UN chief makes emotional visit to devastated Haiti headquarters, urges patience

UN’s Ban urges desperate Haitians to be patient

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made an emotional visit to the Haiti peacekeeping mission’s devastated headquarters Sunday and delivered a message of hope to the country’s earthquake victims, acknowledging that many of the survivors are growing desperate.

On a whirlwind trip to the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, Ban said he recognized “that many people are frustrated and they are losing their patience.”

The U.N. World Food Program plans to start feeding 1 million people in two weeks and 2 million people in one month, the secretary-general said. WFP spokesman David Orr said the agency hoped to reach more than 60,000 Sunday.

With an estimated 3 million to 3.5 million people in need of aid, Ban was asked whether it would be enough to avoid riots.

“I sincerely hope and appeal to Haitian people to be more patient,” he said. “We do not want to even imagine that kind of situation.”

Ban made a stop at the plaza in front of the severely damaged National Palace where thousands of Haitians were camped out and a group of men and boys were shouting that they needed food, water and work.

“I have seen and I have met many people on the streets in front of the presidential palace,” he said. “They are appreciative of the help of the international community. From their faces and from conversations with them, I saw that they are committed. They are looking for a better future. … I told them that I’m here to give them hope and to bring them a better future.”

U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said he plans to ask the Security Council on Monday to temporarily increase the peacekeeping force which currently has about 7,000 military and 2,100 international police.

He told AP the Dominican Republic is proposing to send a battalion, with about 800 soldiers, to neighboring Haiti. The U.N. would also like to add about 400 police, and Le Roy said there have been several offers.

When the earthquake struck, there were about 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers in and around Port-au-Prince.

Ban said the U.N. force commander told him he had moved some additional troops from outside areas into the capital.

Ban said he has three priorities in Haiti: saving as many lives as possible, stepping up humanitarian assistance and ensuring the coordination of the huge amount of aid coming into the country.

“We cannot waste one minute, one dollar and one person,” he said. “We cannot have vital supplies sitting in warehouses.”

The U.N. chief said Haitian President Rene Preval raised the importance of coordination to get supplies moving to the right people during a meeting shortly after his arrival.

“I assured him that the U.N. will take charge and leadership in coordinating this” relief operation, he told a press conference.

The secretary-general’s first stop was at the collapsed U.N. mission headquarters in the capital, Port-au-Prince, where rescuers worked feverishly to rescue Danish civil affairs officer Jens Tranum Kristensen from the rubble of the five-story building. Staffers accompanying Ban wiped away tears as they viewed the destruction and mourned their dead and missing colleagues.

About 15 minutes after Ban left, emergency workers successfully pulled Tranum Kristensen from the building. He was soon talking and smiling as he was given water, and was taken to a hospital.

Informed of the rescue later, Ban called it “a small miracle and … a great sign of hope.”

The secretary-general’s 5 1/2-hour trip ended on a heartbreaking note, however, with a military farewell to Haiti mission chief Hedi Annabi and his deputy, Luiz Carlos da Costa, whose bodies were found Saturday in the ruins of the U.N. building. Scores of other U.N. personnel are missing, including more than 30 from the U.N. headquarters.

The caskets of Annabi and da Costa were draped with the U.N.’s blue-and-white flag and carried onto Ban’s awaiting jet by U.N. soldiers. Ban bowed before the caskets as the mournful Last Post was played and U.N. personnel clung to each other with tears in their eyes.

Annabi’s stepson and da Costa’s wife, daughters and brother met the plane at Newark Airport and Ban presented each family with the flag that covered the casket.

“This is by far the gravest and most serious and biggest loss of U.N. staff in the history of the United Nations,” Ban said.

(This version CORRECTS name of rescued UN staffer.)