Moontown

The Region’s initial response was spearheaded by Jamaica, the sub-regional focal point with responsibility for the northern geographic zone of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) which includes Haiti among its five countries. CDEMA is the regional response mechanism for natural disasters.

Jamaica Defence Force soldiers on guard at the entrance to the CARICOM medical facility in Haiti. (JIS photo)

Personnel from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, The Bahamas, Dominica, Guyana, Grenada, Saint Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines and the British Virgin Islands, along with Jamaica, form the CARICOM Contingent which has been providing support in seven areas after the initial search and rescue, medical, security and engineering teams had been supplied by Jamaica within 48 hours of the earthquake.

CARICOM’s continuing interventions in Haiti include: Emergency Response Coordination; Medical Assistance; Logistics, inclusive of the distribution of relief supplies and engineers assessments; Security; CARICOM Civilian Evacuation and Resource Mobilisation.

The Region’s interventions have stretched outside of the capital to locations such as Killick, Leogane, Archaie, Montrouis, lle de la Gonave and Gonaives.

The Emergency Response Coordination was primarily to deliver critical technical support to Haiti, while establishing an in-country base camp for a CARICOM-coordinated operation.

In the week following the quake, CDEMA had deployed a Tactical Advance Party (TAP) to meet with the Cabinet Minister of the Interior Ministry, Pierre Andre Paul, to discuss Haiti’s immediate needs and to ascertain how CARICOM could assist.

Against this backdrop, a Special Coordinator, Brigadier General (Ret) Earl Arthurs of Belize, was appointed to ensure that CARICOM’s response on the ground was effective and to establish a link between CDEMA and Haitian officials, as well as international agencies and countries involved in the relief effort.

In an effort to strengthen its Emergency Response Coordination, CDEMA also deployed three experienced personnel in Emergency Operations Management and Logistics to support Haiti’s Civil Protection Department. They assisted in the coordination of emergency response actions in support of the national coordination arrangement - one of the priority areas identified by Haiti. Assistance was also rendered to release the immense backlog of relief supplies and food at the airport which were accumulating, but trickling out.

The Management and Logistics team also assisted in preparing a comprehensive plan to facilitate better delivery of items into the hands of those most in need and establish a plan for sheltering the displaced population.

With regard to Search and Rescue, the Jamaica Fire Brigade and the Jamaica Defence Force assisted in responding to 15 cases with six being rescued. The team has since returned home, after the Government of Haiti called off the rescue mission.

A team of 20 health personnel from the Jamaica Ministry of Health, as well as from the military, are still on the ground providing support to the Centre Sante Bernard Mevs and a Community Hospital in Feres.

The Jamaica Defence Force medical team established a clinic on January 18 and formulated an action plan for the medical and health management of refuges/displaced persons/illegal immigrants, and have provided medical care for more than1,000 patients, so far.

The CDEMA coordinated Logistics and Engineering Assessments resulted in a CARICOM Regional Logistics Centre being established at the Norman Manley International Airport, Kingston, Jamaica to process the inflow of relief supplies from around the Region. Through this amalgamation of relief supplies, approximately 2,500 boxes of relief supplies have been delivered to Haiti.

Arrangements are currently underway for the transport of additional supplies through an air bridge which has been established between Jamaica and Port-au-Prince. The airbridge, via aircraft provided by the Regional Security System, operates two scheduled flights a day.

CDEMA has also deployed a two-man team to boost the capacity of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) in Jamaica to further support the logistic coordination of relief supplies.

Currently in Haiti, the CARICOM Disaster Relief Unit is manned by a 26-member team, which is assisting in the distribution of relief supplies and providing assistance to Food for the Poor organisation in Port-au-Prince in its distribution.

With regard to Engineering Assessments, a technical team comprising senior builders, electricians, and plumbers conducted inspections in five locations across Port-au-Prince. The team’s assessments covered damaged senior citizens’ home, a home for the physically and mentally challenged and the Food-for-Poor-Warehouse.

Since the quake struck, CARICOM facilitated the ongoing evacuation of CARICOM nationals who have made such requests. This facility is critical as it ensures that resources on the ground were directed to the Haitians in need.

The Community has also been engaged in mobilising resources from governments, international donors, the private sector and civil society. These multi-sectoral disaster relief responses have seen overwhelming assistance to the people of Haiti in the form of cash donations, technical resources, medical and humanitarian supplies.

CARICOM also responded urgently to an appeal by the Prime Minister of Haiti to lobby the international community for Haiti’s long term recovery and reconstruction. In this stead, PJ Patterson, Former Prime Minister of Jamaica led a CARICOM delegation to a meeting of a Coordination Committee created to organise an International Conference to devise a Strategic Plan for the reconstruction of Haiti.

The Committee held its first meeting on Monday, January 25, in Montreal, Canada. CARICOM Assistant Secretary-General Foreign and Community Relations, Ambassador Colin Granderson, Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), Jeremy Collymore and former senior United Nations official with experience in disaster management, Hugh Cholmondely, accompanied Mr Patterson to that meeting.

As CARICOM continues its intervention in Haiti, emphasis has been placed on ensuring human rights of the people affected by the disaster is respected. There has also been high priority placed on the security of the multifaceted CARICOM disaster response teams and display of professionalism in all relief efforts.

As the final days of Carnival wind down, the pulsating rhythms from steel pan bands echo throughout the capital city of Port of Spain. Ranging in sizes of small, medium and large, steel pan bands can be heard practicing for Panorama, an annual musical competition that crowns the “best of the best” steel pan players, held the Saturday before Carnival officially begins.

For many, however, the highly contested road march song of the year is where the true test of musical creativity comes into play. The island’s talented soca performers vie for the coveted road march “song of the year” title. Decided by popular vote, the winning song will be chosen on Carnival Monday and then used as the festival’s anthem on Carnival Tuesday. Leading contenders for this year’s crown are JW featuring Blaze with Palance, Blaxx’s Hunting, Faye Ann Lyons with True Lies and Machel Montano’s No Behavior.

Carnival countdown would not be complete without the kings and queens costume competition, held at Dimanche Gras (Big Sunday), the official start to the two-day cultural celebration. During this night of competition, mas band leaders parade across a stage in elaborately designed costumes that often weigh between 50 and 200 pounds, reach up to 30 feet high and are usually attached to wheels, making mobility easier for the brave soul who will spend the next 48 hours in it parading and dancing in the streets of Port of Spain.

Thousands of revelers dressed in ornately feathered and sequined headdresses and matching brightly colored costumes will join the band leaders for the parade of bands, the culmination of the festival, on Carnival Monday and Tuesday.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) — Four weeks after an earthquake shattered its capital, Haiti remains in a precarious situation with no clear idea of how to house 1 million people living in the streets, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said on Tuesday.

Jean-Max Bellerive AFP PHOTO

Bellerive said it could take his impoverished Caribbean nation three or four years to return to its pre-quake state and up to 10 years to rebuild 250,000 houses destroyed by the magnitude 7 earthquake on January 12.

Planning for shelters and new homes is not far along and the number of spontaneous tent encampments around the city — where most Haitians are living under plastic tarps or cloth bedsheets — has grown to nearly 500, Bellerive said.

“We are still in a very difficult situation,” Bellerive told Reuters. “We still don’t have a clear vision of certain problems — how we are going to relocate all those people.”

Bellerive, an economist who became prime minister only two months before the quake, said conditions are improving in some areas, with better food distribution and better health services.

Foreign donors have poured millions of dollars worth of food, shelter and other aid into Haiti, where before the quake most people lived on less than $2 a day.

Bellerive said shelter remained the biggest problem for the government to address. Residents whose homes were damaged, or who are afraid to sleep indoors, have set up camp on the edges of the capital’s airport, the main city square downtown, a golf course, open fields, courtyards of businesses and sidewalks.

During the next four to six months, he said, the government will have to move people to shelters or establish them in camps with better facilities. Haiti’s rainy season could start in weeks, and the Caribbean hurricane season begins on June 1.

“In some places they will stay where they are, (we will) just accommodate them. In other places, we just have to move them. And if we move them we have to give them all the services because they won’t be in the condition to take care of themselves,” Bellerive said.

Sanitation in the camps, most of which have no toilets or running water, is a big concern with the rainy season coming, Bellerive said. The government hopes to have latrines in place before the rain starts and is sending health workers out to counsel residents about the hazards of sleeping, cooking and bathing in the same small spaces.

Although health officials have seen rising cases of tetanus and other ailments, Bellerive said there had been no major outbreaks of disease.

“We believe we are controlling any surge of any epidemics in Haiti,” he said. “We don’t have any epidemics in Haiti up until now.”

The government has said 250,000 homes were destroyed by the earthquake, most of them in the capital, and thousands more may be declared uninhabitable in the weeks to come. Asked how long it would take to rebuild those homes, Bellerive said: “A long time … I’ve said 10 years. I say it will be at least three to four years to go back to the 11th of January.”

Dr Mark Bynoe, Environmental/Resource Economist and Economic advisor, Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, during a lecture on “Climate Change: Human and socio-economic challenges and opportunities for member states of the Caribbean Community”, praised President Bharrat Jagdeo’s LCDS.

Dr Bynoe noted that climate change is more than an issue of carbon emission; it is about the welfare of the people and the country as a whole.

Bynoe said that society should be focused and aware of the affects of the global phenomenon and take necessary action since many are aware of the regional threat climate change poses.

The socioeconomic implications of climate change have posed severe challenges and opportunities for human and social developments countrywide, as such; countries prone to natural disasters have over the years felt the effects of the phenomenon which has become one of the defining issues of the 21st century.

Recognising the importance of standing forest and the role tropical forest can play in climate change mitigation, the University of Guyana in a collaborative effort with the British High Commission hosted this, the third climate change lecture this evening at the Regency Suites Hotel, Hadfield Street.

The aim of the lecture was to address climate change and its impact on CARICOM countries.

“The developed society also is important in this climate change fight …(US) President Barack Obama pointed out that when you have such prosperous discussions, books and reviews, they can only derive the action that are necessary to reduce the impact of Climate Change”.

He noted that in the Caribbean alone it is estimated that as a result of climatic events over the last 10 years, in excess of US$3.3 billion in damage has been realised.

Human and social development will only be met if climate change and its mitigation is addressed, Bynoe stressed.

“Climate change is a reality because we all have seen the threats…lives are often damaged due to this phenomenon and if we do not take immediate action we (country) will not be able to address the matter.”

Representatives of the University of Guyana, the Low Carbon Development Strategy Unit, Iwokrama and the Ministry of Public Works and Communication were also in attendance.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) — A Haitian judge has decided to release 10 US missionaries accused of kidnapping 33 children and trying to spirit them out of the earthquake-stricken country, a judicial source said on Wednesday.

The source said the missionaries, who have been in jail since they were stopped at Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic on January 29, could be released as early as Thursday.

Some of the missionaries jailed in Haiti AFP PHOTO

“The order will be to release them,” the source, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. The decision has not yet been made public.

“One thing an investigating judge seeks in a criminal investigation is criminal intentions on the part of the people involved and there is nothing that shows that criminal intention on the part of the Americans,” the source said.

The missionaries, most of whom belong to an Idaho-based Baptist church, were arrested trying to take the children across the border to the Dominican Republic 17 days after a magnitude 7 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people in the impoverished Caribbean nation.

The five men and five women have denied any intentional wrongdoing and said they were only trying to help orphans left destitute by the quake, which shattered the Haitian capital and left more than 1 million homeless. But evidence has come to light showing most of the children still had living parents.

As part of Haiti’s legal requirements, investigating Judge Bernard Sainvil must send a notice of his decision to the prosecutor. That will be done on Thursday, the source said.

Once he receives the order, the prosecutor could offer an opinion that one or more of the Americans should be held but that would have no legal effect on the judge’s decision, the source said.

The case has been a distraction to the Haitian government as it tries to cope with the aftermath of the earthquake and was diplomatically sensitive for the United States as it spearheads a massive international effort to feed and shelter Haitian quake survivors.

Haiti’s beleaguered government had warned that unscrupulous traffickers could try to take advantage of the chaos that followed the quake by taking away vulnerable children, and it tightened adoption procedures.

After almost six hours of searching, rescue teams using ultra-sensitive listening equipment and specialized cameras said they saw no signs of life, and began to leave the site, which partially collapsed in last month’s quake.

Rescue workers dig through the rubble of a colasped supermarket in Haiti looking for survivors (AFP photo)

They earlier sawed away at debris under the glare of flood lights, trying to find an estimated five to eight people thought to be in the Caribbean Market, at various points asking for silence so they could listen for victims.

The latest collapse occurred as a private contractor was recovering the bodies of those killed in last month’s quake — the victims of which still lay nearby covered in white sheets.

“There were looters inside the building,” site supervisor Meir Vaknin told AFP. “I was trying to get rid of them and when the building fell there were some of them inside.”

He estimated five to eight people had been inside, but the actual number was unknown.

A Mexican rescue worker, Carlos Mendez, said earlier said they had detected two people, and were trying to determine if they were alive.

The five-story building had been popular with well-off Haitians and was the capital’s largest supermarket.

It was badly damaged in the devastating January 12 earthquake that killed around 212,000 people, but remained partly standing.

Vaknin said the collapse occurred Tuesday as he was working at the site with an excavator to remove bodies still there from the quake.

A large excavator could be seen collapsed inside a hole in the ground, which rescuers said was about two stories deep.

“I was sitting in the excavator when it fell in,” he said. “I’m so lucky to be alive.”

He said no one from his crew was hurt.

At least two dozen rescue workers had rushed to the scene from the nearby Hotel Montana, where painstaking efforts are still underway to recover bodies of many foreigners though to have perished there. (Caribnet)

Ria Taitt Political Editor

THE proposed Trinidad and Tobago Revenue Authority will have a staff of over 1,600 persons - a staff complement which exceeds the number of permanent positions of the current Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise Divisions, Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira said yesterday.

Speaking on the TTRA bill in the House of Representatives yesterday, Nunez-Tesheira assured the employees of the both divisions that job opportunities are available in the new Authority.

She also stressed that the Government was committed to ensuring that the VSEP package offered to workers is fair and equitable.

She noted that the Government’s decision to offer a VSEP package has been a major contentious issue. However, she said, ’due consideration was given to the implications of each transition model on existing staff before a final decision was made’.

She said it was decided that the transition model selected would allow the TTRA, the authority and flexibility to set the rules with respect to staffing and to ensure that all the initial staffing is based on competencies, skills and attributes required for the organisation’s proposed staffing structure.

Nunez-Tesheira said the establishment of the Authority was the Government’s response to repeated calls from the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago, the customers and employees of the Customs and Excise Division and Inland Revenue Division; the business community to address inefficiencies and inadequacies in the tax and customs administration system.

She said the Government believed that the proposed Authority was the best mechanism. ’Today I say to the people of Trinidad and Tobago: ’You have spoken and your Government has listened.’

In further explaining the rationale for the new authority, Nunez-Tesheira said it was critical that the collection and receipt of money in the public sector keep pace with the revolutionary changes that have taken place in the way that money is made and transmitted.

’Money is moved between countries and used sometimes for illegitimate and illegal purposes…Effective revenue collection with rigorous compliance and enforcement is one way to contribute to the protection of the national interest in this regard,’ she said.

Noting that there was a nexus between revenue administration and national security, Nunez-Tesheira said this was important with regard to the border protection element of customs administration.

She said, however, that the rules governing the administration of domestic taxes and Customs and Excise were severely circumscribed by the provisions of the public service.

She said although it would have a corporate character headed by a CEO, the TTRA would also be an agent of the State ’fully accountable to Parliament, with the Minister of Finance, as the member of the Executive, exercising general control.’

The Minister said the TTRA would not be subject to oversight by the Service Commissions or the Personnel Development and this would ensure more speedy decision-making. (Trinidad Express)