Top UN official demands change in Haiti aid approach

Port-au-Prince, Feb 6 (IANS/EFE) The head of the UN Stabilisation Mission for Haiti (Minustah) has said the global community must change its way of working in the quake-hit country to find a solution for its two million people left homeless before the upcoming rainy season.

“The moment has arrived to change the way of working in Haiti … We hope that this tremor also awakens the conscience of the Haitians to assume their responsibilities,” Edmond Mulet said in an interview with EFE.

The Guatemalan diplomat was appointed to head Minustah after the Jan 12 temblor, which killed at least 200,000 people.

Mulet acknowledged the difficulties in the distribution of humanitarian aid to the people, lack of information among international entities regarding the humanitarian assistance and the need to provide answers to problems that are developing.

“Although there is a mechanism of coordination and central information that we’ve established with the government at the level of the UN with the agencies and non-governmental organisations, there are a large number that do not feel linked to that common effort and do it (deliver aid) on their own,” he said.

He confirmed that in some cases the aid is being channeled directly through various embassies, as well as through agencies and religious groups that operate independently.

“They are not asking permission from the government or from the UN or reporting what it is they are bringing in,” he added, noting that Haiti even before the quake was one of the countries that received most of the aid via NGOs.

The public is becoming more frustrated in the face of the problems in the distribution of aid, something that translated Wednesday into a small demonstration against the top local official in the Petionville municipality for allegedly giving part of the aid to his friends and members of his political party.

Mulet called the demonstration an “isolated incident” and defended “working with the local authorities and organisations” to be able to perform an “effective distribution” of the aid.

He emphasised the increase in efforts to get the aid to the people, like the establishment last Sunday of a programme to distribute 10,000 tonnes of rice as the first phase of a food distribution programme.

In addition, Mulet said more smaller vehicles will be brought to Haiti to facilitate aid distribution. About 100 pick up trucks obtained by former US president Bill Clinton - in ways “more appropriate for the country” - instead of the large trucks that are currently being used.

“The matter that concerns us most now also is how to protect these people because the rainy season is coming, the hurricane season,” Mulet said, noting the fragility of the “improvised camps everywhere.”

The Atlantic hurricane season begins June 1.

“They need 200,000 tents … We have to house two million homeless people in Port-au-Prince,” he added.

Mulet emphasised that “Minustah’s priority number one is contributing the humanitarian aid without leaving the lack of safety to the side.”

The task of ensuring security lies mainly with Minustah’s military arm, which consists of 9,065 soldiers and police from nearly 60 countries and is set to grow by 3,500 personnel.

Mulet said the dimensions of the tragedy imply a commitment that does not end with the immediate phase after the quake.

“This is rough, this is immense, this is deep, this has inconceivable dimensions and I hope that the commitment by the international community is permanently solid and long-term,” he said.

–IANS/EFE