By Askia Muham­mad –Senior Correspondent

http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/World_News_3/article_6837.shtml

Haitians dis­placed by the mas­sive earth­quake that dev­as­tated their coun­try form a long line to wait for UN-distributed meals. Photo: United Nations/un.org

Pres­i­dent Barack Obama hosted Hait­ian Pres­i­dent René Pré­val at the White House March 10 as part of Mr. Préval’s visit with top U.S. offi­cials in Wash­ing­ton. He trav­eled to Wash­ing­ton with First Lady Eliz­a­beth Pré­val, just as the Hait­ian gov­ern­ment is final­iz­ing an aid pro­posal ahead of an inter­na­tional donors’ con­fer­ence later this month.

Mr. Obama pledged to help Haiti rebuild fol­low­ing the dev­as­tat­ing earth­quake. “As Pres­i­dent Pré­val and I dis­cussed, the sit­u­a­tion on the ground remains dire, and peo­ple should be under no illu­sions that the cri­sis is over. Many Haitians are still in need, des­per­ate need in some cases, of shel­ter and food and med­i­cine. And with the spring rains approach­ing, those needs will only grow. The chal­lenge now is to pre­vent a sec­ond disaster.

“This pledge is one that I made at the begin­ning of this cri­sis, and I intend for Amer­ica to keep our pledge,” Mr. Obama said. “Amer­ica will be your part­ner in the recov­ery and recon­struc­tion efforts.”

The core of Mr. Preval’s plan—for which he wants U.S. support—is to estab­lish an inter­na­tional trust fund where donors, includ­ing nations, non profit and advo­cacy groups could con­tribute. “We talked about this, and I know we can already count on your sup­port,” Mr. Preval said, “to be the advo­cate of that idea dur­ing this con­fer­ence to sup­port our vision.”

Just ahead of Mr. Préval’s visit, the Sen­ate approved a res­o­lu­tion urg­ing the U.S. rep­re­sen­ta­tive at major inter­na­tional lend­ing insti­tu­tions to push for the can­cel­la­tion of all of Haiti’s out­stand­ing mul­ti­lat­eral debt—about $700 million—or about two-thirds of the country’s total out­stand­ing debt of some $1.2 billion.

The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives also passed its Debt Relief for Earth­quake Recov­ery in Haiti Act, authored by Rep. Max­ine Waters (D-Calif.). The leg­is­la­tion directs the U.S. to seek the can­cel­la­tion of Haiti’s debts to the World Bank, the Inter­na­tional Mon­e­tary Fund, the Inter-American Devel­op­ment Bank and other mul­ti­lat­eral devel­op­ment institutions.

“Every time you elim­i­nate their need to pay debt,” Rep. Waters said in a broad­cast inter­view, “that’s more money that they have to deal with health and edu­ca­tion and infra­struc­ture, so debt relief is very impor­tant for them. That just gives them more money to work with.”

“I am pleased that my bill to can­cel Haiti’s debt held by mul­ti­lat­eral devel­op­ment insti­tu­tions is set to become law,” Rep. Waters said. “Debt relief is essen­tial for Haiti’s future. How­ever, we must also keep in mind the imme­di­ate needs of sur­vivors who, with­out ade­quate shel­ter, will be fur­ther sub­jected to the ele­ments and to dis­ease dur­ing the upcom­ing rainy sea­son. I applaud the efforts of our gov­ern­ment, mil­i­tary, and char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tions for the assis­tance they have pro­vided thus far, and I will be doing every­thing in my power to con­tinue to work with them to alle­vi­ate the suf­fer­ing and attend to the basic needs of the Hait­ian people.”

There is a per­ceived limit to U.S. “gen­eros­ity” how­ever. In an inter­view with the Wash­ing­ton Post, Mr. Pré­val said con­gres­sional lead­ers gave a cool recep­tion to his request for help in over­com­ing a pro­jected $350 mil­lion bud­get shortfall.

Mean­while, two weeks after the earth­quake, the Asso­ci­ated Press reported the Hait­ian gov­ern­ment is receiv­ing less than a penny for each dol­lar the United States spends on aid efforts in Haiti. And of that, 33 cents of every dol­lar was going to mil­i­tary assis­tance, more than three times the nine cents of every dol­lar spent on food.

Mr. Préval’s meet­ing with Pres­i­dent Obama focused on how the U.S. can con­tribute, pri­mar­ily through devel­op­ment plan­ning and debt relief. The Hait­ian gov­ern­ment, along with aid orga­ni­za­tions and inter­na­tional lead­ers, is start­ing to plan reconstruction.

Leonie Heman­tin is deputy direc­tor of the Lambi Fund of Haiti, who attended Pres­i­dent Préval’s meet­ing with Pres­i­dent Obama. Relief agen­cies must look out­side Port Au Prince to the rural areas where a major­ity of the pop­u­la­tion lives, she told Free Speech Radio News.

“We can­not sur­vive as a coun­try when we have 60 per­cent of our pop­u­la­tion with­out access to these most basic rights. Access to water, access to edu­ca­tion, access to health­care. That’s a basic human right.”

At least 200,000 Haitians are esti­mated to have died as a result of the Jan­u­ary 12 earth­quake and thou­sands are still in need of shel­ter and food. The earth­quake cost $14 bil­lion dam­age to the econ­omy and may take that much again to rebuild, accord­ing to the Inter-American Devel­op­ment Bank.

In early pro­jec­tions based on other recent nat­ural cat­a­stro­phes released last month, the Inter-American Devel­op­ment Bank esti­mated that recon­struc­tion costs in Haiti are likely to range from $8 bil­lion to $14 bil­lion. The same study pre­dicted that the earth­quake “is likely to be the most destruc­tive nat­ural dis­as­ter in mod­ern times, when viewed in rela­tions to the size of Haiti’s pop­u­la­tion and its economy.”