Doctors Without Borders: It's Not Clear Who Is In Charge In Haiti

You raised some very good points. The strain on the airport must be tremendous. Having said that when the Secretary of State for the U.S. can fly before two cargo planes from MSF,  there seems to be something wrong with that...

Here is an excerpt of an article, published in USA Today, that may further explain what is going on at the Port au Prince Airport.

Interesting that Doctors Without Borders is doing that much public complaining.

Our local paper carried an article about a team from a local Catholic Medical University, that has been in Haiti - doing operations - for 2 days.   Yes, they had to travel from Santo Domingo, but they seem to be doing fine - lack of sleep not withstanding.

I know of team members from another group that flew to Santo Domingo yesterday. Not sure if Doctors Without Borders feel they deserve special treatment, but some of their complaints - given the circumstances - seem almost petty.

It is a chaotic situation, and circumstances can't be easy, but the locals are the ones that need help after all.

Doctors without borders work is interesting.They are doing excellent work.Situation at Haiti can't be easy for anyone to handle.Any how help is needed.

More U.S. Forces Arrive to Assist with Relief and Security in Haiti - William Ide, Voice of America. About 2,200 U.S. Marines arrived in Haiti on Monday, joining thousands more American forces who are on the ground or just off shore to assist with the country's growing relief needs following last week's massive earthquake. The troop deployments come as concerns over security grow and reports of looting and scuffles on the streets of Port-au-Prince continue. Marine Major General Cornell Wilson says Monday's deployment boosts the total number of American forces in Haiti to more than 7,000. U.S. commanders say more than 10,000 military personnel will be in the disaster zone in the coming weeks. Wilson says the Marines arrived aboard the amphibious ship USS Bataan, and that the sea-based force will conduct a broad range of operations where access is challenged. "The amphibious ships are loaded with helicopters, amphibious vehicles, trucks, generators and water purification units," said General Wilson. "The Marines and sailors will be supporting the interagency relief efforts led by USAID [the United States Agency for International Development]." General Wilson says the Marines will stay as long as they are needed and will work with U.N. forces and the government of Haiti to handle security issues.

Haiti Has a Leader in Charge, But Not in Control - Giles Whittell, Martin Fletcher and Jacqui Goddard, The Times. Tucked between Port-au-Prince airport and the giant UN compound is a one-storey building with no security or reliable communications and only two small suites of grubby offices. Before the earthquake hit, this was the headquarters of Haiti’s judicial police. It is now the seat of the Haitian Government and the office of President Préval, but it is seldom occupied, has no reception staff and people peer through the windows. Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, insisted yesterday that Mr Préval remained in full charge of both Haiti and the aid effort that is still failing to reach those who need it most. Mr Préval himself declares that he is in charge of events and the UN says that it directs rescue teams and distributes aid according to information received from his administration. That administration’s ministerial buildings collapsed a week ago. Critics, and friends, of Haiti point out that it lacked a functioning government even before the earthquake. They are right in the most literal sense now. Six days after disaster struck, the operation to rescue Haiti descended into blame and finger-pointing yesterday as only a trickle of food, water and medical assistance reached hundreds of thousands of victims. Aid agencies and donor countries accused the US military of giving its own aircraft priority. Outside the airport, aid and rescue workers protested that nobody seemed to be in charge as looting and lawlessness rose sharply on the streets of Port-au-Prince.

Aid to Haiti Speeds Up, But Delays Plague Effort - Charles Forelle, Jose de Cordoba and Joe Lauria, Wall Street Journal. One week after an earthquake pulverized Haiti, emergency supplies of water, food and medicine are beginning to reach large numbers of the country's desperate survivors. The number of U.S. troops in Haiti is expected to reach about 10,000 by midweek to help transport emergency supplies, provide security and clear debris. In the interim, however, residents have perished as distraught relatives awaited rescue teams and equipment that didn't arrive in time. Homeless people still camp on the streets, wondering why aid is taking so long. "They say there's help, but it doesn't arrive," said Henock Volmidor, an unemployed hotel worker, at a makeshift refugee camp on Monday. It wasn't supposed to be this way. After the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 that killed at least 230,000 people in 13 countries, the United Nations and emergency-relief organizations vowed to avert the disorganization that plagued that effort. More than 300 charities showed up in Aceh, Indonesia, with little coordination between them. The U.N. established a rapid-response system to coordinate the work of its agencies with nonprofit organizations, an online database to track assistance and avoid duplication, and a special emergency-relief fund that released $10 million within 24 hours of the Haitian quake. The U.N. quickly sent to Haiti an assessment team whose tasks included dispatching search-and-rescue squads that arrived from Iceland, China, France and the U.S. Meanwhile, what was left of the Haitian government put out an urgent request to the U.S. ambassador for help.

Haiti Earthquake Relief is Stifled by Chaos in Port-au-Prince - Mary Beth Sheridan and William Booth, Washington Post. Security has emerged as one of the most formidable challenges in this earthquake-shattered capital, officials said Monday, limiting the ability of the United Nations and relief officials from elsewhere to distribute the food and medicine beginning to pile up at the airport. The U.N. Security Council on Monday unanimously endorsed a proposal from Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to send 3,500 more peacekeepers to Haiti to assist in the humanitarian relief effort, but it was not clear how soon they would arrive. Pentagon officials, meanwhile, said they had about 1,700 troops in Haiti, the vanguard of an estimated 5,000 American soldiers and Marines expected to be in the country by midweek. "Security is the key now in order for us to be able to put our feet on the ground," said Vincenzo Pugliese, a U.N. spokesman. He said a lack of security had limited peacekeepers' access "to the operational theater" - the city beyond the U.N. compound's walls. The acknowledgement came as the streets here filled with people scrambling to survive six days after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake destroyed the Haitian capital. The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, estimated that 200,000 people were killed in the earthquake, far more than the 50,000 estimated over the weekend. The new figure is based on information from the Haitian government, but officials cautioned that it was still only an estimate.

U.S. Task Force Commander for Haitian Relief Says Logistics Remain Stumbling Block - Dana Hedgpeth, Washington Post. Lt. Gen. Ken Keen said progress is being made to get supplies, equipment and other aid to Haitians a week after an earthquake hit this country of 3.5 million people, but said more needs to be done to get planes in faster, repair damaged ports and set up medical facilities to treat the severely wounded. "No one's kidding themselves," said Keen, who is the commander of the U.S. military operation here. "This is an enormous task. We have challenges." As the joint task force commander for Operation United Response, Keen is in charge of the 10,000 U.S. military troops being sent here to help with the humanitarian relief effort in Haiti. He also will help in coordinating the aid efforts from foreign countries. So far, roughly U.S. 1,400 military troops are on the ground in Haiti, with another 5,000 personnel on ships working with helicopter crews to bring aid ashore. Of the 10,000 troops headed here, about 4,000 to 5,000 will eventually be positioned in the island nation. "We want to have enough people in Haiti but not a footprint here," he said, adding that more forces on land require logistics and space.

U.N. Chief Asks Security Council to Authorize More Troops, Police for Haiti - Margaret Besheer, Voice of America. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, just back from a tour of earthquake devastated Haiti, has asked the Security Council to boost the U.N. stabilization mission by as many as 3,500 troops and police as soon as possible. Mr. Ban said the "heartbreaking scenes" he saw on Sunday in the Haitian capital compel the United Nations and the international community to act "swiftly and generously" now and over the longer term. He said most important in the coordination of the massive relief effort is to remove obstacles to reaching those in need and avoid wasting resources. To better support the effort, Mr. Ban has requested the U.N. Security Council temporarily boost the 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers and police in Haiti. "I recommended that the Security Council raise the number of U.N. police officers in the mission by 1,500, or 67 percent, over current levels. I also recommended that the Security Council boost the number of troops by 2,000, a nearly 30 percent increase, for six months," he said. Mr. Ban's decision exceeded the estimates of senior officials, who said Sunday that he would ask for an increase of about 1,250 troops and police.