Moontown

Speaking to the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC), which was part of CARICOM’s Tactical Mission to Haiti, Bellerive said his country was “indeed grateful for the quick response of the CARICOM leaders to our plight.” He added that “we count on our friends of the CARICOM to be our ambassadors, to help us convince the world that we need strong help.”

Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive. AFP PHOTO

Bellerive told CMC he had already held talks with Jamaica’s Prime Minister Bruce Golding on what role CARICOM could play in the rebuilding of the country and said the Community could play a leading role in securing much needed financial and technical assistance to his earthquake battered country in the years ahead.

“They can do a lot. First we want technical assistance…it is not only money…the CARICOM can do a lot, they can also be our ambassadors outside because… they can travel and explain the situation in Haiti,” the Prime Minister told CMC.

The Prime Minister’s words of appreciation came as the Community intensified its relief efforts through the appointment of Brigadier General (Ret) Earl Arthurs of Belize as Special Co-ordinator on the ground in Haiti. General Arthurs, who led the CARICOM tactical mission which arrived in Haiti on Sunday, assumed responsibility on Tuesday and will remain in Haiti to carry out his assignment.

The Special Coordinator will be responsible for ensuring that the Community’s Haiti Response Mission for the Haiti Earthquake is effectively pursued on the ground in Haiti. The Special Coordinator will also be the link between the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) and the stricken country and other coordination mechanisms in Haiti.

Meanwhile, in an effort to maximise assistance to Haiti, CDEMA has recommended that financial contributions is the preferred means of aid at this time rather than goods given the logistical challenges being faced in Haiti.

A meeting was held in the Dominican Republic on Monday January 18, 2010, under the chairmanship of the President of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernández Reyna, to examine the best means of addressing the situation in Haiti.

The President of Haiti, Rene Garcia Preval participated in the meeting with his colleague CARICOM leaders, the Chairman of CARICOM, Roosevelt Skerritt, the Prime Minister of Dominica, Hubert Ingraham Prime Minister of The Bahamas, David Thompson, Prime Minister of Barbados, Bruce Golding, Prime Minister of Jamaica Patrick Manning, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. Secretary-General of CARICOM Edwin Carrington also participated along with representatives of the Organisation of American States (OAS), Canada, Spain, United States, Brazil, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), the European Union and the World Bank.

At the meeting CARICOM was appointed as a member of a Coordination Committee created to organise an International Conference which will have, as its objective, the devising of a Strategic Plan for the Reconstruction of Haiti. This Plan is intended to go beyond emergency assistance and would contribute to strengthening the viability and the political, economic and social stability of Haiti, in the medium and long term.

The Committee comprising of Haiti, the Dominican Republic, CARICOM, the United Nations, the European Union, the Organisation of American States, the Rio Group, the United States, Canada, Brazil and the Inter-American Development Bank will be responsible for organising the conference and will hold its first meeting on Monday 25 January in Canada. (Caribnet)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) – Haiti officials said on Thursday they are relocating hundreds of thousands of homeless earthquake victims out of the capital to hastily set up villages around the country designed to each hold at least 10,000 people.

“The government has made available to people free transportation. A large operation is taking place: we’re in the process of relocating homeless people,” said Haitian Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime.

He said while he didn’t have exact figures, perhaps as many as 400,000 people would be moved.

Officials said the government was paying for at least 34 buses to take victims to the south and north of the country from the capital Port-au-Prince, which was largely destroyed in a 7.0-magnitude earthquake earlier this month.

Brightly painted public buses were roaming the city to pick up passengers, many of whom were piling on the vehicles’ roofs, desperate to leave behind the rubble-strewn streets and precarious structures weakened by dozens of aftershocks.

It is not clear where the internally displaced people will end up, but officials said they had begun the process — with local mayors around the country — of identifying sites for the villages.

Coming amid public discontent over the government’s faint performance in the aftermath of the earthquake, the move is one of its first major steps to aid the hundreds of thousands of people left homeless by the disaster.

Haiti’s Secretary of State for Agriculture Michel Chancy, tasked with coordinating aid relief, told AFP that the government had “delivered more than 500,000 rations in the past week,” and said authorities “aim to deliver 100,000 a day” going forward.

Throughout Port-au-Prince there are “330 food distribution points and 80 water trucks, which carries out two deliveries a day,” Chancy said.

Some 500,000 remain in make-shift shelters in the city, and the priority is to relocate them to the camps, or “villages,” outside the city for the time being.

The International Organisation for Migration also said Thursday that at least half a million people are living outdoors in improvised camps in the Haitian capital.

Most people had cobbled together makeshift shelters from sheeting, blankets, cardboard or bits of debris, while some had received tents from Haitian authorities or US forces.

The count of those who were homeless or staying outside their homes after last week’s earthquake was climbing, a IOM spokeswoman said.

“So far some 447 improvised settlements comprising at least 500,000 people have been identified in this city alone, out of which 350 settlements have been assessed by IOM, the Haitian government and humanitarian partners,” the agency said Thursday.

Rescue teams from around the world were combing debris in and around Port-au-Prince for survivors nearly nine days after the quake shattered homes and buildings in the region. (Caribnet)

A statement from the Foreign Affairs Ministry on Wednesday said, “As a result of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake which hit Haiti on January 12 and its disastrous consequences, the Government of Guyana is prepared to meet the travel costs of all Guyanese nationals in Haiti who are desirous of returning to their homeland.”

The release adds that “This initiative, of financing the return of Guyanese in Haiti to Guyana, is another example of the progressive and supportive directive that the administration is pursuing, in ensuring that nationals in lands afar are cared for and feel connected to their homeland.”

This, the ministry says, is in addition to the national relief effort, that has raised some GY$218 million (US$1.09 million) and a large quantity of supplies. (Caribnet)

Jagdeo, during a meeting with the Iranian Vice President Veep Rahimi on Wednesday in the Islamic republic, said; “I was informed that a delegation comprised of Latin American leaders who were going to visit Haiti and contribute aid to that country faced the objection of the US government and could not make the humanitarian move.”

His comments came after Rahimi said the presence of the US forces in Haiti is creating a major obstacle in the way of other countries’ efforts to assist Haiti.

“I am agreed with the entire axis of your comments,” Jagdeo said, referring to Rahimi’s comments.

He added that Guyana has always pursued independent policies.

“Although we live in the vicinity of the United States, we are not agreed with their entire stands, and we do express our dissatisfaction with a lot of their policies and viewpoints now and then.” Jagdeo stressed, adding, “Many of the moves of the Americans around the globe are against the norms and merely ensure their own interests.”

Guyana President Bharrat Jagdeo. AFP PHOTO

Jagdeo referred to the advancement of certain Asian countries, particularly China in economic field, saying, “Today the Americans openly declare that they are concerned about some developing countries’ rapid advancement, such as China, towards becoming developed economic poles, since those countries can leave behind the United Stated economically in the future.”

He reiterated, “There are many countries and nations in the world today that do not seek salvation through attachment to the United States, having chosen other paths.”

The CARICOM emergency aid mission to Haiti, comprising heads of government and leading technical officials, failed to secure permission Friday to land at that devastated country’s airport, now under the control of the USA.

Consequently, the Caricom Assessment Mission that was to determine priority humanitarian needs resulting from the mind-boggling earthquake disaster last Tuesday had to travel back from Jamaica to their respective homes.

On Friday afternoon, the US State Department confirmed signing two Memoranda of Understanding with the Government of Haiti that made “official that the United States is in charge of all inbound and outbound flights and aid offloading”.

Further, according to the agreements signed, US medical personnel “now have the authority to operate on Haitian citizens and otherwise render medical assistance without having to wait for licences from Haiti’s Government”. (Caribnet)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) — Shops began to reopen in Haiti’s capital on Thursday as the hunt for trapped survivors from the killer earthquake wound down and efforts intensified to help the masses of hurt and homeless people.

The seaport in Port-au-Prince had been repaired enough to reopen for limited aid shipments, and a Dutch naval vessel was unloading pallets of water, juice and long-life milk onto trucks at the pier.

Haitian quake victims sit by their makeshift shelters in a stadium in Port-au-Prince on following the massive 7.0-magnitude quake that shattered the country. AFP PHOTO

Aid was more plentiful but still inadequate to feed and shelter those left homeless and injured by the 7.0 magnitude quake that rocked Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, on January 12 and killed as many as 200,000 people.

“It’s miserable here. It’s dirty and it’s boring,” said Judeline Pierre-Rose, 12, camped in a squalid park across from the collapsed national palace. “People go to the toilet everywhere here and I’m scared of getting sick.”

A Florida search-and-rescue team left Haiti on Wednesday and it was reported that teams from Belgium, Luxembourg and Britain did as well.

Teams from Brazil, the United States and Chile were still working with sniffer dogs at the collapsed Montana Hotel in Port-au-Prince, where a whiteboard listed the names of 10 people found dead and 20 more still missing inside. Crews had treaded gingerly, shifting rubble by hand, but were switching to heavy machinery to dig up the bulk of the hotel.

“As well as being hopeful you have to be realistic and after nine days, reality says it is more difficult to find people alive but it’s not impossible,” said Chilean Army Major Rodrigo Vasquez.

More than 13,000 US military personnel are in Haiti and on 20 ships offshore. Troops landed helicopters on the lawn of the smashed presidential palace to pick up the seriously wounded and fly them to the US Navy hospital ship Comfort, which has advanced surgical units.

Small grocery shops and barber shops, as well as some pharmacies, were open again in Port-au-Prince, some extending credit to regular customers short of cash.

Banks were to reopen on Friday in the provinces and on Saturday in Port-au-Prince, giving most Haitians their first access to cash since the quake hit, Commerce Minister Josseline Colimon Fethiere told Reuters.

Sensitive to appearances the United States was taking too forceful a role, President Barack Obama said on Wednesday the White House was being “very careful” to work with the Haitian government and the United Nations.

The United Nations is adding 2,000 troops and 1,500 police to the 9,000-member peacekeeping mission in Haiti.

As many as 1.5 million Haitians were left homeless by the earthquake and Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime said some 400,000 of them would be moved to new villages to be built outside the ravaged capital.

The first wave of 100,000 refugees were to be sent to transitional tent villages of 10,000 each near the town of Croix Des Bouquets north of the capital, he said.

Brazilian UN peacekeepers there were already leveling land at a site where the Inter-American Development Bank planned to help build permanent houses for 30,000 people.

The plan would let displaced Haitians help build their own new homes under a food-for-work scheme, allowing them to stay close to the area where they had made a living.

Many for now were jammed into haphazard camps with no latrines, sleeping outdoors because their homes were destroyed or out of fear that aftershocks would bring down more buildings. Aftershocks of 4.8 and 4.9 magnitude shook the capital on Thursday, further stressing traumatized survivors.

The Haitian government and its international partners turned their focus to long-term rebuilding of a nation that was poor and chaotic even before the earthquake.

“Progress is being made,” said Jon Andrus, deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization. “Think of what we started with when the world came crashing down on Haiti. No roads, only rubble and dead bodies. No communication, only death and despair.”

But most of the basics of city life were still missing or barely functional in Port-au-Prince. Hospitals were overwhelmed and doctors lacked anesthesia, forcing them to operate on wide-awake patients with only local painkillers.

Doctors Without Borders said there were 10- to 12-day backlogs of patients at some of its surgical sites and they were seeing infections of untreated wounds.

“Some victims are already dying of sepsis,” the group said.

The United Nations counted nearly 450 homeless encampments in Port-au-Prince alone and urged the government to begin consolidating them to streamline food distribution.

The city’s water system was only partially functional but tanker trucks began to deliver water to makeshift camps where people lined up to fill their buckets.

Violence and looting has subsided as US troops provided security for water and food distribution and thousands of displaced Haitians heeded the government’s advice to seek shelter in villages outside Port-au-Prince.

Hundreds of people waited in a block-long queue to seek visas at the Canadian Embassy, where Canadian soldiers in camouflage kept people back from the gates.

“I have all my family in Canada and they want me to go there. My house is destroyed, I don’t know what to do. I have no one in Haiti,” said Jean Francky Mondesir, 24, whose family was in Montreal. (Caribnet)

Curtis Rampersad Business Editor

Insurance giant CLICO is still struggling to repay policyholders because it is not making money quickly enough.

The recovery of the cash-strapped subsidiary of CL Financial has provided greater challenges to keep it as an ongoing institution, Central Bank Governor Ewart Williams said yesterday.

’Right now there is a liquidity problem,’ he said. ’People are not getting their money fast enough.’

Williams was speaking at a press briefing at the Central Bank tower in Port of Spain to review the economy. (See Story on

Page 10)

Cabinet approved $5 billion to fill CLICO’s statutory fund gap last year and through a promissory note, $1.9 billion was dispensed to repay institutional and individual depositors who were owed hundreds of millions of dollars after CLICO and another CL subsidiary CLICO Investment Bank (CIB) could not cash their investment policies.

Williams said after CIB third party depositors were shifted to State bank First Citizens, a large number of them kept their investments at the bank while about 100 others opted to take deposit insurance payments of $75,000 each.

But the rollover of policies to keep CLICO afloat has been smaller, Williams said.

Speaking to the Express following the press briefing, he said CLICO repaid about 95 per cent of policyholders who held investments under $50,000 and also repaid a ’significant’ number of people who held deposits under $100,000.

The company is attempting to get customers who hold more than $100,000 in policies, and who want to cash out, to ’stretch out’ their withdrawals.

The company has contracted a financial advisor to come up with a strategy to get depositors to stagger their withdrawals into smaller sums, while CLICO finds a way to liquidate some of its assets, he added. The company may announce new plans next month about how it will extend rollovers.

In addition, a forensic report on the financial operations of the company, being done by Canadian investigator Robert Lindquist, is expected to be complete within one or two months, Williams said. (Trinidad Express)

Aretha Welch awelch@trinidadexpress.com

Fill up your tanks, your buckets and conserve what water you do have.

Citizens from areas all over the country are at present faced with little or no water.

Insiders at the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) say the company is now struggling to shift its water distribution cycles to handle the shortage.

Thus far, rainfall for the month has only reached 12 per cent of what the Meteorological Office at Piarco had predicted, and there has been no word from WASA executives on when the situation is likely to improve.

Many citizens whom the Express spoke with across T&T said within the last two weeks, their water supplies have been unreliable. Areas affected include Belmont, Maracas, St Joseph, San Juan, Chaguanas, Tacarigua/Tunapuna and Laventille. Residents of many areas in South Trinidad who have gone almost two weeks without a supply took to the streets last week in protest action.

Residents of La Brea have said sometimes they only receive water twice or three times a month, and the shortage has intensified an already bad situation for them.

The San Juan/Aranguez area has been having supply problems for an estimated eight days now, and Charlieville dwellers told the Express they have not been given a steady supply since January 10.

Sources at the Meteorological Office said they have been urging WASA to issue a statement.

’My tank almost empty and WASA has not even published an advertisement explaining what is happening,’ one woman from Central Trinidad said.

Last Thursday, WASA was scheduled to hold a media conference, but it was cancelled at the last minute.

The day after the cancellation, WASA’s South regional manager Collin Nym met with residents in the Penal/ Debe area where he reportedly warned that the company’s water production potential for 2010 was not at its best, and that the company was revising its water schedule.

Ellen Lewis, WASA’s general manager of communications, said the situation in South Trinidad, which was worse than in the North and in need of dire attention, was being attended to.

She said citizens in areas such as Jacob Settlement, Los Bajos, Palo Seco Branch Road, Waddell Village, Alexander Village and Harmony Hall have already been getting relief from their water woes.

In a statement, Lewis said: ’In view of recent challenges with the supply and distribution of pipe-borne water to areas in South, the authority has taken the decision to appoint Allan Poon King, general manager operations, to head the management of the utility’s business operations in South Trinidad.’

She said Poon King would be responsible for spearheading a plan ’to improve the reliability of the water supply to customers in South Trinidad’. (Trinidad Express)