Konbit Pou Ayiti

IN THIS REPORT:
- World Bank President Visits Haiti and Says Debt Could be Cancelled by Mid-2009
- Indian Police Join UN Peacekeeping Mission
- Haiti's Environmental Crisis
- MSF Denounces Inefficient Emergency Response in Gonaïves
- UN Envoy to Haiti Warns that Ignoring Plight of Haitians Could Lead to Social Unrest
- UN Security Council Extends Mandate of Peacekeeping Mission in Haiti
- US Conference of Catholic Bishops Calls for Temporary Protective Status for Haitians
- New York Times Editorial: Grant Temporary Protective Status to Haitians in the US

World Bank President Visits Haiti and Says Debt Could be Cancelled by Mid-2009:
The storms that have battered Haiti since August caused nearly $1 billion of damage, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said on Wednesday. "That's a lot for a country of 8 million people and there's been a terrible loss of lives," Zoellick told journalists as he concluded a three-day visit to Haiti. "The devastation is widespread and it makes your eye pop." The loss is enormous in a poor country whose gross domestic product was estimated at about $11.4 billion last year. Zoellick urged donors to give more money to help Haiti and compared the scale of the devastation by saying, "Imagine Hurricane Katrina had affected almost the whole country (the United States) and a much poorer country." Four tropical storms and hurricanes deluged Haiti in August and September, bringing floods that killed more than 800 people.

The World Bank announced earlier this month it would give $25 million in additional emergency grants to help rebuild bridges and make other infrastructure repairs. The Caribbean country -- the poorest in the Western Hemisphere -- also received a $10 million grant from the World Bank to help the government respond to soaring food prices. The bank intends to help with watershed management, drainage, soil protection, reforestation efforts and other measures aimed at mitigating storm damage. Some insurance programs developed in other countries may also be implemented in Haiti, bank officials said. "You can still see the effects of the flooding in terms of taking up roads and bridges and very deep mud that blocks irrigation and roads," Zoellick said after visiting hard-hit areas where people are still housed in shelters.

The World Bank has already forgiven half of Haiti's foreign debt and the rest could be erased by the middle of next year, according to World Bank officials. Haiti's foreign debt amounts to $1.69 billion, including $550 million to the World Bank. "Haiti's fate is tied with its geography because it is in the midst of a hurricane route -- which is no good," Zoellick said. "But it is also close to one of the biggest markets in the world and that is an advantage. "We need to minimize risks and dangers and build on advantages."  (Reuters, 10/22)

Indian Police Join UN Peacekeeping Mission:
A 140-member Formed Police Unit (FPU) from India has joined the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) to help with international efforts to ensure a safe environment in the Caribbean country. The Indian peacekeepers will be based in Port-au-Prince, the nation's capital. The first elements of the Indian contingent arrived in Haiti in early October to prepare for the arrival of the bulk of the officers. On Oct 13, a group of 64 Indian peacekeepers joined MINUSTAH. A second group of 63 strong personnels arrived on October 17. The deputy commander of the Indian contingent said "Our government has responded positively to a request from UN to send peacekeepers to Haiti. It is an honour for us to help that country under the flag of the United Nations." These peacekeepers are all police officers specialising in monitoring and managing crowds, a critical task in Haiti.

Through its specialised training and equipment, the unit will be involved in managing public disturbances, establishing checkpoints, tracking criminals and anti-crime operations. FPUs also carry out patrols, special anti-kidnapping operations and provide protection to visiting dignitaries in the country. The arrival of the Indian peacekeepers coincides with the renewal of MINUSTAH's mandate. Last week, the Security Council extended MINUSTAH through mid-October 2009, recognising the impact that the civil disturbances in April and the devastating hurricane season have had on the country's stability. The total number of personnel serving in MINUSTAH's FPU has reached 1,137, hailing from seven countries. The contribution of India, the third largest overall contributor of troops and police to UN peacekeeping operations, will help MINUSTAH consolidate the gains it has made in helping to make the country more secure for the Haitian people. (Press Trust of India, 10/23)

Haiti's Environmental Crisis:
Plush mansions and concrete shacks perch precariously on the hillside of this steep green mountaintop retreat, miles from the storm-ravaged cities of Cabaret and Gonaives. With the brick-red topsoil quickly eroding and few trees to hold what's left, a heavy downpour can easily trigger a landslide, sending the hills crashing down, washing away homes, uprooting crops. Haiti's crumbling hillsides have made the country vulnerable to flash floods and lethal landslides, but that vulnerability has come into sharp focus recently, following four consecutive killer storms in less than 30 days. Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike cut trails of death and destruction through this already impoverished nation, leaving hundreds dead, thousands homeless and a coastal town in the northwestern corner buried in mud from floodwaters. Haphazard farming techniques, poorly constructed homes on unregulated land, years of neglecting rivers and storm canals, lax enforcement of environmental laws -- have all left Haiti's landscape in a particularly fragile state. Even heavy rain showers can create havoc.
 
The United States Agency for International Development estimates that only 1.5 percent of Haiti is still forested, compared to 60 percent in 1923 and 28 percent in the neighboring Dominican Republic today. Approximately 30 million trees are cut down annually in Haiti, according to the USAID. ''The whole country is facing an ecological disaster,'' said Haiti's new prime minister, Michèle Pierre-Louis. ``We cannot keep going on like this. We are going to disappear one day. There will not be 400, 500 or 1,000 deaths. There are going to be a million deaths.''

Waterlogged Gonaives, sitting like a bowl on a flat plain between the ocean and barren mountains, only tells part of the story of Haiti's environmental crisis. As Tropical Storm Hanna pounded the port city last month, Pierre-Louis and a government convoy tried to reach there. They couldn't get through. ''On the road there, we almost died,'' Pierre-Louis said. Boulders crashed down the mountainside, bringing a cascade of muddy water. Two of the government SUVs were washed out by the water on the Nacional, the road connecting the capital of Port-au-Prince to Gonaives and Cap-Haitien. ''You could see all this water falling down with rocks and mud,'' Pierre-Louis said. She ended up traveling to the devastation by air. ''Everyone is talking about Gonaives and Cabaret, but people forget this is a national catastrophe,'' said Arnaud Dupuy of the United Nation's Development Program with responsibility for the environment. ``Port-au-Prince one day will suffer the same fate. There are bidonvilles [shantytowns] in the hills, the mountains are deforested, all of the ravines and canals are obstructed, clogged with plastic bottles.''
 
This is not the first time Haiti has been wracked by natural disaster. Last year, 20 people died in Cabaret after the Betel River burst over its banks. During Hurricane Ike last month, the same river swelled and killed more than a dozen children with its raging floodwaters. In 2004, Tropical Storm Jeanne killed an estimated 3,000 Haitians, most in Gonaives, when the three rivers leading into the city roiled down the denuded mountains loaded with boulders and muck. 'With all of these disasters happening now, we have to ask, `What have we been doing wrong?' '' said environmentalist Jane Wynne, who has spent her life trying to get Haitians to change their lifestyles to help the country avoid devastation. Wynne, who was born and raised in Haiti, has transformed her terraced hillside slope into an ecological reserve of bamboos and shrubs that ''can save Haiti,'' she said. She learned the technique under the tutelage of her father, a U.S.-born civil engineer who moved to Haiti in the 1920s. Wynne is among a handful of conservationists here who have been waging an uphill battle to help save the countryside from deforestation. She shows schoolchildren and farmers how to terrace properly to keep slopes from crumbling during downpours.
 
The reef-fringed island of La Gonave, off the coast of Port-au-Prince, stands as a testament for how proper watershedding can halt destruction. When Tropical Storm Hanna dumped torrential rains on the denuded hills for six hours last month, the island received only a downstream trickle instead of the usual flash floods. The area benefited from a $10 million USAID watershed project grant in May 2008. In exchange for food, World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization, recruited locals to build a series of parallel walls descending the mountain, thus slowing the cascading floodwaters. ''Nobody died. Crops were saved,'' said Rachel Wolff of World Vision.
 
Until recently, Haiti's governments have lacked the political will to address its environmental problems, even as legislators passed laws instituting forest brigades and USAID poured millions of dollars into tree-planting programs. But two decades of trying to raise awareness on the importance of conserving the environment seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. ''The more poverty increases, the more erosion increases,'' said Dupuy, with the UN Development Program. ``There is no management of the territory, no employment to give people jobs. So you have a mass of people who are deep in poverty and what do they do? They tap the environment for revenues by cutting down trees for charcoal.'' All of that accelerates disaster, he said. Dupuy sees the recent devastation as an opportunity for Haiti to reclaim its lands. ''There is an opportunity to build back better, to reconstruct the city and avoid rebuilding the vulnerability,'' Dupuy said. ``If we don't seize this opportunity, it will happen again and again with a greater force.''
 
Pierre-Louis, who officially became prime minister two days before the fourth hurricane battered Haiti, says it's time for everyone, the government included, to get serious about saving the environment. She speaks of passing laws and erecting billboards throughout the country that warn ``You Cannot Build Here.'' She even goes as far as saying that people should be arrested and homes demolished if they don't abide by the law. ''It's time for us Haitians . . . to start thinking about what are we going to do so that so this does not happen again,'' Pierre-Louis said. (Miami Herald, 10/14)

MSF Denounces Inefficient Emergency Response in Gonaïves:
Five weeks after a series of hurricanes struck Haiti, people in the city of Gonaïves are still deprived of essential services, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said today. Since early October, families have been evicted from schools and churches where they had sought refuge after the storms destroyed their homes. With no alternative housing available, MSF estimates that approximately 10,000 people—out of a total population of 200,000—are living on roofs, in tents, or in fragile shacks made of wood debris and bed sheets. Other families are crammed into abandoned buildings by the dozens, or staying temporarily with relatives in overcrowded conditions that increase the risk of poor sanitation and domestic violence. In addition to this, electricity and running water have yet to be re-established.
 
While it has not rained in more than ten days, many roads are still flooded. Mud is more than three feet deep in some parts of the city, making it extremely difficult to get around. “It’s as if a cyclone passed through here just a couple of days ago,” said Vikki Stienen, MSF project coordinator in Gonaïves. “The coordination of relief efforts is extremely chaotic.” “Usually after natural disasters MSF can reduce it activities after the first month,” Stienen said. “Here, it’s the opposite; we’ve had to reinforce our teams and our intervention.” So far in Gonaïves, MSF has distributed 3,000 family kits (including plastic sheeting, soap, and jerry cans) and is distributing 2,000 more beginning today. Moreover, MSF is planning to distribute another 5,000 kits to cover the needs of as many people as possible in the city. Additionally, MSF is providing the majority of clean drinking water distributed in Gonaïves, a total of one million liters per day.

MSF is also witnessing an increase in the number of malnourished children admitted to its hospital. MSF re-opened the hospital in Gonaïves only 10 days ago and seven severely malnourished children have already been admitted. This number is expected to grow as people hear about the re-opening of the hospital. Haitians already face chronic food crises and nutritional deficits. The recent hurricanes destroyed crops and killed significant numbers of livestock, making people all the more vulnerable. International food aid reaching the community is clearly insufficient in quantity, unsuitable for the nutritional needs of young children, and is being distributed in a way that excludes single mothers. There is still no clear strategy to identify the needs, nor implement a proper nutrition response.
 
Despite the significant presence of international organizations, the people of Gonaïves have yet to see much benefit. Hurricane season ends in late November. If another storm were to strike the region with more heavy rains, inhabitants here would once again pay a heavy price. MSF urges international organizations and the Haitian government to immediately re-examine their emergency aid response, and to prioritize housing and nutritional support for the youngest of the flood victims. (MSF, 10/13)

UN Envoy to Haiti Warns that Ignoring Plight of Haitians Could Lead to Social Unrest:
Ignoring the plight of hurricane-ravaged Haiti and leaving its population hungry and angry could lead to a new wave of social unrest in the Caribbean country, the top U.N. envoy to Haiti said Friday. Haiti was hit by four storms -- Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike -- in the space of about a month. The storms killed at least 800 people, including 520 in the hardest-hit city of Gonaives. U.N. envoy Hedi Annabi told reporters the relief effort was beyond the financial resources of either Haiti or the United Nations and ignoring Haiti's plight could spark renewed unrest. Soaring food prices led to deadly riots earlier this year. "A poor, angry and desperate population is not compatible with security and stability," Annabi said.
 
He said he was confident the U.N. Security Council would renew the mandate of the U.N. Haiti mission, known as MINUSTAH, for another year and that the vote could come next week. Although he gave no specific figures for the amount of aid Haiti would need, he said hundreds of millions of dollars would be required to improve its drainage and sewage systems. The recent flooding left behind vast amounts of mud, partly because 98 percent of Haiti's forests had been destroyed, allowing earth to be washed down from the hills. Annabi said there must be large-scale reforestation combined with an alternative energy plan. Firewood is Haitians' principal source of energy.
 
Annabi said MINUSTAH was working with Haitian authorities to help the devastated city of Gonaives, which was coated with some three million cubic meters of mud that could turn rock hard. "It's as close as it comes to a hell on earth," he said. He noted that the hurricane season was not over and Haiti could face further storms and flooding this year. He acknowledged that it was difficult to ask wealthy donor countries to hand over more money for the poorest country in the western hemisphere at a time when global financial markets were struggling to ward off a total meltdown. "I realise we are in a difficult environment," he said. However, he said it would not hurt the economies of developed countries to hand over more aid for Haiti. Last month the World Food Program said it only had resources to help flood victims in Haiti through November. (Reuters, 10/10)
 
UN Security Council Extends Mandate of Peacekeeping Mission in Haiti:
The Security Council extended the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti for a further year on Tuesday and also called for a donor conference to aid the hurricane-ravaged nation. The move came after the top U.N. envoy in Haiti, Hedi Annabi, warned last week that ignoring the plight of the Caribbean country and leaving its population hungry and angry could lead to a new wave of social unrest there. At least 800 people died when Haiti, where soaring food prices led to deadly riots earlier this year, was hit by four storms -- Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike -- over about a month. Annabi said last week the relief effort was beyond the financial resources of either Haiti or the United Nations.
 
Tuesday's Security Council resolution said the situation in Haiti, many of whose nearly 9 million people live on less than $2 a day, remained a threat to international peace and security. It extended until Oct. 15, 2009, the mandate of the 7,000 troops and 2,000 police in the Brazilian-led U.N. "Stabilization Mission," known as MINUSTAH, and said further renewal was planned. U.N. troops have been in Haiti since 2004. The resolution also recognized the need for a high-level donor conference to support Haiti's own economic growth and poverty reduction strategy. It called on donor countries and the Haitian government to devise an efficient aid coordination system to focus on both short- and longer-term requirements and urged donors to speed up disbursement of pledges they had already made.
 
The United Nations launched an appeal last month for $108 million for Haiti, but according to Annabi, hundreds of millions of dollars are required just to improve the country's drainage and sewage systems. The recent flooding left behind vast amounts of mud, partly because 98 percent of Haiti's forests have been destroyed, allowing earth to be washed down from the hills. Annabi said there must be large-scale reforestation combined with an alternative energy plan. Firewood is Haitians' principal source of energy. Last month the U.N. World Food Program said it only had resources to help flood victims in Haiti through November. (Reuters, 10/14)
 
US Conference of Catholic Bishops Calls for Temporary Protective Status for Haitians:
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is calling on U.S. President George Bush to allow citizens of disaster-stricken Haiti to remain temporarily in the United States. In a letter made public this week, the Catholic organization said Haiti qualifies for what is known as temporary protected status, or TPS. Haitians who apply for and receive this designation would be allowed to continue to live and work in the United States for a period of time, regardless of their previous immigration status. The letter notes the humanitarian challenges facing Haiti following a food crisis and a series of storms that hit the country over the past few months. It says these events have left Haiti in a situation that is as bad as, or worse than, other countries that have been given TPS designation, such as El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras. Protected status can be given to citizens of certain countries affected by extraordinary conditions, such as natural disasters or armed conflict, but it does not lead to permanent residency. (VOA, 10/15)

New York Times Editorial: Grant Temporary Protective Status to Haitians in the US
This year has been especially cruel to Haiti, with four back-to-back storms that killed hundreds of people, uprooted tens of thousands more and obliterated houses, roads and crops. A far richer country would have been left reeling; Haiti is as poor as poor gets in this half of the globe. Those who have seen the damage say it is hard to convey the new depths of misery there. The Bush administration promised Haiti $10 million in emergency aid and Congress has since authorized $100 million for relief and reconstruction. The United Nations has issued a global appeal for another $100 million. We have no doubt that Haiti will need much more.
 
There is something the United States can do immediately to help Haitians help themselves. It is to grant “temporary protected status” to undocumented Haitians in the United States, so they can live and work legally as their country struggles back from its latest catastrophe. This is the same protection that has been given for years, in 18-month increments, to tens of thousands of Nicaraguans, Hondurans, Salvadorans and others whose countries have been afflicted by war, earthquakes and hurricanes.
 
While the Bush administration has temporarily stopped deporting Haitians since Hurricane Ike last month, it has not been willing to go the next step of officially granting temporary protected status to the undocumented Haitians living here. Haiti’s president, René Préval, and members of Congress have urged the administration to change its mind. We urge the same. There is very little that is consistent in the United States’ immigration policies toward its nearest neighbors, except that the rawest deal usually goes to the Haitians. Cubans who make it to dry land here are allowed to stay; those intercepted at sea are not. Hondurans and Nicaraguans who fled Hurricane Mitch 10 years ago have seen their temporary protected status renewed, as have Salvadorans uprooted by earthquakes in 2001.
 
Haiti, meanwhile, more than meets the conditions that immigration law requires for its citizens here to receive temporary protected status, including ongoing armed conflict and a dire natural or environmental disaster that leaves a country unable to handle the safe return of its migrants. If Haiti is ever going to find the road to recovery after decades of dictatorship, upheaval and decay, it will take more than post-hurricane shipments of food and water. Haiti desperately needs money, trade, investment and infrastructure repairs. It also needs the support of Haitians in the United States, who send home more than $1 billion a year. What it does not need, especially right now, is a forced influx of homeless, jobless deportees. (NYT Editorial, 10/12)