22150: (Craig) NYT: GIs Linger in Haiti to Help With Floods (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <hoosier@att.net>


GIs Linger in Haiti to Help With Floods
May 30, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:45 p.m. ET

MAPOU, Haiti (AP) -- U.S. troops deployed to Haiti during a
bloody revolt to oust President Jean-Bertrand Aristide will
be leaving in the midst of another crisis as the nation
tries to recover from deadly floods.

The official American handover to a U.N. force is set for
Tuesday, but only a fraction of the planned 8,000 troops
and police for the U.N. force have arrived, and none have
brought helicopters needed to help flood victims. So most
U.S. troops will stay until the end of June. After that,
fewer than a dozen will participate in the U.N. force.

Hurrying to help people in submerged villages after floods
killed more than 1,400 in Haiti and the Dominican Republic,
the U.S. troops control the few available helicopters and
have become key to getting aid to inaccessible areas. In
the past few days, they have airlifted more than 100,000
pounds of food and drinking water and evacuated the
injured.

For some of the 1,900 U.S. troops -- 1,500 of them Marines
-- the end to their Haiti mission is a bittersweet moment.

"On the one hand, we'll leave with a sense of
accomplishment," said U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Dave Lapan,
spokesman for the U.S.-led multinational task force that
was sent to secure and stabilize the nation. "On the other
hand, there's so much this place needs."

Floods and mudslides brought on by three days of heavy rain
wiped out entire villages in Haiti's southeast corner
around a farming community called Mapou, a week before the
hurricane season begins Tuesday.

With hills denuded of most trees, similar disasters
threaten other towns, straining the U.N. force's original
task of tending to Haiti's other daunting needs.

"The short-term solution is for the U.N. and others to get
their own helicopters," Lapan said. "We're just in the
start of the rainy season. We could get through this
immediate crisis and they could have something even
worse."

A team from the International Committee of the Red Cross
said they spotted dams near three villages that appear
likely to burst if pressured with more rain, said spokesman
Bernard Barrette. Rains were forecast for some parts of
Haiti and the Dominican Republic Sunday.

Nearly a week after the floods, the official toll rose to
1,454 dead in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, with untold
hundreds more missing and presumed dead. The Red Cross team
estimated as many as 1,500 missing just around Mapou,
Barrette said.

Most Marines arrived three months ago, in the days
following the Feb. 29 ouster of Aristide.

Aristide was flown aboard a U.S.-supplied jet to the
Central African Republic, where he accused the United
States of orchestrating a coup against him -- a charge U.S.
officials denied. On Sunday, after spending two and a half
months in Jamaica, Aristide was heading to South Africa for
temporary asylum.

The Marines had a mixed welcome, with hostility from
Aristide supporters that was a far cry from the joyous
reception they got in 1994 when they invaded to restore
Aristide after a 1991 coup.

In the fist weeks, Marines shot and killed six civilians,
some in skirmishes, others as they sped past checkpoints.
Only one Marine was wounded -- a shot in the arm during a
skirmish in a pro-Aristide neighborhood.

The troops' flood relief efforts have muted much of the
initial criticism.

In addition, troops have cleared mini-mountains of garbage,
refurbished slum schools, donated notebooks and pencils and
even played soccer with street gangs loyal to Aristide.

Their departure leaves questions about how much influence
the United States will maintain in the poorest country in
the Americas, which has undergone more than 30 coups in 200
years of independence.

Some say the U.S. troops should stay longer. U.S. Rep.
Kendrick B. Meek on Friday urged President Bush to provide
more emergency aid, saying The ``American troop presence in
Haiti is needed now more than ever.''

Proponents of that view point to the need for a stable,
economically viable Haiti to discourage boat people and to
fight drug traffickers who have made Haiti a major conduit
for Colombian cocaine bound for the United States.

"Such American involvement will help promote democracy and
stability, thereby reducing the possibility of illegal
immigration," Meek said.

A Florida Democrat representing the U.S. constituency with
the largest Haitian population, Meek called a planned
$50,000 in U.S. disaster aid "a pittance and wholly
inadequate to properly respond to one of the worst natural
disasters in Caribbean history."

The U.S. Marines led a force of 3,600 including French,
Canadian and Chilean troops in a mission where it's clear
that with more time they could do more. Despite a lull in
the violence, Haitian factions on all sides remain armed.

"We don't have the luxury of time," Lapan said. The
Marines, all from Camp Lejeune, N.C., are scheduled to go
to Iraq next.

"Even if we stayed here a year there are still things that
tear at your heart," Lapan said. "You could spend years
building schools. In a relatively short time, we've done a
lot to help."

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Haiti-Leaving-in-Crisis.html?ex=1086942249&ei=1&en=e20d030665e3ae23
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company