WASHINGTON, USA (AFP) – IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Wednesday called for a multilateral aid plan for earthquake-ravaged Haiti like the US “Marshall Plan” that rebuilt Europe after World War II.

“My belief is that Haiti — which has been incredibly hit by different things: the food and fuel prices crisis, then the hurricane, then the earthquake — needs something that is big,” the managing director of the Washington-based International Monetary Fund said.

Dominique Strauss-Khan

“Not only a piecemeal approach, but something which is much bigger to deal with the reconstruction of the country — some kind of a Marshall Plan that we need now to implement for Haiti,” he said, referring to the US initiative launched in 1947 to rebuild war-ravaged western Europe.

The international community is gearing up for a coordinated drive to help rebuild the poorest country in the western hemisphere, even as the primary focus remains on rescue and relief efforts after the massive 7.0 magnitude earthquake on January 12.

Officials fear as many as 200,000 people were killed in the quake that reduced most of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince to rubble and impacted an estimated three million people, one third of the population.

Haitian officials said Tuesday that 250,000 people were injured and a million were left homeless.

“The urgency, today, is to save the people. The urgency, in some weeks, will be the reconstruction,” Strauss-Kahn said.

The IMF last Thursday promised an interest-free loan of 100 million dollars in initial emergency funds to the Haitian government to support essential activities and finance urgent imports.

The IMF loan has drawn criticism for adding to the debt burden of Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere.

“The most important thing is that the IMF is now working with all donors to try to delete all the Haitian debt, including our new loan,” the former French Socialist finance minister said.

Strauss-Kahn recalled that the IMF had no immediate way to make a grant.

“If we succeed — and I’m sure we will succeed — even this loan will turn out to be finally a grant, because all the debt will have been deleted. And that’s the very important thing for Haiti now.”

The IMF and the World Bank classify Haiti among “heavily indebted poor countries” eligible for debt forgiveness. The Caribbean nation was granted 1.2 billion dollars in debt relief last June.

More than 1.2 billion dollars has been pledged in aid funding for Haiti, according to United Nations data, and the idea of a “Marshall Plan” appeared to be gaining traction.

Denis O’Brien, head of Irish telecommunications firm Digicel and Haiti’s biggest foreign investor, said recently that he was working alongside former US president Bill Clinton on a such a plan to rebuild quake-ravaged Haiti.

“Obviously we need foreign direct investment but on a wider front we need a Marshall Plan,” O’Brien said.

Canada will host a donors conference Monday in Montreal to discuss Haiti’s reconstruction efforts and prepare for a donors meeting in March.

The donors’ summit to help the former French colony had been proposed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who will also deliver the opening address at the 40th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) next week in Davos, Switzerland.

Organizers said the Haitian crisis would be a major theme at the five-day meeting opening Wednesday, expect to draw 2,500 leaders from more than 90 countries, including Clinton.

“We want to use Davos to solicit commitments of our partners, members and constituents in the form of practical help for relief of the continued pain of Haiti’s people and particularly for the reconstruction of Haiti,” Klaus Schwab, WEF founder and executive chairman, said Wednesday.

“We hope that we can present a major common effort to the world community showing true corporate global citizenship in Davos,” he said.

The rebuilding of Haiti, which already was in dire straits before the horrific earthquake, poses tough challenges, not least a notoriously weak rule of law that could result in wasted aid dollars.

The Caribbean nation ranks among the top 10 most corrupt countries in the world, according to Transparency International. (Caribnet)

Authorities and experts from the Americas will convene to evaluate the progress achieved in the fight against cybercrime, define new cooperation actions and formulate new recommendations on future initiatives.

The recommendations of the meeting’s Working Group will be considered during the Meeting of Ministers of Justice or other Ministers or Attorneys General of the Americas (REMJA) to be held from February 24 to 26, 2010, in Brasilia, Brazil. (Caribnet)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) – The stench at Place Saint-Pierre, perceptible from 100 meters away, overpowers the senses inside the makeshift camp where thousands of Haitians subsist in appalling conditions.

Amid the teaming hordes of quake survivors, women bathed next to mounds of refuse and children relieved themselves on the bare earth. One tank supplied water for 6,000 people desperately needing to bathe, wash clothes and cook.

Some take their chances and drink the unsanitized water to quench their thirst in the burning tropical son, despite the risk of violent illness. Many pay the consequences.

“Sometimes we drink the water, even though we know that water’s not for drinking,” said Magalta Saint-Fleur, 30.

“If we don’t have money (to buy purified water) there’s nothing else we can do,” she said. Nearby, her seven-year-old niece Fonsiane crouches, doubled-over and suffering from intestinal pain.

In the immediate aftermath of last week’s quake, clearing out rotting bodies, removing mountains of rubble and debris, reuniting broken families and tending to the injured have topped the concerns of aid and relief workers.

The focus on providing immediate medical care to quake victims, along with rescue and recovery operations, has meant that hygiene matters have had to take a backseat.

But this lack of clean water and clean facilities is threatening to compound the misery in Haiti and the battle to ward off infectious disease is rising to the top of the priority list of those trying to help the quake-ravaged country.

There are only six toilets at Place Saint-Pierre and the authorities simply don’t have the means to provide more, explained local official Saintizaire Rochemond. “It just simply never happens,” he said.

Last Tuesday’s devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake killed as many as 200,000 people and left one million homeless, meaning that squalid camps like the on at Place Saint-Pierre will be home to thousands for a long time ahead.

In Haiti’s intense heat, everyone is thirsty and clamoring for water, which is in short supply because the country’s water pipes were damaged by the quake and other reserves are contaminated by corpses.

The lucky few sometimes get their hands on the little packets of potable water being distributed by aid workers outside the camp.

Clean facilities are also in short supply and people are left to relieve themselves wherever and whenever they feel the need.

“Everywhere you go, there is feces and that’s very dangerous,” said Rita Aristide, a nurse at a first aid station run by the Haitian Red Cross.

“A lot of people are experiencing intestinal problems and there’s vomiting all over the place,” she said, complaining that severe diarrhea was raging through the camp.

Arsitide warned that in such conditions a health crisis could develop very quickly and feared widespread gastro bugs as well as cholera and mosquito-borne diseases.

A disease epidemic would be catastrophic for doctors in Haiti, already taxed to their limits by the legions of untreated traumatic injuries and other medical priorities.

One woman in the advanced stages of pregnancy, appears ready to give birth, but her husband is unable to find a doctor to attend to her.

Meanwhile a six year old girl Jerica, has wounds on her face, knees and leg which are becoming infected with pus as flies swarm around the festering injuries.

“We couldn’t go to the hospital, we had no money to pay for transportation to get here there,” said the child’s mother, Marie-Rosette Charles, hovering over the prostrate girl.

Health workers with the Red Cross say they feel defeated and dejected, having received scarcely any international aid.

“There are a lot of people here with open wounds, but there simply isn’t any room for them in the hospital,” said Aristide.

Many patients are even reluctant to go to the hospital, fearing that another quake or aftershock could send the building tumbling down, the nurse added. (Caribnet)

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) — Earthquake-ravaged Haiti turned down an offer of troops from the neighbouring Dominican Republic, forcing the United Nations to look elsewhere for additional peacekeepers, UN diplomats said on Wednesday.

The Dominican Republic had offered an 800-strong battalion to form part of the reinforcement of the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti.

“We understand the Haitian government has said no to them,” one Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity. He said he assumed the decision came from Haitian President Rene Preval.

The two states share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola but have a history of tense relations.

A UN official confirmed that Haiti turned down the offer but said the decision might not be definitive and talks were under way to see if Haiti would allow a rescue team or police from the Dominican Republic to help with the relief efforts.

“We’re hoping other countries can provide troops,” the official said.

The full potential strength of the UN peacekeeping force is now 12,651, up from the current level of around 9,000, after a UN Security Council resolution adopted on Tuesday.

The United Nations is now rushing to find the extra 3,651 troops and police to help maintain security and deliver aid.

Edmond Mulet, sent to Haiti to take over the UN force after its chief, Hedi Annabi, and dozens of other UN staff died in the earthquake, has said that Brazil was offering more troops and France and Chile were offering police.

UN officials have said the Philippines might also top up its existing contingent.

Haitian officials say the death toll from the Jan. 12 quake was likely to be between 100,000 and 200,000, and that 75,000 bodies had already been buried in mass graves.

The United States has around 12,000 military personnel in Haiti, on ships offshore or en route. They are not under UN command, though they are cooperating with the United Nations, which is overseeing the relief effort. (Caribnet)

Julien Neaves jneaves@trinidadexpress.com

GOVERNMENTAL and other agencies that provide services for victims of child sexual abuse (CSA) have reported a sharp increase in reported cases within the past five years, and one non-governmental organisation (NGO) indicated that the police station in its community received at least five incest or CSA reports a day.

This was one of the findings of the Institute of Gender and Development Studies at the University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine, and the Trinidad and Tobago Coalition Against Domestic Violence report ’Breaking the Silence: Child Sexual Abuse and Incest and Implications for HIV and AIDS: Findings from a Study of Service Providers and Implications for the Development of Protocols and Policies.’

The study was conducted between September and November 2008 and the sample included service providers - governmental agencies, NGOs, faith-based organisations and community-based organisations - from three communities, Aranjuez, Toco and Charlotteville in Tobago.

The report, which was presented on Monday during a two-day workshop with service providers at UWI, also found an upsurge in child abuse cases during Carnival season, an increase in the numbers of boys neglected, abandoned or requiring supervision with a history of physical and sexual abuse and its correlation to delinquency and anti-social behaviours.

UWI Deputy Principal, Prof Rhoda Reddock, who began the project while at the institute, told the gathering that a colleague had done research in schools and found that a lot of the anger among pupils was due to CSA. Another finding was that a lack of capacity and institutional support contributed to children being left permanently in homes where abuse has allegedly occurred.

The service providers reported that the most challenging situation was the securing of a placement for a child who lived in a home where incest occurred, noting that there are no longer safe houses for abused women in Tobago and few in Trinidad, the latter of which have restrictions on accommodation for accompanying children.