[News] Disputes Emerge Over Haiti Aid Control
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Mon Jan 18 10:53:02 EST 2010
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/01/20101179352631832.html
(scathing video about US & UN militarization)
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/01/201011831019984373.html
Monday, January 18, 2010
16:06 Mecca time, 13:06 GMT
Frustration mounts over Haiti aid
Tensions are rising on the streets of Haiti as
the bulk of earthquake survivors continue to go
without food, medicine or proper shelter.
Aid organisations continued to struggle to reach
them with supplies on Sunday, six nights after
the devastating earthquake that killed tens of
thousands of people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
A bottleneck at the capital's small airport the
main entry point for the massive assistance
pledged by world leaders following the disaster
means little help has reached the many people
waiting for help in makeshift camps on streets
strewn with debris and decomposing bodies.
Airport bottleneck
Some aid agencies have complained about a lack of
co-ordination at the Port-au-Prince airport,
where the US military has taken over operations.
Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without
Borders, (MSF) said an aircraft carrying a mobile
hospital was denied permission to land at the
airport on Saturday and diverted to neighbouring
Dominican Republic, where it would take a further
24 hours to deliver supplies by road.
"Priority must be given immediately to planes
carrying lifesaving equipment and medical personnel," MSF said in a statement.
Al Jazeera's Teresa Bo, reporting from
Port-au-Prince, said quake survivors in the
capital were growing increasingly frustrated over
what appeared to be the mismanagement or
miscommunication that was holding up the aid.
In the absence of large scale foreign help,
Haitians were trying to help each other, our
correspondent said, with some turning homes into
hospitals to treat the wounded and others giving
away food, but food supplies and other resources were running out.
People could see helicopters flying overhead, US
military vehicles in the city and aeroplanes
arriving at the airport with supplies, so it was
difficult to understand why little aid appeared
to be reaching the people, she said.
Meanwhile the European Union pledged over $575m
in emergency and long-term aid, the bloc said on Monday.
The union is also moving towards sending 150
people to assist the police force and help beef
up security, as tensions in the Caribbean nation rise.
US defends position
The US military said on Sunday that it was doing
its best to get as many aircraft as possible into Port-au-Prince.
The airport's control tower was knocked out by
the quake and US 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," Colonel Buck Elton,
the US commander at the airport, told reporters by telephone.
He said there had been 600 take-offs and landings
since his crew took over operations at the
one-runway airport's traffic on Wednesday, and 50 flights had been diverted.
But the flow of air traffic was improving, he
said, with only three of 67 incoming flights
being rerouted on Saturday, and only two flights diverted on Sunday.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, PJ Crowley, a spokesman
for the US state department, defended the US
handling of Haiti's airport and international aid.
He said changes in airport procedures "to
increase efficiency and effectiveness", as well
as "a technical reason", were possible reasons
why some aeroplanes were not allowed to land.
Pointing out that the US military had, by adding
to the infrastructure of the airport, increased
flights from 20 a day to 60 a day, he said
whatever limited infrastructure Haiti had before
the quake was devastated by the quake and it had
taken time to "maximise the flow of everything that Haiti needs".
On claims that military aeroplanes with troops
were being allowed to land while those carrying
aid supplies were not, he said that was "absolutely not true".
"They are bringing in aid, communications gear
for the Haitian government so they can begin to
operate and function once again," he said.
Not only food, water, healthcare, he said, but
also "the kinds of gear that allows us to save
lives, to bring in capacity so that they can
establish an effective network to distribute food
among the three million people in the city".
Signs of progress
There were some signs of progress on Sunday as
international medical teams took over damaged
hospitals and clinics where injured and sick
people had lain untreated for days.
A few street markets had begun selling vegetables
and charcoal in the capital and US officials said
international search teams had rescued at least 61 people alive so far.
Hundreds of trucks carrying aid and guarded by
armed UN patrols streamed from the airport and UN
headquarters out into the city on Sunday but they
were soon obstructed on streets clogged with
people, debris and vans carrying coffins and bodies.
There were also scrums for food and water as UN
trucks distributed food packets and US military
helicopters dropped boxes of water bottles and rations.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, who
visited Port-au-Prince on Sunday, said the
situation in the country was "one of the worst humanitarian crises in decades".
Amid shouts of "where is the food? Where is the
help?" from survivors and asked if he feared
riots over the delays in aid, Ban appealed to the
Haitian people "to be more patient".
Haitian government officials say 70,000 bodies
have already been buried in mass graves and
estimate the total death toll to be between 100,000 and 200,000.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
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