Haiti Waiting

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1245620/Aid-piling-
UNs-cold-beer-compound-red-tape-keeps-aid-desperate-Haitians--UN-
staff-wi-fi-bar.html?ITO=1490


Sunday, Jan 24 2010 9PM 2°C 12AM 2°C 5-Day Forecast
Aid piling up at UN's 'cold beer' compound as red tape keeps aid from desperate Haitians - while UN staff have wi-fi and a bar

By Caroline Graham
Last updated at 10:32 AM on 24th January 2010

It is a tale of two cities. One has ice-cold beers, internet access, thousands of men and billions of dollars’ worth of gleaming machinery, together with piles of food, blankets, generators and other aid relief from around the globe.

This is the heavily fortified US-controlled Port-au-Prince airport and neighbouring United Nations compound.

The other is the devastated city of Port-au-Prince, where the stench of death fills the air and starving people are in utter despair, still in need of the basic necessities of food, water, shelter and medical care.

Never, in more than 20 years of covering disasters, has the void between the might and power of the Westernised world and the penniless and pitiful people they have been mobilised to ‘save’ been so glaringly obvious to me.

Haiti earthquake - starving survivors reduced to eating grass The eyes of the world are on Haiti but at the epicentre of the earthquake that shattered her country, Anite Bertrand wonders why they cannot seem to see her.


By Nick Allen in Leogane
Published: 10:30PM GMT 23 Jan 2010


Anite Bertrand and her son Milky (pictured) who have so little food they have to survive on tree leaves at a ramshackle camp. Photo: Michael Dominic
Nearly two weeks after the devastation was unleashed, she has received no aid, her home is an open patch of grass under a tree, and her only food the leaves that fall from branches overhead.

"We have nothing so we pick up the leaves, boil them in water from the river and eat them," she says. "No-one has come to help us and we cannot live like this. It is not possible to live on leaves."

Yesterday the government of Haiti announced through the United Nations that the search and rescue phase of the relief effort was being formally scaled down, in order to concentrate on bringing food, water and medical help to the earthquake's survivors.

For those around Leogane, the dirt poor coastal farming town where the most powerful tremors were felt, such help is desperately needed. It is just 20 miles from the capital, Port au Prince. Yet like so many other corners of the earthquake zone - none of them far-flung - it has received only minimal assistance so far.

Mrs Bertrand's seven-year-old son Milky sat quietly nearby, his eyes wide with hunger, and an enormous right-angled gash on the top of his head, as she recalled the horrors of the previous 11 days.

http://www.defencetalk.com/us-forces-in-haiti-to-grow-to-20000-23763/
US Forces in Haiti to Grow to 20,000

Army News — By American Forces Press Service on January 21, 2010 at 7:41 pm

WASHINGTON: Roughly 20,000 U.S. troops will be supporting relief efforts in Haiti by Jan. 24, military officials said, adding to the 13,000-strong American force currently there.

Comprising the force will be the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, the 82nd Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade and thousands of other troops operating afloat off the Haitian coast and on shore, distributing provisions, assisting in medical operations and helping to maintain security. Some 2,200 Marines of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit are slated to arrive within 48 hours, military officials said.

"The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit is a huge part of enabling us to extend our reach to places around the country that may need our assistance but we just haven't been there yet," Army Lt. Gen. P.K. Keen, the top U.S. commander in Haiti, said on The Pentagon Channel today.

The additional forces come as international aid continues pouring into Haiti following a magnitude 7 earthquake that struck Jan. 12, creating what an official called one of the greatest humanitarian emergencies in the history of the Americas.

http://www.politicaltheatrics.net/2010/01/why-is-the-us-military-
occupying-four-airports-in-haiti/

Why Is The US Military Occupying Four Airports In Haiti?
By politicaltheatrics
Published: January 21, 2010

The United States is now operating at four airports to ferry aid and relief supplies to quake-devastated Haiti, a senior US military commander said Thursday.
In addition to the Caribbean nation’s main port of entry, Port-au- Prince airport, US forces were also now at work at airports in the coastal city of Jacmel.
They were also operating in the neighboring Dominican Republic at San Isidro and Barahona, US Southern Command chief General Douglas Fraser said.

Around 11,000 US military personnel are currently controlling the operations both on the ground and offshore aboard US Navy and Coast Guard vessels, and another 4,000 US troops are expected to arrive in the coming days.

The Americans’ controlling of the aid operations has raised tensions with some countries. Bolivia and Venezuela have criticized its heavy presence and France earlier expressed annoyance after aid planes were delayed from landing.

French Secretary of State for Cooperation Alain Joyandet called on the United Nations to clarify the US role in Haiti, saying the priority was “helping Haiti, not occupying Haiti.”

Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) has complained that five of its planes carrying a total of 85 tons of medical and relief supplies have been diverted from Port-au-Prince to the Dominican Republic since January 14, although one of its planes was allowed to land this week.

http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2010/01/
gns_soldiers_food_handouts_haiti_012010/
Soldiers in Haiti told to stop handing out food

By Jim Michaels - USA TODAY
Posted : Wednesday Jan 20, 2010 21:40:25 EST
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Food handouts were shut off Tuesday to thousands of people at a tent city here when the main U.S. aid agency said the Army should not be distributing the packages.

It was not known whether the action reflected a high-level policy decision at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) or confusion in a city where dozens of entities are involved in aid efforts.

“We are not supposed to get rations unless approved by AID,” Maj. Larry Jordan said.
Jordan said that approval was revoked; water was not included in the USAID decision, so the troops continued to hand out bottles of water. The State Department and USAID did not respond to requests for comment.

Jordan has been at the airport supervising distribution of individual food packages and bottled water since his arrival last week. Each package provides enough calories to sustain a person for a day.

The food is flown by helicopter to points throughout the capital and distributed by paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division. At the tent city, set up at a golf course, more than 10,000 people displaced by the Haitian earthquake lay under makeshift tents. Each day, hundreds of people, many young children, line up for a meal.

Tuesday morning, the helicopters came only with water. Soldiers carried boxes of water in the hot sun and supervised Haitian volunteers who handed the supplies out.