22146: (Craig) NYT: An Impoverished Haiti Struggles to Cope With a Disaster (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <hoosier@att.net>


An Impoverished Haiti Struggles to Cope With a Disaster
May 30, 2004
By TIM WEINER

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, May 29 - Gray storm clouds gathered
again over Haiti?s flood-ravaged mountains on Saturday as
tens of thousands of homeless survivors huddled for
shelter, a small earthquake struck the region and estimates
of the dead and missing remained at near 2,000.

International aid workers said Saturday that people fleeing
the flood had walked for hours or days seeking safety in
the mountains of the Massif de la Salle, whose summits rise
up to 8,793 feet, and some had walked over the mountains
down to the sea.

The aid workers, assisted by American, Canadian and Chilean
soldiers, are still burying the dead and searching for the
missing, while trying to keep the living alive. They say
they confront a crisis far worse than they imagined in a
country illequipped to manage daily life, much less a
disaster of such a scale.

There are only a few million dollars in the treasury of the
provisional government that replaced President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted three months ago.
The government's ministries barely function. The Health
Department was all but destroyed by the rebels who helped
overthrow Mr. Aristide. "The government is doing the best
it can," said Henri Bazin, Haiti's finance minister since
March. "It is obvious that we do not have sufficient means
to face this crisis." He said the government was able to
dedicate $250,000 to flood response.

The French foreign minister, Michel Barnier, met with
Haiti's interim president, Boniface Alexandre, and pledged
help. "We are providing food and water, but that is not
enough," Mr. Barnier said.

Promised aid from foreign governments remains mostly
undelivered. "I don't think it's anything but promises
yet," said Sheyla Biamby of Catholic Relief Services, one
of Haiti's leading aid agencies.

The United States said it was providing $50,000 for flood
relief in Haiti; the Organization of American States,
$25,000. United Nations agencies have about $380,000
available, officials said. About 75,000 people are believed
to have been affected by the flood, according to United
Nations workers still trying to reach small villages cut
off by mudslides.

While the foreign countries are also sending relief to the
Dominican Republic - where in the border town of Jimani,
mainly populated by Haitians, hundreds were killed - the
problems are far graver in Haiti.

Mr. Alexandre said survivors from villages destroyed by the
flood - like Mapou, where 1,000 are feared dead - might have
to be forcibly relocated. "Every time there's a flood,
it's always the same victims," he said. "We need to find
a better place for them, and if the appropriate land is
privately owned, the government must expropriate it."

Ms. Biamby, boarding a helicopter for Mapou, agreed. "I
don?t think anyone knows how many people are affected by
this disaster," she said. "There are many localities that
have not been reached yet. Because of the magnitude of the
disaster in places like Mapou, people are not mentioning
them. But what the government is going to have to do is
relocate these people altogether. Nature simply doesn't
allow people to live there."

In Mapou on Saturday, the American-led international
military force ferried supplies by helicopter as aid
workers, including two Cuban doctors, tried to help
thousands endure. Mapou, as seen by a reporter on Friday,
is no longer habitable. The standing floodwaters, now
receding from a height of 25 feet, are graveyards breeding
the threat of malaria, dengue fever and hepatitis.

The survivors of Mapou may have to be relocated to Thiotte,
a threehour walk away, Ms. Biamby said. Where they would
live once they arrived remains unanswered.

Every road between the capital and the flood-ravaged
villages has been erased. Food, water, medicine and the
basics of life - cooking pots, cups and spoons - cannot
reach the survivors without helicopters.

Most of the 14 helicopters in Haiti capable of lifting tons
of supplies belong to the American military. The
American-led force, which occupied Haiti after Mr. Aristide
fell, are scheduled to leave June 30. The road to Mapou
cannot be fixed by then, said Jean-Paul Toussaint, Haiti's
public works minister.

"Even if the Americans go, helicopters have to stay," Ms.
Biamby said. "I'm sure that the government and our friends
in the international community will have to come up with an
answer to that question."

There is little level ground to build shelter beyond the
shore in southeast Haiti, and, at the moment, no dry ground
anywhere. The spring rains have been far heavier than
usual, said Mr. Bazin, the finance minister. Six feet or
more fell in the past week in some areas. Rain is forecast
through the weekend. The hurricane season starts in June.

Both Haiti's deep poverty, which now extends to its
government, and international politics complicate the
country's ability to recover. The government is nearly
bankrupt, in part, because Mr. Aristide's government was at
best inefficient and at worst corrupt over the past three
years, foreign officials here say.

Mr. Aristide's administration had six months' worth of
foreign reserves in the treasury when he regained office in
2000. Foreign reserves are the hard currency a government
holds in its central bank to ensure solvency.

When Mr. Aristide fell, there were three days' worth of
foreign reserves, a senior Haitian official said.

In addition, many nations cut off direct foreign aid to Mr.
Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected president,
and the Bush administration increased diplomatic and
political pressure against him, perceiving him as hostile
and unstable.

But the way in which Mr. Aristide was overthrown - with
tacit American support - meant that Haiti's new interim
government remains unrecognized by Caricom, the economic
community of Caribbean nations. So Haiti's neighbors,
including Jamaica, have been wary of providing assistance.

Haiti suspended diplomatic relations with Jamaica, which
holds the leadership of Caricom, after Mr. Aristide took
refuge there in March. He was set to leave on Sunday for a
permanent exile in South Africa. That is expected to make
it easier for Caricom to send help to Haiti.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/30/international/americas/30CARI.html?ex=1086904250&ei=1&en=2186e87ffe4778d7
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company