Moontown

This assurance came during a meeting at Jamaica House on Friday chaired by Acting Prime Minister, Pearnel Charles, and attended by the General Secretary of CARICOM, Edwin Carrington, local disaster relief officials and the Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), Jeremy Collymore. CDEMA is an agency of CARICOM.

A delegation from CARICOM was due to travel to Haiti on Saturday for a scheduled meeting with President Rene Preval to discuss CARICOM’s contribution to that country’s recovery, including a proposed CARICOM primary health intervention programme.

Two days after the devastating earthquake of January 12, Jamaica established a military base facilitating CARICOM and Jamaican troops and health workers. The government received J$10 million reimbursement from CARICOM earlier last week with the assurance that an additional J$30 million is on the way. (Caribnet)

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. AFP PHOTO

Brown was responding to an announcement by Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty after two days of G7 talks in northern Canada. Britain is part of the G7 — the world’s seven leading industrialised countries.

“It must be right that a nation buried in rubble must not also be buried in debt,” Brown said in a statement issued by his Downing Street office.

“The UK has already cancelled all debts owed to it by Haiti and I strongly welcome today’s G7 commitment to forgive Haiti?s remaining multilateral debt. We will work with others to make sure this is delivered.”

Around a million people were left homeless in Haiti after a devastating earthquake on January 12. (Caribnet)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) – From an air-conditioned tent in what used to be a Port-au-Prince bus station, the mighty US military controls its 17,000 troops deployed to help Haiti’s earthquake relief, amid questions over how long they will stay.

US Colonel Gregory Kane (L) speaks to the press at the airport in Port-au-Prince. AFP PHOTO

Colonel Gregory Kane paces across the tent, past rows of personnel — wearing various iterations of camouflage — who tap away at double-thick high-security laptops.

“What’s that?” he shouts to a subordinate who is monitoring developments across Port-au-Prince and beyond.

“We have a human trafficking situation at DP15,” the subordinate responds, apparently referring to one of the 16 food distribution points that US forces police for the World Food Programme.

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

Heavily armed US soldiers, sweating beneath bulky flak-jackets, distributed food just meters away from the cemetery’s collapsed walls, were open graves were clearly visible.

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.

During a visit to Port-au-Prince a day earlier former US president Bill Clinton warned that 16 supply points were not enough to supply the million residents left homeless by the 7.0-magnitude quake.

But it is far from clear that there will be more distribution points, as the battle-stretched US military considers how long it can keep a large contingent of troops in Haiti while wars in Afghanistan and Iraq rage on.

Kane, who previously entered Haiti in 1994 with US special forces as part of Operation Uphold Democracy — a move to support then-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide — said the United States would stay the course.

But he also said it was likely the armed mission could be over by early March.

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

“Then you’ll see a precipitous drop off and you’ll probably see other agencies, other activities, both international and US, to step forward and take on more roles.”

The US military has already reduced its presence in the Haiti in recent weeks, as teams trained to deal with the immediate aftermath of the quake left the country.

On Saturday there were around 17,000 military personnel stationed in country or off its coast, down from a high of 22,000. That figure is revised day-to-day.

If the future of US troops in Haiti is unclear, their role has also been the subject of intense debate.

US troops are authorized to shoot to kill to protect themselves or others, and serve at the invitation of the Haitian government. But their chain of command is more complex.

“The US forces that are on the ground here are here on a humanitarian assistance mission, security is the primary responsibility lies with MINUSTAH,” Kane said, referring to the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti. “They have been doing a phenomenal job.”

Kane insists that the US security role is limited to protecting “high value targets.” But more than three weeks after the quake, in Haiti that still includes a sack of rice. (Caribnet)

ReliefWeb, a UN-operated website providing the latest information to humanitarian organizations, on Friday released a graph detailing funding by countries to Haiti. Guyana emerged as the top country in terms of donations against its GDP, which is just over one billion dollars per year.

About .088 percent of Guyana’s GDP has been donated to Haiti in the form of government aid and personal contributions by the Guyanese people, the UN graph tracking donations showed. On average, each person in Guyana donated US$1.31. The Guyanese Red Cross announced donations of over GY$250 million (US$1.4 million) to Haiti.

Ghana was number two with .018 of its GDP donated to Haiti. The average donated per person in Ghana was US$0.13.

Canada had the highest per-person donations at US$3.92 and 0.0087 of its GDP has been committed to Haiti.

The United States donated an average of US$0.52 per person and has committed 0.0011 of its total GDP.

Following the devastating January 12 earthquake, President Bharrat Jagdeo announced a US$ 1 million assistance for the island and organized a national stakeholders meeting and established a Haiti relief committee, which has managed to raise over GY$60 million in cash and several millions in kind, including food, clothing tents medical supplies and water thus far.

On Friday, cabinet secretary Dr Roger Lunchon said the US$1 million committed by the government will go towards the CARICOM health response initiative.

“Government’s pledge of US$1 million will now be provided to CARICOM to support the financing of the proposed health initiative, concurrent goods, equipment and supplies collected by the committee and other parties in Guyana,” Luncheon told a news conference.

This is apart from the other funds and the other items donated by individual Guyanese, part of which has already been sent to the impoverished Caribbean island. (Caribnet)

Guyana President Bharrat Jagdeo. AFP PHOTO

Jagdeo, a former student at the university, was selected for the award by the institution’s academic board last month.

He attended the university 20 years ago.

In receiving the honour, the Guyanese Head of State praised the institution for its multiculturalism.

The conferral ceremony was held at The Kremlin as part of the 50th Anniversary celebration of the founding of the university, which was established by the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ government on February 5, 1960.

After obtaining a Master’s in Economics in 1990, Jagdeo returned to his homeland and worked in the Ministry of Finance before rising through the ranks of the government to president in August 1999. (Caribnet)

CALLEBASSE, Haiti (AFP) — “I would like to give up my son again,” says Anchello Cantave, a farmer here, who willingly handed over his five-year-old to US missionaries now facing charges of child abduction in Haiti’s post-quake chaos.

An hour outside of the devastated Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, Callebasse is a poor town set in the mountains, where a massive 7.0-magnitude earthquake on January 12 destroyed 50 homes.

Saurentha Muran, one of the parents who give his kids to American missionary waits in Calebasse, east of Port au Prince. AFP PHOTO

Just two days later, 10 American missionaries from the US state of Idaho arrived in town.

To impoverished parents desperate to give their children a better future, they offered the promise of something more — but they also represented the children as orphans when they tried to take them across the border to the Dominican Republic.

Cantave, 36, is convinced that the Americans had only good intentions.

“It’s better for our children to stay with strangers in a foreign country,” he told AFP.

But Haitian authorities have been less forgiving.

After the group was detained trying to cross in the Dominican Republic with 33 children on January 29, they now faces charges of child abduction and criminal association.

“The Americans took the children with permission from us, the parents,” said Fritzian Valmont, the father of three daughters aged 11, eight and two.

“If they had had a big bus that could have taken more children, even more would have gone,” he added, with all the pride of a parent trying to secure the best future for his daughter.

A few feet away from Cantave and Valmont sat Jean Ricia Geffrand, a widowed mother of five and a grandmother at just 47.

“The Thursday after the quake a man named Issac who is from near here came and asked if we wanted our children to go with them to a school in the Dominican Republican, where they would be better off than here,” she said.

The man is believed to have come from a neighboring town and was working as a translator for the American missionaries.

Next to Geffrand sat Saurentha Muran, 25, who cradled her two-year-old daughter Magdalenne in her arms.

She consulted her husband in trying to decide whether their daughter Ansitho should go with the missionaries.

“We discussed it and I asked (my children)… if they wanted to go to school in the Dominican Republic and they said they wanted to go,” said Muran, who like everyone here adds that they received no money for handing over their children.

“We gave them away, and the only reason we want to take them back now is that we have many problems with the media,” said Valmont, to nods of agreement from others close by.

“If, after the trial, the Americans can come and take the children again, we would agree to it,” added Cantave, who is thinking about visiting his son this week at the SOS Children’s Villages, a charitable organization taking care of the 33 children, to clear up the situation.

The children range in age from between two months to 12 years old. SOS Children’s Villages has confirmed their names.

Muran said she would take Ansitho back if she wants to come, but she fears it wont be for the best. She can barely take care of her two-year-old Magdalenne and is eight months pregnant.

Most of Callebasse’s residents are Baptists, but they say they had no idea what religion the Americans were, they simply hoped they would offer their children a better life.

The 10 Americans belongs to the New Life Children’s Refuge, a Christian religious organization whose Haiti mission statement says they planned to “rescue Haitian orphans abandoned on the streets, makeshift hospitals or from collapsed orphanages.” (Caribnet)

Louis B Homer South Bureau

DID OPERATION: Dr Ronald Henry

A new cardiac procedure may save the lives of some heart attack victims in Trinidad and Tobago.

In fact, the number of deaths could be reduced from 30 per cent to under three per cent, according to consultant cardiologist, Dr Ronald Henry.

The survivability rate could be increased through the use of a new medical product - the Promus Element System, which has the ability to allow blood to flow freely through the arteries.

James Beabout, a representative of Boston Scientific, the company that developed the new stenting system, said, ’The new system acts as a scaffolding for the artery and will replace the need for open heart surgery.’

Last Thursday, a 52-year-old man became the first Trinidadian patient to undergo coronary artery stenting using the Promus Element System, in a 45-minute operation done by Dr Henry at the West Shore Medical Hospital in Cocorite.

Henry said ’the patient had previously undergone bypass surgery and the old system of coronary artery stenting’. The patient was discharged from the nursing home on Friday.

According to Henry, ’Stenting is the insertion of a tube into a main blood vessel of the heart, to remove any blockage that may be present.’

Local agent for the Promus Element Stents is Caribbean Vending Services Ltd of Port of Spain.

Chris Camacho, managing director of CVSL, said, ’The product has been in use in Europe and it is the first time it is used in the Caribbean.’

A team of medical experts from Boston, headed by Bill Williams of Boston Scientific, is in Trinidad to oversee the procedure and advise cardiologists on the techniques. The team was present at Thursday’s operation.

The Promus stenting system involves the insertion of a metal tube into a large blood vessel of the leg, called the femoral artery. The tube has an uninflated balloon at its tip. As the tube is advanced into the blood vessel, it is viewed by the cardiologist.

When the tube reaches the location of the blockage, the balloon is inflated and left in place to prevent further blockage. The tube remains in the patients body for life.

Henry said stents will be put into the patient’s body by a cardiologist trained in interventional procedures.

’Systems are well on the way in private nursing homes to deal expeditiously with patients who arrive there with serious chest pains, and I am sure similar systems would be put in place at public hospitals,’ Henry said.

However, he said it was too early to state the likely cost of the new procedure. Health statistics show that on a daily basis, an average of five patients die from heart attacks.