23549: (Chamberlain) Haiti needs more help to dig out after storm -UN (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     UNITED NATIONS, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Wealthy nations are doing too
little to help impoverished Haiti get back on its feet after last month's
Tropical Storm Jeanne, which killed 3,000 people and left many more
dependent on outside food aid, a top U.N. official said on Thursday.
     "Nobody is really digging it out," U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator
Jan Egeland told reporters on Thursday.
     "There is not enough of a reconstruction effort ... and I really hope
that in North America but also in Europe and elsewhere there can be more of
a concerted effort in Haiti."
     Last month's storm left Haiti's coastal city of Gonaives buried in mud
and 100,000 of its inhabitants dependent on outside food aid.
     The U.N. mission in Haiti to date has just 2,600 soldiers -- a
fraction of the 6,700 troops and 1,600 police authorized for the operation
despite pleas from U.N. officials urging governments to speed the
deployment of promised peacekeepers.
     "It is incomprehensible how Haiti, so close to some of the richest
countries of the world, has so little social investment, so little
investment in humanitarian and reconstruction (programs)," Egeland said.
     Contributing to the slow pace of recovery is the unrest that has
gripped Haiti since former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled the
country in February, forced out by a month-long armed rebellion and U.S.
and French pressure to quit.
     Some shipping firms carrying emergency food supplies have refused to
dock in the capital Port-au-Prince, where 113 food containers are stuck,
after two weeks of violence between Haiti's U.S.-backed government and
supporters of Aristide.