Canadian aid to Haiti to focus on reconstruction

By Jorge Barrera, Juliet O'Neill and Mark Iype, Canwest News Service

PORT-AU-PRINCE — As international aid workers in Haiti struggle to get food and medical assistance to the survivors of last Tuesday's devastating earthquake in a climate of widespread looting and absent infrastructure, governments have ramped up their commitments to rebuilding the country.

Tens of thousands of survivors — many of them injured, hungry and thirsty — continued to crowd makeshift camps on streets strewn with debris and decomposing bodies as more foreign troops and aid workers arrived Monday.

In an effort to deal with the crumbled infrastructure, the Canadian military announced Monday that DART — Disaster Assistance Response Team — would be increasing its capabilities in Haiti by building full field hospitals and concentrating on infrastructure reconstruction. The team will focus also on rebuilding communication systems, which will help get aid to the survivors.

The military will base a big part of its relief operations in Jacmel, a southern coastal city where Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean spent her summers as a girl.

The Canadians plan to deploy in a 40-kilometre north-south corridor between Jacmel and Leogane, which is about 20 kilometres west of Port-au-Prince.

Both coastal communities were devastated by the earthquake and "Jacmel is cut (off) from the world," Canadian ambassador Gilles Rivard told reporters in Port-au-Prince.

Canadians plan to deliver medical aid, water purification and security, and work to allow aid delivery, such as road-clearing, bridge repair and fortification of collapsed buildings.

An aid organization reported Monday the trip south from Port-au-Prince to Jacmel — which normally takes about 2 1/2-hours — now takes more than seven hours due to road obstructions. Because of a lack of medical resources in the area, people who lost limbs in the earthquake are suffering from gangrene.

Some DART doctors and medics were already on hand in Jacmel on Monday, treating Haitians as best they could.

They treated patients under tarps outside a local hospital that was damaged by the earthquake.

"The have no surgery capability right now and that is the major problem," said Maj. Annie Bouchard, DART medical platoon commander. "Their anesthesia machine is broken and they have no supplies."

Bouchard said half of the 64 patients needed surgery to "either save their limb or save their life."

Canada's military efforts will be anchored by two navy vessels with 500 personnel arriving Tuesday — the HMCS Athabaskan offshore Leogane and the HMCS Halifax offshore Jacmel.

The plan emerged Monday when Rivard and Brig.-Gen. Guy Laroche, commander of Canadian Forces in Haiti, spoke to reporters — and later when Gen. Walt Natynczyk, chief of the defence staff, and Defence Minister Peter MacKay made a flying visit to CFB Valcartier to personally thank the 1,000 soldiers heading to Haiti this week.

"We understand about 90 per cent of the destruction was in the town of Leogane, extending to the southern coast to Jacmel," Natynczyk said. "These two towns form the north-south orientation of the area that the UN has asked us to focus on."

The death toll in the country continues to climb. Some reports have said as many as 200,000 people died in the 7.0 magnitude quake, with another three million left hurt or homeless. AFP_reported Tuesday that 70,000 people had been buried.

Many who have survived are looking for a way out of Haiti and into Canada.

At the Canadian Embassy in Port-au-Prince, a safe haven for citizens, Canadian soldiers shouted, "You have to move back," and "Push, push" as a crowd of about 200 Haitians — some without Canadian citizenship or identification papers — clamoured at the gates to be taken out of the earthquake-shattered city, where food and water is still in short supply and the stench of death grows stronger by the day.

Many had been given false hopes by Haitian radio reports that the Canadian Embassy was giving out visas. Some slept at the embassy gate, others arrived at dawn — having walked hours to get there on the belief that somehow Canada would take them in.

Those who had Canadian passports waved them in the air. One woman brandished divorce papers from a Quebec court and another man pulled out his expired visitor's visa.

Cars and trucks rumbling along the road in front of the embassy honked and swerved as the crowd ebbed and flowed around the embassy gate.

Paulidor Cazeau, 37, began walking at 3 a.m. on Monday, arriving at the embassy at 5 a.m. with his wife and two children, a seven-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl.

"Now we come here if the government of Canada can help people go to Canada," he said. "I have nothing else. My house, everything I had, just passed away, finished."

Cazeau is not a Canadian citizen and did not have a Canadian passport.

Jean Sanon Descartes, 68, says he has two children in Canada. He unzips a pouch and pulls out his Haitian passport which has an expired Canadian visa.

"My family sent papers to get me out," he said.

Some of those waiting outside the embassy complained that the soldiers only spoke English and they couldn't understand their shouted orders.

Philomise Brutus, 54, held aloft her Quebec health insurance card and her permanent residence card. She arrived in Haiti on Dec. 5 from Montreal and is now trying to bring four family members, aged 35, 22, 16, and 18, into Canada.

"We have no food, no water and I sleep in a park," said Brutus, who spent the night on the sidewalk in front of the embassy. "I feel so sad."

In response to the growing humanitarian crisis, the Canadian government announced Saturday that it is fast-tracking immigration applications and prioritizing Haitian adoptions to reunite families in Canada.

It will expedite an estimated 5,000 immigration applications to reunite families in Canada with relatives "directly and significantly affected by the earthquake in Haiti."

How quickly newcomers can be processed and travel to Canada remains open to question, however, due to communication and transportation problems in the earthquake zone.

There is no plan to airlift them to Canada.

One hopeful sign in Haiti has been the recent re-emergence of street vendors selling fruit and vegetables. They're taking their chances with gangs of looters said to be prowling the demolished streets of downtown Port-au-Prince, filching goods from destroyed shops with little opposition from overstretched police.

"We do not have the capacity to fix this situation. Haiti needs help," policeman Dorsainvil Robenson told Reuters, as he chased looters.

At a news conference earlier Monday, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said police protection for the people of Haiti is a priority.

He said Canada would work with the United Nations stabilization mission in Haiti to ensure the safety of civilians until the Haitian national police is able to handle the immense task.

More than 2,200 U.S. marines with heavy earth-moving equipment, medical aid and helicopters were arriving Monday, reported the U.S. Southern Command, which aims to have 10,000 U.S. troops in the area for rescue operations.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, meantime, participated in a radio talk show to help raise donations for Haiti relief.

He spoke of frustration over bottlenecks and delays in international aid delivery, "notwithstanding the incredible heartbreak, the incredible need we see at the other end."

Earlier, Harper spoke with Haitian President Rene Preval about Canada's "unwavering commitment" to Haiti. Due to technical difficulties, Preval took Harper's call on Canadian Minister of State Peter Kent's cellphone. The two were at a meeting in the Dominican Republic.

Cannon said since last Tuesday's quake, 947 Canadians have been evacuated from Haiti, up from 593 on Sunday.

Among the rescued Canadians was a group of 17 B.C. high school students and their chaperones that had been stranded in a remote town outside Port-au-Prince. The student group had gone to Haiti to help set up a goat farm and arrived a mere 45 minutes before the earthquake struck.

The entire group arrived back safely in Montreal early Monday morning on military transport planes.

Cannon said 850 Canadians remain missing.

"We still face a large number of challenges," he said from Ottawa. "We continue to do everything we can to locate all Canadians so they can rejoin families and friends here in Canada."

Of the roughly 6,000 Canadians in Haiti when the earthquake struck, 12 Canadians have been confirmed dead in the disaster.

Cannon said that next Monday, Canadian and other international officials will meet in Montreal to discuss the long-term goals for rebuilding the country.

Among those set to attend the Montreal meeting of the informal Friends of Haiti Group is Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. France and several Latin American nations also belong to the group.

"There is unanimity among all of the donor countries, among all of the friends of Haiti . . . to help Prime Minister (Jean-Max) Bellerive in his quest to build a new Haiti," Cannon said at Monday's news conference.

Canada has pledged $5 million dollars in immediate aid and the government said it will match any donations made by Canadians up to $50 million. On Monday, Quebec promised another $3 million in emergency relief.

The majority of Canada's Haitian population, nearly 100,000, lives in Quebec.

Source: Canada.
Link: http://www.canada.com/news/Canadian+Haiti+focus+reconstruction/2454871/story.html.