low at some hospitals and clinics in Port-au-Prince, the capital, and in the countryside, alarming doctors who are struggling to keep up with demand," the Canadian Press reports. Elisabeth Byrs, of the U.N.'s humanitarian co-ordination office, said this adds to concerns about a potential public health crisis because of the unsanitary living conditions and a limited supply of water. The article includes quotes from other aid and medical officials (Fox, 1/29).
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MSNBC examines the number of amputations and the need for prosthetics in the aftermath of the earthquake. "Estimates of amputations have varied dramatically – from a few thousand to more than 110,000, according to agency reports. There's no reliable count amid the chaos so far, but even the most conservative disaster workers say more than 75 people a day have lost limbs since the quake, either because of initial injuries or because of secondary infections and gangrene," MSNBC writes.
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"It’s still too early for earthquake victims to receive artificial limbs, said Pat Chelf, a board member for the Amputee Coalition of America, an education and advocacy group. Under the best circumstances, amputation injuries take a month or more to heal, and the conditions in Haiti are anything but the best" (Aleccia, 1/28).
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In related news, State Department spokesperson P.J. Crowley said Thursday that the U.S. plans to work with the international community to protect Haitian children who might be at risk of trafficking, CNN writes. Crowley said, "We have concerns about traffickers, we have concerns about pedophiles … We've seen a couple of cases of those in recent days. So this is just something we are working collectively with those organizations that are actively trying to help children, people on the ground, be alert for this kind of danger" (Keyes, 1/29).

Thank you for inviting me to testify today before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. I speak as the U.N. Deputy Special Envoy for Haiti—President Clinton, as you know, is the Special Envoy—and also as a physician and teacher from Harvard who has worked for over twenty-five years in rural Haiti. Today, my hope is to do justice to Haiti not by chronicling the events of the past two weeks, which are well known to you, but by attesting to the possibility of hope for the country, and of the importance of meaningful investment and sustainable development in Haiti.
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That said, I will not pretend that hope is not at times difficult to muster. As I was flying from Port-au-Prince to Montreal on Monday, headed to a conference on coordinating responses to the massive earthquake, I did the painful math in my head and counted close to fifty colleagues, friends, and family members who had lost their lives in the space of a minute.
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The afternoon of the earthquake, several of my colleagues from Partners In Health and the UN, were, ironically, in Port-au-Prince for a meeting about disaster risk reduction. Partners In Health, through its Haitian sister organization, provides health care to the rural poor. By focusing on training and employing local talent, we have grown a great deal over the years. We are currently serving a population of well over 1.2 million and count about five thousand employees, most of them community health workers.
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Of course, not all our colleagues survived. But the vast majority of them did survive, and they have spent the last two weeks working day and night to relieve the staggering suffering of the wounded and displaced. President Clinton, our colleagues, and I have been in the cities of Port-au-Prince, Jacmel, and Léogâne, as well as the less-affected Central Plateau and Artibonite Valley. Everywhere we have seen acts of great bravery and solidarity.
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In addition to the heroism of friends and colleagues, I would like to note for the record the dignity and patience of the long-suffering Haitian people. During a visit last week to Haiti’s largest teaching hospital, which shares a campus with the ruins of the nursing and medical schools, President Clinton remarked that no other people in the world would be so patient and calm in the face of so much suffering. This observation, though accurate, must not be misunderstood. People in Haiti are afraid not only for their options and futures, but still quite simply for their safety. A few nights ago, we sat in empty wards: hearing of impending aftershocks, the patients bolted outside with their IVs dangling from their arms. They refused, as have so many, to sleep inside the building—any building—but instead found tarpaulins and sheets, and lay down in the open courtyard.
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This scene has repeated itself throughout the country and is a reminder of the logistics challenges facing all those who would be involved in the provision of shelter, clean water, and healthcare. The relief efforts, focused now on addressing the initial wave of devastation from the earthquake, will soon turn to a new set of concerns. Hastily cobbled together camps are at risk of outbreaks of cholera and other waterborne disease. The Haitian government has wisely proposed avoiding huge camps, which will be difficult to manage, but we must hasten our efforts to get tents, tarpaulins, and latrines or composting toilets to Haiti. It is humbling to see the relief efforts be so slow—in large part because delivery of services was so weak before the quake. Now we must do more to get food and water to people every day for some time to come. Creating safe schools and safe hospitals, even makeshift ones, is a known need in rebuilding a society, and storm resistant housing must also be a carefully considered priority since there is little time before the rainy season. Students need to be back in school; the planting season cannot be missed and requires fertilizer, seeds, and tools.
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How will we fund such settlements, ongoing relief, the sowing of seeds, and the reconstruction that must follow? Major pledges have been made by the U.S., Canada, Japan, Spain, Brazil, the European Union, the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, and others.1 Indeed, most countries have responded. Even in far away and once-afflicted Rwanda, a group of community health workers making less than $200/month have been able to pull together $7000 in donations for their colleagues in Haiti. This is but a small portion of the billions needed, but hard to surpass as an eloquent testimony of human solidarity.
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Even if adequate resources are available, the task before us will be extremely difficult. Medical jargon, though at times arcane, can be helpful here. Today, Haiti is facing what we would term “acute on chronic” problems. Before January 12, the country was already facing huge long-term challenges in public health and education, the unemployment rate over 70%, and a majority of its population was living on less than two dollars a day. Food and water insecurity were already huge problems. Does this catastrophe create a chance for all of us to have a sounder, more solidarity-based relationship with Haiti? Or is it to be yet another chapter in a jeremiad of suffering and abuse of power? In my last testimony here, in 2003, I expressed concern that the latter possibility was likely given our policies at that time. Today I will spend my time focusing on the potential for an entirely reconsidered relationship between the two oldest independent countries in the Americas: Haiti and my own.
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Let me offer, as one example of the difficult relations between Haiti and the international community (and an echo of the nineteenth-century machinations I discussed in my last testimony before this committee), the donor conference I attended here in Washington last April. It was one of only two donor conferences I have ever attended, the second being in Montreal earlier this week. The results of the first are noteworthy and worrisome: despite $402 million pledged to support the Haitian government’s Economic Recovery Program, when the country was trying to recover from a series of natural disasters resulting in a 15% reduction of GDP, it is estimated that a mere $61 million have been disbursed.5 In the Office of the Special Envoy, we have been tracking the disbursement of pledges, and as of yesterday we estimate that 85% of the pledges made last year remain undisbursed.
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Many of us worry that, if what’s past is prologue, Haitians themselves will be blamed for this torpor. But as we have argued before, there are serious problems in the aid machinery, and these have contributed to the “delivery challenges” on the ground.6 The aid machinery currently at work in Haiti keeps too much overhead for its operations and still relies overmuch on NGOs or contractors who do not observe the ground rules we would need to follow to build Haiti back better. The fact that there are more NGOs per capita in Haiti than in any other country in the hemisphere is in part a reflection of need, but also in part a reflection of overreliance on NGOs divorced from the public health and education sectors.
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Haiti will continue to need the contractors, and the NGOs and mission groups, but more importantly we will need to create new ground rules—including a focus on creating local jobs for Haitians, and on building the infrastructure that is crucial to creating sustainable economic growth and ultimately reducing Haiti’s dependence on aid.
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In other words, what we need is a way of “building back better” that strengthens governance but also strengthens the Haitian economy to provide for the needs of its people, especially the vast majority of Haitians who are desperately poor. There is an opportunity not only to build Haiti back better, but to build a more functional and beneficial aid structure. Over the past two decades, US aid policies have seesawed between embargoes and efforts to bypass governments, including elected ones not to Washington’s taste. Neither the international community nor the United States provided credible, long-term, financial investment in Haiti. Restructuring foreign aid and forgiving Haiti’s crippling debts are essential to helping the country recover. US laws, including the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and its later revisions, prevent direct investment in the public sector; we will need to revisit these policies. Debt forgiveness is also needed to ease the financial drain that would otherwise hinder economic recovery and growth.
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In building back Haiti, a credible body that has been working in Haiti could help to house a recovery fund. We need to commit funds and also to disburse them. To quote Jeff Sachs, “Haiti does not need a pledging session; it needs a bank account to fund its survival and reconstruction.”9 Such an account should be managed in collaboration with partners, the UN, and, of course, Haitian leadership, which would work directly and openly with partners to design and implement recovery plans coordinated at central and local levels. The effort must include a comprehensive post-disaster needs assessment, which should be supported by the US and other partners.
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Might such plans work? In some of the darkest moments of the last two weeks, when the incapacity and lack of coordination of institutions on the ground was revealed repeatedly, I have thought often of Rwanda and what happened there in 1994. As a physician and teacher at Harvard, I have been lucky to work with the Clinton Foundation, Partners In Health, and the government of Rwanda on rebuilding health infrastructure in three of the last four districts that lacked central hospitals. As in rural Haiti, this has been a very positive experience. It has resulted in thousands of jobs for Rwandans, and has created a broadly accessible health care infrastructure—all with a modest price tag compared to traditional aid contractors.
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If such progress can be made in Rwanda, which boasts strong leadership but in 1994 was the poorest country in the world,11 then one hopes it can be made elsewhere. In part because of this positive experience of working together with the Clinton Foundation in Rwanda (and in Malawi and Lesotho), I joined President Clinton six months ago as his deputy in the UN role he originated. As Special Envoy for Haiti, President Clinton has focused his attention not only on holding donors to the financial pledges they made, but also on reducing the risk of disasters and on job creation through the massive public works that are necessary to reforest Haiti, protect watersheds, and improve agricultural yield—the backbone of the Haitian economy. Private investment in Haitian businesses, especially small and medium-sized ones, is critical to rendering Haiti free of any dependence on aid—the goal of Rwanda by 2020, and moreover, a goal likely to be met. Haiti also has, he noted, great potential as a tourist attraction but lacks the infrastructure to welcome the millions of people who should see Haiti’s natural beauty and historic treasures like King Henri Christophe’s Citadel.
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This has been our mission: to build back better from the 2008 storms. We believe that these efforts were beginning to bear fruit. We had scheduled a meeting last week in the Hotel Montana to bring in another round of investors and also to discuss job creation. As many of you know, this hotel is no longer standing, and most inside it perished on January 12. But the need for such investments, and the need for public works that would create hundreds of thousands of jobs, remains.
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If there is any silver lining to this cloud, it is that we can push job creation. It is a strange irony that supporters of economic assistance to Haiti are now obliged to shill for “cash for work” programs—for the quaint notion that people should be paid for their labor. Let us at least be honest: it is absurd to argue that volunteerism and food-for-work programs will create sustainable jobs. But if we set the ground rules on reconstruction correctly, we will be able to create sustainable jobs.
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In other words, if we focus the reconstruction efforts appropriately, we can achieve long-term benefits for Haiti. The UNDP is helping to organize programs of this kind, which should be supported and extended around the country. Putting Haitians back to work and offering them the dignity that comes with having a job and its basic protections is exactly what brought our country out of the Great Depression.
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This was always the right thing to do, and aid programs persistently fail to get it right. So here is our chance: if even half of the pledges made in Montreal or other such meetings are linked tightly to local job creation, it is possible to imagine a Haiti building back better with fewer of the social tensions that inevitably arise as half a million homeless people are integrated into new communities.
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Haiti needs and deserves a Marshall Plan—not the “containment” aspects of that policy, unless we are explicit about containing the ill effects of poverty, but the social-justice elements. But we need to be honest about the differences between post-war Europe and Haiti in 2010. Part of the problem, I’ve argued, is the way in which aid is delivered now as compared to in 1946—well before the term “beltway bandits” was coined. We need a reconstruction fund that is large, managed transparently, creates jobs for Haitians, and grows the Haitian economy. We need a reconstruction plan that uses a pro-poor, rights-based approach far different from the charity and failed development approaches that have marred interactions between Haiti and much of the rest of the world for the better part of two centuries.
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Our country can be a big part of this effort. Debt relief is important, but only the beginning. Any group looking to do this work must share the goals of the Haitian people: social and economic rights, reflected, for example, in job creation, local business development, watershed protection (and alternatives to charcoal for cooking), access to quality health care, and gender equity. Considering all these goals together orients our strategic choices. For example, cash transfers to women, who hold the purse strings in Haiti and are arbiters of household spending, will have significant impact. This is a chance to learn and move forward and build on lessons learned in adversity—to build hurricane-resistant houses with good ventilation to improve air quality from stove smoke; to build communities around clean water sources; to reforest the terrain to protect from erosion and to nurture the fertility of the land for this predominantly agricultural country. It is the chance to create shelter, grow the local economy and incomes, and invest in improved health. This will do much to decrease the risk of another calamity, and to decrease the vulnerability of the poor—especially as we face the second wave of problems, including epidemic disease born of the earthquake.
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As a doctor, I can tell you that bad infrastructure and thoughtless policy are visible in the bodies of the poor, just as are the benefits of good policy and well-designed infrastructure. In my almost 30 years in Haiti I have witnessed many political interventions and multiple coups. They have been unpleasant, even if their effects pale in the shadow of what we are now experiencing. Many people look at Haiti and despair. They say that aid is wasted, that there is no hope for this country. I would answer them with the positive experience of building Haitian-led programs in the Central Plateau and Artibonite Valley regions that have created five thousand jobs for people who would otherwise have no steady work. I advance this model not because it is associated with our efforts, but because job creation is the surest way to speed up the cash flow that is essential now. It is also the fastest way to make amends for our past actions towards Haiti, which have not always been honorable.
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Sitting before you, I am at my core optimistic about the possibilities before us and the potential of our support to help rescue and transform our poorest neighbor. The response from citizens of the United States to the recent events in Haiti has been overwhelming and encouraging. There is the promise of solidarity by our leadership to make long-term commitments to the kinds of investments needed in Haiti—and to fulfilling them.
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For two centuries, the Haitian people have struggled for basic human and economic rights, the right to health care, the right to education, the right to work, the right to dignity and independence. These goals, which Haitians share with people all over the world, should direct our policies of aid and rebuilding.
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As I wrote with colleagues in a recent op-ed—which is available in my written testimony—as physicians working in Haiti, we know first-hand that Haiti itself will soon be the casualty if we do not help build back better in the way envisioned by Haitians themselves.
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1) Walker, P. “Haiti earthquake aid pledged by country.” Guardian.co.uk 26 January 2010. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/jan/14/haiti-quake-aid-pled... (Accessed January 27, 2010)
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2) Flintoff, Corey. “In Haiti, a low-wage job is better than none,” All Things Considered, June 14, 2009.
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Available at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104403034 (Accessed January 27, 2010)
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3) In 2006, the World Bank estimated that 78% of Haiti's 9 million people lived on less than $2 per day. See Haiti at a Glance, World Bank, Development Data Group (DECDG). Available at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTHAITI/Resources/Haiti.AAG.pdf (Accessed January 26, 2010).
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4) For an overview of Haiti’s water insecurity and past delays in international commitments to address this crisis, see Varma MK, Satterthwaite ML, Klasing AM et. al. Wòch nan soley: The denial of the right to water in Haiti. Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law, Partners In Health, and Zanmi Lasante, 2008. Available at: http://www.chrgj.org/projects/docs/wochnansoley.pdf (accessed January 27, 2010).
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5) This estimate of disbursements was prepared in January 2010 in an internal memorandum of the UN Office of the Special Envoy For Haiti. President Clinton, in his capacity as UN Special Envoy, frequently appealed to donors to fulfill their commitments. See Helprin, J, “Bill Clinton chides nations over help to Haiti.” Associated Press,, September 9, 2009. Available at: http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2009/09/09/3243861-bill-clinton-chides-nat... (accessed January 27, 2010).
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6) Farmer, P. “Challenging orthodoxies: The road ahead for health and human rights.” Health and Human Rights: An International Journal 2008; 10(1): 5-19.
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7) Daniel, Trenton, “Bill Clinton tells diaspora: ‘Haiti needs you now,’” Miami Herald, August 9, 2009. Available at: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1179067.html (accessed January 27, 2010).
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8) Farmer P, Smith Fawzi MC, and Nevil P. “Unjust embargo of aid for Haiti.” The Lancet 2003; 361: 420-423.
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9) Sachs, J. “After the earthquake, how to rebuild Haiti from scratch.” Washington Post, 17 January 2010. Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/15/AR201001... (Accessed January 27, 2010)
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10) Republic of Rwanda, Ministry of Health, and Partners In Health. African Rural Healthcare: An Evaluation of the South Kayonza, Rwanda Project (2005-2011). Programme Report, Ministry of Health, 2006.
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11) United Nations Development Programme. Human Development Report: 1997. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 146-148. Available at: http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr_1997_en_indicators1.pdf (accessed January 27, 2010).
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12) Republic of Rwanda. Rwanda Vision 2020. Kigali: Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Republic of Rwanda, 2002. Available at: http://www.cdf.gov.rw/documents%20library/important%20docs/Vision_2020.p... (accessed January 27, 2010).

The New York Times
By SIMON ROMERO and MARC LACEY
January 28, 2010
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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Like almost anyone from Hispaniola, the island uncomfortably shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Paloma Rivera is acutely aware that the two nations distrust each other, complain about each other and cite grievances about each other going back well over a century.
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Yet here she was, a Dominican, clearing garbage and digging latrines in a slum in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, to help survivors of the earthquake find a place to pitch their tents.
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“Maybe this earthquake, even with its tragedies, can do some good by making us a little less distant from each other,” said Ms. Rivera, 24, a social worker who joined thousands of other Dominicans in loading emergency food and medicine into their vehicles and driving here.
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Since the earthquake ravaged this city on Jan. 12, a dizzying array of soldiers, doctors, aid workers and missionaries have massed here from around the globe, communicating in Arabic, Hebrew, Mandarin and many other tongues.
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Most of the time, their politics back home have taken a back seat, making for some strange bedfellows working in close proximity, if not exactly side by side: Israelis and Libyans, Pakistanis and Indians, all trying to get this country back on its feet.
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In other cases, the earthquake seems to be highlighting conflicts among Haiti’s allies. Venezuela and Cuba, jockeying for influence, have criticized the United States, which has long been a major influence here, for its heavy use of soldiers in its humanitarian aid effort.
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“It’s worrisome that the United States is using this tragedy to militarily occupy Haiti,” President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela said last week during a visit to Bolivia for the inauguration of President Evo Morales. Mr. Morales, a top recipient of Venezuelan aid, described the Obama administration’s decision to send troops to Haiti as “an invasion.”
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Taiwan, meanwhile, has been using its close ties with Haiti to fend off the entreaties of the Chinese government, which has been trying to win over Haiti’s president, René Préval, and convince him that his country should no longer recognize Taiwan as an independent nation.
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But among all the various political relationships thrown into flux, the possible metamorphosis of Haiti’s ties with the Dominican Republic stands out.
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Before the earthquake, Haiti’s political class viewed its neighbor to the east with extreme suspicion. The harsh treatment of Haitian immigrants by the Dominican Republic and lingering animus over a massacre of tens of thousands of Haitian laborers ordered in 1937 by the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo fuel the resentment, along with a dose of envy over the relative prosperity of Haiti’s next-door neighbor.
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Some in the Dominican political establishment, in turn, had long gazed at Haiti with resentment over Haiti’s two-decade annexation of the former Spanish colony of Santo Domingo in the 1800s. And in recent decades, the Dominican government focused on averting a major influx of Haitian immigrants, while relying on cheap Haitian labor for construction and to cut sugar cane.
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It would be impossible to erase all this resentment in just two weeks. But the thousands of Dominicans helping the victims here may have begun chiseling away at the divisions between the 18.6 million people almost evenly distributed across the two nations.
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“Our relations with Haiti will never be the same,” Pastor Vásquez, 42, a senior diplomat at the Dominican Embassy, said outside the damaged embassy building, where dozens of volunteers were staying in tents.
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Mr. Vásquez said the Dominican Republic had waived visa restrictions for Haitians seeking emergency medical care, authorized nearly 300 flights carrying aid and donated $11 million. One of the Dominican Republic’s most prosperous corporate families, Grupo Vicini, which has been accused of exploiting Haitian workers on sugar cane plantations in the past, has also donated millions of dollars for the recovery.
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While other immigration restrictions at the main border crossing remain, the countries are warily growing closer in other ways. After the earthquake, Haiti’s leaders at first resisted the idea of accepting Dominican troops to work with the United Nations force here, but then changed their minds.
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The decision has not been easy for the Dominican Republic either. President Leonel Fernández’s proposal to send more than 100 troops to Haiti set off a debate over what would happen if the soldiers encountered violence, with some of Mr. Fernández’s opponents saying that the proposal should be subjected to congressional approval.
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Political analysts also point out that the assistance is not purely altruistic. For starters, the Dominican Republic is concerned about an exodus of Haitians across the border, so it is in the its own interest to stabilize Haiti.
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Another interest is economic, analysts say.
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“The Dominican Republic may have the most to gain in the immediate future from reconstruction efforts,” said Johanna Mendelson Forman, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Its firms are poised to help with building equipment, and it has investors who have shown an interest in helping to create infrastructure,” she said in a research paper.
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But the work of the Dominican volunteers points to other, more idealistic motivations. Each day, they distribute food in the slum known as Delmas 54 and work on a census of the homeless. They even called the displaced-persons camp they helped create Quisqueya, a word used in both countries to refer to the indigenous origins of Hispaniola.
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Elisabeth Delatour Préval, Haiti’s first lady, said that when she was finally able to sign on to her computer after the earthquake, one of the first messages she received was from her Dominican counterpart, Margarita Cedeño de Fernández.
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“She asked me how she could help,” Mrs. Préval said, noting that their husbands had been in frequent communication since the earthquake as well. As Lorraine Mangonès, a Haitian community activist, put it, “I guess they didn’t hate us as much as we thought.”

Xinhua
BY Alexander Manda
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Haiti needed to rebuild not only its infrastructure but the way the nation was run to completely recover from the Jan. 12 quake, Haitian economist Camille Chalmers said Thursday.
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"Haiti urgently needs a response not only to the humanitarian crisis, but to its long-term structural problems," said Chalmers, who is a professor with Port-au-Prince University and was cabinet chief for President Bertrand Aristide in the 1990s.
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"We need to make sure the country has multiple public services deployed across its territory," he told Xinhua in an interview. Many Haitians said public services like education disappeared when Port-au-Prince was struck by the quake, which has killed more than 170,000 people.
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"Everything was done in Port-au-Prince. Haiti is practically the Republic of Port-au-Prince," Chalmers said in a room he had borrowed because his house had collapsed in the quake.
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"We need multiple capitals: a financial capital, a tourist capital and capitals for education and other areas, so that we take full advantage of the skills of Haitians living in the provinces."
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On Wednesday, officials from the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) told Xinhua that schools were shut down across Haiti, and the Education Ministry in Port-au-Prince was reduced to rubble. UNICEF is working with Haitian officials to get schools open in unaffected areas by Monday.
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The lopsided development pattern came into existence during the U.S. occupation of the island country from 1915 to 1934, when the U.S. military focused on the construction of the capital to make Haiti more militarily manageable. Long after U.S. forces left, Haiti's decision makers continued to follow the same model. Chalmers said Haiti's citizens had been exemplary during the first days of the quake crisis, which he estimated has left as many as 1.5 millon homeless across the nation.
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"People were able to organize themselves to live in the streets. They shared money, clothes and resources," said Chalmers, who lost his mother-in -law when his home was destroyed. Academic papers, research projects, clothes and furniture were also lost or damaged. "It was exemplary and a lesson to the world," Chalmers said. "Without such goodwill, things could have been much more serious."
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International aid organizations that came to Port-au-Prince three or four days after the quake found ordinary citizens had formed improvised cleaning committees, police and local governments to ensure the places where they slept were clean and safe.
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Even the Haitians whose homes were not destroyed were unwilling to return to their homes, fearing further collapse due to aftershocks. Last week, a 6.1-magnitude aftershock struck the capital, but fortunately didn't cause major casualties and damage.
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Solidarity had transformed the lives of the people in Chalmers' neighborhood and broken down social barriers, Chalmers said. "One man, who mobilized the rescuing of people, was a man mostly considered as a beggar, but after the quake he was considered a leader," he said.

NYT
By RAY RIVERA
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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — More than two weeks after the earthquake that devastated much of this country’s southern half, the capital remains a city of teetering walls, dangling electrical wires and precariously balanced heaps of jagged cinder block and wrought iron, all rattled daily by aftershocks.
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Bulldozers and excavators are few and far between. Even as tent cities here swell, aid groups say an estimated 10 percent of the city’s residents (a number that may be vastly understated) are camping in yards and streets next to their homes, marking off what they hope is a safe distance in case the structures fall in the next aftershock. Others trek by daily to see if their houses are still standing and wonder if they will ever be able to move back in.
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“It’s dangerous, but what can we do?” Orpha Brinach, 38, said after a night on a mattress in a narrow street lined by damaged homes. “We can’t go to the tent cities because robbers will steal everything we have.” Along the ravaged main commercial strip, vendors hawk goods as people claw their way into demolished stores in the shadow of wobbly buildings that appear ready to crumble at any moment. Low-flying military helicopters cruise overhead, spreading fear on the ground that the jarring rotors will give wounded buildings’ their final blow.
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Government education officials and aid officials said Thursday that they hoped schools would begin reopening Monday, but it was unclear how many schools would be able to open — or how many students would be able to return. John Henry Telemaque, assistant coordinator for education for President René Préval’s emergency disaster committee, said that perhaps up to 97 percent of the city’s schools — built to withstand hurricanes, not earthquakes — had been destroyed, and that the dead within were still being counted.
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At the National Laboratory for Buildings and Public Works in Delmas, Raymond Hygin, assistant director of public works for engineering, pulled out a two-inch-thick stack of inspection documents for the 112 standing buildings that had been checked and ordered demolished. The number actually taken down: zero. “When we will begin to demolish, we couldn’t tell you,” he said. “First we have to continue our evaluation.”
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The agency has six inspection teams and is working with outside groups, including a French-based nonprofit organization called Emergency Architects, to bring in more. Mr. Hygin said the priorities were government buildings and structures that presented immediate hazards. Homes, he said, would have to wait. Structural engineers from the United States and other countries have already been evaluating government buildings and hospitals.
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Mr. Hygin’s inspectors began work on Monday, delayed, he said, because many of them lost family members or their own homes in the earthquake. In Delmas, the top two floors of a pastel yellow apartment building collapsed onto the two lower floors, crushing them, and now lean precariously over a busy road. A spray-painted sign reads “À démolir” (“demolish”), with the agency’s initials and a large X circled in red. In another part of the city, Pont Morin, cracks gape on a nine-story telecommunications building in a residential neighborhood that bears no sign of having been inspected.
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With damage stretching into every section of the city, the task for inspectors seems endless. But Mr. Hygin set a target of three months. “It is optimistic, yes,” he said. “But we will try.” The International Medical Corps, a California-based nonprofit organization that is running the general hospital here, said it had not seen injuries related to new collapses. But a spokesman for the organization said a team from another group, the Brooklyn-based Bedford-Stuyvesant Volunteer Ambulance Corps, reported recovering the bodies of four people on Tuesday — some of them children — who were crushed in the collapse of a four-story building after an aftershock.
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“It was a pretty dramatic story, because the rescuers could hear kids crying and banging,” said the spokesman, Tyler Marshall. “They apparently died during the attempt to remove the rubble.”
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The capital’s electrical system is also a work in progress. Col. Rick Kaiser of the United States Army commands an engineering brigade for the military’s Joint Task Force Haiti, which has been helping restore vital infrastructure. He told reporters this week that restoration of power could still be a few weeks away.
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The slow clearing of rubble, meanwhile, is setting off a new round of mourning for many families and the appearance of bodies on the street. This week, men working to clear debris from a hardware store found the body of a young child, missing a leg and an arm and wearing only green shorts, by a nearby telephone pole. The men said they did not know where the body came from. One started crying, a rare release in a city grimly stoic about the overwhelming loss of life.
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But on Wednesday, there were more tears. As government and aid workers cleared rubble from the collapsed Ministry of Education, the building’s caretaker was found. The work ID in his pocket said Benjamin Sius. Family members who came to collect the body wailed on the street outside. A sister, Elsia Sius, said he supported the whole family and paid for school for her three children.
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“I’ve lost my brother,” Ms. Sius mourned. “I have nothing left.”

Reconstruction in Haiti, what do we know from previous disasters?
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http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/
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The Haiti operation is moving rapidly from rescue to reconstruction . What major challenges can we expect to emerge? What sort of policies have delivered results after previous earthquakes? One of the best sources on this is Responding to Earthquakes 2008: Learning from earthquake relief and recovery operations, by the ALNAP network. Here are some highlights of that report, plus a few thoughts from me.
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Urgency: It is never too soon to think about recovery. The initial actions taken by donors, government and others will shape Haiti’s political, social and economic future for generations. But it is difficult. Surveys of affected populations after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the 2005 Pakistan earthquake have showed far more dissatisfaction with recovery efforts than with relief efforts. And slow: donors typically set unrealistic timeframes for reconstruction, and the level of infrastructural and political damage inflicted in Haiti suggests that they must think in terms of years, (if not decades).
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There is no apolitical option: A disaster of this magnitude is also a political shock. New actors will emerge, old ones will decline, politics will shift. The spontaneous self-help groups that sprang up after the 1985 Mexican earthquake boosted independent social movements and ultimately led to the decline of Mexico’s one party state. In Nicaragua, the Sandinista revolution traced its rise back to the mishandling of 1972 earthquake aid by the Somoza dictatorship.
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Disaster response is not a substitute for politics. Donors won’t solve Haiti’s problems (which of course predate the earthquake), Haitians will. But the way reconstruction is designed could help or hinder efforts to tackle poor governance, mass unemployment, inequality and crime.
The government currently appears largely absent, but power, like nature, abhors a vacuum. New forces will emerge, which may strengthen or radically alter the social contract between citizen and state.
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Civil Society must be central to reconstruction: Even before the earthquake, civil society organizations in Haiti (farmers’ associations, women’s groups, churches, human rights groups etc) often compensated for the lack of effective state institutions. In the aftermath of the earthquake, they are already emerging as a key source of collective organization and response on the ground, and yet are largely ignored in higher level discussions, or treated as passive ‘beneficiaries’. This is a huge waste of talent, and a missed opportunity to strengthen the social contract underpinning democracy in the new Haiti. Civil society organizations, not just ‘outside experts’ largely ignorant of the Haitian context, need to be involved from the outset in actively contributing to designing the reconstruction.
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Public v Private? Nowhere is the political nature of reconstruction more obvious. Will reconstruction revitalise and strengthen Haiti’s flimsy state institutions, or will urgency and frustration prompt the setting up of parallel services to provide water, sanitation, healthcare and education that actually undermine state services?
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In Oxfam’s experience, only state capacity, regulation, and a large degree of state provision, can guarantee universal access over the long term, but this lesson can easily be lost in the pressure of short term financial horizons and the ‘just do something’ urgency following a disaster.
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Working with the government can also save time: a national development plan exists, and channelling aid funding to fast-track/ transform Haiti along pre-agreed lines would save a lot of time on renegotiating a development plan from scratch.
But beyond the issue of private service provision, the role of entrepreneurs is crucial. They are already filling the gaps and stimulating recovery. Plans that acknowledge and involve them make more sense – assuming there’s an economic vacuum is just as foolish as assuming a political one.
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Gender matters: Just as disasters and responses are not politically neutral, nor are they gender neutral, yet lack of attention to gender is a recurring failure in disaster response. After the 2004 tsunami, recovery aid was concentrated on the fishery sector and there was little aid for agriculture, business or the informal sector. Within the fishing sector it was the men who fished on their own account who got the assistance, rather than women who traded fish. Responses can advance girls’ schooling and women’s access to land.
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Land disputes will rise: Land-ownership emerges as a critical issue in all earthquake disasters. First, there are property disputes even before the disaster. Will opportunists seize land in the chaos? Will squatters be able to return and rebuild their shacks (even if that is a good idea)? The loss of documentation, the destruction of landmarks, the deaths of property owners, and the need to formalise previously informal arrangements all add a new layer of complexity to existing land-ownership issues. But there are positive opportunities too. Some disaster interventions have been effective in changing the pattern of formal house ownership, with new houses registered in the names of both husband and wife. A follow up on the 2001 El Salvador earthquake response, in which the World Bank implemented a joint-ownership policy for new houses, found some communities where 50% of respondents reported that a woman was one of the legal home-owners and that, overall,37% of the homes were wholly owned by women.
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Pay cash and rebuild the economy: how Haitians recover will depend on whether they can find jobs and markets for their products. Economic recovery, based on the livelihoods of poor people (smallscale agriculture, construction, informal economy), will be crucial. So, for example, evaluations of the tsunami response showed that the use of cash and local procurement are generally to be preferred whenever there are working local markets. Rapid cash assistance (eg paying people to clear the rubble) can also prevent people selling off precious assets (at low prices) through desperation. Evaluations also show affected populations prefer cash to goods, as it gives them a sense of dignity and choice as they try to rebuild their lives.
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Promote risk reduction: Disaster-risk reduction is a long-term investment. The immediate post-disaster context provides fertile ground for planting the seeds of risk- reduction strategies – people understand all too well the importance of earthquake-proof buildings, community readiness etc, but memories and urgency will fade as reconstruction and other priorities intervene. Donors can help by providing opportunities for community members to discuss future city planning, or working with communities to identify risks and promoting the safe siting of buildings. In Haiti, Oxfam has supported the setting-up, training and equipping of ‘Civil Protection Committees’ in a number of areas of the capital.
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These local “first responders” were officially recognised and are therefore part of the official disaster management system. The so-called ‘first responders’ are always your neighbours, family and friends – the community.
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One striking stat on this came a week after the disaster: According to AFP, ‘More than 90 people have been pulled out alive since international search and rescue teams began combing through the debris from last week’s earthquake in Haiti, the United Nations said.’ That’s nine zero. The numbers pulled out by friends and relatives must be hundreds of times that.
Finally, there is more to life than physical survival. What if any thought has gone into psychosocial support to deal with trauma/bereavement/orphaning?

BY JOSEPH B. TREASTER
treaster@miami.edu
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Long before the earthquake, Haiti was mired in a crisis that only a few experts noticed -- a severe lack of clean drinking water. The country's 10 million people had drinking water from springs and rivers and wells and a broken-down municipal water system in Port-Au-Prince. But a great deal of the water was loaded with bacteria and parasites and, in some cases, chemicals and other pollutants.
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Foul water undermined everything in Haiti. It caused chronic diarrhea, dysentery, hepatitis and even typhoid and cholera. The diseases filled hospital beds, kept children out of school and adults from work. And the water-borne diseases caused death. The Pan American Health Organization estimates that half of all deaths in Haiti in recent years -- apart from those in calamities like floods and hurricanes -- have been the result of water-borne diseases. In most cases, severe diarrhea took hold. People became dehydrated and quickly were gone.
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Many countries share Haiti's plight. According to the World Health Organization, at least one billion people around the world do not have clean drinking water. Even more do not have toilets. The lack of clean water and toilets is a disaster. Each year, about two million people die from water-borne diseases. That is eight times the deaths in the Asian tsunami in 2004, and it happens every year. It is not on the radar of most Americans.
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Most victims are young children. They die quietly, at home and in little clinics in slums and out-of-the way places in the countryside in India and Nepal, in Bolivia and Honduras. Hardly anyone notices that, according to United Nations data, more children die from simply drinking unhealthy water than from HIV/AIDS, malaria and measles combined.
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All the technology for providing clean drinking water exists. It is not very complicated, and it is not incredibly expensive. But almost nowhere in the developing world does clean water get high priority. Drilling wells and running pipelines and building water purification plants have never really captured the imagination of political leaders. The people who suffer most are the poorest, the hungriest, the least influential.
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It is not that nothing is being done about providing clean water. Even in Haiti, many water projects were under way before the earthquake. Some had budgets in the millions of dollars. Some involved small private groups that were able to put in a few wells or water treatment devices. One group, International Action, says it has installed 110 neighborhood water-tank chlorinators in Port-au-Prince. But in Haiti and elsewhere, the efforts have scarcely made a dent.
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Nowhere in the developing world is there a plan that coordinates national or regional water projects, small and large. Inevitably, some of the good work overlaps. Some of it never gets finished. Often, maintenance is overlooked and systems collapse. For example, in Kampala, capital of Uganda, drinking water is fine at the treatment plant. But water mains are corroded and punctured. They lie in the same trenches as sewer lines, and filthy waste sloshes into drinking water.
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As the rebuilding of Haiti gets under way, billions of dollars are going to be spent. Some of those dollars, perhaps a billion or more, should be dedicated to cleaning up the country's drinking water and to making sure it stays clean. It would help put Haiti on a sound footing for the future, perhaps more than any other single thing. A well-orchestrated plan for providing clean drinking water to the people of Haiti could be a model for the world.
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- Joseph B. Treaster is editor of the University of Miami's Internet magazine on global water issues and the environment, 1H2O.org. He holds the John S. & James L. Knight Chair in Cross-Cultural Communication at the Knight Center for International Media in the School of Communication.

1/28/2010
BY JIM WYSS
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As an excavator digs into the mound of twisted steel, cement, shoes and spreadsheets that used to be the downtown branch of Sogebel Bank, swarms of young men plunge into the debris. They drag out file cabinets, electrical boxes and anything else that might contain a few grams of metal. The heavy machinery was hired by the bank to look for the vault and the director's office, a security officer said. The scavengers were there to scrape out a living.
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More than two weeks after the Jan. 12 earthquake, the work of taking apart a ravaged city is slowly, and chaotically, beginning. While aid agencies and the government are still focused on tending to the hundreds of thousands left homeless and injured, many Haitians are picking up the pieces and moving on.
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The government estimates that 25,000 government offices and businesses either toppled or need to be demolished. In addition, there are 225,000 residences that are no longer habitable. In all, some 2.1 billion cubic feet of concrete and rubble need to be hauled out of the city.
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However, there is no official demolition plan in place yet. Asked about tearing down the teetering buildings that crowd the streets of downtown Port-au-Prince, the spokesman for the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, Vincenzo Pugliese, said demolition is part of the reconstruction effort.
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``I know it's a priority but other discussions have to take place before that,'' Pugliese said. ``We are moving too far ahead if we start talking about reconstruction efforts.''But many are ready to start now. Bulldozers and backhoes are kicking up dust as businesses have been razing their lots. Crews can be seen with pickaxes and sledgehammers.
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Marie Carmel Matthieu stood in a small patch of land that used to be the garden of her two-story home. The building had collapsed entirely, but the woman and her family had managed to pull a few dozen cinder blocks from the wreckage. As relatives kicked away garbage and moved stones, Matthieu said they were going to build a place where five of them could live.
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``It's going to be small,'' she said. ``But we don't have any choice.''
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While demolition on a massive scale may not be taking place, rubble removal is. The United Nations Development Program has 12,000 people cleaning up debris from buildings that have toppled into the street and other public places. By next week, they hope to have 50,000 people clearing roads under the jobs-for-work program. The project is intended to pump quick cash into the economy, said Eric Overvest, Haiti's director of the program. But he hinted that this program, which pays workers about $4.50 for a half-day's work, could become the blueprint for the future razing and rebuilding of the country.
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``Our priority now is clearing rubble from public spaces, but our work may go beyond that at some point,'' he said. On Thursday, dozens of workers under the program heaved shovels full of concrete and twisted iron into a dump truck, which was bound for a collection site on the outskirts of town.
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While much of the debris is simply garbage, some of it could become the foundation for the rebuilding of Port-au-Prince, said Herb Duane, the president of a Boston demolition firm that cleared the earthquake damage in Managua and Guatemala in the 1970s.
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Poured concrete can be crushed, turned into aggregate and reused, he said. To do that, however, the country will likely have to import mobile crushing plants that separate out metals and other debris. And while steel rebar should not be reused in construction, it has a scrap value on the international market of about $100 a ton, Duane said.
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But it's unlikely much metal will make it to the collection site, as armies of scavengers have been picking through the remains of the city. Rigaud Michelle fought his way through a mass of knife- and machete-wielding competitors to retrieve the empty husk of a filing cabinet from the debris of the bank.
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He said he could turn the cabinet into four stoves and sell each for the equivalent of 71 cents. Others said they could make about $3 for a sack full of scrap metal. For many, tearing down is the first step to starting over.
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When the quake struck, Theleys Jin lost his house, two sisters and his business -- a three-story technical school. On Thursday, he and a group of friends were trying to pluck a laptop out of the building that had pancaked to about a quarter of its size. When he's satisfied he has saved everything he can, he plans to start breaking it down brick by brick and rebuilding.
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``You need to have the strength to take care of yourself,'' he said of the job ahead. ``No one else is coming to help.''
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Miami Herald staff writers Jacqueline Charles contributed to this report from Haiti and Andres Viglucci from Miami.

1/29/2010
By SIMON ROMERO and MARC LACEY
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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Like almost anyone from Hispaniola, the island uncomfortably shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Paloma Rivera is acutely aware that the two nations distrust each other, complain about each other and cite grievances about each other going back well over a century.
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Yet here she was, a Dominican, clearing garbage and digging latrines in a slum in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, to help survivors of the earthquake find a place to pitch their tents.
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“Maybe this earthquake, even with its tragedies, can do some good by making us a little less distant from each other,” said Ms. Rivera, 24, a social worker who joined thousands of other Dominicans in loading emergency food and medicine into their vehicles and driving here. Since the earthquake ravaged this city on Jan. 12, a dizzying array of soldiers, doctors, aid workers and missionaries have massed here from around the globe, communicating in Arabic, Hebrew, Mandarin and many other tongues.
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Most of the time, their politics back home have taken a back seat, making for some strange bedfellows working in close proximity, if not exactly side by side: Israelis and Libyans, Pakistanis and Indians, all trying to get this country back on its feet.
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In other cases, the earthquake seems to be highlighting conflicts among Haiti’s allies. Venezuela and Cuba, jockeying for influence, have criticized the United States, which has long been a major influence here, for its heavy use of soldiers in its humanitarian aid effort.
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“It’s worrisome that the United States is using this tragedy to militarily occupy Haiti,” President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela said last week during a visit to Bolivia for the inauguration of President Evo Morales. Mr. Morales, a top recipient of Venezuelan aid, described the Obama administration’s decision to send troops to Haiti as “an invasion.”
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Taiwan, meanwhile, has been using its close ties with Haiti to fend off the entreaties of the Chinese government, which has been trying to win over Haiti’s president, René Préval, and convince him that his country should no longer recognize Taiwan as an independent nation. But among all the various political relationships thrown into flux, the possible metamorphosis of Haiti’s ties with the Dominican Republic stands out.
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Before the earthquake, Haiti’s political class viewed its neighbor to the east with extreme suspicion. The harsh treatment of Haitian immigrants by the Dominican Republic and lingering animus over a massacre of tens of thousands of Haitian laborers ordered in 1937 by the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo fuel the resentment, along with a dose of envy over the relative prosperity of Haiti’s next-door neighbor.
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Some in the Dominican political establishment, in turn, had long gazed at Haiti with resentment over Haiti’s two-decade annexation of the former Spanish colony of Santo Domingo in the 1800s. And in recent decades, the Dominican government focused on averting a major influx of Haitian immigrants, while relying on cheap Haitian labor for construction and to cut sugar cane.
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It would be impossible to erase all this resentment in just two weeks. But the thousands of Dominicans helping the victims here may have begun chiseling away at the divisions between the 18.6 million people almost evenly distributed across the two nations.
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“Our relations with Haiti will never be the same,” Pastor Vásquez, 42, a senior diplomat at the Dominican Embassy, said outside the damaged embassy building, where dozens of volunteers were staying in tents. Mr. Vásquez said the Dominican Republic had waived visa restrictions for Haitians seeking emergency medical care, authorized nearly 300 flights carrying aid and donated $11 million. One of the Dominican Republic’s most prosperous corporate families, Grupo Vicini, which has been accused of exploiting Haitian workers on sugar cane plantations in the past, has also donated millions of dollars for the recovery.
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While other immigration restrictions at the main border crossing remain, the countries are warily growing closer in other ways. After the earthquake, Haiti’s leaders at first resisted the idea of accepting Dominican troops to work with the United Nations force here, but then changed their minds.
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The decision has not been easy for the Dominican Republic either. President Leonel Fernández’s proposal to send more than 100 troops to Haiti set off a debate over what would happen if the soldiers encountered violence, with some of Mr. Fernández’s opponents saying that the proposal should be subjected to congressional approval.
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Political analysts also point out that the assistance is not purely altruistic. For starters, the Dominican Republic is concerned about an exodus of Haitians across the border, so it is in the its own interest to stabilize Haiti.
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Another interest is economic, analysts say. “The Dominican Republic may have the most to gain in the immediate future from reconstruction efforts,” said Johanna Mendelson Forman, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Its firms are poised to help with building equipment, and it has investors who have shown an interest in helping to create infrastructure,” she said in a research paper.
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But the work of the Dominican volunteers points to other, more idealistic motivations. Each day, they distribute food in the slum known as Delmas 54 and work on a census of the homeless. They even called the displaced-persons camp they helped create Quisqueya, a word used in both countries to refer to the indigenous origins of Hispaniola.
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Elisabeth Delatour Préval, Haiti’s first lady, said that when she was finally able to sign on to her computer after the earthquake, one of the first messages she received was from her Dominican counterpart, Margarita Cedeño de Fernández.
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“She asked me how she could help,” Mrs. Préval said, noting that their husbands had been in frequent communication since the earthquake as well.
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As Lorraine Mangonès, a Haitian community activist, put it, “I guess they didn’t hate us as much as we thought.”

Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)
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The presence of the Brazilian Government's response to Haiti's plight has been strong, with ongoing donations of food, medicine, and medical supplies, emergency care units, and mobile services. Just approved is a longer-term project to restructure the health system and the deployment of PAHO/WHO experts to work with Health Cluster personnel in Haiti.
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On 26 January 2010, the Government of Brazil approved a US$ 78 million project initially proposed by the Ministry of Health to support the restructuring of the health system in Haiti, with a proposed initial deployment of 10 emergency care units, 50 mobile services units, one laboratory, and a hospital, in addition to the restructuring of the country's system of epidemiological and environmental health surveillance. On 29 January 2010, Dr. Carlos Felipe D'Oliveira, adviser to the Brazilian Ministry of Health, is set to travel to Haiti, where he will work closely with Haitian Ministry of Health officials in restructuring health services.
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In addition to this project, on an ongoing basis, Brazil has been sending donations of medicines, food, and medical supplies and provided a mobile hospital. On-ground Brazilian support is being coordinated by BRASBATT (Brazilian Battalion in Haiti). In the immediate hours following the earthquake, PAHO/WHO-Brazil established a Haiti task force to work with local Brazilian institutions, PAHO's Emergency Operations Center in Washington, D.C., and the U.N. Emergency Team (UNETE) to ensure the most efficient and effective response to this emergency.
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To support the work of Health Cluster in Haiti, PAHO/WHO-Brazil sent Dr. José Moya, an expert on epidemiology and health surveillance systems evaluation, and Dr. Christopher Rerat, a medicines and medical supplies specialist, to the country on 23 January 2010. PAHO/WHO-Brazil hopes to expand the dialogue and continue strengthening cooperation between the Health Cluster in Haiti and the Brazilian Medical Mission in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

By Mark Schneider
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Within a week after a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, the death toll had mounted to the worst from any natural disaster in recorded history in the Americas. The country's famous 'radio jol', or word-of-mouth, carries the same sad news hour after hour of family that has been lost and of homes destroyed. E-mails continue to pour in telling us of friends and colleagues who were killed, and of those who somehow managed to survive.
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The challenge the world now faces is to quickly assess the damage with the Haitian authorities and then ensure a coordinated international response equal to the magnitude of the disaster. They must help Haiti build back stronger and better, and partner with Haiti's leaders and communities to work to end the country's environmental, economic, social and political vulnerability.
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In 1999, when Hurricane Mitch struck Central America, 9,000 lives were taken in a space of two days. Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala suffered $6 billion in damage. Less than eight weeks later, the United States organized a donors' conference at the International Development Bank in Washington and secured $6.3 billion in commitments for the next three years.
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Four months later, Sweden organized another donors' conference where Central American governments, business and civil society organizations agreed on detailed reconstruction plans, with ways to improve development opportunities and new mechanisms for joint monitoring. Haiti today needs a similar compact, fully founded on an understanding of the dire situation even before this devastating earthquake. For Haiti to recover, those with power and influence will have to agree to address the country's destabilizing poverty and end the restricted access to the most basic services.
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Before the earthquake, Haitian women died in childbirth at 70 times the rate of women in the United States. One out of every eight children died before their fifth birthday. About 40 percent of school-aged children were not in school, and some 80 percent of those who were, received poor quality education in private, nearly unregulated but expensive schools. What comes next has to be better.
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Partisan battles in Washington have been symbolically put to rest with the teaming up of former Presidents Clinton and Bush in pursuing help for Haiti. Before the earthquake struck, Haiti already had agreement on a post-hurricane poverty reduction strategy, which included jobs creation, private sector investment and a public infrastructure package. Donors agreed it was a good plan, but it only offered $353 million in new money. Starting from scratch doesn't mean jettisoning that work; it means offering additional opportunities.
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New physical infrastructure investments should be environmentally sound, hurricane- and earthquake-resistant, with new and enforced building codes. Haitians should be trained and employed to do this work. As school buildings are reconstructed, so, too, must the public education system be rebuilt to offer free, quality schooling to children, with teacher training, standards for private schools and a conditional cash-transfer program to help impoverished families keep their children in school.
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There is also an important message to take from the hurricane victims from Port-au-Prince, who have lost their houses and are now returning to their home villages in the countryside. This is an opportunity to invest in regional development centers around Haiti, spreading the jobs, schools and health centers, and giving Haiti a better balance for its economic and political future. Investing in small farmers is part of that regional development. Not too long ago, Haiti did not depend on foreign rice or food aid.
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The Haitian government and U.N. mission were building a civilian police force that respected its citizens. The last poll showed 60 percent popular approval -- a far cry from when a corrupt, repressive force was feared and despised. This must continue.
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Not only have ministry buildings been destroyed by the earthquake, but sadly many of its officials did not survive either. Haiti's civil service is going to require international triage, ministry by ministry, where international experts work side-by-side with Haitian officials not just to reconstruct what once stood but to offer more: modern communications systems and equipment, logistics, management and training.
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To do all this, Haiti will need much more than the $6 billion raised for Central America a decade ago. Implementing a reconstruction strategy and coordinating the projects across sectors are going to require a supreme effort at coordination by the UN, International Development Bank, World Bank, Organization of America States and a host of donors, including the United States, the European Union, Canada, France, and regional partners.

Haiti’s post-earthquake rehabilitation begins with farmers. With the first stage of Haiti's rescue operation now underway, the country and the aid effort should simultaneously move to the urgent support of food production, agricultural rehabilitation and reconstruction. The priority is spring planting season as thousands flee, food prices rise.
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The mission of FARM HAITI is both agricultural and moral. It's based on sustainability, rather than relief alone. When a family in Haiti stops farming because it no longer can afford to lose another harvest to lack of rain, or inability to buy seed or no access to the modern farming tools it needs - they react. It is FARM HAITI's mission to help rebuild and improve Haiti’s agriculture infrastructure. Whether it be by introducing more effective planting methods for harvesting, building crop irrigation systems for year-round planting, introducing and demonstrating the benefits of modern farm machinery in rural areas or putting in place the administrative processes to help local farmers bring crops from field to market and leverage there bargaining power...FARM HAITI is a labor of love.
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FARM HAITI's goal is to establish and repeat this process one farm town at a time in the Artibonite Region - Haiti's Bread (Rice) Basket. To learn more, go to: www.farmhaiti.org

A little bit about ONE:

ONE is a grassroots campaign and advocacy organization backed by more than 2 million people who are committed to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa. Cofounded by Bono and other campaigners, ONE is nonpartisan and works closely with African policy makers and activists.

****************************************************

I have been receiving email updates from ONE for years on other issues regarding the issues listed above, and recently, there have been a flurry of discussions regarding Haiti. If you feel compelled, and I hope you do, please take a moment to read this important plea and sign the petition.

Dear Friend,

Earlier this week, I personally delivered more than 150,000 petition signatures from ONE members to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) urging its members to provide debt cancellation for Haiti. And as momentum from our campaign builds, we’re increasingly hearing from the IMF, Inter-American Development Bank, U.S. Treasury and other key players that they want to find a way to cancel Haiti's debt.

Now we need to turn these positive signals into action. Next week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and other finance ministers will be meeting in the Arctic Canadian town of Iqaluit. While the average temperature there in February is negative 15, ONE members will heat things up by delivering your message to these world financial leaders—the very people who will make the final decisions on Haiti’s debt. Just imagine the impact we can have by showing up to this summit with an overwhelming call to action from 200,000 ONE members.

Click the link below to add your name to our “Drop Haiti’s Debt” petition and help us get to 200,000 signatures now:

http://www.one.org/us/actnow/drophaitiandebt/o.pl?id=1436-1221169-wBBnpp...

The petition reads:

As Haiti rebuilds from this disaster, please work to secure the immediate cancellation of Haiti’s $1 billion debt and ensure that any emergency earthquake assistance is provided in the form of grants, not debt-incurring loans.

Your response to this campaign has been nothing short of incredible. In just two weeks, more than 162,000 ONE members have taken action. And two nights ago, thousands of ONE members joined experts from Partners in Health and the Red Cross, as well as Senator Bill Frist, M.D. and Congressman Gregory Meeks, for an interactive conference call about the humanitarian situation on the ground, debt relief and long-term development.

Audio from that call is available to ONE members who take action on the page linked below. So I hope you’ll add your name to our petition now, listen to highlights from this important discussion and keep up this effort to help the Haitian people get back on their feet and on the poverty-fighting track.

http://www.one.org/us/actnow/drophaitiandebt/o.pl?id=1436-1221169-wBBnpp...

Thank you,

Tom Hart
Director of Government Relations, ONE

http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/economy/2010/1/28/34629/Dominican-Repub...
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Dominican Today
1/29/2010)
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Santo Domingo. - Dominican Republic will host a World Summit for the Reconstruction of Haiti on April 14, to which Venezuela president Hugo Chavez will be invited, said Foreign Relations minister Carlos Morales. The official made the announcement after participating in the meeting between president Leonel Fernandez and Taiwan par Ma Ying-jeou, and Haitian Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive.
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Morales said the Summit will be held in the country at the request of Haiti president René Preval, adding that other presidents and heads of State will be invited, but didn't specify names.
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He said Dominican Republic is preparing a report to the world on all the aid provided to its neighbor on Hispaniola Island. In Montreal on Tuesday the international community pledged to help Haiti recover from the devastating quake for at least one decade and under the Haitian Government's guidelines

Port-au-Prince, 29 January 2010 – FAO is calling for international donors to support a $700 million investment plan in the agricultural sector drawn up by the Haitian government to repair earthquake damaged infrastructure, boost national food production and create employment for people fleeing Port-au-Prince.
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The special programme, drawn up by the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development gives specific guidelines for international aid in the sector for the next eighteen months. It is one of the cornerstones of the government's strategy to rebuild the country following the January 12 earthquake.
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FAO and the Inter-American Institute for Agriculture Cooperation signed an agreement with the Ministry to support the government's plan.
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FAO is leading the United Nations and NGO partners "cluster" (coordination group) in agriculture. A meeting was held in the Dominican Republic on January 27 attended by Joanas Gué, the Haitian Minister of Agriculture and his counterpart in the Dominican Republic, Salvador Jimenez and representatives of international aid organisations.
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"The food situation in Haiti was already very fragile before the earthquake and Haiti was highly dependent on food imports," said Alexander Jones, FAO Emergencies Response Manager in Haiti.
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"With people moving back to the rural areas, growth in Haiti's agricultural sector is now an urgent priority and the Haitian government's plan does a very good job of laying down the immediate priorities." Almost 60 percent of Haitians lived in rural areas before the earthquake struck. Haiti's rural areas are desperately poor with 80 percent of the population surviving on the razor-edge of poverty with less than two dollars a day.
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The Haitian government estimates in its blueprint around $32 million is needed now to buy urgent seeds, tools and fertilisers for farmers so that they can begin planting in March for the spring planting season which usually accounts for 60 percent of Haiti's agricultural production.
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Other short-term actions envisaged by the plan include the repair of the quake-damaged Darbonne sugar refinery near Léogane, protection of watersheds, reforestation, the rebuilding and reinforcing of collapsed riverbanks and damaged irrigation channels and the rehabilitation of 600 kilometres of feeder roads.
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The government has also recommended the acquisition of thousands of tonnes of cereal, pulses and vegetable seeds, produced domestically and abroad, tools and fertilisers and support to the livestock sector for an eighteen month period.
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Other priorities include the re-launch of a programme to encourage the planting of nutritious sweet potatoes in all 10 of Haiti's administrative departments and the building of storage facilities to stock food and grain to prepare the country for the upcoming hurricane season.
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FAO will start activities along these priorities with the funds received from Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Spain and the agency's own funds.
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In September 2008 the Haitian agricultural sector suffered severe damage from a series of back-to-back tropical storms and hurricanes from which parts of the country still have not recovered.

AFP
1/29/2010
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WASHINGTON, USA (AFP) -- More than 75 percent of Haiti's capital will have to be rebuilt, after the devastating earthquake that leveled swathes of the city, the UN deputy special envoy for the stricken Caribbean nation said Thursday. Envoy Paul Farmer revealed the extent of the damage to Port-au-Prince following the 7.0-magnitude quake on January 12 as he addressed the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee in Washington.
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Asked by the panel's chairman Senator John Kerry how much of the city needed rebuilding, Farmer replied: "The majority of it. Seventy-five percent."
Farmer called for a "recovery fund" to finance the reconstruction of the shattered country, and said the monies could be maintained by the Inter-American Development Bank or similar institution.
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"We need to commit funds and also to disburse them," the envoy said. "Such an account could be managed... with partners such as the UN and, of course, Haitian leadership... to design and implement recovery plans coordinated at central and local levels," he said, adding that the effort also would include the United States and other leading nations.
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The extent of the crisis is so "massive," he said, "that we need the international A-team on this, caseworking with the Haitian people."
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Kerry, meanwhile, said the disaster affords the international community the chance to help Haiti overcome decades of poverty and political turmoil.
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"The best chance for Haiti... in terms of the problems in the last 25 years is to take this moment and create the kind of joint rebuild, international cooperative effort that provides a sustainable ending," Kerry said.
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"This is a chance for Haitians to re-imagine their country as they rebuild it." Haiti's President Rene Preval said Wednesday that the quake had killed 170,000 people and left more than a million homeless. Meanwhile, former US President Bill Clinton, attending a gathering of world economic and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland made an emotional appeal that they do all they can to help Haiti "rise from the ashes."
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"They need to be helped through this hideous natural disaster," said Clinton, a UN special envoy on Haiti, a country he said had been "punished by either being ignored or abused.
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"They've got the best chance they've ever had in my lifetime .. to escape that past and we have the best chance we've ever had to be a part of that," he said as he launched an initiative at the World Economic Forum to get private sector help for the stricken nation.
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Clinton told the business leaders they should help "empower people who are as gifted and hard working and creative, under unbelievably adverse circumstances, as any I've ever seen."

The New York Times
By PAUL COLLIER and JEAN-LOUIS WARNHOLZ
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In an astonishing outpouring of generosity, nearly half of American households have donated money to help Haiti recover from the recent earthquake. The United States government and other governments around the world, for their part, have sent thousands of relief workers and have pledged $1 billion so far. But Haitians need something more fundamental than relief from the present situation; they need jobs that they can count on for years ahead. For this, the private business sector is essential. Luckily, business leaders are meeting now in Davos, Switzerland, and Haiti is prominent on their agenda.
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Haiti is by far the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and yet it need not be so, because unexploited economic opportunities abound there. Some of the best mangoes in the world grow in Haiti —though too many of them rot, offshore from the world’s largest market, for want of adequate roads and well-governed ports. Excellent coffee is grown in the Haitian mountains, but much of it is sold informally across the border to coffee producers in the Dominican Republic, who reap most of the profits.
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Haiti also has many qualities attractive to tourists: a warm climate; magnificent white-sand beaches and turquoise water; Tortuga, the famous pirate island off the northern coast; and the Citadel, a mountain fortress erected after Haiti’s independence in the early 19th century to fend off colonial powers, now a World Heritage site. Still, it is one of the least visited places in the Caribbean.
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The Hope II trade pact with the United States, signed in 2008, granted Haiti duty-free access to the American apparel market for the next decade. Already, as a result of the deal, many garment factories situated along Haiti’s eastern border (so as to use Dominican electricity and ports) have become profitable and competitive with Chinese garment makers. But light manufacturing could be much bigger in Haiti — if the Haitian government and donors would credibly commit to providing functioning roads, electrical grids and ports, and if outside private capital would invest, patiently, in Haitian businesses.
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Poverty and a history of coups and trade embargoes have pushed Haiti’s reputation as a place to do business to near the bottom of the global pile, alongside countries like Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq. But Haiti is far safer and offers far more market opportunities than those conflict-ridden nations.
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The obvious difficulty in Haiti is that its economic center, Port-au-Prince, is now in shambles. Private investors are naturally wary of jumping into a market too soon, before it is lively enough to provide certain kinds of support. After all, many businesses can be profitable only if other businesses exist alongside them. Ships don’t sail directly from Haiti to Florida because there aren’t enough goods to warrant dedicated routes. In the meantime, without reliable routes for direct export of goods, investment in production in Haiti is stymied.
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Even within a single manufacturing sector, it helps to have many businesses operating together. Garment factories, for example, cluster together, because they share a common need for support services. In Haiti, the cluster of garment makers has been too small even to keep repair shops in business; it can take weeks to fly in a technician to fix a broken sewing machine. So, production costs are high because there are too few investors, and there are too few investors because costs are so high.
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The way to address this chicken-and-egg problem is for individual private investors to coordinate with one another. This would not be a new strategy; in the 19th century, the American West was developed not as a process of gradual diffusion but in spasms of local investment booms, financed by enthusiastic outsiders. The earthquake could usher in such a boom in Haiti.
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The World Economic Forum in Davos provides an opportunity for businesses that might invest in Haiti — international fashion brands, hotels and coffee chains, for example — to coordinate with companies that provide logistics and markets, so that together they could make mutual commitments. The foundation for such coordination has already been laid — by Bill Clinton, who led 200 international investors to Haiti last October. As a result of this effort, international chains like Best Western and Choice Hotels started building new hotels in Haiti.
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The earthquake has, of course, changed opportunities in Haiti, but it has not necessarily reduced them. The American construction industry is mired in deep recession and so has the excess capacity to meet Haiti’s sudden need for low-cost housing, roads, bridges and other structures. If American construction firms can harness Haitian labor to reconstruct (safer) homes, then the challenge will be to lure other businesses in their wake so that temporary jobs in reconstruction are replaced by long-term jobs in manufacturing, agriculture and tourism.
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In meeting this challenge, banks and private venture capital also have an important role to play. Haiti needs generous venture capital that encourages some firms to move in first. George Soros, the investor and philanthropist, has recognized this need by committing $25 million for smart investments that catalyze Haiti’s competitive advantages. Many more such commitments are needed.
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For now, even public sources of risk capital like the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation and Britain’s Commonwealth Development Corporation have no special provision for the kind of coordinated pump-priming investment that’s required in Haiti. Most public capital goes to emerging market economies where private investment no longer needs to be encouraged. Haiti, with its genuine opportunities and immediate needs, provides a chance for public finance organizations to find new relevance. It is also a chance for private business to show it can take a major role in meeting the gravest human needs.
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Paul Collier, an economics professor at Oxford, was a special adviser on Haiti to the United Nations secretary general in 2009. Jean-Louis Warnholz, the managing director of a business consulting company, was an economic adviser to Haiti’s prime minister in 2009.

Bloomberg
By Peter S. Green and William Varner
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“Urgent” relief operations in Haiti are ending as aid deliveries are satisfying most immediate needs, United Nations and U.S. aid officials said.
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“We are out of the urgent phase,” Dr. Henriette Chamouillet, head of World Health Organization operations in Haiti, told reporters on a videoconference yesterday. French rescuers pulled a teenage girl, moments from death, from under the rubble of a home yesterday, the Associated Press reported, citing Paul Francois-Valette, a French paramedic.
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International efforts are shifting toward helping sustain Haitians, including the estimated 800,000 residents of the capital Port-au-Prince left homeless by the Jan. 12 quake. About 250,000 people have already left the city for the countryside, and locally grown food is beginning to arrive in the capital, said David Wimhurst, a UN peacekeeping mission spokesman.
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French rescuers rushed Darlene Etienne, 17, to a military field hospital and then to the French military hospital ship Sirroco, after extricating her from under a collapsed structure in the capital near St. Gerard University, the AP reported.
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Food prices in the capital are falling, Wimhurst told reporters on a videoconference yesterday from Haiti, as relief shipments add to the city’s stocks. Oxfam International said it had started distributing cash rather than food because local markets are stocked well enough, while many residents lack money to buy food.
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Col. Rick Kaiser, commander of the U.S. Army’s 20th engineering brigade, said drinking water supplies had been restored and the electrical grid may return to operation within several weeks.
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Amid reports of a bottleneck at Port-au-Prince airport, where the UN said more than 1,000 flights are waiting for permission to arrive, U.S. State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said the flow of aid is exceeding delivery capacity.
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“There isn’t capacity to bring in all the supplies that are offered,” he said.
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Delivering aid to some pockets is still problematic, said Duguid, particularly where large groups of people depend on a single aid delivery point. He said rumors of shortages at those locations have created some of the violence that has been videotaped and broadcast on television.
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Haiti’s hydroelectric generators should be operating within two days, and within weeks the power grid should begin supplying Port-au-Prince, said Kaiser. Even before the earthquake, about a third of the city’s buildings were powered by generators, meaning the city is not without power, he said.
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“There’s not a water problem,” Kaiser said. Drinking water is being distributed from 130 water trucks and at 80 distribution points. Haitians typically got their drinking water from trucks and kiosks even before the quake, he said.
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“Sewage and sanitation are much different than in urban American society,” Kaiser said. “For those Haitians who used a slit trench, that system is operating the way it did before” the quake.
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Large camps of displaced and homeless people shouldn’t be allowed to stand for long, said Melissa Winkler, a spokeswoman for the International Rescue Committee, a New York-based aid group working in Haiti. “Once you put up a refugee camp, it’s hard to take it down,” said Winkler. “It becomes an excuse for not erecting more permanent structures and increases the dependence on international aid.”
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The IRC would like to see more cash-for-work programs such as those started this week by aid group Oxfam and the UN, that pay Haitians to clear rubble, injecting cash into the economy, she said.
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With at least three-quarters of the schools in Port-au- Prince destroyed, “kids are not going back to school anytime soon,” said Winkler.
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Now that most have received the acute medical care they need, thousands of children orphaned by the quake will need support and counseling, and to be placed with local families, said Winkler. “They have seen so much death and destruction -- it’s bad.”
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The International Monetary Fund yesterday approved an additional $102 million in emergency aid to support reconstruction. Haiti will be allowed to draw on a total of $114 million by the end of the week, the largest amount made available to the Haitian government since the temblor, the Washington-based IMF said in an e-mailed statement. The emergency assistance is interest free and repayments will be postponed for at least five-and-a-half years, the IMF said.
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“When the port is operational again fully, exports can resume,” Corinne Delechat, the IMF’s mission chief for Haiti, told reporters on a conference call. She said 80 percent of Haiti’s textile factories are capable of resuming production.
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Delechat said the IMF emergency funds will “be used to import urgently needed equipment” such as computers and communications gear. “The government has a fairly clear of idea of what needs to be done,” and the Haitian central bank is operating well enough to help distribute the funds, she said.
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To contact the reporters on this story: Peter S. Green in New York at psgreen@bloomberg.net; Bill Varner at the United Nations at wvarner@bloomberg.net.

The Star
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OTTAWA–Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is calling on developed countries to forgive Haiti's debt so the country can concentrate on climbing out from under the rubble and not a financial burden.
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Flaherty said Wednesday that when G7 finance ministers meet in Iqaluit, Nunavut on Feb. 5-6, he will also be urging them to provide grants, not loans, to the earthquake-ravaged country, where as many as 200,000 are feared dead and elections must be put on hold.
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"Reconstruction assistance provided to Haiti by these institutions and international donors will need to be provided primarily in grant form to avoid mortgaging the country's future," he told reporters during a briefing on progress in Haiti.
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Canada provides all of its assistance to Haiti – which is Canada's second-largest recipient of financial aid next to Afghanistan – through grants and not loans. Flaherty said it is important to ensure Haitian citizens do not take a back seat to prior debt obligations. "Our collective goal should be to ensure that Haitians not be required to make substantial debt repayments while reconstructing their nation," he said.
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The Canadian government forgave $2.3 million in loans to Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, last September. With this relief, Canada has now cancelled a total $965 million worth of debt over several years. Flaherty said there will be a special plea to creditors Taiwan and Venezuela to "complete their own debt relief efforts" with respect to Haiti. In 2005, Haiti's total external debt reached an estimated $1.3 billion (U.S.).
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Flaherty said Haiti's debt obligations aren't just with individual nations but also with international financial institutions. Meanwhile, 52 more Haitian orphans arrived in Ottawa Wednesday afternoon. They were the second group to arrive in Canada in less than a week. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Sunday that as many as 180 Haitian orphans at different spots in the adoption queue could be coming to Canada.

27 January 2010 – Not only must Haiti’s infrastructure be built back better in the wake of the devastating earthquake, but its human rights mechanisms must also be enhanced, the top United Nations rights official said today.
“Our paramount goal must be ensuring that all Haitian people attain their dignity and rights in full,” she told a special session of the Human Rights Council on the aftermath of the 12 January earthquake.
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“The pursuit of this objective cannot be postponed until more favourable conditions prevail. It must be made part and parcel of our action right now.”
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The Haitian Government has confirmed that 150,000 people have perished, with thousands more still buried under the rubble. An even larger number have been made homeless by the 7.0-magnitude quake, which devastated the capital, Port-au-Prince.
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The effects of the quake “were further exacerbated by pre-existing inhuman conditions of poverty, instability and feeble institutions,” the High Commissioner said, pointing to practices including the forced movement from rural to urban areas to provide cheap labour for Haiti’s elite under the Duvalier regime between 1957 and 1986.
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“The congestion of urban centres has ever since been a cause of abuse and heightened vulnerability to natural disaster and to conflict over scarce jobs and resources,” she noted. “At the same time, living conditions in rural areas remained and continue to be culpably neglected.”
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The aid effort is well under way in Haiti, already the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country before the disaster. “To sustain effective development policies, bolster good governance and ameliorate the delivery of, and access to, services including health and education, we must anchor our initiatives in human rights,” Ms. Pillay stressed.
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A human rights approach to the recovery process will help tackle the root causes of vulnerabilities, such as poverty and discrimination, she added. Protecting the vulnerable – especially the disabled, the elderly, women and children – who are more likely to face dispossession, arbitrary arrest, violence and trafficking is essential, the High Commissioner stressed.
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She also voiced concerns over reports of summary executions of prisoners who escaped from Haiti’s jails following the earthquake by angry mobs. “The rule of law must be quickly re-established in the capital and elsewhere.”
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The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), along with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), has dispatched a five-person team to Haiti to lead and help coordinate protection efforts in partnership with the Government. The mission will assess the immediate rights needs of the population.
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Ms. Pillay called for rebuilding Haiti’s national human rights protection systems through an effective and independent judiciary as well as a law enforcement system that respects human rights.
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Yesterday, top UN humanitarian officials underscored that Haitians must have leadership of the post-earthquake recovery process, as aid agencies are making important progress in reaching people affected by the disaster.
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Significant steps forward are being made in the areas of water and food distribution, among others, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes told reporters in New York.
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But he added that “we are conscious it's a very long way to go to get to all the people in need with basic items.” The World Food Programme (WFP) said that it has reached almost 450,000 people with nearly 10 million meals since the 12 January earthquake, with more food set to arrive.
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The $575 million UN flash appeal for Haiti launched on 15 January, three days after the quake, is only 49 per cent funded, Mr. Holmes said, expressing concern that certain crucial sectors – including early recovery – remain under-funded.

The Miami Herald
BY DANIEL SHOER ROTH
dshoer@ElNuevoHerald.com
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Arelys Ramírez recalled that since she was little, she was taught that Haitians were ``bad and aggressive.'' But last week she was in the municipal hospital in the border town of Jimaní treating earthquake survivors, alongside dozens of Dominican volunteers.
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``I don't see them that way anymore,'' Ramírez, 42, said.Her attitude contrasts sharply with the articles of the new Constitution that took effect Tuesday in the Dominican Republic, which say that children born to undocumented immigrants will not be given citizenship. Observers point out that the measure is an attempt to resolve the problem of Haitian immigration.
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Last week, the Archbishop of Santo Domingo, Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez, asked for an increase in border surveillance, without precluding solidarity with the victims. The willingness of officials and the Dominican people to come to the aid of earthquake victims is not in doubt. However, in conversations on the street, in the tension over the possibility of a human avalanche at the border, one hears echoes of the tortured relationship of two countries united by land and divided by history.
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``We are in no condition to receive such a mass migration. We are a poor country. Not as poor as they, but poor,'' said the Dominican consul in Miami, Manuel Almanzar. Congress member Pelegrin Castillo, of the National Progressive Force party, said the Dominicans are worried the international community ``will again wash their hands of Haiti's fate.''
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``Dominican authorities and the Dominican people have been clamoring for a multilateral, responsible, strategic solution to the acute problems of Haiti,'' Castillo wrote in an e-mail.
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The president of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernández, has personally led the effort to channel aid to Haiti. From the very beginning, he put the resources of the Dominican Institute of Telecommunications as well as the President's Social Funds at the disposal of the Haitians. He has also provided food and health programs.
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Two days after the earthquake, Fernández traveled by helicopter from Jimaní to meet with his Haitian counterpart, René Préval, and to offer logistical support. ``I believe that the Dominicans feel satisfaction that we are able to cooperate,'' Fernández said at the time to El Nuevo Herald.
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It remains to be seen, according to analysts, whether the government's goodwill has a favorable influence on bilateral relations. Wilfredo Lozano, director of the Center of Social Research and Studies at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Santo Domingo, said that the solidarity at every level of society is a sign of potential cooperation.
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``We have an opportunity to begin to redefine the nature of the relationship between both countries using a model other than one based on mutual distrust,'' Lozano said. Bridget Wooding, a researcher at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, an organization with regional reach, said the relationship between both nations is at a historic juncture.
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``The Dominican Republic is going to serve as the launching point in terms of the reconstruction of a new Haiti,'' Wooding predicted. ``In my opinion, it will be impossible to go back to the rancor of the past.'' It is a turbulent past. Liberated from Spain in 1821, the young Dominican nation was occupied by Haiti from 1822 until 1844. For Dominicans, it was difficult to achieve independence from an occupier with a bigger population and one of the best armies of the era in the region. The Haitian rulers fought any rebelliousness with blood and fire.
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``The Dominicans have always looked back on that time with much sadness and it has been very difficult for them to forgive,'' Wooding said.
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After 1930, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo promoted deep anti-Haitian sentiment during his three-decade-long dictatorship. In 1937, between 12,000 and 25,000 Haitians were massacred by the Dominican armed forces. Faced with an international outcry, Trujillo was forced to compensate Port-au-Prince.
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Differences in language and origin accentuated the political and social chasms. ``Many people call us `devil Haitians,' '' said Evel Elulus, 27, who lives in Duvergé, on the Dominican side of the border.
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In 1993, the two countries entered a period of rapprochement and cooperation that fostered a climate of trust. Since then, immigration has been the main point of contention. It has generated controversy, given the costs to social services provided by the Dominican government. According to Almanzar, more than one million Haitians have immigrated to his country.
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The Haitian consul in Miami, Ralph Latortue, commended the speed with which the Dominicans responded to the earthquake.

BY JIM WYSS AND JACQUELINE CHARLES
The Miami Herald
jwyss@MiamiHerald.com
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PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Of all the places in Haiti in which to have the world cave in around you, perhaps none was safer than the Sonapi Industrial Park.
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When the Jan. 12 earthquake leveled much of the city, it killed more than 100,000 people, but not a single person working in the 158-acre industrial park died that day, although many lost family members.
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Now Sonapi may deliver another miracle: steady employment. While much of the city is still reeling from the earthquake that demolished industries, paralyzed the banking sector and snarled shipping, Sonapi -- which has 47 factories and 15,000 employees -- is quietly coming back to life.
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All but one of its factories, known for exporting duty-free garments to the United States, reopened this week, almost half the workers are back on the job and hundreds more gathered outside to clamor for grueling work that pays less than $7 a day.
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The reopening of Sonapi, and the banks in Port-au-Prince on Saturday, are signs that this battered nation is ever so slowly beginning the long road back from the devastation the massive quake left behind, officials say.
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Richard Coles, who owns a garment factory in the industrial park, said Haiti's private sector has been wrestling with a dilemma during the past 10 days on whether to open as they were out performing rescues, and providing food and water to earthquake victims. But after 10 days ``you could see the people were back to business, they were starting to sell food, whatever they could. We decided last week we had to be a lot more responsible and get back to work.
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``It makes sense; long-term humanitarian [aid] doesn't. It's only jobs and consumers. That's what will make the difference,'' he said.
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``While the international community and the government are really fighting to help people to get food, we definitely need to play our part.''
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Georges Sassine, president of the Manufacturers Association in Haiti, said the sector employed a total of 28,000 workers -- not just in the Sonapi complex. He said it was critical to call employees back to work.
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``The goal is to bring people back to their normal lives as quickly as possibly, and getting their jobs back is part of it,'' said Sassine, who is also responsible for implementing the U.S. Congress-approved duty-free HOPE legislation benefiting the garment industry.
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Reviled by some as a sweatshop for international companies, the industrial park is likely to be key to Haiti's recovery. Before the earthquake flattened the nation's already battered economy, garments represented about 91 percent of all of Haiti's exports to the United States. And almost two-thirds of the nation's garment industry is concentrated inside the compound.
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One of those factories, DKDR-Haiti, churns out 40,000 suit coats and 30,000 pants per month, for companies such as Jos. A. Bank and Lou Levy and Sons. Virtually all of the clothing is exported to the United States, including Miami, said company president DK Lee.
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``Fortunately, most of our workers were here at the time of the earthquake,'' which hit just before 5 p.m., Lee said. ``And this structure is strong.''
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Unlike the heavy concrete-and-beam buildings that toppled throughout the capital, most of the factories in the duty-free zone are made of relatively light steel and zinc.
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While the buildings escaped serious damage, business did not. As news spread about how the earthquake had destroyed the principal pier in Port-au-Prince, toppling massive gantry cranes into the water, jittery customers moved orders to factories in Central America and elsewhere.
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DKDR responded by taking cargo overland to the Dominican Republic for shipment.
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``My customers have been very understanding,'' said Lee, who moved his enterprise from the Dominican Republic to Haiti after the United States dropped tariffs on Haitian garment exports in 2007. ``And they were willing to accept additional freight costs.''
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Even so, Lee said he's hopeful shipping will resume from Port-au-Prince next week.
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Although the port has been partially repaired, it is being used exclusively for shipments of humanitarian assistance and aid, as the international community has been struggling to bring enough supplies into the nation.
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Lionel Desir, the principal advisor to the free-trade zone's director, said too much is riding on the enterprise to keep it paralyzed for long. Before the earthquake struck, there were plans in the works to bring in more factories that could boost employment to 25,000 workers.
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``We are already the biggest employer in the country,'' he said. ``It's important that we expand.''

The Miami Herald
BY DAVID OVALLE
dovalle@MiamiHerald.com
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PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Before the quake, Pierre Benoit manufactured clothes for men and women. He lost 15 relatives in the disaster. His shop was destroyed.
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In the chaos, he has turned to an unexpected business opportunity: charging cellphones. Benoit, 36, salvaged a generator from his home, lugged it to the sidewalk across from the ruins of the Haitian National Palace and opened for business.
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He charges 4 Haitian dollars, equivalent to 37 U.S. cents, to juice a phone to full capacity. It's one Haitian dollar more if you need an adapter. His customers come from the encampment at Plaza Manzole, where hundreds of homeless families are living in makeshift tents without electricity. He has scrimped and borrowed to buy gasoline for the generator.
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``I'm not making much, but at least I'm trying,'' said Benoit, 36, who bought the generator several years ago to deal with Haiti's frequent blackouts.
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As Haiti struggles to dig itself out of the quake's aftermath, its people have relied to a remarkably large degree on cellphones to communicate. Even though it is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, one in three persons has a cellphone -- 3.2 million in a land of nine million, according to 2008 CIA statistics.
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As in much of the Caribbean and many developing areas of the world, cellphones have become the way to communicate because prices keep going down -- as low as $15 for a basic phone. Carriers have found it costs them far less to build a few cellphone towers than many miles of phone lines. So far, most cellphone communication has been restored, although service remains spotty.
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But electricity has not returned and people with generators have filled the technology vacuum. At Plaza Manzole, the owners of cybercafe Technicom have used a generator to rig up a mini Internet service spot. They lost 13 computers in the quake, but salvaged two desktops PCs. They haggled with Internet provider Haitinet to restore service, and are charging 5 Haitian dollars to make calls through the cyber phone service Vonage. They, too, are charging cellphones for people, even though they're earning little.
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``As Haitians, we are helping Haitians. We are all having problems,'' said Demy Junior Lazarre, 32, one of the co-owners. In the Delmas 33 neighborhood, Ady Pierre Donnady, 25, reopened New One Barbershop a couple of days after the quake. He has since brought in a generator, and his biggest business is selling power. On Monday, Donnady had 16 customers charging their cellphones, at 37 cents a pop. `I want to help the population,'' he said.

KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) -- CARICOM stands ready to do all in its power to assist Haiti and play a prominent role in its reconstruction, the community's representative to Tuesday's Ministerial Preparatory Conference in Montreal, Canada, former Jamaican Prime Minister, PJ Patterson, said.
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Former Jamaica Prime Minister, PJ Patterson
"As small economies, our resources may be limited, but not our willingness to assist," Patterson told the one-day conference, hosted by the government of Canada to pave the way for a larger donor co-ordination conference on Haiti's reconstruction which should take place later this year.
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He noted that CARICOM has already provided more than 400 response personnel, including military and medical, as well as search and rescue teams.
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Tonnes of emergency supplies to Haiti have been routed through CARICOM's operational focal point, Jamaica, and the Jamaican Government continues to offer its port facilities, land and sea, as a staging area for international assistance into Haiti, he told the meeting.
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He also noted that CARICOM supports the notion that Haiti should play a vital role in its own redevelopment. "Unless there is ownership by those directly affected, the best laid plans will come to nought. In addition to the involvement from the outset of the Haitian authorities, that of civil society and of the people of Haiti is also of overarching importance," he added.
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Patterson suggested that a single, multi-donor reconstruction fund for Haiti should be established, as has been advocated by the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Patrick Manning.
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"The establishment of such a fund would have a second and critical consequence. It would do away with the impediment presented by the dizzying number of accounting modalities required by individual donors," he said.
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He also suggested the involvement of the Haitian Diaspora, as well as the urgent reinforcement of the public functions of the state, including the public service, to ensure that the progress made in the provision of public goods and basic services is sustainable.
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Patterson was making his presentation to the Preparatory Conference, which was called to establish a clear and common vision, within the international community, for the early recovery and longer-term reconstruction of Haiti. It is seen as the first step to reaching that goal.
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It also provided an opportunity for the donor community, the Haitian Government and the United Nations to review progress to date in the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Haiti, and to strengthen the international community's commitment to co-ordinate relief and recovery efforts.
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The conference involved the Group of Friends of Haiti, major donors and regional and multilateral partners. A second technical conference is likely to be hosted at the United Nations in New York in March. A major earthquake struck southern Haiti on Tuesday, January 12, knocking down buildings and power lines and causing death and injury to hundreds of thousands of Haitians.

Reuters
By Lesley Wroughton
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WASHINGTON, Jan 27 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday it will disburse $114 million to Haiti by Friday to help the government get back on its feet and restart the economy devastated by a earthquake. The loan includes $102 million in new emergency funding approved by the IMF's board on Wednesday.
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The IMF said Haiti will not pay interest on its IMF loans until the end of 2011, part of a package of measures agreed last year to help poor countries cope with the impact of the global financial crisis.
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"The emergency augmentation will provide urgently needed financing for essential imports, and make cash available to banks and transfer houses," the IMF said in a statement.
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The 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti on Jan. 12 has killed as many as 200,000 people. While international rescue teams still sift for survivors in collapsed buildings in the capital Port-au-Prince, there are parallel efforts being made to get the country functioning again. The IMF funding will be used to import equipment for the government to resume operations after state buildings were flattened and records destroyed.
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"It will also enable the authorities to maintain an adequate reserves cushion in the face of very large import needs linked to reconstruction," the IMF said.
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IMF mission chief to Haiti, Corinne Delechat, told reporters on a conference call that once imports resume, the government expects a surge in demand for foreign exchange. Therefore, it was critical for the authorities to hold foreign exchange in reserves to be able to manage large spikes in demand, which would otherwise translate into very high inflation.
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She applauded the government for its efforts to restore the state and said the central bank was "in the best shape of all and able to operate." Delechat said it would take a "long-term effort" by the international community to put the country on a sustainable development path. She said about 80 percent of Haiti's textile capacity, which is located outside the capital Port-au-Prince, was capable of still operating, and that once the main port was repaired, textile exports could resume.
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Textiles make up about 90 percent of Haiti's exports and generates a lot of revenue for the government. Delechat said international agencies including the IMF, World Bank and United Nations would begin an assessment in February of the extent of the damage, which would help determine how much aid will be needed for reconstruction.
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A donor conference in March will nail down specific pledges from different governments for Haiti's rebuilding. "The government has a fairly clear idea what needs to be done," she said.
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Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told a donor conference in Montreal this week the earthquake had set his country back by between four to five years and it would take up to 10 years to rebuild. Anti-poverty groups have called on the IMF and other international institutions to cancel Haiti's debt and Delechat said it was a "political decision" among donor countries.
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Some $1.2 billion of Haiti's debts to the IMF and World Bank were written off in July last year as a reward by the international community for progress the country was making in economic reforms and management.
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Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Leslie Adler and Eric Walsh

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) -- Former President Bill Clinton -- his penchant for public speaking unbowed -- called Thursday for more help for earthquake-ravaged Haiti, telling the World Economic Forum that the country is determined to escape its troubled past.
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"This is an opportunity to reimagine the future for the Haitian people, to build what they want to become, not rebuild what they used to be," Clinton, a U.N. special envoy to Haiti, told this influential gathering of business and political leaders at the Swiss resort of Davos.
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Citing a litany of woes -- a lack of food, water, even trucks to distribute what aid has arrived -- he called for "cash more than anything else." But if anyone had some pickup trucks, Clinton said he could use those too. "I need 100 yesterday," Clinton said.
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The forum is appealing to its wealthy corporate members to pitch in aid but even more importantly, invest for the long term in Haiti. Elsewhere at the forum, the leaders of South Africa and South Korea urged governments and business leaders to work on keeping the effects of the global financial crisis at bay. But it was Haiti, and hopes for rebuilding the impoverished Caribbean nation, that earned top billing.
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Clinton said in the aftermath of the Jan. 12 quake, Haiti's economy could emerge stronger than it was previously, citing Rwanda's economic improvement after its genocide. Even as Clinton made his appeal, the chair of corruption watchdog Transparency International, Huguette Labelle, warned that donor countries and companies should keep a close eye on where their money is going in Haiti.
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"In the first phase you have to get to the people, you have to try to save lives," she told the AP at Davos. "But after that, you have to invest in costly infrastructure projects susceptible to corruption."
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"There can be billions of dollars going in to Haiti and the important part doesn't even reach the people, it goes out of the country the minute it goes in," she complained about corruption. "It makes a few people very rich, and the rest stay poor."
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Members have donated tens of millions of dollars directly to the aid effort since the disaster earlier this month, said the forum's managing director, Robert Greenhill. "Businesses are realizing that in addition to their charity role they also have a role in helping to build economies," he told the AP.
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Greenhill said businesses should model their rebuilding efforts on those accomplished in the Indonesian region of Aceh, which emerged with a better infrastructure and a stronger economic base than it had before the 2004 tsunami.
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"It's by no means a mission impossible," he said, saying Haiti had tremendous tourism potential with sustained investment. South African President Jacob Zuma touted his country's embrace of democracy since the end of apartheid but noted that to keep South Africa's economic development moving forward, it would need both reform and government intervention.
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"You cannot do with one or the other," he said, saying that infrastructure is still needed in the country that will host the 2010 World Cup. "Our economy is a mixed economy." South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, the first president of that country to speak to the annual Davos gathering, said the G-20 group of wealthy nations would focus on economic recovery ahead of its meeting in Seoul in November.
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"The recent financial crisis has reminded us how closely our national economies are integrated in the global economy," Lee said. "It is not only the events in our near neighbors that have an impact on our lives. The degree of integration is now such that we saw how events on the other side of the world can impact our daily lives."
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The G-20 is an international body that meets to discuss economic issues. Its members -- 19 countries with some of the world's biggest industrial and emerging economies, plus the European Union -- represent about 90 percent of the world's gross national product, 80 percent of world trade and two-thirds of the global population.
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Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, meanwhile, had to cancel his trip to Davos because of hypertension and was hospitalized in the Brazilian city of Recife overnight, his office reported. He left the hospital Thursday morning, giving bear hugs to doctors on his way out.
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Silva had been set to receive a new "Global Statesmanship Award" at Davos on Friday, the first ever. Brazilian Central Bank President Henrique Meirelles was taking Silva's place at the forum.
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Associated Press Writer Angela Charlton in Davos and Alan Clendenning in Sao Paulo, Brazil, contributed to this report.

International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn has made a U-turn on the US-dominated financial institution's attempt to burden earthquake-devastated Haiti with another $100 million (£61.7m) of debt. Mr Strauss-Kahn declared that he now supported efforts to "delete all the Haitian debt, including our new loan," following criticism from leaders such as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who announced his own country's immediate cancellation of a $295m (£182m) debt on Monday.
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Haiti's debt to Venezuela was run up under the Petrocaribe initiative which offers member countries the chance to purchase Venezuelan oil on preferential terms.
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Mr Chavez declared: "Haiti has no debt with Venezuela - on the contrary, it is Venezuela that has a historic debt with Haiti thanks to the support that Haiti gave to Simon Bolivar," and the struggle for independence from Spain in the 19th century.

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – International charities pouring a jumble of aid into Haiti must work better together to reach and help survivors of the catastrophic earthquake, President Rene Preval said on Wednesday.
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Aid groups and troops from around the world have struggled to distribute food, water and medical care to an estimated 3 million Haitians injured or left homeless in the magnitude-7 earthquake that wrecked much of Haiti's capital on January 12, killing as many as 200,000 people.
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"I am not in a position to criticize anybody, not in the least people who have come here to help me," Preval said. "What I am staying is, what everybody is saying is, that we need a better coordination."
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Some food handouts have turned ugly, with U.N. peacekeepers using teargas and warning shots to control jostling crowds. Other people living in ragtag encampments around Port-au-Prince have complained that no food has reached them.
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Preval said he was grateful for fund-raising efforts around the world and tried to ease concerns that government corruption might siphon off aid meant for desperate Haitians. "The Haitian government has not seen one cent of that money that has been raised for Haiti. I presume that that means the money is going to NGOs," he said, referring to non-governmental aid groups.
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He said a Puerto Rican group had presented him with a shipping receipt showing it donated $3.5 million of food aid to feed Haitians. Preval said he asked, "Where is the food?" and was told it had already been given to aid groups.
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Doctors in chronically impoverished Haiti say the quake had created perhaps tens of thousands of new amputees whose limbs were crushed by collapsing buildings or removed to save their lives after gangrene infected their untreated wounds. With so many hospitals and clinics destroyed, there was little chance they would get the therapy they need, doctors said.
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"The future for people with both legs was already quite grim. What can be done for them?" said Dr. Lafontaine St. Louis, whose clinic made prosthetic limbs and provided physical therapy before the quake.
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The earthquake also unleashed fears that child-eating spirits, mythological figures entrenched in Haitian culture, are prowling homeless camps in search of young prey. Night-time patrols have been set up in some homeless camps to deter the 'loup-garou,' a spirit of Haitian folklore said to turn people into beasts to suck the blood of babies and young children. In one camp, residents described beating a man almost to death after he tried to take a baby during the night.
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Preval bristled at suggestions that the influx of foreign troops threatened Haitian sovereignty."We are talking about people suffering and you are talking about ideology," he told a journalist who raised the issue at a news conference with Jose Miguel Insulza, secretary general for the Organization of American States.
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In a reference to the U.S.-led rebuilding of Europe after the Second World War, Insulza added, "Did the Europeans lose their sovereignty with the Marshall Plan?" Cuba and Venezuela, longtime ideological foes of the United States, have questioned the U.S. decision to send more than 15,000 military personnel to Haiti to provide security and disaster relief, with Cuba calling it a stealth "occupation."
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France has also complained that U.S. troops controlling air traffic in Haiti's capital diverted a French medical flight, accusing them of giving preference to U.S. planes. When a French reporter asked why U.S. troops were controlling flights, Preval replied: "You need to run the airport, you need technical help and they offered it to us. I really can't understand why the need for that is so difficult to accept."
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Preval spoke to journalists at the police headquarters building, where he and his cabinet ministers have worked since the earthquake smashed the presidential palace, parliament and more than a dozen ministry buildings.
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(Additional reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva and Matthew Bigg, writing by Jane Sutton)

KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) -- Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) Jeremy Collymore has reiterated the region's commitment to offer "appropriate and targeted" support to Haiti over the long-term.
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Speaking to journalists recently via satellite from Barbados, Collymore noted that Jamaica would continue to lead CARICOM's efforts in its role as the CDEMA Sub-Regional Focal Point (SRFP) with responsibility for Haiti.
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CARICOM has chosen to focus its aid in the area of health, and Collymore informed that about 350 CARICOM nationals are currently in Haiti helping with the relief efforts. He said that in the previous 48 hours, members of the medical team had delivered more than 400 treatments and 30 surgeries, including amputations. The team has also, since being in Haiti, rescued three persons alive, while recovering several bodies.
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"In terms of emergency supplies, though we have not quantified it, several shipments of water, emergency blankets, health materials, like pharmaceuticals, etc., have been moved into the area," he told journalists. CDEMA is also responding to airlift challenges by placing an aircraft in Jamaica to help move some of the emergency personnel and supplies into Haiti, while another aircraft donated by Bermuda will periodically airlift supplies out of Jamaica to Haiti. Collymore also informed that it is expected that by Jan. 25, 15 per cent of the port in the Haitian capital will be repaired to allow some access by sea.
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"On the ground, the damage to the infrastructure is already impeding people's ability to move on the ground. these are some of the issues that the Community is now looking at with respect of our own resources and already, plans are in place to identify a barge or some large vessel to move heavy vehicles and fuel into the operating area," he told journalists.
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CARICOM has also enhanced its presence in Haiti with a Special Coordinator appointed by CDEMA, who is working with the Haiti Civil Defence Protection, and the CARICOM security forces, international donors and the humanitarian community on the ground, to ensure sustained and effective coordination of the CARICOM relief efforts.
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Collymore also informed that eight CARICOM countries have together contributed US$4 million towards relief efforts. Meanwhile, four Caribbean nationals, who were in Haiti for a civil aviation meeting, remain unaccounted for. Two of them are from the Netherland Antilles, one from St Lucia and the other from Trinidad and Tobago. They were all staying at the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince, which experienced massive damage from the earthquake.

Caribbean Net News
By Jim Polson
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NEW YORK, USA (Bloomberg) -- The earthquake that killed more than 150,000 people in Haiti this month may have left clues to petroleum reservoirs that could aid economic recovery in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, a geologist said.
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The January 12 earthquake was on a fault line that passes near potential gas reserves, said Stephen Pierce, a geologist who worked in the region for 30 years for companies including the former Mobil Corp. The quake may have cracked rock formations along the fault, allowing gas or oil to temporarily seep toward the surface, he said Monday in a telephone interview.
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“A geologist, callous as it may seem, tracing that fault zone from Port-au-Prince to the border looking for gas and oil seeps, may find a structure that hasn’t been drilled,” said Pierce, exploration manager at Zion Oil & Gas Inc., a Dallas- based company that’s drilling in Israel. “A discovery could significantly improve the country’s economy and stimulate further exploration.”
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Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive met Monday in Montreal with diplomats, including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to discuss redevelopment initiatives. Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said wind power may play a role in rebuilding the Caribbean nation, where forests have been denuded for lack of fuel, the Canadian Press reported. “Haiti, from the standpoint of oil and gas exploration, is a lot less developed than the Dominican Republic,” Pierce said. “One could do a lot more work there.”
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The Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. It may have 3 million barrels of oil in a shallow offshore formation that’s probably also shared by Haiti, Pierce said.
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“One of the main reasons for the dearth of information on reserves in Haiti is that the Dominican Republic has numerous surface-hydrocarbon seeps while Haiti had very, very few,” he said.
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Abraham Lincoln’s consul to the Dominican Republic reported oil seeps there in 1862. Neither nation produces oil or gas. As much as 1 trillion cubic feet of gas may be trapped in a border formation near the earthquake fault, Pierce said.
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Pierce hasn’t worked in Hispaniola since joining Zion in February 2005. He said he’s unaware of any petroleum geologists conducting fieldwork in Haiti. There has been exploration of Ocoa Bay, the largest potential oil deposit in the Dominican Republic, he said.
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“All basins cross the border,” said Paul Mann, co-author of a 1991 paper in the Journal of Petroleum Geology on Hispaniola’s petroleum potential. The paper concluded that “existing seismic data indentify undrilled prospects.”
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More than 600,000 people are without shelter in the Port- au-Prince area, the United Nations said Jan. 22. The 7.0- magnitude quake destroyed about one-third of the buildings in Port-au-Prince. It also knocked out the capital’s seaport and water and sewage systems.
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“Relief and recovery for the survivors is the priority now,” Mark Fried, a spokesman for British charity Oxfam, said in a statement. “Hundreds of thousands who lost everything but their lives” need water, shelter and toilets to stop the spread of disease, he said.
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Haiti will need “massive support” for a “colossal” reconstruction from the earthquake, Bellerive said at the meeting yesterday in Montreal.
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The Greater Antilles, which includes Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and their offshore waters, probably hold at least 142 million barrels of oil and 159 billion cubic feet of gas, according to a 2000 report by the US Geological Survey. Undiscovered amounts may be as high as 941 million barrels of oil and 1.2 trillion cubic feet of gas, according to the report.
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Among nations in the northern Caribbean, Cuba and Jamaica have awarded offshore leases for oil and gas development. Trinidad and Tobago, South American islands off the coast of Venezuela, account for most Caribbean oil production, according to the US Energy Department.