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Re: The U.S. must not 'occupy' Haiti, declares French
The long history of troubled ties between Haiti and the US
By Vanessa Buschschluter
BBC News, Washington
When US President Barack Obama announced that one of the biggest relief efforts in US history would be heading for Haiti, he highlighted the close ties between the two nations.
"With just a few hundred miles of ocean between us and a long history that binds us together, Haitians are our neighbours in the Americas and here at home," he said.
Hundreds of thousands of Haitians have indeed become neighbours of Americans.
Some 420,000 live in the US legally, according to census figures. Estimates of the number of Haitians in the country illegally vary wildly, from some 30,000 to 125,000.
It is a sizeable diaspora which wants to see quick and decisive action from its adopted homeland.
Desperate to see aid getting through to friends and relatives, many expatriate Haitians have welcomed President Obama's decision to send up to 10,000 troops to help rescue efforts.
Historically though, US military deployments to Haiti have been controversial to say the least, and ties have often suffered.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Shared history</span>
Both countries were born out of a struggle against European colonisers.
The US declared independence from Britain in 1776 - the first to do so in the Western Hemisphere - followed by Haiti, which broke away from France in 1804.
But there the similarities end. While the American War of Independence was driven by a white elite unwilling to continue paying taxes to its colonial masters, the Haitian revolution was led by a freed slave, Toussaint Louverture.
The existence of a nation of freed slaves to the south became an inspiration for slaves in the US, and a thorn in the side of many Southerners who relied on slavery for their economy.
During the Civil War in the 1860s, the animosity of the Confederate States towards Haiti would sour relations between the two nations for decades to come.
But Haiti's geographical proximity to the US and its strategic location in the Caribbean sparked the interest of American administrations.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Strategic interest</span>
In the 19th Century, it was eyed as the location for a pntial naval base.
US leaders also feared foreign occupation of the island at a time when European powers were trying to expand their sphere of influence.
In 1868, President Andrew Johnson suggested the annexation of the whole island of Hispaniola - present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic - to secure a US presence in the Caribbean.
His suggestion was not followed, but American warships were active in Haitian waters 17 times between 1862 - when the US finally recognised Haiti's independence - and 1915, when it occupied the country.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Assistant Secretary of State Alvey Adee summed up the US view of Haiti in 1888 when he called it "a public nuisance at our door". </span>
Tumultuous history
In the following decades, Haiti would only become more of a headache to its big neighbour.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Between 1888 and 1915, no Haitian president completed his seven-year term. </span>
Ten were killed or overthrown, including seven in the four years to the US invasion of 1915. Only one died of natural causes.
In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson took control of the Haitian National Bank by sending in marines, who removed $500,000 of its reserves "for safe-keeping" in New York.
The assassination of the Haitian president a year later finally prompted President Wilson to invade Haiti with the aim of protecting US assets and preventing the further strengthening of German influence in the region.
<span style="font-weight: bold">After failing to make the new Haitian legislature adopt a constitution which would allow foreign land ownership, the Wilson administration forced the legislature to dissolve in 1917. It would not meet again until 1929. </span>
The US finally withdrew from Haiti in 1934 as part of President Franklin Roosevelt's "Good Neighbour Policy", which stressed co-operation and trade over military force to maintain stability in the Americas.
Duvalier era
Many Haitians fled to the US during the political repression under Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier.
At first, the US government welcomed the refugees, but as the numbers swelled and boatloads of Haitians arrived on the South Florida coast in the 1970s and 1980s, this attitude changed to a policy of intercepting boats at sea and returning those on board to Haiti.
After decades dominated by dictatorships and coups, democracy was restored in 1990 when Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected in a popular vote.
The ousting of President Aristide by a military regime in 1991 led to a new wave of Haitians headed for the US.
Military deployments
Faced with increasing chaos just south of its shores and an ever-growing stream of refugees arriving on - and often sinking off - Florida's shores, President Bill Clinton sent a US-led intervention force to Haiti in 1994.
The Clinton Administration intervened to restore President Aristide to power
A last-minute deal brokered by former President Jimmy Carter allowed the troops to go ashore unopposed by the Haitian military and police.
Constitutional government was restored and Mr Aristide returned to power.
US troops left after two years - too soon, some experts argue, to ensure the stability of Haiti's democratic institutions.
Jean-Bertrand Aristide stayed in power until 1996, and was re-elected in 2000.
While he enjoyed the support of the Clinton administration during his first term of office, allegations of corruption and links to the drugs trade during President Aristide's second term made for a rocky relationship with Washington.
After an uprising against President Aristide in 2004, US forces returned to Haiti, this time to airlift him out of the country.
Mr Aristide accused the US of forcing him out - an accusation the US rejected as "absurd".
With the crisis averted, US interest in Haiti lessened. A UN-led mission took over from US troops in June 2004 and continues to be present there.
'American leadership'
The election of President Obama and the nomination of Bill Clinton to the post of UN envoy to Haiti, combined with a period of relative political stability, led to a strengthening of US-Haitian ties.
President Obama said he would make the relief efforts in Haiti a priority
Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who spent their honeymoon in Haiti, have long taken an interest in the country.
President Obama has enlisted their help, alongside that of former President George W Bush, to help drive fundraising for Haiti.
Speaking on Thursday, President Obama said that this was "one of those moments that calls out for American leadership".
This US intervention, he stressed, would be "for the sake of our common humanity". -
More troops, aid go to Haiti, but hunger persists
More troops, aid go to Haiti, but hunger persists
Port-au-Prince, Monday, Jan. 18, 2010.
By MICHELLE FAUL and ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press Writers Michelle Faul And Alfred De Montesquiou, Associated Press Writers – <span style="font-weight: bold">31 mins ago</span>
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti –
Troops,doctors and aid workers flowed into Haiti on Monday even while victims of the quake that killed an estimated 200,000 people still struggled to find a cup of water or a handful of food. European nations pledged more than a half-billion dollars in emergency and long-term aid, on top of at least $100 million promised earlier by the U.S.
But help was still not reaching many victims of Tuesday's quake — choked back by transportation bottlenecks, bureaucratic confusion, fear of attacks on aid convoys, the collapse of local authority and the sheer scale of the need.
Looting spread to more parts of downtown Port-au-Prince as hundreds of young men and boys clambered up broken walls to break into shops and take whatever they can find. Especially prized was toothpaste, which people smear under their noses to fend off the stench of decaying bodies.
At a collapsed and burning shop in the market area, youths used broken bottles, machetes and razors to battle for bottles of rum and police fired shots to break up the crowd.
<span style="font-weight: bold">"I am drinking as much as I can. It gives courage," </span>said Jean-Pierre Junior, <span style="font-weight: bold">wielding a broken wooden plank with nails to protect his bottle of rum.</span>
Even so, the U.S. Army's on-the-ground commander, Lt. Gen. Ken Keen, said the city is seeing less violence than before the earthquake. "Is there gang violence? Yes. Was there gang violence before the earthquake? Absolutely."
U.S. officials say some 2,200 Marines are set to join 1,700 U.S. troops now on the ground and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced Monday he wants 1,500 more U.N. police and 2,000 more troops to join the existing 7,000 military peacekeepers and 2,100 international police in Haiti.
While aid workers tried to make their way into Haiti, many people tried to leave. Hundreds of U.S. citizens, or people claiming to be, waved IDs as they formed a long line outside the U.S. Embassy in hopes of arranging a flight out of the country.
Roughly 200,000 people may have been killed in the magnitude-7.0 quake, the European Union said, quoting Haitian officials who also said about 70,000 bodies have been recovered so far.
EU officials estimated that about 250,000 were injured and 1.5 million were homeless.
Even many people whose houses survived are sleeping outside for aftershocks will collapse unstable buildings. And while the U.N. said that more than 73,000 people have received a week's rations, many more still wait.
So many people have lost homes that the World Food Program is planning a tent camp for 100,000 people — an instant city the size of Burbank, California — on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, according to the agency's country director, Myrta Kaulard.
About 50,000 people already sleep each night on the city golf course where the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division has set up an aid camp.
In town, Bodies still lay in the street six days after the quake, but Haitians had made progress in hauling many away for burial or burning. People were seen dragging corpses to intersections in hopes that garbage trucks or aid groups would arrive to take them away.
Six days after the quake, dozens of rescue crews were still working to rescue victims trapped under piles of concrete and debris.
"There are still people living" in collapsed buildings, U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told The Associated Press. "Hope continues."
She said some might survive until Monday — and a few special cases could make it further: Rescuers pulled a 30-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman from a ruined supermarket on Sunday. Officials said they had had survived for so long by eating food where they were trapped.
Stunned by images of the disaster, the European Union Commission said it would contribute euro330 million ($474 million) in emergency and long-term aid to Haiti.
EU member states also poured euro92 million ($132 million) in emergency aid, including 20 million pounds ($32.7 million) from Britain and euro10 million ($14.4 million) from France, which also said it was willing for forgive Haiti's euro40 million ($55.7 million) debt.
"The impact of this earthquake is magnified because it has hit a country that was already desperately poor and historically volatile," said British Development Secretary Douglas Alexander.
U.S. officials, meanwhile, agreed with U.N. officials on a system to grant priority to humanitarian flights, responded to criticism that military and rescue flights had sometimes been first in line, according to the U.N.
Some countries and aid groups such as Geneva-based Doctors Without Borders had complained planes filled with doctors and medical supplies had been forced to land in the neighboring Dominican Republic and come in by road, delaying urgent care for injured quake victims by two days.
The problem may be eased by U.S. expansion of the cramped airport's capacity.
The U.S. military spokesman in Haiti, Cmdr. Chris Lounderman, said about 100 flights a day are now landing, up from 60 last week. "The ramp was designed for 16 large aircraft," he said. "At times there were up to 40. That's why there was gridlock."
In Paris, French Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet expressed concern about the major U.S. military role in the country, saying it should be clarified: "This is about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti," said Joyandet, who last week complained about U.S. handling of the airport.
But other French officials were conciliatory.
"You have a small airport ... which was devastated by the earthquake and you have hundred of planes which want to land," said French U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud said. "So it's totally normal that there are delays, but I think that the situation has dramatically improved."
He said it's still more important to repair the damaged seaport — a task U.S. officials are working on. "In terms of aid, it's the port where we can bring most of the aid," he said.
Former President Bill Clinton, who arrived with his daughter, toted crates of bottled water at the airport and shook hands with doctors at the capital's General Hospital, crammed with about 1,500 patients. He promised that his foundation would provide medicine and a generator so that doctors there can work through the night.
Clinton is the U.N. special envoy for Haiti and he has joined former President George W. Bush in leading a campaign for donations to help the country.
A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Capt. John Kirby, said in Washington that the United States expects to have 4,000 to 5,000 U.S. troops in Haiti by midweek and the same number at sea, with the hospital ship USNS Comfort arriving by Wednesday.
At the United Nations, meanwhile, the secretary-general said he needs the extra troops for six months, and the police would likely stay longer. U.S. deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff said he expects the Security Council to approve the increase by Wednesday.
U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain LeRoy told The Associated Press that the Dominican Republic has already pledged an 800-strong battalion and the U.N. has other offers. France's Araud said European Union foreign ministers agreed Monday to send some more police.
___
Associated Press writers contributing to this story included Jennifer Kay, Mike Melia, Tamara Lush, Jonathan M. Katz, Gregory Bull in Port-au-Prince; Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations; Raf Casert in Brussels; Larry Margasak in Washington; Alexander G. Higgins in Geneva, and Jill Lawless in London.Comment
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Re: The U.S. must not 'occupy' Haiti, declares French
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: evanovitch</div><div class="ubbcode-body">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...ticle-1244225/ </div></div>
<span style="font-size: 11pt">The pictures are disturbing.
I see people, most just lost their families and worldly possessions . I know there is looting, but it seems almost a mockery to be showing the military, police/guards and their batons - with almost a licence to commit further brutality...no compassion!!!
Very disturbing...is this a mission just enforcing power? or trying to help?
Sadly, I suspect the former rather than the latter.</span>Comment
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Re: The U.S. must not 'occupy' Haiti, declares French
\0/Comment
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Re: The U.S. must not 'occupy' Haiti, declares French
is juss this mawning mi was asking what was france's daily role in Haiti pre-earthquake ??Comment
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Re: The U.S. must not 'occupy' Haiti, declares French
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Gen</div><div class="ubbcode-body">is juss this mawning mi was asking what was france's daily role in Haiti pre-earthquake ?? </div></div>
The had a number of NGO's present in the country, beyond that, not so sure in terms of modern day - except the language ties...and APPARENTLY - one of Haiti's biggest creditors
, and seems to also control whether or not Haiti is able to gain "debt relief" or not...hopefully someone can expand.
But the French occupation after the overthrow contributed heavilty to deforestation of Haiti.
Comment
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Re: The U.S. must not 'occupy' Haiti, declares French
The U.S. must not 'occupy' Haiti, declares French minister as aid FINALLY trickles through
By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 6:05 PM on 18th January 2010
Comments (8) Add to My Stories
The UN must step in to ensure the U.S. is not occupying Haiti in the wake of a devastating earthquake that may have killed 200,000 people, a French minister has said.
French Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet spoke as the country descended into anarchy. Aid is only just trickling through the 'bottleneck' at Haiti's airport, while angry Haitians desperate for help are striking out at international agencies - and each other.
Some 10,000 U.S. troops are on the way to try to restore order - but their role is being questioned.
'This is about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti,' Joyandet, in Brussels for an EU meeting on Haiti, said on French radio.
Enlarge Looters fight for goods taken from a destroyed store in Port-au-Prince
Enlarge A Jordanian police officer from the United Nations fires tear-gas shells at Haitians, begging for work at one of the main gates of the Port-au-Prince international airport
Enlarge Members from the 84th US Air Force Division stand guard in front of the National Palace in Port-au-Prince
Joyandet has already complained about America's role in Haiti.
Last week U.S. forces turned back a French aid plane carrying a field hospital from the damaged, congested airport in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, prompting criticism from the French minister. The plane landed safely the following day.
More...Haiti's Ground Zero: 30,000 dead and almost every building flattened in town at epicentre of earthquake
In another weekend incident, some 250 Americans were flown to New Jersey's McGuire Air Force Base on three military planes from Haiti.
U.S. forces initially blocked French and Canadians nationals from boarding the planes, but the cordon was lifted after protests from French and Canadian officials.
The U.N. World Food Program said American officials have agreed to a system giving humanitarian flights priority in landings.
French and Brazilian officials, as well as the Geneva-based aid group Doctors Without Borders, have complained that critical aid flights were not given permission to land.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Saturday the U.S. government had no intention of taking power from Haitian officials.
Tourists dock in Haiti on cruise ships
Just 60 miles from the devastation in Haiti's earthquake zone, luxury liners are docking at private beaches.
Passengers enjoyed jet ski rides, parasailing and rum cocktails, when the Independence of the Seas ship landed at Labadee, on the north coast, on Friday.
Another ship, Navigator of the Seas, is due to dock today.
Royal Caribbean International leases five beaches from the government, which are armed by guards.
They said the ships carry some food aid and the cruise line has pledged to donate all proceeds from the visit to Haitians.
One passenger wrote he was 'sickened' on the Cruise Critic internet forum.
'I just can't see myself sunning on the beach... while there are tens of thousands of dead people being piled up on the streets with the survivors stunned and looking for food and water,' he wrote.
Some were afraid desperate people might breach the resort's 12ft high fences.
'Labadee is critical to Haiti's recovery; hundreds of people rely on Labadee for their livelihood,' said the company's vice-president, John Weis.
'We cannot abandon Haiti now that they need us most.'
Forty pallets of rice, beans, powdered milk, water and canned foods were delivered on Friday, and more are due on other cruises.
'We are working to back them up, but not to supplant them,' she said.
Joyandet said he expects a U.N. decision on how governments should work together in Haiti.
'The U.N. is working on it,' Joyandet said, adding that he hopes 'things will be clarified concerning the role of the United States.'
Both nations have occupied Haiti in the past.
France occupied Haiti for more than 100 years, from 1697 to independence in 1804 after the world's first successful slave uprising.
More recently, U.S. Marines occupied the country from 1915 to 1934 to quiet political turmoil.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner warned governments and aid groups not to squabble as they try to get their aid into Haiti.
'People always want it to be their plane ... that lands,' Kouchner said Monday. '(But) what's important is the fate of the Haitians.'
Mrs Clinton visited Port-au-Prince to pledge continued and lasting support.
'As President Obama has said, we will be here today, tomorrow and for the time ahead,' she said standing beside President Rene Preval, whose palace was destroyed in Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude quake.
Despite the chaos President Preval has made no broadcast address to his nation, nor has he been seen at any disaster site.
Instead he has met Cabinet ministers and foreign visitors at a police station which serves as his base following the collapse of the National Palace.
Looting spread to more parts of downtown Port-au-Prince as hundreds of young men and boys clambered up broken walls to break into shops and take whatever they can find.
Especially prized was toothpaste, which people smear under their noses to fend off the stench of decaying bodies.
At one place, youths fought over a stock of rum with broken bottles, machetes and razors and police fired shots into the air to break up the crowd.
'I am drinking as much as I can. It gives courage,' said Jean-Pierre Junior, wielding a broken wooden plank with nails to protect his bottle of rum.
Even so, the U.S. Army's on-the-ground commander, Lt. Gen. Ken Keen, said the city is seeing less violence than before the earthquake.
Enlarge Paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division stand guard while Haitians are begging for work at one of the main gates of the Port-au-Prince international airport
Enlarge People take goods from buildings collapsed during last week's earthquake in the market area of Port-au-Prince
Enlarge A child injured by the earthquake receives medical treatment at a hospital run by a relief organisation
'Is there gang violence? Yes. Was there gang violence before the earthquake? Absolutely.''
Keen said some 2,000 Marines were set to join 1,000 U.S. troops on the ground and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced he wants 1,500 more U.N. police and 2,000 more troops to join the existing 7,000 military peacekeepers and 2,100 international police in Haiti.
Roughly 200,000 people may have been killed in the magnitude-7.0 quake, the European Union said, quoting Haitian officials who also said about 70,000 bodies have been recovered so far.
EU officials estimated that about 250,000 were injured and 1.5 million were homeless.
Even many people whose houses survived are living outside for fear unstable buildings could collapse in aftershocks.
So many people have lost homes that the World Food Programme is planning a tent camp for 100,000 people - an instant city - on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, according to the agency's country director, Myrta Kaulard.
Enlarge A girl reaches out for goods thrown by looters from a destroyed store in downtown Port-au-Prince
Enlarge Soldiers from the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne division walk on patrol at the city's port
Enlarge People take goods from collapsed stores in the market area as violence and looting broke out
The U.S. military said it was doing its best to get as many planes as possible into Port-au-Prince, after NGOs complained shipments of aid had not been allowed to land at the U.S.-controlled airport.
More than 30 countries have rushed relief to Haiti since Tuesday's devastating earthquake, choking the airspace and the ramp at the small airfield and delaying the arrival of urgently needed medical and food supplies.
Colonel Buck Elton, commander of the U.S. military directing flights at Haiti's airport, said there had been 600 take-offs and landings since he took over the one-runway airport's traffic on Wednesday, though 50 flights had been diverted.
The airport's control tower was knocked out by the quake and U.S. military air controllers were operating from a radio post on the airfield grass, he said.
'What we set up here would be similar to running a major airport ... without any communications, electricity or computers,' Elton told reporters in a telephone briefing from Port-au-Prince.
With the ships unable to dock in the port and many roads blocked by debris the airport has been the main lifeline for supplies.
Medecins Sans Frontieres complained that a cargo plane carrying an inflatable surgical hospital was blocked from landing in Port-au-Prince on Saturday, and was rerouted to Samana, in the Dominican Republic, from where it would take 24 hours to get to the Haitian capital by truck.
'Priority must be given immediately to planes carrying lifesaving equipment and medical personnel,' MSF (Doctors Without Borders) said in a statement.
Enlarge
Crush: People swarm a UN aid convoy to grab at food and supplies in Petionville yesterday
Enlarge People run toward a U.S. helicopter as it makes a water drop near a country club used as a forward operating base for the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division in Port-au-Prince over the weekend
'Our intent is as soon as one aircraft departs, another one arrives,' Elton said.
But as fast as aid agencies are working, time is running out for desperate Haitians - especially in the town outside Port-au-Prince that has been branded the quake's 'ground zero'.
Nearly every building in Legoane was flattened and a third of the 100,000 population feared dead.
It is only 12 miles west of the capital Port-au-Prince and had received no aid since last Tuesday's disaster until a team of 40 British search and rescue workers arrived yesterday.
Frustrated men gathered at the weekend brandishing machetes and clubs, ready to fight for a town they said the world has forgotten.
All along the cracked highway to the blighted town, where 90 per cent of the buildings have been destroyed, people begged for help. 'SOS,' declared a hand-written sign painted on the road near Leogane.
'We don't understand why everything is going to Port-au-Prince, because Leogane was broken too,' cried one survivor.
Jean Ky Louis, a shop worker, said: 'People are dying of starvation, even the survivors. We have nothing.'
Enlarge
Rescuers worked feverishly to extract Danish civil affairs officer Kristensen. He was soon talking and smiling as he was given water
Leogane's city centre is a rubble pile spiderwebbed with fallen power lines where the stench from the dead is intense. Onlookers described the town as looking like the set of a disaster movie.
Two mass graves line the road to the capital, a few yellowed bodies thrown in to start a third.
People have fled to mangrove swamps and sugar cane fields, while tens of thousands more are living in the open in school playgrounds and market places.
Men defending a health clinic-turned-shelter against criminals loosed from the capital's broken penitentiary and looters said: 'There is no one in the police station. We haven't seen aid.'
Philip Pierre, 28, who manages a yogurt plant said: 'We are ready to die fighting if they don't listen to us.'
Meanwhile, the capital city is spiralling into anarchy.
Among the shocking scenes was the naked body of a hanged suspected looter dragged through the devastated streets of Port-au-Prince.
Enlarge A group of American citizens of Haitian descent hold up their passports in a long line outside of the American embassy as they try to escape Haiti
Enlarge A Haitian policeman tries to stop residents of Port-au-Prince from entering a section of the downtown area where people were searching for food from a collapsed supermarket
Children watched as the corpse is battered with pieces of wood.
Foreign aid agencies say they can operate only with the protection of United Nations soldiers and are awaiting the arrival of thousands of U.S. troops.
Around 3,000 inmates of the national jail have escaped onto the streets after the quake after overpowering the guards and burning prison records.
Many, including a hardened killer known only as 'Blade', have reformed their violent gangs, brandishing weapons stripped from prison guards.
President Rene Preval said: ‘We have 2,000 police in Port-au-Prince and 3,000 bandits escaped from prison. This gives you an idea of how bad the situation is.’
While most of the capital's 3million people are focused on finding food and water, clearing debris and pulling bodies from the rubble, there are pockets of violence and reports of looting and ransacking of shops.
Enlarge Members of the Los Angeles County Fire Department Search and Rescue Team rescue a Haitian woman from a collapsed building
Enlarge Saved: The woman had been trapped in the building for five days without food or water
Enlarge A Jordanian police from the United Nations charges a Haitian begging for work at one of the main gates of the Port-au-Prince international airport
The lynching came after police brought a man to Petionville, a once wealthy area of the capital, and told a crowd he had been arrested for looting.
Vigilante justice took over and he was hanged before his body was dragged through the streets and set on fire under a heap of rubbish.
The U.S. navy is using helicopters to drop supplies of bottled water and the UN also has distribution points handing out high-energy bars to the hungry. But demand is outstripping supply - with food and water being taken faster than they can pass it out.
UN Secretary General Ban Kimoon said the quake was the worst humanitarian crisis for decades.
Donations can be made to the earthquake appeal by visiting www.dec.org.uk. You can also call 0370 60 60 900, donate over the coutner at any post office or high street bank, or send a cheque payable to 'DEC Haiti Earthquake Appeal' to PO Box 999, London, EC3A 3AA.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnew...l#ixzz0d0gJvroHComment
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Re: The U.S. must not 'occupy' Haiti, declares French
La da dee la dah da!Comment
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Re: The U.S. must not 'occupy' Haiti, declares French
<span style="font-size: 17pt"> The current program on the ground is not functioning properly.
It will only get worse, at the rate it is going.
The bottleneck may be one of logistics.
They need to create a secondary distribution center.
Then a third, fourth , and increase until the people gate some semblance or order.
Where to go for what. first.
then as the desperation subsides,normal more regular system can be set up. It have to done like a military action.
You have to start by dividing the surge and then divide, each.
and keep dividing until they become managable. </span>Comment
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Re: The U.S. must not 'occupy' Haiti, declares French
I would say that the best way in gettig getting around the logistic log jam (no pun intended) would be to clear out several large rural areas and established temporary tent communities with lots of "Johnny on the spots" for sanitary reasons. <span style="font-weight: bold">How long would it take to [Drill a few wells for water</span>... Food supplies and water would be carried to these locations by Helicopters. Have some military personnel at each to control disorder at these sites which should not be too far away from the disaster areas...
With much effort, it will take a while to set up large field hospitals under huge tents, to care for the injured , sick and dying. Uncle Sam being the "Big Boy" closest to Haiti will no doubt be expected to do the yoeman's work in these situations. Because of the availabity of generous support by the American People and OTHERS who I believe, will out-contribute the Americans when the dust settles and that would be a very good thing...
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