Clash over Haiti aid flights
By Harvey Morris in New York
Published: January 17 2010 17:37 | Last updated: January 17 2010 17:37
Fuel shortages, poor communications and a logjam at the Port au Prince airport on Sunday continued to hinder a massive international aid effort to Haiti five days after a devastating earthquake in which more than 100,000 are now feared to have died.
The United Nations humanitarian agency, Ocha, warned at the weekend that humanitarian operations might be forced to shut down in the next few days if fuel supplies were not replenished.
As Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General, headed for Haiti to see for himself the extent of the worst humanitarian disaster that the world body has had to cope with in decades, concern grew over delays in the airlift to the capital’s airport, which is under US control.
Alain Joyandet, French co-operation minister, told reporters at the airport he had protested to Washington via the US ambassador about the US military’s management of the airport where he said a French medical aid flight had been turned away.
In Paris, the foreign ministry tried to quash a looming diplomatic spat by insisting Franco-American co-operation was proceeding as well as possible in view of the extent of the disaster.
Mr Joyandet’s complaint underlined the frustration of relief teams dependent on the single runway at the airport to ferry in supplies if they were to avoid 24-hour delays involved in bringing supplies in by road from the neighbouring Dominican Republic.
The French news agency AFP also quoted people trying to leave Haiti as complaining that the US was giving priority to its own citizens. The US military re-established operations at the airport after its control tower was damaged in the earthquake. Kenneth Merten, US ambassador, told AFP: “We're working in co-ordination with the United Nations and the Haitians. “Clearly it's necessary to prioritise the planes. It's clear that there's a problem.”
With telephone communications disrupted by the earthquake after wireless network towers were damaged, Digicel, the Caribbean mobile company, said before the weekend it was pressing to ferry its technicians and equipment to the island state after four planes were turned back.
Digicel’s chairman, Denis O’Brien, said: “We have been in contact with the United Nations and numerous NGOs who are telling us that restoring Haiti’s communications network is a vital first step in this relief effort.”
The UN, with US support, was taking the lead in guaranteeing law and order in Haiti where hundreds of thousands have yet to receive food. The UN had 3,000 members of a 9,000-strong peacekeeping force in Post au Prince when the earthquake struck and units have since been drafted to the capital.
Canada said on Sunday it was sending 1,000 troops to Haiti to double its military presence there.
Canada would have hundreds of vehicles, seven helicopters and two ships available for the Haitian operation once the reinforcements were in place, Peter MacKay, defence minister, said in Ottowa.
The UN confirmed that Hedi Annabi, its civilian head of mission, and Luiz Carlos da Costa, and Doug Coates, its Canadian acting police commissioner, were among those killed in the collapse of the UN headquarters.
The UN’s World Food Programme said it planned to deliver emergency food rations to 40,000 people a day over the weekend as part of an emergency operation that would eventually reach 2m.
An aircraft carrying more than 20 tonnes of high-energy biscuits landed in the Dominican Republic from El Salvador and was heading to Port au Prince by road.
Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, former US presidents drafted in by incumbent Barack Obama to help with the aid effort, on Sunday appealed to Americans to donate to the relief efforts. Mr Clinton already serves as the UN’s envoy to Haiti.
After Rush Limbaugh, the rightwing talk show host, suggested Mr Obama was using his response to the crisis to burnish his image, Mr Bush said it was no time for politics.”There's a great sense of desperation. And so my attention is on trying to help people deal with the desperation.”
The UN Security Council was meeting on Monday to discuss the situation, and European Union ministers, at an emergency meeting today, were to call for an international conference to help Haiti.
EU ministers will assess the cost of providing relief for which the UN has launched a $562m flash appeal.
“This will have to be co-ordinated with the UN and international financial organisations like the World Bank. The ministers will also examine how much more needs to be done to help Haiti," said Cristina Gallach, EU spokeswoman.
