PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — With the National Palace uninhabitable and his own home destroyed, Haitian President Rene Preval is trying to run his country from a dilapidated police station near the heavily damaged national airport.
The U.S. military controls his airport. International aid workers fret about a lack of government control. The Haitian police force is severely overworked.
Saturday brought Preval’s troubles into sharp focus. He convened his Cabinet ministers in a circle of plastic chairs outdoors and hustled to welcome U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Preval also urged aid donors to stop arguing.
“This is an extremely difficult situation,” he told The Associated Press after one meeting. “We must keep our cool to coordinate and not throw accusations at each other.”
Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, with a history of corruption, political infighting and negligent administrations, resulting in decades of poor-to-mediocre services for its citizens, half of whom live on less than $1 a day.
The country slowly had been regaining its footing in the past couple of years, thanks largely to the presence of 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers. New businesses were opening, and former U.S. President Bill Clinton, now the U.N. special envoy for Haiti, had been working to attract foreign investment.
The earthquake has turned back the clock. Law-and-order needs have fallen completely to the 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers and international police in Haiti — themselves coping with tremendous loss.
Secretary Clinton said it would be helpful if the Haitian parliament would issue an emergency decree it expected to debate Saturday.
Such an action would give the Haitian government “enormous authority” to meet the people’s needs, Clinton said, and to delegate tasks to foreign governments trying to help — not replace — the Haitian government.
