24073: (pub) Chamberlain: Haiti still needs world's attention, says U.N. official (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT LOUIS, Mauritius, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Haiti is at risk of
backsliding as it tries to emerge from political turmoil and natural
diasters if the Indian Ocean tsunami diverts too much humanitarian
attention from the Caribbean nation, a senior U.N. official said on
Tuesday.
     U.N. Under-Secretary General Anwarul Chowdhury said Haiti had the
attention of world donors in 2004, when devastating floods and the
overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide shook the Caribbean country,
but the tsunami has diverted focus.
     "I believe that it is very necessary for the world to keep its focus
on Haiti," Chowdhury told Reuters.
     Many needy countries fear limited assistance money could dry up as as
donations shift to victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami, which killed at least
157,000 people around the Indian Ocean and led to a massive outpouring of
international aid.
     Chowdhury is leading a conference on small-island problems this week
in the Mauritian capital, where island leaders and U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan are to meet. The tsunami has given new urgency to the
long-planned conference on island vulnerabilities.
     Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, shares the Caribbean
island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. In addition to an armed
revolt that forced Aristide into exile, flooding last year killed about
6,000 people.
     More than half of them died when floods from Tropical Storm Jeanne
swept down deforested hillsides to engulf the northern city of Gonaives in
September.
     "Haiti is even more vulnerable than many other small islands, because
of its particular lack of infrastructure, its disastrous ecological
situation, its very weak economy and abject poverty," said Roland Pierre,
the Haitian minister of external cooperation.
     Haiti came to the conference to persuade donors to help, Pierre told
Reuters. "We are saying that a bigger catastrophe should not get the world
to forget a smaller one," he said.
     Annan has identified other crisis-stricken countries that need help
and should not be forgotten in the tsunami's wake, Chowdhury said.
     "At the same time, the concerns of Haiti, of the Democratic Republic
of Congo, of Rwanda and Burundi, all these problems are to be addressed
properly," Chowdhury said.