HAITI EMERGENCY AID CONFERENCE OPENS IN MONTREAL
AZG DAILY
26-01-2010
International
MONTREAL (AFP) – Top world officials gathered in Montreal on Monday
for emergency talks to hash out plans to rebuild Haiti, nearly two
weeks after a killer earthquake devastated the impoverished nation.
Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, Canadian Prime Minister
Stephen Harper, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and officials
from the United Nations were among those taking part.
Canada is eager to assert its role in coordinating the emergency
response to the January 12 disaster, which left more than 150,000
dead and hundreds of thousands others homeless, hungry and wounded.
"Know that Canada, the group of friends of Haiti and the international
community and non-governmental groups are pledging our support during
this period of crisis and beyond," Canada’s Foreign Minister Lawrence
Cannon told Bellerive.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, founder of the international
charity Doctors Without Borders, was also participating in the six-hour
closed-door talks.
The ministers were discussing how to streamline delivery of food,
water, drugs and medical supplies to the swelling number of
people living in makeshift camps around the shattered capital of
Port-au-Prince.
Speaking here Sunday, Bellerive urged Haitians living abroad to
actively participate in rebuilding the country.
"There is no other solution today but the Haitian diaspora’s
integration in the reconstruction effort," he said.
Washington has taken a frontline role in the disaster relief effort,
sending in tens of thousands of troops and rescue teams and anchoring
a hospital ship offshore to treat injured Haitians.
Television and Internet images of the destitute and dying — as the
able-bodied search amid the tangled steel and concrete rubble of the
capital — have triggered a worldwide outpouring of donations.
Donor countries are seeking to use the groundswell of support for
Haiti as an opportunity to transform a country that has historically
faced grinding poverty, political corruption and bloodshed.
Diplomats have raised the possibility of a kind of Marshall Plan for
the island nation, similar to the US-led postwar reconstruction of
Europe, which would take decades and require a colossal commitment
of resources and money.
Experts have warned that hundreds of thousands of Haitians will be
living off foreign aid and in temporary housing for years to come
during the slow reconstruction process. Thousands have been left
disabled.
In Ottawa, Cannon spoke of Canada’s intention to "fully support Prime
Minister Jean-Max Bellerive’s commitment to move beyond reconstruction
to rebuild a new Haiti."
The conservative government is keen to shore up political support
for Canada’s role in assisting Haiti as it faces growing protests
at home for its decision to prorogue parliament until March while it
deals with the Haiti crisis.
"Prime Minister Stephen Harper is fully engaged in the humanitarian
response to this devastating earthquake, and has set in motion a rapid,
comprehensive and determined disaster-relief effort on behalf of the
government of Canada," Cannon said.
Foreign ministers and other officials from Brazil, Chile, Peru,
Uruguay, Mexico, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Japan and Spain
were also set to participate in the emergency meeting.
They were joined by officials from the European Union, the Organization
of American States, the Inter-American Development Bank, the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Japan said it would pledge 70 million dollars in aid to Haiti and
deploy as many as 300 peacekeepers to the UN mission there.
Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, leftist regimes that have criticized
the presence US troops on Haiti soil, did not participate in the
conference. But their foreign ministers met in Caracas Sunday to
discuss their own assistance program.
The Montreal talks were expected to lay the groundwork for a
full-fledged donors conference on Haiti in the coming weeks.