SECRETARY CLINTON: Good morn­ing. Let me begin by say­ing how hon­ored we are to have Pres­i­dent Preval here at the State Depart­ment. Every­one knows how dev­as­tated Haiti was by the earth­quake of Jan­u­ary the 12^th. The Hait­ian peo­ple suf­fered so greatly and the Hait­ian Gov­ern­ment was severely dam­aged. Pres­i­dent Preval, Prime Min­is­ter Bel­lerive, the mem­bers of the cab­i­net, and the pres­i­den­tial staff, along with the peo­ple of Haiti them­selves, have worked very hard these last two months to recover.

The United States and the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity mounted the largest ever res­cue and relief effort. Progress has been made, but not nearly enough, and there­fore, we are hold­ing these meet­ings with Pres­i­dent Preval today and tomor­row and the next day to dis­cuss in depth what we need to do still to alle­vi­ate suf­fer­ing and what we will do together to help build back Haiti bet­ter. The United States alone in this first phase has sup­plied nearly $700 mil­lion in assis­tance. Nearly one half of all house­holds in Amer­ica have con­tributed some­thing to pri­vate relief efforts.

We are prepar­ing for the major donors con­fer­ence in New York on March 31^st, and we are lis­ten­ing very care­fully to Pres­i­dent Preval and the voices of the Hait­ian peo­ple as to what our next steps should be. Pres­i­dent Preval made the very impor­tant point that we must work toward elec­tions to ensure the sta­bil­ity and legit­i­macy of the Hait­ian Gov­ern­ment. I assured Pres­i­dent Preval that the United States would work with the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity to hold elec­tions as soon as appropriate.

There are many spe­cific prob­lems that must be addressed, from how we get peo­ple into safe hous­ing before and dur­ing the rainy sea­son, to how we pro­vide fer­til­izer and seed to Haiti’s farm­ers so that they can begin plant­ing, to how we get Haiti’s fac­to­ries going again and start new fac­to­ries through­out the coun­try, how we con­vince other coun­tries to extend the same favor­able tar­iffs that the United States does under the HOPE program.

So this is truly a work­ing meet­ing, Mr. Pres­i­dent, and I want to assure you again that the United States and Pres­i­dent Obama and our Admin­is­tra­tion remain com­mit­ted to you. We believe in Haiti’s promise and we are com­mit­ted to Haiti’s future.

PRESIDENT PREVAL: (Via inter­preter) Thank you, Madam Sec­re­tary. But first of all, please allow me to express my con­do­lences to all of the Amer­i­cans who were vic­tims dur­ing the earth­quake of Jan­u­ary 12^th in Haiti.

And also, please allow me to express my deep­est thanks to you, my deep­est thanks to the Amer­i­can peo­ple, to the Amer­i­can Con­gress, the Amer­i­can Gov­ern­ment, to you, Madam Sec­re­tary and to your staff, to Pres­i­dent Obama and to Mrs. Obama, for all of the help and sup­port that you have pro­vided to Haiti after the earth­quake of Jan­u­ary 12^th. And of course, the sup­port pro­vided to Haiti by the United States did not start at this earth­quake. In fact, it came way before that.

So we must work together to ensure the con­di­tions that will allow the recov­ery of Haiti. And all of these con­di­tions have to be worked upon – not just the imme­di­ate short-term needs but we must also work towards the long term – good gov­er­nance, all of invest­ments that have to be encouraged.

Today, we are faced with a his­tor­i­cal sit­u­a­tion that will allow us to rebuild, re-found this country.

In the past, every­thing had been con­cen­trated and focused on the cap­i­tal, where the polit­i­cal and eco­nomic elites of the coun­try live, and the rest of the coun­try was neglected. That’s why so many peo­ple came to Haiti – into Port-au-Prince – in the illu­sory quest for work that did not exist, and that is why there’s so much shoddy con­struc­tion, which does not com­ply with stan­dards, and that’s why there were so many casu­al­ties. And that’s why when peo­ple leave the provinces, that’s why each time there is a flood, there are so many deaths. Just last Sun­day, there were 15 deaths due to flooding.

So this is an oppor­tu­nity to not only rebuild Port-au-Prince, but first and fore­most, to invest and to rebuild in the provinces. And of course, the recov­ery of Haiti will take a long time, and every­body must be aware of that. To rebuild Port-au-Prince as it was before would be a major his­tor­i­cal mis­take, and that is the mes­sage that I am try­ing to con­vey not only to the Haitians but also to my inter­na­tional partners.

So in sum­mary, what I would say – let’s take the time nec­es­sary to think about this process about how we should rebuild Haiti. So let’s estab­lish the con­di­tions that will be favor­able to a good eco­nomic sta­bil­ity and good polit­i­cal gov­er­nance. Voila.

SECRETARY CLINTON: I think we have time maybe for one or two, because we have to be at the White House.

Yeah.

MR. CROWLEY: Lach Carmichael, Agence France-Presse.

QUESTION: Good morn­ing to both of you. For Pres­i­dent Preval, please: Sec­re­tary Clin­ton men­tioned orga­niz­ing elec­tions as soon as pos­si­ble. Could you give us a time­frame for when these elec­tions could be orga­nized? And for rea­sons fair or unfair, do you think this would help estab­lish your legit­i­macy more, fol­low­ing a lot of crit­i­cism? And how would it help you accom­plish goals, even short term goals, for the country?

PRESIDENT PREVAL: (Via inter­preter) Polit­i­cal sta­bil­ity is some­thing fun­da­men­tal for the devel­op­ment of a coun­try. I think that is what con­sti­tutes a guar­an­tee for investors, for the pop­u­la­tion, that there is some guar­an­tees, that there’s some secu­rity about their future. We need a par­lia­ment that’s oper­at­ing, that func­tions, that votes laws. You need an exec­u­tive power, you need a judi­cial power. The par­lia­men­tary elec­tions had been sched­uled for Feb­ru­ary, but of course, every­body will under­stand that, due to the con­di­tions, how dif­fi­cult it will be to respect that timetable and to orga­nize elections.

As you know, the coun­try has been severely impacted. The elec­toral body has been deeply affected. MINUSTAH, which was sup­port­ing us, was accom­pa­ny­ing us, has been deeply affected. The OAS has been affected. And of course, there have been many casu­al­ties. All of the death toll has not been fully counted. There have been many peo­ple. So we have to find a way, and the experts will indeed help us find a way to ensure that by the time of my depar­ture, we will find the right way to orga­nize elections.

We must find the right way. We should not try to do things too (inaudi­ble), because we did have some very good sys­tems in place. We did have some maps that existed. But what we must absolutely avoid is that we have a tem­po­rary pro­vi­sional gov­ern­ment that does not enjoy legit­i­macy. We must have a gov­ern­ment that does have polit­i­cal legitimacy.

SECRETARY CLINTON: And we will work –

QUESTION: And what about –

SECRETARY CLINTON: I’m so sorry, Lach­lan, if you will give your ques­tion to P.J. We have to be at the White House lit­er­ally in two min­utes. Thank you very much.

PRESIDENT PREVAL: Thank you. Thank you.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you.

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