US vows to stay course as Haiti battles hunger
by Andrew Beatty Andrew Beatty

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100207/wl_afp/haitiquake_20100207020610

Sat Feb 6, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) – The battle-stretched US military has vowed to help Haiti as long as needed while the Caribbean nation struggles to feed up to a million people left destitute by a huge earthquake.

Colonel Gregory Kane, the US Joint Task Force Haiti operations officer, said US involvement in the devastated country would last as long as their presence was required.

But he said military operations could end as little as 45 days after they began in the aftermath of the January 12 quake. "We are in Haiti as long as needed and are welcomed by the government of Haiti" he said.

Asked how long the mission would last, he replied: "The military portion of the operation, if you follow historical trends, probably 45 to 50 days."

President Rene Preval, facing survivors who are increasingly angry that a massive international aid effort is not reaching them, urged the international community to stay the course and the Haitian people to stay calm.

Speaking to the press at the make-shift government headquarters on Saturday, Preval acknowledged the horrors his compatriots had endured since the quake, as churchgoers were heard mournfully singing nearby.

"We understand the difficulties faced by the people who sleep outside, homeless, we understand the frustration about the food and water distribution being difficult," he said.

"But it is in discipline, in solidarity, in patience that we will be able to solve the problems that confront us."

The distribution of aid continues to be difficult thanks in part to heavy security needed to transport it.

On Saturday hundreds of desperate Haitians gathered at one of the drop-off points opposite Petionville's putrid cemetery, on the outskirts of the ruined capital city, Port-au-Prince.

Surrounded by dozens of heavily-armed US soldiers, old ladies and even young men struggled under the burning tropical sun to carry away sacks of rice to waiting tap-taps, the brightly colored collective taxis that snail through the capital's streets.

In another part of the city a detachment of around a dozen Argentine troops, some enclosed in an armored personnel carrier equipped with a turret gun, escorted a small flat-bed truck laden with food to its destination.

But there were signs that other bottlenecks in delivering aid were gradually easing.

At Port-au-Prince's wrecked port, where the off-angle tilt of gantry cranes still attest to the violence of the January 12 quake, Kane said the flow of goods was now beating pre-quake levels.

On Friday the port dealt with the equivalent of 750 20-foot containers, a pittance for major ports, but as much as 15 times more cargo than before the earthquake. Much of it was food aid, he said.

Meanwhile, the world's seven most industrialized countries vowed Saturday to each cancel their nation's bilateral debt with quake-hit Haiti.

The "G7 will cancel all Haiti bilateral debt," Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said. Haiti only has about 890 million dollars of foreign debt after past debt cancellations.

While the US military pondered its presence in the country, the fate of 10 American missionaries detained for child smuggling was also in doubt. Related article: Haiti children in danger: UNICEF

The five men and five women have been charged with child abduction and criminal conspiracy, and ordered to Haitian prisons while they await trial.

On Saturday they remained in a police station awaiting their transfer to the Petionville female prison and, for the five men, Haitian's grim national jail.

The main penitentiary has held no prisoners since the earthquake, when many of its convicts escaped in the chaos.

The main entrance remains blocked by fencing and barbed wire, while huge chunks of the top section of the front wall have collapsed onto the street. A crushed police van sits in front.

John May, an American whose NGO Health Through Walls helped run a clinic in the prison, described conditions before the quake as overcrowded and chaotic.

"We would see people with swollen legs just from standing because they didn't have a place to sit," he said.

But the Haitian authorities, under pressure to clamp down on child trafficking and to show the country's crippled government can get on its feet, have insisted the 10 be tried in Haiti.

The groups has claimed it meant no ill-intent in taking what they thought were orphans.

The later part of that claim was contradicted on Saturday by some of the children's parents, who told AFP they had reached a deal to give away their children.

Near his concrete shack, high in the mountains about Port-au-Prince, father of three Fritzian Valmont explained why he gave his eight-year-old daughter Alentina to the Baptist group.

"We gave them away because it is better for them," he said.

The parents explained their children would be "in a safe place in the Dominican Republic" where they would be available to visit.