Haiti remembers those killed in earthquake - Summary

Wed, 12 Jan 2011

Port-au-Prince- A funeral service in the ruins of Port-au- Prince cathedral Wednesday launched ceremonies to remember the 230,000 people killed in a quake that devastated Haiti a year ago.

Thousands, many of them dressed in white, gathered in the early morning for mass at the site of the cathedral, which was destroyed in the January 12, 2010 quake along with much of the city and its surroundings. Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot was among those killed in the quake.

All archbishops and bishops in Haiti conducted mass together, and the service was attended among others by Haitian presidential candidate Mirlande Manigat and by Haitian-American rapper Wyclef Jean.

Haitians and members of international aid organizations marked the anniversary in other cities and towns.

At 4:53 pm (2153 GMT), the precise time of the disaster a year ago, the whole country is set to grind to a halt, with white balloons being let off in areas devastated by the quake.

Edmond Mulet, commander of the UN Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti (MINUSTAH), highlighted the United Nation's support for Haiti one year after a quake which also claimed the lives of 102 UN peacekeepers and employees in the country.

"In the memory of hundreds of thousands of missing persons, of injured, of handicapped, of displaced people, the Special Representative of the United Nations General secretary for Haiti is keen to express to the Haitian people that the United Nations are and will remain with them," Mulet said in a statement.

The quake was "the greatest tragedy that the country and the United Nations have ever known," Mulet said.

He recalled the fact that Haiti lost not only thousands of civilians but also thousands of government officials and a huge portion of its infrastructure in the quake. MINUSTAH itself, he stressed, lost 102 people and was left "beheaded," Mulet said.

Former US president Bill Clinton and Wyclef Jean are among prominent personalities who are in Haiti for the anniversary.

Beyond the Caribbean country's borders, the anniversary was observed too.

In New York, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky said that "the Secretary-General would like to express his solidarity with the people of Haiti and all those who suffered tragic losses a year ago."

"We honour those who left us and carry on their work," Nesirky said.

In Washington, the Organization of American States (OAS) paid tribute to the dead.

"On such a sad day we join with Haiti and all of the international community in mourning for the loss of so many thousands of lives," said OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza.

Insulza highlighted evident problems in reconstruction efforts.

"The challenges and hurdles are huge and the lack of coordination persists, but we have to persevere. We owe it to all in Haiti and to the memory of those who died," he said.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/362040,killed-earthquake-summary.html.

UN remembers those killed in Haiti earthquake in 2010

Wed, 12 Jan 2011

New York - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon led the world organization on Wednesday to commemorate victims of the earthquake in Haiti a year ago, vowing to maintain solidarity with the Haitian people as they face challenging days ahead.

The ceremony at UN headquarters in New York took place in the small chapel decorated with glass windows by French artist Marc Chagall and attended by senior officials of the organization.

A moment of silence lasting 47 seconds was held to echo the duration of the earthquake that struck the capital Port-au-Prince on January 12, 2010, at 4:53 pm local time.

"We are gathered today in solidarity with the people of Haiti, with one another, and with all who lost their loved ones on that tragic day," Ban said in an address at the solemn ceremony. "For all who suffer injuries, physical and emotional, we offer our deepest sympathy."

The magnitude 7 quake killed an estimated 222,000 people, including 102 UN personnel and peacekeepers.

Ban said the struggle by the Haitian people and government to rebuild, backed by the international community, is far from over and the road ahead "will be long and hard."

"The UN and the entire international community has stood by Haiti and its people in its darkest hour," Ban said, urging continued efforts at recovery and reconstruction. "Together we will work with them toward a brighter future."

"In the memory of our fallen comrades, let's pledge to realize their dreams of a better Haiti," Ban said about the work of UN personnel who died in the quake.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/362049,killed-haiti-earthquake-2010.html.

UN: Postal services restored in Haiti

Geneva - Haiti was reconnected Monday to international postal services, a United Nations agency said.

The first connections since the January 12 quake that destroyed much of the country's capital city and surrounding area were established with the United States and France, the Universal Postal Union (UPU) said.

More links with other countries would be established over time, noted the UN agency, which is based in Bern, Switzerland.

The UPU estimated that a backlog of some 3,500 kilograms of mail was waiting to be sent from Miami, Florida to Haiti, with more to come in from other locations.

The postal service in Haiti saw its headquarters demolished in the earthquake. Other key offices were partially or totally destroyed, preventing all mail deliveries to the country for the last three months.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/321780,un-postal-services-restored-in-haiti.html.

UN: Haiti faces period of 'high risk' in next 12-18 months

New York - Haiti is in a period of "high risk" following January's destructive earthquake because of the numerous tasks it will have to carry out simultaneously with the assistance of the international community, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in an updated report on Tuesday.

Ban listed political, security, protection and recovery objectives as high priorities for the Haitian government in the next 12 to 18 months.

"The role of the United Nations and its members in this period should be to support Haiti's government and institutions in delivering on their responsibilities, while respecting their authorities and prerogatives," Ban said in a report to the UN Security Council.

He asked the 15-nation council to maintain the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) of 8,306 military troops and 2,177 police. The mission will have a new set of tasks, focusing on fostering political stability and supporting the government as it struggles to pursue its own programs.

He said a UN "surge of efforts" is needed in the next two years to help Haiti preserve gains in stabilization programs carried out before the earthquake devastated the country on January 12.

Haiti is scheduled to hold presidential, legislative and municipal elections later this year for a smooth handover of power in early 2011. But electoral preparations are to take place under trying conditions created by the magnitude-7 earthquake. The country's electoral institutions will have to be reconstituted while voting centers will have to be rebuilt. Voter registration will also have to be updated, the report said.

The report said Haiti has put the death toll of the January 12 quake at 222,570 people killed and 1.5 million homeless. The UN and international partners launched in March a displacement tracking mechanism that identified 460 settlement centers housing 1.17 million Haitians.

The UN suffered a total of 101 dead among staffers working the impoverished country at the time of the quake, including the top leaders of MINUSTAH who were killed in the collapse of the Hotel Christopher, which housed their headquarters.

At a UN conference held on March 31 in New York, donors pledged 9 billion dollars for the long-term reconstruction of Haiti, of which 5 billion dollars were pledged for the 2010-11 period.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/320876,un-haiti-faces-period-of-high-risk-in-next-12-18-months.html.

Sans-Souci in the Caribbean: Haiti wants tourists back - Feature

Franz Smets

Cap Haitien, Haiti - The site is symbolically charged: The Cap Haitien citadel is visible from far away, with hundreds of cannons aimed at the sea.

In the mid-20th century, Haiti was a popular tourist destination. The country that shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic had beautiful beaches, a vibrant culture and delectable food.

At the time, Haiti also offered something unique, a sort of "Africa in the Caribbean."

Today, as the country seeks to rebuild after the devastating January 12 earthquake, tourism is likely to take on a key role. Cap Haitien, in the north, and Jacmel, in the south, are to be billed as major attractions.

And yet the necessary infrastructure is currently missing.

In 1804, Haiti became the first independent country in the Americas.

Cannons at the Cap Haitien citadel, with its meter-thick walls atop the 910-metre-high Bonnet-a-L'Eveque hill, were intended to prevent French forces from returning to take back their former colony in the 19th century. The French never returned, and not one of these decorated pieces of artillery was ever fired.

Over weekends, hundreds of descendants of slaves brought in from Africa visit the site, and the ruins of the Sans-Souci palace on their way up the mountain. Over a picnic, many enjoy the great views, and particularly a green scenery of mango fields and banana and sugarcane plantations that is rare in Haiti.

The large fort and the impressive palace were both built under the self-proclaimed King Henri Christophe I (1811-20). Since 1982 they have been a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site.

Former US president Bill Clinton - now a UN special envoy to Haiti - visited the area in December last year, with a view to promoting tourism there with US businesses.

"Tourism must provide the initial spark for northern Haiti's development," said Broder Schuett, a businessman who is also the sixth-generation German general consul in Cap Haitien.

There, far from the earthquake-ravaged capital Port-au-Prince, an increasing number of business people show up with an interest in developing the area's potential for tourism.

But almost everything is missing. The road to Cap Haitien from Port-au-Prince is in a sorry state along most stretches. In several places it has been washed away by flooding. Travelers have to take detours over the hills or across pools of water.

In Cap Haitien there are a few small hotels, which date back to better days. And there is a boardwalk with restaurants. To talk of port facilities would be an exaggeration, in the light of the slums and the crumbling buildings they hold.

Nearby, cruise ships regularly stop in the walled beach resort of Labadee.

"We want to do more to bring passengers up to the fort," said Schuett, the local representative of the cruise company Royal Caribbean.

There is an easier way to reach northern Haiti, other than from the Haitian capital. The Dominican border is only 40 minutes away, because the European Union built a modern road to Cap Haitien. It is one of only a few roads in Haiti that have road signs that alert drivers when the road is about to get narrower and tell them to respect certain speed limits.

Jacmel, in Haiti's southern coast, can be reached from Port-au- Prince on a paved road. Currently, however, mudslides caused by the January earthquake and its many aftershocks are an obstacle to the trip.

Jacmel, with its French colonial-style houses overlooking the sea, was seriously affected by the earthquake. But it too wants to become a success story.

"Jacmel can become a picturesque, small French town in the Caribbean," said Haitian Central Bank governor Charles Castel. "We will promote tourism's return here."

In Jacmel, people are busy trying to free themselves from a history of disaster. School lessons have started again, sometimes in makeshift wooden buildings in the outskirts of the town. And small hotels and seafood restaurants are opening on the beautiful beaches east and west of the center.

Thomas Oriental's mask shop on the heavily damaged beach walk was also devastated by the earthquake, as a side wall and portions of the roof collapsed. Now, young artists are painting more pictures and fixing the damaged masks.

This Haitian store owner, for one, is not very hopeful that tourists from around the world will soon start pouring into Haiti. The task at hand is massive.

"I need a loan in order to be able to survive with my shop," Oriental noted.

And he expects no help from the authorities: "They were themselves victims of the earthquake."

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/320325,sans-souci-in-the-caribbeanhaiti-wants-tourists-back--feature.html.

'Haiti quake may have killed 300,000'

The United Nations mission head in Haiti estimates the death toll from the January 12th Port-au-Prince earthquake at 250,000 to 300,000.

The Haitian government had previously announced a projected figure of over 220,000.

Edmond Mulet said on Thursday that 300,000 were also injured and more than one million people have been left homeless.

The UN official also urged people to "not underestimate the size of the task and the challenges that Haiti faces."

He added that the impoverished nation "is ... on the right path" towards reconstruction, and that he was showing "prudent optimism."

The 7.0-magnitude quake devastated the capital Port-au-Prince, causing a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions in a country already considered the poorest in the Americas.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=124131§ionid=351020706.

Haitian diaspora debates how to build better Haiti after quake

Mon, 22 Mar 2010
Silvia Ayuso

Washington - More than 200 representatives of the Haitian diaspora gathered Monday in Washington for a two-day meeting to debate reconstruction in the Caribbean country in the wake of the January earthquake.

The issue at stake is how the 4 million Haitians who live outside their country can help following the devastating quake of January 12, and how they can turn the disaster into an opportunity to create a fairer, more transparent and sustainable state.

The recommendations for "a strategic plan for reconstruction and development in Haiti" that come out of this meeting sponsored by the Organization of American States (OAS) are to be forwarded to a Donors' Conference on Haiti set for on March 31 at the United Nations.

In a video message, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said all those planning to attend the donors' conference in New York are awaiting the comments of the Haitian diaspora.

"In the months and years ahead, Haiti will need the work and determination of its people," Clinton stressed.

She noted that expatriates can help Haiti with their talent, experience and skills.

"We look forward to your ideas and participation," Clinton said.

Her husband, former US president Bill Clinton, was visiting Haiti Monday along with his successor George W Bush on Monday. It was the first joint visit by both presidents who were appointed by President Barack Obama to lead fundraising efforts in the earthquake's aftermath.

OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza stressed that the diaspora has a key role to play in the long-term reconstruction of Haiti, so that it moves ahead to become a better country than it was before the quake.

The gathering's stated objectives are to "identify the elements of and specific recommendations for the reconstruction plan," and to "develop a coordinated strategy for how the Haitian diaspora will engage in capacity and nation building and relate to other domestic and international partners in this effort."

In a passionate address that pulled the audience off their seats, Massachusetts state representative Marie St Fleur, speaking as a member of the Haitian diaspora, called upon her compatriots to work hard and commit to the construction of a "new Haiti" that is both modern and inclusive.

"One Haiti that works effectively, with transparency and accountability," she stressed. "The world is ready to help us, but we must be willing to help us to change things."

The disaster is "a unique opportunity and responsibility to shift historical paradigms," St Fleur said.

The devastation caused by the quake, she noted, was the consequence of years of "active neglect" from all, including the diaspora.

"We all must be part of the solution, we must be willing to accompany this government or any other government," St Fleur said.

She noted that the diaspora, particularly the 2 million Haitians living in the United States, send 1.6 billion dollars a year to their homeland.

"We are the largest donor to the people of Haiti," St Fleur stressed. "We have the right to demand a place."

The January 12 quake destroyed most of Haitian capital Port-au- Prince, claimed at least 220,000 lives and left an estimated 1.5 million homeless.

In a preliminary assessment, experts from the Inter-American Development Bank estimated at up to 14 billion dollars the losses caused by the quake in the Caribbean country, which was the poorest in the Americas even before the disaster.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/315313,haitian-diaspora-debates-how-to-build-better-haiti-after-quake.html.

UN calls for well-invested, coordinated aid in Haiti - Update

New York - A United Nations conference to assist in the recovery and reconstruction of earthquake-ravaged Haiti on Wednesday stressed on international aid that is well invested and well coordinated for the long-term benefits of Haitians.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton opened the one-day donor conference at UN headquarters in New York, insisting that the post-quake relief and a 10-year plan for reconstruction be carried out with effectiveness and discipline.

"As we move from emergency aid to long-term reconstruction, let us recognize that we cannot accept business as usual," Ban told the conference attended by more than 130 government envoys and others from the European Union and World Bank.

Haitian President Rene Preval also pledged his government's commitment to work hard and adopt discipline in using international aid to be given to Haiti.

Clinton, whose husband former US president Bill Clinton was also present at the meeting, pledged 1.5 billion dollars for the long-term reconstruction.

The EU pledged a total of 1.6 billion dollars.

Brazil pledged a further 172 million dollars as the country has already provided significant financial aid as well as military troops for the UN mission in Haiti.

The UN is seeking 3.9 billion dollars for the first 18 months of recovery and reconstruction and a total of 11.5 billion dollars for the 10-year plan.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/316623,un-calls-for-well-invested-coordinated-aid-in-haiti--update.html.

Int'l donors pledge $3.8bn to fund Haiti reconstruction

Delegates of 28 countries at the preparatory committee for Haiti donors summit have pledged $3.8 billion to the quake-devastated nation for reconstruction.

"Donor countries and multilateral organizations on Wednesday approved a 3.8-billion-dollar fund the government of Haiti will receive over a period of 18 months," said the Dominican Republic's Minister of Economy Temistocles Montas in the Dominican capital.

“A governing committee integrated by Haiti's Government and the donors will administer the fiduciary fund, with the World Bank as an overseeing agent," said a statement issued in Santo Domingo on Wednesday.

At the meeting, which was jointly chaired by Haitian Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive and The Dominican Republic's President Leonel Fernandez, the participants decided to add another $350 million to shore up Haiti's state budget.

Meanwhile, the Haitian government has estimated that the country requires $11.5 billion to rebuild after January's 7.0-magnitude earthquake ruined the impoverished Caribbean state.

Haiti's Tourism Minister Patrick Delatour said Tuesday the amount is only a rough estimate of the funds needed to completely reconstruct the nation.

However, details of the reconstruction plan, known as the Preliminary Damage and Needs Assessment, will be discussed at a major conference on Haiti due to be held at the end of March in New York.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=121096§ionid=351020706.

Ban urges world to stand by Haiti as generosity cools off

New York - The international community should stand by Haiti as it struggles to recover from the devastating earthquake in January while funds for the quake relief are disappearing, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday. Ban said he has asked Haitian President Rene Preval to attend the international donor conference at UN headquarters in New York on March 31 to present his country's priorities in quake relief and reconstruction.

Ban and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will preside over the conference, which will discuss long-term funding for relief and reconstruction in Haiti, which is estimated to cost more than 11 billion dollars.

"We are in a race against time," Ban told a press conference after he visited Port-au-Prince on Sunday. "Now is the time for the international community to stand by Haiti."

"The last thing the Haitian people need is a second humanitarian crisis on top of all they have suffered already," he said.

Ban said only 49 per cent of the 1.4 billion dollars being sought by the UN since last month to help Haiti's 3 million quake-affected people, including 1.3 million people without housing, had been funded.

The magnitude-7 earthquake on January 12 killed more than 230,000 Haitians and destroyed key public buildings as well as residential areas. About 700,000 of the 1.3 million displaced people have been housed in tent and tarpaulin cities, while the rest are under the threat of the coming rainy season in April and the hurricane season that starts in June.

The UN had formed a team of experts from the UN, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the European Commission to draw up a needs assessment project for Haiti's post-quake period. The team was meeting in Santo Domingo this week to go over its findings.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that estimates reached by the team amounted to 11.5 billion dollars for a three-year period for recovery and reconstruction. The amount includes 3.25 billion dollars to rebuild houses, 600 million dollars for schools, 294 million dollars for hospitals, 100 million dollars for city roads and 50 million dollars to rebuild Port-au-Prince.

The team estimated that the earthquake caused overall damage valued at 7.86 billion dollars, or equivalent to 120 per cent of Haiti's economic output last year.

There were an estimated 300,000 people injured by the quake and 8.5 per cent of workers lost their jobs. The quake destroyed 105,000 houses and damaged 208,000 others. A total of 1,300 schools and 50 hospitals collapsed or cannot be used.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/314405,ban-urges-world-to-stand-by-haiti-as-generosity-cools-off.html.

UN: Haiti quake problems overwhelm world response

New York - The giant earthquake that hit Haiti has caused "huge, difficult and complex" challenges never encountered by the United Nations before, which will affect and delay the world relief to the underdeveloped Caribbean nation, a UN official said Wednesday. Not all of the 1 million Haitians who have lost their homes to the magnitude-7 quake that struck Port-au-Prince on January 12 will be sheltered when the rainy season hits in coming weeks, said Anthony Banburry.

Some 350,000 homeless have so far received shelter, living in tent cities, while a current plan calls for providing shelter to all homeless people.

"It's not going to be easy for the quake victims and we have to be realistic," said Banburry, the acting principal deputy UN special envoy for Haiti. He was sent to Haiti five days after the earthquake and has remained there with the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti.

"In Haiti, the UN response is not perfect and we still have a long way to go," he said.

Banburry said the Haitian earthquake and the massive loss of lives and buildings have created problems with a magnitude that far surpasses the humanitarian crises when the tsunami hit Indonesia in 2004 and Cyclone Nargis destroyed the delta in Myanmar in 2008.

"The earthquake was like a dagger in the heart of Haiti," Banburry said.

He cited the destruction of most major government buildings in Port-au-Prince, particularly the ministry of justice, the Supreme Court and police headquarters, which robbed the country of its judiciary system and crippled the government of President Rene Preval.

UN and Haitian officials said Wednesday the death toll from the mammoth earthquake has climbed to 222,517 and the number of injured to 310,000.

Banburry said the UN-led relief campaign to assist the 3 million people affected by the quake, including the 1 million homeless people, is "not perfect" because of the overwhelming and complex problems.

He cited the problem of shelter for the homeless. Finding a site to set up tents means clarifying land ownership and providing or certifying sanitation. Sanitation can be made worse during the rainy season because of the lack of facilities and the threat of diseases spreading among the population.

"We have to solve all those problems simultaneously," Banburry said. He said the Haitian crisis is totally different from previous humanitarian crises in which relief was handled in clusters that were not totally dependent on each other to make them work.

In Haiti, shelter and sanitation, which is a major problem, is linked with the resolution of land ownership, he said as an example.

Haiti's judiciary and police systems are overwhelmed by criminals who escaped prisons destroyed by the earthquake. About 7,000 prisoners walked out of their collapsed prisons, including an estimated 300 hardcore criminals who have regrouped into gangs, the UN said.

Banburry said the UN peacekeepers in Haiti had not been prepared to face earthquake problems and suffered the trauma of losing some of their own people to the quake.

Ninety-nine UN personnel were killed and seven are still unaccounted for, he said.

In Washington, the International Monetary Fund said it was working with Haiti's central bank to design a partial credit guarantee fund aimed at maintaining financial stability and restarting private sector credit.

"This proposal will be critical to allowing the private sector to fully play its role in rebuilding the economy and providing jobs, in the context of the broader reconstruction and economic recovery," the IMF said in a statement.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/311089,un-haiti-quake-problems-overwhelm-world-response.html.

Lebanese, UN officials honor fallen comrades in Haiti

By Dalila Mahdawi
Daily Star staff
Friday, January 22, 2010

BEIRUT: Lebanese and UN officials gathered Thursday to honor the victims of last week’s Haiti earthquake, just hours after a Middle East Airlines aid plane returned to Beirut.

“Not in war, but in a tragic natural disaster the UN has suffered its single largest calamity,” UN special coordinator for Lebanon, Michael Williams, told a crowd of colleagues and Lebanese parliamentarians at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) headquarters in Downtown Beirut.

The January 12 earthquake killed up to 200,000 people, according to Haitian government estimates quoted by the European Commission, though thousands are still missing under the rubble. The commission has said 2 million Haitians are now homeless, with 250,000 in need of urgent aid. The UN has so far confirmed 20 fatalities among its staff members, including special representative of the secretary general and head of mission, Tunisian national Hedi Annabi, and his deputy, Brazilian national Luiz Carlos da Costa.

“Perhaps the best way to honor our fallen is to reflect on the fact that they lost their lives in the service [of] others,” Williams said. “In the midst of the pain and the shock that we feel, we realize that living up to the memories of our loved colleagues means continuing with even more determination and commitment the work to help the devastated people of Haiti and others around the world,” he said, adding the UN was grateful for Lebanon’s assistance to Haiti.

UNIFIL’s deputy commander Brigadier General Apurba Kumar Bardalai meanwhile paid tribute to fallen peacekeepers from the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti.

“Being away from our families, we develop strong ties of friendship with our colleagues, who become our family away from the family,” he said. “The death of so many colleagues in Haiti has thus been a very personal loss for many of us, [and] also a professional loss for the United Nations and the international community at large.”

Bardalai said that out of respect for their fallen colleagues, UNIFIL personnel had renewed their determination to continue toward achieving peace and stability in southern Lebanon. “It is at times like these that we are reminded of the risks taken and sacrifices made by the peacekeepers working under the UN umbrella,” he added.

ESCWA Executive Secretary Bader Omar AlDafa also paid his respects to what he called the “courage” of the UN’s Haiti personnel.

The memorial ceremony came as an official Lebanese delegation carrying aid to the Lebanese diaspora in Haiti touched down at Rafik Hariri International Airport, bringing back Lebanese national Nancy Jarjoura Hayar, eight Syrians and two Palestinians who were injured in the disastrous tremor. Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry said one Lebanese national died in the earthquake.

One of the Palestinians, Najib Tarazi, sustained broken bones while working at a supermarket in the Haitan capital, Port-au-Prince, and was taken by ambulance to a hospital upon arrival. “The roof fell on me,” AP quoted Tarazi as saying. “I stayed in the rubble for seven hours until they found me.”

The agency also quoted Lebanese citizen Nancy Yahya as saying she was at home with her children in Haiti when the house started shaking. “I said, ‘It’s over. We are dead,’” Yahya said. “I thank God that we survived.” Rasha Hashem, a Syrian woman who said three of her relatives killed in the earthquake were still buried under the rubble, was meanwhile seen burying her face in her hands and crying as relatives tried to comfort her. Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdel-Karim Ali has said that two Syrian citizens, a couple, were killed in Haiti.

At a meeting on Monday ahead of the plane’s departure, officials said that several “logistical and technical problems faced the preparations,” especially because transportation had become so difficult within the destroyed capital city.

The plane departed on Tuesday, carrying 35 tons of non-monetary aid.

Also on Thursday, the Lebanese Red Cross said that it had opened a bank account for donations for Haiti. Anyone wishing to donate can pay in money to Fransabank account number 21.10.935605.01

Source: The Daily Star.
Link: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=110954.

Haiti's earthquake camps turning into shanty towns

By JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press Writer

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – First there was an empty field. Then came rows of makeshift tents. Now those camps are turning into shanty towns — with bakeries, lottery stands and homes — that show no sign of moving soon.

In the five weeks since the quake struck, aid workers, officials and Haiti's government have debated where and how the 1.2 million people left homeless by the disaster should live. Should they be given ready-made tents or plastic tarps? What land should be made available to house them?

A long-delayed announcement on where government camps might go could be made Thursday.

But the people are not waiting. On a former landing strip-turned-boulevard called Route de Piste a cluster of ramshackle villages is rising.

Row upon row of corrugated tin and wood shacks stand against the wind as dusty men walk between them carrying saws and hammers. Children look for the snow cone man at the crossroads, near where a lottery dealer named Max has set up his booth. In a shack marked "Boulangerie Pep La" — the people's bakery — the smell of dough wafts from the oven, and two flat rolls cost 5 gourdes, about 12 cents.

These shanty towns are redrawing the map of the capital, filling open fields with new versions of the joyful life and harsh crime and abuse that always marked existence in the slums — with an extra helping of disease, hunger and misery brought on by the Jan. 12 disaster.

This means people are planning to stay in some very dangerous places: at the bottom of hillsides they know will collapse in a heavy rain or near riverbeds that are bound to flood. They are crowded into polluted areas where sanitation is limited and disease is already starting to spread.

"The government has said for weeks that they have identified sites, but time is getting short and there has been little progress," said Ian Bray, an Oxfam spokesman.

That's one problem. Another is that people simply do not want to go far from where they always lived and worked, even if it means settling on ground made dangerous by the magnitude-7 quake that killed more than 200,000 people.

"People are displaced, they've lost their homes but they haven't lost their jobs," said Alex Wynter of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. "The key issue is land."

French President Nicholas Sarkozy, making the first visit ever by a French head of state to his nation's former colony, pledged 16,000 tarps and 1,000 tents to house 200,000 people while touring the ruins of Port-au-Prince's collapsed national palace.

Haiti's own leader, President Rene Preval, has been less decisive.

"We have to find a solution to get people under shelter — a combination of tents, tarps, corrugated tin roofs ... whatever combination it is," Preval told The Associated Press during a half-hour interview this week. He did not elaborate.

For the people now living under a big flagpole, the decision has already been made.

"If they chase after us, we'll leave. Until then we're here," said Lens Beny, a 20-year-old water peddler who built an 8-by-9-foot wood and tin shack for himself and five relatives. His front door is a lace curtain; the roof is a garbage bag that leaves a solid third of the shanty exposed to the sky.

It is, in a manner of speaking, a temporary shelter — the sort officials are counting on people to build as 250,000 tarps are handed out ahead of the spring rainy season and more permanent solutions are reached.

It's also an unpleasant place to live. One recent rain shower destroyed the flimsy particle boards he bought for $3.70 each, Beny said, as he ripped off a clump of wall.

The new neighborhood is very densely packed; some 27,000 people live there, according to Haitian Red Cross workers. U.N., foreign and local officials are directing aid to the site, while also designating it a "priority for decongestion" — meaning some people must move out.

The overcrowding is the chief reason officials say they don't want to give people the waterproof tents they are demanding — there just isn't enough space for them.

So people like Beny have taken things into their own hands. As he replaced his family's makeshift tent with an even bigger makeshift house, he pushed out the neighbors whose space he needed.

Residents say some men are hoarding food coupons the U.N. World Food Program devised to ensure the flow of food aid, selling them for $4 or more. There are allegations of beatings and robberies. One group stole a Red Cross shelter and tried to camouflage it with a sign advertising it as "National School Jan. 12, founded Feb. 7, 2010." (The Red Cross got it back.)

There is also talk of rape. One group of residents said men were using food coupons to pay for sex with women living in the camp, and assaulting them if they don't agree.

"There is no security. There are never police, U.S. soldiers or U.N.," said Dr. Kobel Dubique, a doctor with Boston-based Partners in Health, which is running a clinic in the camp.

Such crimes were common in the nearby stretch of oceanside slums that includes the sprawling Cite Soleil, especially a few years ago before U.N. peacekeepers moved in and the gangs were driven out.

But until five weeks ago, this was a fenced-in park. The area, dominated by a former airstrip of the disbanded Haitian military, was to have been turned into a residential zone under former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He went into exile amid a rebellion in 2004, and except for a single concrete apartment building and the flagpole, the area remained empty until the quake.

The question now is not just what comes next, but how fast. The immensity of tackling what Inter-American Development Bank economists say is the worst disaster of 2,000 they examined in a study released Tuesday — a list that includes the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and 1972 Nicaragua earthquake — cannot be understated.

The people of Port-au-Prince, millions of whom survive on less than $2 a day, cannot wait for problems to be sorted out by a government that has never succeeded in addressing them before.

Morning talk shows like Radio Caraibe's "Caribbean Morning" took calls Wednesday from listeners on how to rebuild. Warned to wait for official sanction to rebuild, one caller asked why the quake-damaged police station in his neighborhood was being restored if he couldn't work on his home. Preval often appears visibly worried about the problem. After a recent meeting with a U.S. legislative delegation led by House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he pulled an aide aside and talked in grave tones about the "million people on the streets."

But he isn't saying what they are going to do.

U.S. lawmakers brought up the issue with Preval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive during the meeting last week, but did not get a solution, said Sen. George LeMieux of Florida.

"We urged the president to take measures and make decisions quickly," the Republican senator told the AP in a telephone interview. "I am very concerned that with the Haitian people in these camps ... that we are going to have a second tragedy soon."

French leader brings reconstruction plan to Haiti

By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press Writer

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – President Nicolas Sarkozy is bringing a French plan to rebuild Haiti with him on Wednesday's visit to the Caribbean country, a trip officials hope will usher in a new era between France and its former colony.

Some Haitians are welcoming France's new interest in their earthquake-shattered nation as a counterbalance to the United States, which has sent troops there three times in the past 16 years.

But Sarkozy's visit, the first ever by a French president to what was its richest colony, is also reviving bitter memories of the crippling costs of Haiti's 1804 independence.

A third of the population was killed in an uprising against exceptionally brutal slavery, an international embargo was imposed to prevent slave revolts elsewhere and 90 million pieces of gold were demanded by Paris from the world's first black republic.

The debt hobbled Haiti, it seemed for life.

A country plagued by natural and unnatural calamities was desperately poor and mismanaged even before a magnitude-7 earthquake smashed up the capital Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12, killing more than 200,000 people and leaving more than a million homeless.

Haitian politicians this week diplomatically skirted the question of French reparations — a demand put to Paris by ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. That suggests Sarkozy's four-hour visit could herald a new era.

French officials say Sarkozy will announce details of "a French plan for the reconstruction of Haiti" — if Haitian officials agree. It differs little from proposals from Haitian, U.S. and U.N. officials to decentralize power away from the devastated capital and boost agriculture and tourism.

The trip brings Sarkozy to an island where, French officials acknowledge, fascination with things French duels with strong, lingering resentments.

One official close to the French presidency, briefing reporters in Paris on condition of anonymity, hinted that France is not deaf to calls for reparations, calling Sarkozy's visit "an occasion to show that France is mobilizing to give Haitians control of their destiny and pay past debts."

For Millien Romage, a legislator for Aristide's party when reparations were demanded, "This is not a time to be making loud demands. We don't want to fight. But perhaps the French could recognize their debt by helping us to get out of poverty. They can help build roads, houses, schools."

Sarkozy himself has said the catastrophe, following so many others, offers "a chance to get Haiti once and for all out of the curse it seems to have been stuck with for such a long time."

Some Haitians would say they were cursed by their French colonizers.

"The indemnity imposed by France condemned the Haitian people to a cycle of indebtedness, environmental degradation and underdevelopment from which they have yet to recover," said Norman Girvan, a professor at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad. "President Sarkozy would do France — yes France — a great service if he were to acknowledge the role of the French Republic in Haiti's present plight."

France has already said it was canceling all of Haiti's 56 million euro (US$77 million) debt to Paris.

In 1825, crippled by the U.S.-led international embargo that was enforced by French warships, Haiti agreed to pay France 150 million francs in compensation for the lost "property" — including slaves — of French plantation owners.

By comparison, France sold the United States its immensely larger Louisiana Territory in 1803 for just 60 million francs. The amount for Haiti was later lowered to 90 million gold francs.

Haiti did not finish paying the debilitating debt — which was swollen by massive interest payments to French and American banks — until 1947.

But Haiti's wealth already was destroyed. It had been the world's richest colony, providing half the globe's sugar and other exports including coffee, cotton, hardwood and indigo that exceeded the value of everything produced in the United States in 1788.

By the early 1780s, half of Haiti's forests were gone, leading to the devastating erosion and extreme poverty that bedevils the country today.

France's other former colonies in the region — Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Martin, St. Barts and Guiana (in South America) — all have voted to remain part of France and send legislators to the French parliament.

The human cost of the colonial exploitation in Haiti was staggering. Slaves lasted little more than 10 years under brutal conditions. Haitian slaves who displeased their masters were boiled to death in vats of molasses, buried alive in piles of biting insects, crushed by heavy stones or simply starved to death. Just before the rebellion, Haiti had some 450,000 slaves, 25,000 whites and several thousand freed blacks and a mixed-race elite.

The uprising was as brutal as what had gone before.

Haitians asked about their independence today quickly recall the bloody Creole slogan "koupe tet, boule kay" — cut off their heads, torch their houses.

Homeless Haitians who had not heard of Sarkozy's visit said they would welcome help, wherever it comes from.

"I hope he can bring me a tent, and the food, medicine and houses that everybody needs," said 19-year-old Joint Dewendsca, who expects to give birth to her first child under a tent made of bed sheets and wood poles on the grounds of Quisqueya University.

Many remain wary, however, in a country where people still describe a deceitful politician as "speaking French." The vast majority of Haitians speak Creole.

"France still has its eye on Haiti," said Evens Dangervil, 31. "It might want to control us politically and economically."

___

Associated Press Writers Elaine Ganley in Paris and Evens Sanon in Port-au-Prince contributed to this report.

Study: Haiti reconstruction could cost nearly 14 billion dollars

Washington - Haiti's reconstruction from last month's earthquake could cost nearly 14 billion dollars, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) said Tuesday, making it one of the most expensive disasters in modern history. The preliminary estimate to rebuild roads, schools, hospitals and other critical infrastructure in Haiti reflected "the enormity of the challenge that lies ahead in reconstructing Haiti," according to the authors of an IDB study released in Washington.

The study offered a low estimate of 8.1 billion dollars in damages from the January 12 earthquake. But a series of factors meant that a cost of 13.9 billion dollars was "within statistical error."

The study estimates the death toll from the magnitude-7 quake at between 200,000 and 250,000 people. The quake left much of Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas in ruins.

"Raising such a figure will require many donors, bilateral, multilateral and private," the study said.

The monetary estimate is the highest to date of what it will take to rebuild the earthquake region. In late January at a meeting in Canada, international donors generally committed themselves to a 10- year effort, but no dollar amounts were mentioned. A donor conference is to take place in New York in March or April to solicit commitments.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/309570,study-haiti-reconstruction-could-cost-nearly-14-billion-dollars.html.

US forces scale back Haiti relief role

By JAMES ANDERSON and JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press Writer

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The biggest U.S. military surge since Iraq and Afghanistan is scaling back a month after the troops arrived in haste to aid victims of Haiti's catastrophic quake.

Great gray ships have been leaving behind Haiti's battered shores as thousands of American troops pack up their tents. The mission, however, is far from over.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the U.S. will be in Haiti for the long haul, although troop strength is down to 13,000 from a Feb. 1 peak of 20,000. Those who remain will accompany Haitians in an arduous struggle toward recovery.

Within a broad international relief effort, U.S. forces have provided some of the most visible support to a nation whose government and infrastructure were nearly wiped out in less than a minute on Jan. 12.

They have shored up the capital's quake-damaged port to operate at several times its pre-quake tonnage, while acting as a security and logistics mainstay for U.N. food distributions. Military choppers have delivered life-sustaining relief to isolated villages.

The flow of injured quake victims to the USNS Comfort hospital ship has eased, but the need for medical facilities remains overwhelming in Port-au-Prince.

"We're pretty saturated. This is the chokepoint," said Air Force Maj. John Mansuy of St. Clairsville, Ohio, the operating room nurse in a tented, full-service unit with zipper doors and a positive air flow to keep out choking dust that blankets a landfill in the teeming Cite Soleil slum.

His medical team takes in people strapped to stretchers — with fractures, open wounds and other life-threatening maladies — before rushing them offshore to the Comfort.

The Haiti aid operation, costing the Pentagon $234 million and counting, has added a new strain to an already overtaxed military. About seven in 10 members of the Cite Soleil's modern-day MASH unit are veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — and many are scheduled to return there.

U.S. Southern Command chief Gen. Douglas Fraser would not specify during a weekend visit what U.S. troop levels would be in the coming months.

"Remember that the capability and the capacity the United States military brought in was for immediate relief," he told reporters.

The U.S. military already is turning certain tasks back over to the Haitians, such as daytime air-traffic control at Port-au-Prince's damaged international airport, where commercial flights are expected to resume by Friday.

The Haitians have generally greeted the Americans with warmth and appreciation, despite language barriers in the Creole- and French-speaking Caribbean nation.

One day at the gates of the collapsed Hotel Montana, a group of Haitian children greeted soldiers with the 82nd Airborne with a rendition of Michael Jackson's moonwalk. The soldiers replied with a moonwalk of their own. "Hey, you're good!" one of the kids shouted.

"No one is scared of them. They aren't aggressive, they wave hello. They have a peaceful attitude," said Jacques Michilet, 31, who lost his home and is raising two daughters in roadside shack.

Like many impoverished Haitians, Michilet doesn't just want the soldiers to stay: He said he wants his country taken out of the hands of its current business and political leaders and annexed by the United States.

U.S. forces have not always been so welcome in their long history of intervention in Haiti.

A Marine-led occupation from 1915 to 1934 is widely seen among Haitians as a high water mark of U.S. imperialism. Troops returned repeatedly, paving the way in 1994 for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's return to power — and then quelling widespread violence in 2004 after Aristide flew into exile aboard a U.S. plane.

Critics say American perception of Haiti as an innately violent place drove the troops to focus unduly on security, at the expense of some humanitarian aid.

Patrick Elie, a former Haitian defense minister now helping restructure the country's dismantled security forces, said the U.S. troops have done good but were too focused on security initially.

"The foreign countries that came to our aid fell victim to their own propaganda," Elie said. "They were afraid of a monster that never existed except in their own fantasies ... that Haitians are bloodthirsty savages."

After the disaster, there were isolated street fights and killings of looters by security guards, and some gang violence in slums driven by leaders who escaped from prison. But the capital has been largely calm and orderly as Haitians organize themselves from the ground up.

On Sunday, volunteers with whistles directed traffic around fallen buildings and rubble in the hard-hit Bel Air slum. Uniformed scouts routed cars around singing church parades — a toned-down substitute for this year's missed Carnival season.

Still, U.S. military analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute said the security precautions were warranted.

"Desperate people do desperate things," he said. "It would be dangerous and probably counterproductive to put U.S. civilians on the ground there without military forces to ensure order."

A 9,000-strong Brazilian-led U.N. peacekeeping force has been in place since 2004 to help Haiti contain gang violence and maintain basic order.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive defended the size of the American military presence when confronted by wary Haitian senators. He said the government's acceptance of the U.S. military force boiled down to "a reality of capacity, of power, of proximity, of logistics."

Half of the 13,000 current U.S. troops in Haiti are on the ground, with the others offshore on hospital boats or handling deliveries and logistics.

Many Haitians said they are most grateful for the U.S. troops providing security during food distributions, a life-and-death matter for most of the 1.2 million made homeless by the quake. The U.S. said it has helped deliver food to 160,000 people a day, but meals remain scarce and food has been diverted or stolen because of inadequate protection.

Far smaller contingents of Canadian, French, Italian, South Korean and Japanese troops are also in Haiti, and European Union engineering units are expected in coming weeks to help build temporary shelters.

But the American contingent is the one that Haitians worry about losing in their greatest time of need. Told that some U.S. troops are leaving, 29-year-old rooster trainer Watson Geranson grew worried.

"Haiti needs help, we had a catastrophe," he said as a U.S. Humvee rumbled by a new shantytown of quake refugees, where signs were posted pleading for food. "I don't see why they should go."

Over 110,000 confirmed dead in Haiti quake

Sat, 23 Jan 2010

More than 110,000 people were confirmed dead in the magnitude-7.0 earthquake that hit Haiti last week, the Interior Ministry says.

On Thursday, Haitian Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime put the toll from the disastrous January 12 quake at 111,499.

On Monday, Haiti announced that it had buried 70,000 bodies in mass graves as search and rescue personnel were continuing their efforts to find more survivors or dead trapped under the debris.

However, earlier Bien-Aime had predicted that the death toll from the devastating earthquake could reach 200,000.

On Sunday, UN chief Ban Ki-moon has described the catastrophe in the Central American nation as the "most serious humanitarian crisis" faced by the United Nations in decades.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116817§ionid=351020706.

Latin American leaders say US occupying Haiti

Fri, 22 Jan 2010

Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua say the US is using the international relief operation in Haiti as a cover-up for a military takeover.

Bolivian President Evo Morales said that he will request an emergency UN meeting to reject what he calls the US military occupation of Haiti.

"It's not right that the United States should use this natural disaster to invade and militarily occupy Haiti," Morales told a press conference on Wednesday.

"If you have all these problems with the injured and the dead from the earthquake, you have to go there to save lives, and you don't do that from a military standpoint," he added.

An outspoken critic of US policies, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez also had accused Washington of occupying Haiti "under the guise of the natural disaster."

Nicaragua also has taken a similar stance toward US with respect to the situation in Haiti.

The United States is deploying up to 20,000 troops to Haiti. US servicemen have taken control of the country's international airport.

The Pentagon has sent one of its biggest aircraft carriers to Haiti, along with other navy and coast guard vessels.

On Friday, Arturo Valenzuela, the US assistant secretary of state for Western hemisphere affairs, rejected that the US was occupying Haiti.

"Haiti is a sovereign country, everybody respects Haiti's sovereign country, the United States respects Haiti's sovereignty," said Arturo Valenzuela.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116809§ionid=351020706.

Day of national mourning in Haiti one month after earthquake - Summary

Washington - Tens of thousands of survivors gathered in the Haitian capital Friday to pray on a national day of mourning, one month after an earthquake killed an estimated 230,000 people. The massive memorial took place in front of the shattered National Palace, the area around which has become a camp for thousands of Haitians who lost everything in the magnitude-7 earthquake on January 12.

A prayer service was led by Roman Catholic and Protestant clerics, who were joined by voodoo priests, outside the palace. Mourners looked up to the sky, waved their arms in the air, cried, sang, prayed and even danced, CNN reported.

Many of them were unable to give their family and friends dignified burials, as several thousand bodies were dumped in mass graves shortly after the earthquake. Haiti President Rene Preval has said that 170,000 victims were buried in common graves, the Washington Post reported.

"As the people of Haiti observe a national day of mourning to remember those lost in the catastrophic earthquake one month ago, the United States continues to stand with our Haitian friends as they recover and rebuild," the White House said in a statement.

"Amidst unimaginable suffering, the people of Haiti have inspired the world with their faith, strength of spirit and determination to rebuild," it said.

While bottlenecks slowing the delivery of relief supplies are decreasing, aid agencies have expressed concerns about the health of the estimated 1 million homeless forced to live in precarious shelters, with almost no sanitation and few sources of uncontaminated water.

Humanitarian aid agency Oxfam said Friday there was "still a mountain to climb" in Haiti to prevent a deterioration of public health. "We now need a surge in effort to improve sanitation facilities for people in Haiti," said the group's chief in Haiti, Marcel Stoessel.

"Let us not kid ourselves that this is going to be easy, it requires a Herculean humanitarian effort from all quarters."

The White House also warned that the situation in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, remains dire. The infrastructure that was destroyed in the 35 seconds that the earthquake lasted, will take years to rebuild.

"The United States will support our Haitian partners as they transition from emergency assistance to recovery and long-term reconstruction," the statement said.

The United Nations has said that the impending rainy season will compound Haiti's problems, adding that relief efforts should be intensified to help more of the estimated 3 million people in need of assistance.

While the rainy season doesn't begin until April, a downpour on Thursday demonstrated the troubles that lay ahead. Most of the survivors live in shelters made of worn-out strips of cloth, scraps of wood, cardboard and a few plastic sheets, leaving them exposed to the elements.

Oxfam said there was an urgent need to dig more ditches around these shelters to facilitate drainage during the rains, which could also trigger land slides.

"The rainy season has started. There is more and more misery," said Dr Louise Ivers, clinical director of Partners in Health (PIH), which has been working in Haiti for more than two decades. PIH said the early start of the rainy season brings new urgency to efforts to get more tents and temporary housing structures into Haiti.

Meanwhile, a high-level UN meeting on Haitian food security Friday heard of an "alarming" lack of international donor response to help the Caribbean nation's agricultural production.

Convened by Haitian Agriculture Minister Joanas Gue, the meeting in Rome was hosted by the World Food Program (WFP).

"At a time when Haiti is facing a major food crisis we are alarmed at the lack of support to the agricultural component of the United Nation's flash appeal," Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General Jacques Diouf said.

The 575-million-dollar appeal called for 23 million dollars for Haiti's immediate agricultural needs. The situation has been exacerbated by the influx to rural areas of tens of thousands of refugees who fled Port-au-Prince and other urban areas in the aftermath of the earthquake.

"But only 8 per cent of this sum has so far been financed," Diouf said.

"Right now, the immediate priority is to support the spring farm (planting) season which starts in March and represents more than 60 per cent of national food production," Diouf added.

The food situation in Haiti was already fragile before the earthquake, with the country highly dependent on food imports.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/308979,day-of-national-mourning-in-haiti-one-month-after-earthquake.html.

Italian who blasted US over Haiti quits in graft probe - Summary

Wed, 10 Feb 2010

Rome - Italy's top rescue official who recently sparked a diplomatic spat when he criticized US-led rescue efforts in Haiti announced his resignation Wednesday - after being informed he is under investigation in a corruption probe. Guido Bertolaso said he informed Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi that he was stepping down as head of the Italy's Civil Protection services and as undersecretary in the premier's office.

His decision to quit was taken "so as not to hinder the work of the investigating organs," Bertolaso was quoted as saying by the ANSA news agency. He also said he wanted to be interrogated by prosecutors as soon as possible.

But during a cabinet meeting in Rome, Berlusconi indicated he will turn down Bertolaso's resignation request.

Berlusconi "is convinced that Bertolaso will clarify everything," aide to the premier, Gianni Letta said.

Bertolaslo "is marginally involved in an investigation that focuses on other people," Letta added.

Earlier Wednesday four people including a senior public works official, Angelo Balducci, were arrested in connection with the probe.

The investigation centers on tender contracts for the construction of conference facilities at La Maddalena, an island off Sardinia which was initially chosen to host the 2009 Group of Eight (G8) summit.

Following a devastating earthquake in L'Aquila in April 2009, Berlusconi decided to switch the G8 summit venue there to raise the profile of reconstruction efforts.

During a January visit to Haiti, Bertolaso, who led rescue efforts in L'Aquila, criticized what he described as the rudderless and "military," nature of US earthquake assistance to the Caribbean nation.

Bertolaso's criticism embarrassed the Italian government as it came just hours before a meeting in Washington between US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.

Berlusconi distanced himself from Bertolaso's remarks, but subsequently said the rescue services chief was in line for a ministerial appointment.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/308543,italian-who-blasted-us-over-haiti-quits-in-graft-probe.html.