Fwd: News Update no.1

[Jacmel Online, Inc.]

Gol - Can you publish this news article on Bonzouti.com as soon as possible?

Mesi,
KD, Junior


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Washington Post
January 17, 2010
Pg. 13

Frictions Between Nations Rise Over Struggle Of Getting Aid To Haiti

By Mary Beth Sheridan and Michael E. Ruane

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI -- Food and water trickled to the stricken
people of Haiti on Saturday, as a global aid operation struggled with
frictions and confusion over who was in charge to bring relief to this
crumbled, earthquake-ravaged city.

Four days after the 7.0-magnitude quake brought much of Port-au-Prince
down on its residents Tuesday, a few signs of national survival
flickered, even as some Haitians began an exodus out of the devastated
capital and into the countryside.

But there were growing tensions over which country's planes were
allowed to land here first, with each nation insisting its aid flight
was a priority, according to an official involved in the relief
operation.

France, Brazil and Italy were said to be upset, and the Red Cross said
one of its planes was diverted to Santo Domingo, the capital of
neighboring Dominican Republic.

The French government became so annoyed when a plane with an emergency
field hospital was turned back Friday that foreign minister Bernard
Kouchner lodged a protest with the State Department, according to the
French ambassador to Haiti, Didier Le Bret.

Le Bret said that the Port-au-Prince airport has become "not an
airport for the international community. It is an annex of
Washington."

"We were told it was an extreme emergency, there was a need for a
field hospital," the ambassador said. "We might be able to make a
difference and save lives."

At the same time, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton flew in
for a visit with Haitian President Rene Preval, as the Haitian
government worked to maintain a presence amid the ruins of
Port-au-Prince.

The nearly collapsed Haitian government is at least nominally in
charge of the relief effort, even though it has ceded air traffic
control at the airport to the U.S. military.

With their offices heavily damaged, the president and his cabinet are
now working out of a cramped, low-slung Haitian judicial police
headquarters near the airport. International aid workers consider the
building so fragile -- it has small cracks from the earthquake -- that
they hold meetings with the officials on plastic chairs on the patio
outside.

Adding to the confusion, the top two leaders of the U.N. mission in
Haiti, who normally would coordinate an aid response, are presumed
dead. They disappeared after the quake destroyed the building in which
they were meeting.

Clinton, while en route to Haiti, took note of the layers of authority
in Haiti, which include the Brazilian-led U.N. security force.

"We are working to back them up, but not to supplant them," she said.
"They have been there for years."

Clinton said the Haitian government has given the United States and
others some leeway to meet emergency needs. The Haitian "government
says the highest priority is to save lives," she said.

Haiti's government has reportedly recovered 20,000 bodies from the
rubble. Estimates are that the death toll could reach 50,000 to
100,000.

Despite the friction at the airport, conditions on the ground there
Saturday seemed to be improving.

U.S. soldiers had taken over security at the entrance. What had been a
mob of screaming Haitians pressing against the doors of the facility,
hoping to catch flights abroad, was now an orderly line in roped-off
rows.

Large pallets piled chest-high with orange juice, bottled water,
canned chickpeas, military-style prepared meals, diapers, water,
medicine and blankets appeared along the runway. Gradually, they were
loaded on helicopters and the limited supply of trucks. A giant plane
carrying USAID prepared meals sat on the runway.

SH-60 Seahawk helicopters from the USS Carl Vinson clattered over the
city Saturday, full of cases of bottled water bound for isolated
neighborhoods. Despite crowds mobbing some landing zones, Capt. John
Kirby, a spokesman for the U.S. military's Joint Task Force assisting
Haiti, said helicopter crews were "finding good clean sites to land."

On Saturday, the helicopters were picking up pallets of water from
other organizations at the airport and dropping them around the city.
"We're grabbing them, no matter where they come from," Kirby said.

But there was rising frustration -- and scattered looting -- among the
desperate Haitian population. On Friday, the World Food Program had to
suspend distribution of high-energy biscuits near the destroyed
national palace when a crowd revolted, complaining that they were not
getting better food.

"We're hungry. We're hungry," a group of boys on the side of the road
implored a passing journalist on Saturday.

Much of the population of the city continues to sleep outside, with
parks, streets, car lots and other sites turned into open-air
dormitories. But other groups of people were seen trekking out of what
one resident described as the "hell" of Port-au-Prince to friends,
relatives and security in the countryside.

In Washington, meanwhile, former presidents Bill Clinton and George W.
Bush pledged to lead a long-term fundraising effort on behalf of
Haitian relief as they stood with President Obama in the White House
Rose Garden Saturday morning.

And before she left here Saturday evening, after her meeting with
Preval, Hillary Rodham Clinton told the Haitian people:

"We will be here today, tomorrow and for the time ahead. You have been
severely tested. But I believe that Haiti can come back even stronger
and better in the future."

Ruane reported from Washington. Staff writers Glenn Kessler and
Michael Shear contributed to this report.

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