International leaders to meet in Canada to coordinate aid to Haiti earthquake victims

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International community meets for Haiti talks

MONTREAL — Foreign ministers and aid groups leading the effort to help Haiti recover from a devastating earthquake met Monday for their first conference on how to channel aid into a country that has lost much of its already poor infrastructure.

Haiti’s magnitude-7 earthquake killed an estimated 200,000 people and left the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere virtually without a functioning government. It wrecked the presidential palace, parliament, government ministries and the U.N. headquarters, among thousands of other structures.

Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said in opening remarks at the Montreal conference Monday that his government needs to rely strongly on its partners but he asserted that Haiti is able to lead the rebuilding effort after the Jan. 12 earthquake.

“Haitians continue to work in precarious conditions but it is in the position to assume the leadership expected of it by its people in order to relaunch the country on the path to reconstruction,” Bellerive said.

However, the Haitian official has previously acknowledged the government was facing serious legitimacy issues as people question whether it exists at all. The destruction of key government buildings has hampered the work of what was already a weak and inefficient state.

Bellerive said Monday while Haiti needs help from abroad, it needs to do more with less and work in a different fashion. He said in the short term they need to help people with water, food and housing.

“The people of Haiti, the Haitian community will need more and more and more in order to complete the task of reconstruction,” he said.

Bellerive said Haiti’s government has set up six groups to deal with issues such as humanitarian aid, housing and security. He said each group is being led by a Haitian minister as well as an international party.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and foreign ministers from more than a dozen countries, eight international bodies and six major non-governmental organizations are meeting at the conference.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said in an interview with The Associated Press on Sunday that one goal is to “physically get the Haitian government back on its feet.”

Cannon said the conference would review the progress of aid delivery to Haiti since earthquake and lay the groundwork for a larger meeting that will focus on long-term reconstruction. He said the initial meeting is not a donor conference where countries will pledge aid. He said he expects to announce the date and location of that larger conference.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters en route to Montreal on Monday that international donors and organizations had been mapping out a plan for Haiti development for months before the quake. She indicated this could be the basis for a revised plan now.

“I don’t want to start from scratch, but we have to recognize the changed challenges that we are now confronting,” she said.

Cannon said the morning session will take stock of the aid efforts. He said ministers will hear from Bellerive, the United Nations and non-governmental agencies such as the Red Cross.

Ministers will meet in the afternoon to work on the steps needed ahead of the larger reconstruction conference, where money will be pledged. Cannon said he expects the date and location of that conference to be announced Monday.

Governments have pledged nearly $1 billion in aid to Haiti, according to an Associated Press estimate, including $575 million from the European Union’s 27 nations.

Monday’s meeting comes as a global army of aid workers was delivering more food into people’s hands in Haiti, but the efforts were still falling short.

International Red Cross spokesman Paul Conneally, speaking from Geneva and just back from Haiti, said there was a growing need to bring in heavy equipment to take down damaged buildings, some of which could collapse at the slightest aftershock.

Decisions will have to be made in Montreal about urban planning for the new Port-au-Prince, he said. “It’s going to require, minimum, a generation to rebuild Port-au-Prince. The Haitians understand that.”

Canada has deep ties to Haiti. More than 100,000 people of Haitian descent live in Canada, most of them in Montreal.