HAITIAN PRESIDENT René Préval has insisted the country will recover from last week’s earthquake and said his government was slowly “getting back on its feet”.
As efforts to bring food, water and medical supplies to hundreds of thousands of people left injured and homeless by the disaster continued, however, he stressed the need for better co-ordination among donors and aid agencies involved in the relief operation.
"A country does not die. A people does not die. We're going through a difficult time," Mr Préval said in an interview with the French daily Le Mondeyesterday. "In two years, we have lived through two historic disasters. Last year, four cyclones struck Haiti in quick succession. There has never been an earthquake on such a scale in this region. Yes, we will recover."
Such was the infrastructural damage in Port-au-Prince after the earthquake that the Haitian state could barely function in its aftermath, the president conceded. But he now believed the situation was improving slowly.
“When it happened, I tried to call my ministers. Not one responded,” he explained. “I tried to reach them by car. All the roads were blocked. Today the phone works better. The streets are less cluttered. We have found a makeshift office to function, because the palace, the ministries and the parliament have collapsed. Yes, the state collapsed, but we’re getting back on our feet little by little.”
Mr Préval thanked foreign donors for their generosity but said there was a need for better co-ordination to ensure aid reached those who needed it urgently. “Aid has arrived very quickly . . . But it’s a problem, because aid is arriving at a time when we are not prepared to receive it,” he said.
“When a plane arrives, we are asked, Where are the lorries? Where are the warehouses? What is important is co-ordination, so that we know what we are receiving, when, how, in what quantity, and how it will be distributed.”
Mr Préval said that, despite the collapse of its headquarters and the deaths of many of its staff, the UN peacekeeping force was in charge of security in Haiti, alongside the country’s depleted police force and “aided by the Americans”.
Asked about the extent of US military control, symbolised by the landing of US helicopters outside the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, Mr Préval called for ideological concerns to be put aside. “There are injured people and we are searching for places to put them. If the grass at the presidential palace can be used to help save lives, I think ideological impulses must make way for charity, so that we can help the injured. If it’s on the grass at the palace that they must be treated, then so be it.”