THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION DISASTER RESPONSE IN HAITI

hemisphere for a long, long time, long before this earthquake struck.<br><br> It is the only country in our hemisphere that seats squarely in what economist Paul Collier has called the bottom billion. Haiti ranks 149th in the United Nations Human Development Index, much, much lower than any other country in Latin America. The magnitude of this disaster has spawned a global response not seen since the Asian tsunami of 2004.<br><br> As we will soon see, despite the best intentions of the international community, this is an exceptionally difficult humanitarian effort due amongst other things to the very weak governance structures presence in Haiti. Also the sheer number of actors involved in the relief effort has introduced a measure of complexity and tension in the relations between governments, multilateral institutions and nongovernmental actors. In many cases, such tension has a lot to do with the very dominant role that the U.S.<br><br> government is playing in the effort, a role that has for the ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 3 most part been acknowledged and appreciated by the Haitian people, but it has ruffled some feathers most notably in Latin America, ever so suspicious of U.S. motives in our hemisphere. At this point the only silver lining that we can identify in this disaster is that its very magnitude may perhaps allow both Haiti and the international community to reach for the reset button.<br><br> Over the past two decades Haiti has become a particularly troubling example of the limited efficacy of international cooperation to turn things around in a country. We all hope that this time it will be different, but those of us who have worked on Haiti before have seen those hopes dashed before. To take stock of the situation and prospects of the ongoing humanitarian efforts in Haiti, to talk about the short-term as well as the long-term of Haiti, we have assembled an exceptionally able and diverse panel that brings a wealth of experience to this discussion.<br><br> I will now introduce them. Next to me is Mr. Allan Jury, the Director of the U.S.<br><br> Relations Office at the World Food Program. He is responsible for managing the program relations with its major partners in the United States including the World Bank headquarters. Mr.<br><br> Jury previously served as the World Food Program's Director of External Relations. He joined the program in 2001 following a 25-year career with the U.S. Department of State.<br><br> Next to him we have Major General Kip L. Self of the United States Air Force. He is the Director of Operational Planning, Policy and Strategy, and Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Plans and Requirements at Headquarters, U.S.<br><br> Air Force in Washington, D.C. He is responsible for the development and integration of operational strategies, organization concepts, policies and plans supporting all elements of aerospace power employment. General Self is a graduate of the U.S.<br><br> Air Force Academy, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology and management. The ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 4 General's staff assignments include political military planner on the Joint Staff, and Country Director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He has commanded at various levels and prior to his current assignment the General was Commander, U.S.<br><br> Air Force Expeditionary Center at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Next to him we have Mr. Karel Zelenka, Country Director for Haiti of the organization Catholic Relief Services.<br><br> We are very lucky because he happens to be in Washington, D.C. today. He coordinates programs that provide food, clean water and other vital supplies to survivors of natural disasters and he has over 20 years of experience in emergency response.<br><br> Next to him we have Mr. William G. O'Neill, Director of the Conflict Prevention Program at the Social Science Research Council.<br><br> Mr. O'Neill is a lawyer specializing in humanitarian, human rights and refugee law. He was Senior Advisor on Human Rights in the U.N.<br><br> Mission in Kosovo, Chief, U.N. Human Rights Field Operation in Rwanda, and lead the Legal Department at the U.N. OAS mission in Haiti.<br><br> He has worked on judicial, police and prison reform in several countries around the world including Burundi, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Timor-Leste among many others. He has published widely on rule of law, human rights and peacekeeping issues. Finally we have our very own Elizabeth Ferris who is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Co-Director of the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement.<br><br> Prior to joining Brookings in 2006, Dr. Ferris spent 20 years working in the field of international humanitarian assistance most recently in Geneva at the World Council of Churches where she was responsible for the council's work in humanitarian response and long-term development. As you can see, we have a group of people who know a thing or two about humanitarian efforts.<br><br> Each of them will speak for 10 minutes sharp and then we ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 5 will open up the discussion to the audience. At that point I'm sure that we all will have a lot to chew on. Without further ado I'll give the floor to Mr.<br><br> Jury. MR. JURY: Thank you.<br><br> The Haitian earthquake represents one of the largest if not the largest urban natural disasters that we have seen in the last 20 years. In terms of its volume of affected people, there have been droughts and war situations that have affected more, but there are several unique things that have posed a unique challenge that the U.N. and the NGO community have had to face, and the military, in dealing with the challenge.<br><br> Certainly one of the biggest is the massive destruction of infrastructure. Most of the country's infrastructure is centered on Port-au-Prince. The quake hit at perhaps the center of virtually all of its transport, its shipping structures, its major government facilities, so you have an immediate loss of virtually all the infrastructure that would normally support a relief operation.<br><br> You have the reality that the first responders, the U.N. agencies and the NGOs on the ground themselves suffered massive losses from the earthquake. For the U.N.<br><br> forces at MINUSTAH, the military mission, the political mission in Haiti, this collapse of their headquarters represented the largest single loss of life of U.N. employees, larger than the Baghdad bombing. Our staff at the World Food Program, 90 percent of our staff, Haitian and internationals, lost their housing and are living in tents.<br><br> We have an heroic story of one of our employees who ran home from work knowing his children were home, who dug his children out of the rubble and returned to work the next day. So the capacities in any natural disaster particularly a sudden-onset disaster, the most important thing in first responders are the capacities on the ground and the capacities both local and international on the ground in Haiti were severely affected in the early stages. Despite that, we've had a tremendous outpouring of international support.<br><br> The U.N. has put together a consolidated appeal which is our basic mechanism ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 6 for mobilizing resources and setting up a work plan. It's nearly $600 million and it's received about 77 percent of its funding, so it's well funded.<br><br> We've established what we call the cluster system. It's a system to bring together the different sectors of relief, food, health, logistics, telecommunications, have a clear lead agency for each and bring all the agencies that are willing to participate together to coordinate the relief work. The cluster system is up and running in all the main areas.<br><br> WFP itself heads three of the clusters as it traditionally does in most emergencies, the food aid cluster, the logistics cluster, and the emergency telecommunications cluster. The initial work as you know focused a lot on search and rescue. A lot of international search-and-rescue teams came in.<br><br> Health services were critical in the early days. But now a lot of it is shifting to the challenging task of food and water which is a bulk commodity and which can't wait. WFP has been doing a lot since day one.<br><br> We had stocks in-country. We lost a lot of access to those stocks in Port-au-Prince itself. Some unfortunate pictures that have misrepresented, that is, food is not being distributed, three our four major warehouses were severely damaged in Port-au-Prince and two of them are so severely damaged that although food is in them, you can't safely get into it to get it out due to the risk of building further collapse with aftershocks and structural damage.<br><br> So we're shipping food in from outside the country from other places. We had programs outside of Port-au-Prince. We're using a range of ways to get in.<br><br> The airport is congested but it's more organized now. We're bringing food in, in conjunction and cooperation with the U.S. military and in cooperation with commercial and civilian providers directly into Haiti, and also via the Dominican Republic where with the destruction of infrastructure and ports you can bring bigger ships in to the Dominican Republic and then you can break it ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 7 down into smaller components using landing craft, helicopters and overland trucks to get it into Haiti.<br><br> We still I think face our greatest challenges in the final stage of distribution, the small trucks, the rubble-clogged streets, the lack in some places of an organized distribution system. We have concentrated our initial food deliveries and we have delivered food to over 500,000 people, nearly 600,000, as it speak it probably will hit 600,000, with over nearly 15 million meals delivered, so we deliver multiple days to these 600,000 people. We initially concentrated very much on orphanage institutions, A, because they had very vulnerable people, and B, because they had some organized distribution capacity.<br><br> We have expanded rapidly each day the capacity to distribute to more general gatherings of populations in Port-au-Prince and outside of Port-au-Prince. About two-thirds of our food distributions have been in the Port-au-Prince area, the immediate city, but as you may know, the epicenter of the earthquake was actually just slightly west of the center of Port-au-Prince in areas like Leogane and other areas that are very affected, not as many people, but in terms of devastation, actually the percentage of destroyed buildings affected as a percentage of the smaller population base much higher. We are hoping in the next few days, really starting today, to develop a more systematic expanded really dramatically expanded food distribution operation based on 15 main distribution centers in Port-au-Prince using both rice and food for those who have access to some cooking and various forms of prepared meals in places that do not have as much access to cooking.<br><br> We're working with a number of NGOs, and I won't go into NGO activity much because we have Karel who's just come back from Haiti from one of the most active partners we have which is Catholic Relief Services who can cover that; to build hot kitchens. But I think as much as the logistical challenges and the ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 8 massive challenges of getting food and water and health care out now, we're trying the longer-term challenge of trying to make sure that as soon as possible we can integrate this into sustainable livelihoods for the Haitian people. One of the things is we're working with our colleagues from UNDP, for example is a program of food and cash for work where we would help generate lots of employment for Haitians actually cleaning the rubble or doing small-scale quick relief activities.<br><br> The U.N. Development Program has already started the cash component of that and is working with us to make it a combined cash-and-food component. So I think moving to early recovery and quick relief, building systems that are not a giant soup kitchen or a giant distribution line, but over time can reinforce and rebuild basic social services in Haiti will be key on the core sectors and I think others will talk about the broader economic and recovery challenges that we need to move forward.<br><br> But I think there is a lot of positive response. I think there's been a lot of progress in a short time, but the challenges are dramatic and significant and we will continue to see a massive relief operation I think for at least several weeks and then hopefully we can begin, even though there will be substantial relief activities, return to normalcy might too strong a word, but building something that integrates more effectively with Haitian institutions and Haitians' lives rather than a giant relief program. MR.<br><br> CASAS-ZAMORA: Thank you, Mr. Jury. General Self?<br><br> MAJOR GENERAL SELF: I've been 30 years doing this. We do combat ops. We are chartered to take care of you and to make sure that the homeland is safe.<br><br> But I'm proud to say that most of my career has been spent doing humanitarian operations around the world. That's something your military does quite well. I'm going to talk about three cases that relate frankly to the two pros on my left and right here that are boots on the ground if you will making a difference right now in Haiti.<br><br> Our job in the military, what we bring to the fight if you will, is the capability ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 9 to gain access. So when you need to get somewhere, the first thing that happens in one of these disaster response missions is you've got to get there. You've got to get a food hold so that follow-on forces, follow-on relief can get in place as well.<br><br> No one is really better capable of doing than your U.S. military. This is truly a joint operation involving all the services under the command of SOUTHCOM who has regional responsibility for the Haiti area.<br><br> So we follow their lead, and I can give you the insight as to what the Air Force is doing, but first of all and foremost, this is also a Marine, Coast Guard, Navy and Army operation as well. You see all those forces on TV. Each has a distinct mission, but number one was to gain access and we were able to do that in the first 24 hours with our Special Operation forces coming on the ground and landing at the Port-au-Prince airfield and building up enough capability to allow airplanes to land.<br><br> Immediately behind that was what we call the Contingency Response Group. I had the privilege of commanding that group in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are able to open up an airfield and start delivering aircraft and able to download that aircraft and begin the initial distribution operations.<br><br> Without the airfield being open, all would stop. There are really phases that occur here and we're in I would say phase two. Phase one is the ability to respond, to gain access where typically it is denied, and after an earthquake you can imagine the infrastructure as Allan has said is very limited, but that airfield becomes critically important for the lifeline to the Haitian people.<br><br> From the get-go we were invited in by the Haitian government to provide that support and our intent all along is to turn that back to them as well as support and facilitate the humanitarian efforts that are done by the NGOs. We are not going to be there for an extended period. We are going to be there as long as the Haitian government needs us there to facilitate their efforts as well as the NGOs.<br><br> Ideally we've ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 10 got some other things going on in the world that require military and that's where we're going to move to. Until then we're going to move into phase two. As I've said, the first one is to respond and the next one is to recover, and we've done a marvelous job in 15 days with the help of our NGO partners.<br><br> In these 15 days we've stabilized, we've stopped the disaster and now we're in the recovery mode. We're talking care of, since we're in an academic environment, the Maslow hierarchy of needs, food, shelter and clothing, and that's being done on a daily basis with our NGO partners as well as the U.N. who is rebuilding their force in the country.<br><br> So as that occurs and we provide security, you can see the priorities of the Haitian government change from day to day. On day one it was food and water. Right now it's distribution of that food and water.<br><br> So they're looking at security of their lines of communication, making sure that the roads stay clear and that that food can actually get to those distribution points. Ultimately we're going to get to phase three which I would call the return phase, return to the Haitian government, get governance by the Haitian people stabilized so they can do transportation, open their schools, get education going, public works are functioning, and now we have mission success. Will this be done in 6 months?<br><br> I heartedly doubt it. I think in the long term folks like Allan and the CRS will make that difference long haul. Remember that we were in Haiti long before the earthquake occurred.<br><br> Folks like this on this panel were making a difference every day down there. So I would leave it at that. That is the Air Force's contribution as well as our other service partners, and if you have questions about capability, I'm really here to talk about that.<br><br> MR. CASAS-ZAMORA: What a bunch of disciplined speakers. Karel?<br><br> MR. ZELENKA: Good morning everyone. My name is Karel and I am the Catholic Relief Services Country Representative in Haiti.<br><br> I am in transit. I arrived ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 11 Tuesday from Port-au-Prince thanks to the U.N. flight out of Port-au-Prince and I came via DRs for debriefings in Baltimore which is our global headquarters, and I'm going now on my R&R.<br><br> First before I start talking, I'd like to thank Allan and the Major General for articulating very well or describing very well the situation. I may not be that articulate because I am more a practitioner, but I would also like to say is to sincerely thank the U.S. military for the heroic effort that they have made to enable access and protection of people who are on the ground and working very hard to help the population there.<br><br> So thank you very much. How many people have heard about CRS? Almost everybody, so I don't have to go into describing what CRS is and what it does.<br><br> It's the social and development branch of the Catholic Church of the United States Bishops Conference and in principle we work through local churches. In Haiti it's the Catholic Church and Haiti has roughly 65 percent of the population Catholic. So we have a wide reach and normally we strengthen the local church, particularly Caritas which is its social development arm, but in this situation we have a special protocol with the church about leading an effort to respond to the earthquake as well as to the almost annual hurricanes.<br><br> CRS has been in Haiti for almost 60 years now and our major involvement has been in the food security area, agriculture and environment, care for orphans or the OECs, education and more recently HIV/AIDS. Thanks to some of these programs we have been very well positioned to respond to the immediate needs in the aftermath of the earthquake particularly medical assistance because we have built relations with major hospitals in Port-au-Prince and other parts of Haiti trying to strengthen them so that they can better treat HIV-affected people. So thanks to this ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 12 particular relation, we have had immediate access to major hospitals particularly Francois de Salle which is part of Notre Dame University in Port-au-Prince.<br><br> In terms of the immediate response, fortunately our office didn't collapse. We have four buildings in Port-au-Prince in a compound. One of them is not usable but three others didn't collapse, and thanks to that none of our staff was killed.<br><br> There were some injuries due to falling objects, but what I want to say is that immediately after the earthquake when we got the staff out, they all rushed to their homes to see what happened to their family members and I didn't see most of the people for a week, traumatized trying to care of their immediate family members and as Allan said for example like the U.N. staff and others, almost all the housing of our staff has been destroyed. If you know Port-au-Prince, the earthquake hit hard the lower parts or the downtown area.<br><br> As you progress higher to the higher elevated areas, there was less and less damage and the highest parts of Port-au-Prince escaped any damage whatsoever. For those who know Port-au-Prince, those are the areas where the super wealthy live. So actually what happened is that the poorest parts, the downtown, was hardest hit, and all the institutions, government, hospitals, universities, they got the direct and hardest hit.<br><br> Out you have basically life as if nothing happened. In a way it's fortunate because some of the ex-pat staff they have left and some of the national staff in the higher parts of Port- au-Prince, so they were not touched by it. What I want to say is the aftermath immediately was that we were staff- less.<br><br> I had nine ex-pats out of a staff of over 300 and about two of them were outside of Port-au-Prince, seven were with me, and so it's difficult to organize yourself with seven ex-pats. Second is communications. There were no communications for at least the immediate day to 2 days and so it was all by word of mouth.<br><br> We were getting stories about for example the U.N. building, the Hotel Christopher that collapsed, then we heard ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 13 about the cathedral collapsing, the archbishop's palace, the government, the National Palace, it was all word of mouth, and whenever we got this news, it was like feeling that's the end of the world here because what else? What's next?<br><br> So communications, and second is logistics, how to move around. The streets were all full of rubble and we didn't even know what's where because there was no communication or no information. I organized the staff and I tried to pull the team together, and we were fortunate to have two warehouses in Port-au-Prince.<br><br> Fortunately we had prepositioned supplies for hurricane season so that we had food, we had water, we had some tents and in Lacai to the south which was not really affected by the earthquake, there is damage but most of the staff were intact. So there we had quite a sizable quantity of water, food, tents, a few emergency items. So we organized ourselves to move these items to the first gatherings of people and the first gatherings were around parish churches.<br><br> So we picked up a number of sites, actually 12 in Port-au-Prince, and we started distributing. But then the access issue and security, this was a big problem because people were getting desperate and we didn't want them to get hurt struggling to get the items. So the U.S.<br><br> military was very helpful. Then what happened was that as we were doing assessments we came across the famous golf club in Petionville and the U.S. Marines landed there so it was already a protected area.<br><br> We estimated initially like 20,000 people were there and it swelled up to 50,000. So during the cluster meeting at the U.N. with WFP we requested that that camp or that site be accorded to CRS.<br><br> So we immediately started bringing food supplies and figuring how to distribute it. Again it's not easy because the security issue is primary and people and control the crowds. I don't want to go into too many details, but I want to emphasize the three major challenges that everybody faced and that's first the traumatized national staff and international staff, and actually absence of national staff for at least a week.<br><br> Second is communications which ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 14 was very difficult. Sometimes important for messages you have to go personally. You take a chance and the confusion, the traffic jams, the panic, et cetera.<br><br> Three was security because it was increasingly evident that people are getting desperate, also there were criminal elements that were taking advantage of the situation. You might have heard about the prisons that were damaged, but prisoners got out while the commissariat, the police stations, collapsed. And like in Delmar which is where our office is, there were a great number of policemen who were killed under the debris by the prisoners who got out and they hold of arms and so at night you would have the shooting particularly in the upper parts of the city because what the criminals were trying to do is to go into these residences of the wealthy people up in the upper parts of Port-au-Prince and rob them, but in many of them there were guards and so you had these shootouts going on mostly at night.<br><br> In terms of the current needs the way CRS sees it I would say still the number one need is medicines, medical supplies and doctors and practitioners because there are thousands of people who may have gotten first aid but they are in need of assistance. Second is food. Water is available.<br><br> It has always been trucked within Port- au-Prince in most sections and the trucks have resumed services. The water is not a big problem. And three and most importantly in the medium or longer term is shelter.<br><br> These people cannot stay in the streets. There are no tents. And sanitation facilities and all that goes with shelter and then with that will be protection issues.<br><br> Longer term in my opinion or CRS's what we are looking at is shelter, but permanent and quality. Maybe it's a chance to really redo Haiti or Port-au-Prince so that there are basic services available and jobs for people because that was one of the main sources of poverty or reasons for poverty in Port-au-Prince was the lack of jobs. I apologize for being -- but some of these things come back when I talk.<br><br> ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 15 MR. CASAS-ZAMORA: Thank you. You don't have to apologize at all.<br><br> Thank you, Karel. Mr. O'Neill?<br><br> MR. O'NEILL: Thank you very much. Thank you all for coming and I'd like to thank Brookings for organizing this.<br><br> I'm going to take a slightly different perspective but I hope it builds on what has been said already. I had hoped to show a couple of slides, one of a school collapsed and people desperately digging with their hands to try to save people including the head of the U.N. peace operation, a Brazilian general.<br><br> Then another slide of desperate families and parents around the school. Then finally, a slide of unfortunately body bags coming out of the school. The reason I wanted to show those slides was not because they were from the earthquake because they were not.<br><br> They were from 14 months before that in Haiti when a school with the ironic and tragically named La Promesse collapsed on a sunny, clear, calm morning and over 80 kids were killed sitting in their classrooms. For me that illustrates the problem of Haiti, the challenge of Haiti in so many ways. Question one, why was the school built on a steep hillside?<br><br> Two, where was the Ministry of Education? Three, where was the Ministry of Public Works? Where were the building inspectors?<br><br> Why was that school built of such shoddy material, watered down concrete? Four, where was the rescue? Where was the Haitian capacity to go and help people?<br><br> And so many questions. That was one school in November 2008. Now we go to barely 2 weeks ago and multiply that tens of thousands of times and that is the problem with Haiti.<br><br> The state has largely been absent. One of my Haitian friends says in fact rather than call Haiti a failed state, many Haitians call it a phantom state, that there is no state there. You see ministries, the ministry of this and the ministry of that, but in fact the government, and it's not just recent, it's unfortunately ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 16 throughout much of Haitian history, has not provided basic services and not guaranteed the basic human rights of its citizens.<br><br> To the extent the state was present, for most of Haitian history it was a predatory state. In the Duvalier era and other dictators it meant terror and it meant oppression, it meant death, disappearance, rape, torture. There has always been a failure to provide basic education, health care, clean water, safe shelter, infrastructure.<br><br> Fifty percent of Haitian children do not go to school. That was true before the earthquake. God knows what it will be now and for the foreseeable future.<br><br> Of those 50 percent, 75 percent go to private school because there aren't enough public schools. Half of Haiti's rural districts don't have schools. But private schools that educate most Haitian children are completely unlicensed.<br><br> There is no regulation or no oversight, so anybody like the guy who built this school can start a school. Can it whatever you want and there's the school. Haitians call these schools ecole bolettes which means a lottery.<br><br> It's like you take a chance. Maybe you'll get an education if you're lucky. Most kids don't.<br><br> A lot of the teachers in those schools can't read or write. There are few textbooks. Forget lab equipment or computers.<br><br> That's Haiti's future. If you look at the demographics of Haiti, it's overwhelmingly young. So for decades now Haiti has not been educating its children.<br><br> The state has outsourced, privatized some basic functions that a state has to give to its citizens. It's the right. The problem with that is maybe it's okay to privatize some things but then you'd better exert some oversight to make sure that they meet basic minimal standards and the Haitian state has never done that.<br><br> Agriculture. That's come up several times. Haiti used to provide most of its food.<br><br> It used to provide enough food for its citizens. That has plummeted sharply especially under Duvalier in the period since 1986 when Duvalier left. Haiti now relies ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 17 overwhelmingly on imported food.<br><br> Part of the problem is here. Subsidized U.S. rice.<br><br> Haitians call it Miami rice which was and is cheaper than rice grown in Haiti which undermined the whole Artibonite Valley which was Haiti's breadbasket which meant a huge flight to Port-au-Prince. Rural depopulation because there was virtually no way for a Haitian to survive in most cases in the countryside. So you have this incredible concentration in Port-au-Prince which you see the results from the earthquake.<br><br> It's the most densely populated part of the Western Hemisphere hit with an earthquake with incredibly shoddy housing. No land use, no zoning, no building codes, no nothing. If there had been a chance for a livelihood in the Haitian countryside, Port-au-Prince would maybe have stayed more or less at the size it was designed to hold which is roughly 300- to 400,000 people and not over 2 million.<br><br> I remember talking to a farmer once in the Artibonite Valley and I asked him when was the last time somebody from the Ministry of Agriculture came to talk to you about your crops, seeds, fertilizer, access to credit? He looked at me and just started laughing. This was the most stupid question he's ever heard in his life.<br><br> What planet had I come from? Of course nobody had ever come from the Ministry of Agriculture to talk to him or any farmer there about what they needed, how they could get their crops to market. I don't mean to sound so negative but I guess I am, but I think I'm trying to underscore the challenge now.<br><br> When people talk about rebuilding Haiti or rebuilding a better Haiti, yes, absolutely, but I think we can't engage in wishful thinking. This is going to be an incredibly complicated long-term task. We're talking about handing things over to the Haitian state, making the Haitian state capable.<br><br> That's great, but the Haitian state was incredibly weak before this earthquake. It's rendered even weaker by several magnitudes since the earthquake, because as we've seen, many leading Haitian ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 18 thinkers, intellectuals, government officials are dead or their families are in distress and it's going to be very hard for them to focus. So how to do that and how to change what's been a phantom/predatory state into a state that actually provides food, education, health care, housing, all the things that Haitian citizens and every citizen in the world has a right to?<br><br> How is that kind of state going to be built? It's not going to be easy and I think Beth may be talking about some of the ways that development can be done right or done better in Haiti, but I think Haiti has one big advantage that I want to mention and that's its Diaspora. Haiti has an incredible large and talented and dynamic Diaspora and a lot of other countries can't claim that same advantage.<br><br> Keeping the country afloat, the remittances Haitians send back to Haiti far outstrip international aid. It's what pays for the funerals or the school fee or the next week's food is that coming in from Western Union from Brooklyn or Montreal or Miami or Paris. How to get the Diaspora engaged in this I think is going to be crucial.<br><br> Again, one final irony. The Haitian Parliament when it was supposed to reconvene this month, one of the first things it was going to consider was a law on dual citizenship because up to now Haitians in the Diaspora had to choose, do I stay Haitian or do I become Canadian, American or French as opposed to the Dominican Republic and most other countries in the region that allow dual citizenship. I hope somehow whatever way is legally possible that the Haitian Parliament can take up that bill and others that would allow for dual citizenship so that the Haitian Diaspora can play an even more intense and leading role in the recovery of Haiti.<br><br> It's not going to be easy, but you see that spirit in Haiti. You see some of the things Karel was talking about, the resilience, the courage, the faith of Haitians. I keep reminding myself if they have the spirit and this faith, that's no reason why we can't be right there with them.<br><br> Thank you. ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 19 MS. FERRIS: Thank you, Bill, and thanks to all of you for your comments.<br><br> I'm particularly moved by the tremendous challenges facing people on the ground in the immediate aftermath of this disaster. It's like to step back a little bit. That's what we do at Brookings, we step back a little bit, and look at some of the ways of understanding and responding to what's happened and particularly focusing on Haiti as a displacement crisis, and secondly as a child protection crisis and ways in which the U.N.<br><br> is responding and which we'll be challenged to respond over the long haul. Natural disasters always displace people. Most of the times it's temporary and it's almost always internal.<br><br> I say temporary but there are still many displaced from our own Hurricane Katrina as well as hurricane Mitch which took place 12 years ago in Central America. Displaced people have particular needs. They lose their documentation and their social networks.<br><br> Frequently they have particular health needs when they move into communities. We see displaced people throughout Port-au-Prince. Some 500 spontaneous settlements have emerged, bit logistical immediate questions about what kind of settlements can be constructed, where, under what conditions to facilitate the provision of immediate relief.<br><br> Questions about tents. Karel mentioned it. It's estimated that there are 1 million are homeless and IOM reporting there are 40,000 tents max in the pipeline.<br><br> What kind of shelter will be provided to people particularly given the fact that the rainy season will be starting in March and April and Haiti's experience with hurricanes suggests that tents may not provide the necessary protection even if we could find the necessary tents. Whenever you deal with shelter there are big questions about how much you invest in temporary versus long-term shelter and when you get into questions of long-term shelter, it's whose houses get built by whom to what standards and do people have titles to the land on which construction is taking place. We learned in tsunami the question of ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 20 housing can also create resentment.<br><br> Different NGOs build houses of different quality creating concerns of people whose houses may or may not have been destroyed and about who is getting what so that shelter is a big issue that comes up with displacement. We see in Haiti right now very large-scale urban-to-rural migration. Perhaps 400,000 people in the last week have moved out of Port-au-Prince to these rural areas and Bill has reminded us of the lack of public services such as education in these areas.<br><br> People originally moved from the countryside to the cities because there weren't many jobs or livelihoods and now they're going back to those communities. For the humanitarian community, the challenge is to ensure the host communities and host families are supported and that there's a way of ensuring that people are able to build their lives in displacement. There are questions about international migration.<br><br> Will Haitians in a week or month make their way to the north coast and get into rickety boats and set sail for Florida? Questions about legal immigration channels being discussed including this morning in the "Washington Post" about a way of relieving some of the pressure. A clear understanding of the importance of remittances.<br><br> Even before the earthquake a million Haitians were kept alive by the remittances from abroad. One sign of hope that I would echo what Bill said is the role of the Diaspora in responding to this. So Haiti is a displacement crisis which needs to be addressed in that context.<br><br> A second issue which is of great concern to the humanitarian community include a few articles appearing in the mainstream press about children and child protection. This is the largest child-protection crisis we've seen in a long time, maybe ever. Somewhere between 50- and 80,000 unaccompanied or separated children or orphans are wandering around in need of attention.<br><br> They do so in a society where exploitation of children unfortunately has a long tradition. The Restavek system which ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 21 some of you may have heard of which sometimes translated as child slavery or a system by which poor families will send a child to live with somebody else ripe for sexual exploitation and other kinds of abuse, trafficking that unfortunately sometimes comes out in the aftermath of these disasters. Normally when faced with unaccompanied or separated children the best responses are to find the family members and tracing efforts are heroically going on at this stage but very difficult given the displacement of so many people.<br><br> A second alternative is to place kids temporarily in family-based care, but given this tradition of abuse and exploitation, there's a reluctance to put kids into families when you don't know what might happen to them. Another thing that's often done as a last resort is to put kids in orphanages. There are some 300 orphanages in Port-au- Prince alone.<br><br> Many of them were destroyed or severely damaged in the earthquake. They don't have the capacity to take those kids. Furthermore, not all of those 300 orphanages are registered with the government.<br><br> Not all of the orphans in those orphanages are orphans so there are lots of questions about child protection. I think UNICEF has done a heroic job in terms of beginning to register those kids who turn up alone. The tracing agencies are critical.<br><br> But UNICEF repots that they have opened three centers to accommodate 900 unaccompanied kids, 900, 50,000. Keep your eyes on the issue of children. A lot of attention in the U.S.<br><br> is placed on adoptions. Adoptions after emergencies are really troubling. An outpouring of support of people, let us help, let us give these kids a good life, but questions about are they really orphans, where are their family members, family members who turn up 2 years later and say I'm desperate to find my child.<br><br> Major organizations have called for a moratorium on adoption during this ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 22 emergency period excluding those who had already been through the process and been verified. So I think that there are so many challenges to face in Haiti. The need to sustain long-term interest and support for recovery.<br><br> After every emergency governments and agencies say we'll be with you forever. We're here for the long haul. But then something else happens and the TV cameras move on.<br><br> We know in the case of shelter that sometimes the most acute needs come 6 to 12 months after the TV cameras have moved on. If I'm encouraged by anything, one of my colleagues at Brookings always complains that we don 9t like to come to our events because they're so depression. But I'm encouraged by an article I read in the "International Herald Tribune" this morning that says over half of Americans have individually contributed something for Haitian relief.<br><br> That is an incredible outpouring of support. I think that the Diaspora can help keep these issues alive. But it's going to require a lot of creating thinking not only by people like us sitting on this panel, but by the Haitian authorities, not just the national government but by the local governments, by community groups, by religious groups to use this as an opportunity to turn things around in Haiti.<br><br> The record for doing this isn't very good when you look internationally, but there is a chance, and certainly the outpouring of support is at least one reason for hope and I hope that my colleague who says that will remember what I say. MR. CASAS-ZAMORA: Thank you, Beth.<br><br> This has been incredibly stimulating, even moving and certainly disturbing. I would like to kick off the discussion with a couple of questions for the panel. My first question is about an issue that Bill did well to put his finger on which I think is the crucial long-term issue which is the governance problem of Haiti.<br><br> I guess the obvious question here is how do we start? Where do we start to give a buddy to the ghost of the Haitian state? There are many ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 23 reasons why this matters, but there is one issue that is a regional concern and here I look to General Self which is the fact that territories that have phantom states very easily become havens for all sorts of unsavory activities.<br><br> So where do we start to give a buddy to this ghost, number one? One of the issues that you can put on the table here is should we start looking for some kind of international regime of trusteeship or things like that for Haiti? That's number one.<br><br> Number two is a question about a side issue if you will. It's an issue that was barely mentioned in the discussion but my sense is that it will become relevant at some point which is the Dominican Republic. Is there anything being done at the moment to help the Dominican Republic cope with the inevitable inflow of people from Haiti?<br><br> I would like to kick off the discussion with those two questions and then we'll open up the discussion to the public. MR. JURY: I'll take the easier one, the Dominican Republic.<br><br> There are actually a lot of these operations both relief and working is being channeled to the Dominican Republic. We are shipping a lot of things via the Dominican Republic and we are setting up logistical and potential distribution depending on how many people might come in areas very near the Dominican Republic border so that I do think that the international response will be well geared to respond depending on the size of displacement and the burden it puts on the Dominican Republic because it's being used as the basic logistical back base for the relief operation right now. Quantities on the food side, but anything large with the port damage you really can't get the big stuff into Haiti right now so a lot of the heavy shipment of food and other things are going into the port near Santo Domingo, Rio Haina or Barahona and then being downloaded to trucks or to smaller landing craft.<br><br> There's a lot of U.N., I'll let the General speak for the military, but NGO support structure in the Dominican Republic, and for the logistical side, locating ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 24 near the border so I think influxes have come in. So far the D.R. has been fairly generous and not as restrictive as sometimes their policies have been on the border.<br><br> We'll see how that goes. It's a long and sensitive relationship between those two countries. But I do think that the international community initially will be relatively well positioned to deal with that sort of surge on the Dominican Republic side.<br><br> I think I'll let someone else take the governance question which really is the hardest question and I think there are those with more experience on Haiti who might be better at that one. MR. ZELENKA: I'd like to add a few items.<br><br> CRS has an office in Santo Domingo and that became a lifeline for our operations in Port-au-Prince. Immediately afterwards we set up major purchasing and packaging and logistics that supply the office in Port-au-Prince from our office in the D.R. and it has been going very well although the capacity is limited because the numbers that you can do for the family food packs that last about 7 days for a family of five and hygiene kits is limited.<br><br> What I want to say is that 3 days after the earthquake I went to the borders and got people, out staff coming from D.R. to help them across the border and also to look at the situation. I saw in that time it was not clogged at all because it was so new there were few people, but what I must say is that the president of the D.R.<br><br> was coming to visit and he was at the head of a convoy of heavy earthmoving equipment which was a must in those days. So that was I think a great help, immediate help, and the president and his media was passing through the borders but it will be more for the U.S. military.<br><br> If you know the passage, if you know the crossing, it is in terrible shape. The road on the Haitian side is being flooded by the rising waters in the lake. It's been sort of makeshift repairs, but it's in a very poor state.<br><br> It really is terrible the road. There if you want to increase the capacity to flow stuff from D.R., I would focus immediately on improving the road and the access. So that's number one if you can register the request.<br><br> ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 25 Second, in terms of the government, it's true that what was noticeable was the absence of any government pronouncement or anything after the earthquake. For 2 days there was nothing. There were a couple of radio stations that were playing just music.<br><br> I could not believe it when we got the radio it was nonstop music. There was no announcement or anything about figuring out the people were killed or anything. So the government was absolutely 100 percent absent.<br><br> Haitians are used to it. Nobody would think of calling a government service or rescue or anything or fire trucks. It just didn't exist.<br><br> I would almost in the long run you need to do something about it, but at the present time it could only hamper the response because they don't know, they have never had experience in that area. The corruption, and I would say that now is the influx of money and tangible goods, it could even worsen because Haitians, I talked with a lot of our staff, I wanted to know about their families and among the top complaints was where is our government? We don't have leadership.<br><br> It has been completely absent. So in the long run or medium term, I personally would think that some kind of a consortium of countries or the U.S. and Canada and maybe the E.U.<br><br> or under the U.N. flag to get together and do this sort of top down because it will require a major effort to rebuild and also to enforce certain discipline and rules. I'm thinking of the Marshall Plan after the Second World War in Europe, I'm thinking of the U.S.<br><br> response to the war in the Pacific, Japan for example, how the U.S. helped Japan to get on its feet, that type of thing because I cannot imagine that we would go back to this fragmentation. For your information, there are 56 political parties in Haiti.<br><br> It's a joke but it's true. So how can you get agreement on anything throughout this kind of divided, fragmented society which mostly is individualistic because of the circumstances? My recommendation would be to think more on the U.N.<br><br> or U.S. and Canada because those are the major players. Let's face it, the U.S.<br><br> and Canada and then the E.U. ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 26 MR. CASAS-ZAMORA: Bill, all eyes are on you.<br><br> MR. O'NEILL: Sure, just a few thoughts. It's a very complicated subject and we need another session on just that issue.<br><br> But I'll take a stab at it and actually Karel anticipated a few points. One is the Marshall Plan idea. That approach is being broached already.<br><br> And looking at Aceh also. I think there was some kind of reconstruction authority in Aceh which included the government. Here I think I would shy away from a trusteeship or like a Kosovo-Timor.<br><br> I don't think that would work so well in Haiti and I don't think it's actually necessary, but I do think some kind of mechanism that has Haitian participation, prime minister, president, then the E.U., U.S., Canada, major donors in this kind of board with votes because frankly the absorptive capacity, all this money it's fantastic, but in the Haitian state there's no way they can absorb this kind of assistance in a rational or efficient way. So I think that's maybe something to think about that's being broached already. I was meeting with the Haitian representative at the U.N.<br><br> yesterday about this kind of notion of a reconstruction authority. You could figure out who could be on it, but something along those lines. Starting somewhere with the Haitian state too, and to be fair to them, part of the reason is a lot of international donors including USAID as far as I can understand do not allow assistance to go to the Haitian government because of the corruption problem.<br><br> It's true that Haiti had corruption, but again many of my Haitian friends say it was as much a problem if not more of inefficiency and sheer incompetence than actual theft. There was some theft to be sure, but to get some folks in there who know what they're doing, managers, and here the Diaspora has come in. Some people are floating the idea of finding 50 super great Haitian managers from the U.S.<br><br> or Canada or anywhere else, put five in each ministry and get them going working alongside the ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 27 Haitian authorities mentoring, advising, counseling to get them to understand this is how a ministry functions, this is how you actually deliver services, this is how you get results. The demand side is another point I'd like to raise. This was starting before the quake, and I'll give you two examples.<br><br> MINUSTAH, the U.N. mission in Haiti, had two very interesting initiatives among many. One was Haiti has an ongoing problem, and this is a civil and political rights issue, prolonged pretrial detention.<br><br> Most of the people in that prison were never charged with anything even though the Haitian constitution has a 48-hour maximum of how long you can be held before you're brought before a judge. Some of the gangs and the bad guys are in there and they're out, and I'll come back to that in a second, but 83 percent of prisoners in the national penitentiary had never been convicted of anything. MINUSTAH started in partnership with the bar association to start legal aid programs in different parts of the capital.<br><br> Guess what? They found that in those areas where there was a legal aid going that the percentage of pretrial detention dropped and dropped quite significantly. So just the fact that you had a lawyer in front of the judge demanding that the client's rights be met or release him or charge him meant the stated to react.<br><br> It started to do what it should do. Similarly, another program was to train Haitian civil society groups on how to analyze budgets because again there were budgets. There are budgets for education, there are budgets for this, budgets for that, but teachers weren't paid, hospitals had no medicine.<br><br> Where did the money go? It was very interesting. When I was there in December I asked a person running the program what's the reaction with the government and she said they love it.<br><br> I was very surprised. I said they love it? Yes, she said because the ground-level people from the Haitian state have been complaining about this year.<br><br> Yes, we're supposed to get this money but we never see it. It's stuck back in the republic of Port-au-Prince where it never comes out. So in fact this budget ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 28 analysis and advocacy and pressure by citizens on the state, account for yourself.<br><br> The money is supposed to be there, why isn't it, was starting to show some results and even parts of the state were happy to have this kind of pressure put on them. There's an approach. You have all these IDP camps now and people who are around.<br><br> This is a chance to do some advocacy, do some awareness raising about your rights about what the state should be providing you. Lastly on the failed state or dangerous state, Haiti was already a transshipment point for drugs and the criminal gangs were deeply involved in that and DEA and the Coast Guard and others were involved because Haiti, if you look at the map it's almost right between Colombia and here. So watch out for that.<br><br> I'll add to Beth's list of issues. Watch out as things are crazy and deteriorating and chaotic, drug traffickers thrive. So watch out for maybe increased drugs coming into the U.S.<br><br> via Haiti. MR. CASAS-ZAMORA: Thank you, Bill.<br><br> We have about 25 minutes. We're going to take a couple of questions from this and a couple of questions from that side and then move it to the panel. Please before you speak I would ask you to identify yourselves by name and institutional affiliation if you have one.<br><br> DR. BROOKS: I'm Andrew Brooks and I'm from Georgetown University. I've heard at other panels and on this one the idea of a lot of people leaving Port-au- Prince as a result of this earthquake.<br><br> In fact, the ambassador to the U.S. from Haiti even said that that could eventually be a positive thing for the rebuilding because Port-au- Prince was never supposed to have that many people in it, so starting off with a decentralization of the country could be a positive thing. I'd like to get your reaction to that because as we also hear, the chances for people outside of Port-au-Prince were negotiable to begin with and couldn't have been helped by this situation.<br><br> ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 29 MS. RIDLEY: I'm Krista Ridley with Oxfam and we're on the ground in Haiti with about 200 staff and providing water, sanitation and shelter and other relief activities. I wanted to pick up a bit on the civil society question.<br><br> I'm glad you mentioned it, Mr. O'Neill, because that's exactly what I was thinking about as to how we can have civil society pressure the state to be more accountable to its people and to ensure that the reconstruction effort meets the needs of everyone given the history of inequities in Haitian society. I was wondering if any of you could speak, perhaps Karel Zelenka or Mr.<br><br> O'Neill, about the state of Haitian civil society and how we might be able to build on whatever they were doing prior to the earthquake so that they can be able to hold the government accountable for the future. I think that's an important element. Thank you.<br><br> MS. SAUER: I'm Jessica Sauer from Georgetown University. One of the questions I had has to do with IDP camps and tent cities and I was wondering what current mechanisms are in place to prevent violence in those places especially against women and children.<br><br> MS. RICHARD: Ann Richard, International Rescue Committee. I was shocked that very early on after the earthquake there was a lot of coverage in the media here in the State about the likelihood of rioting and widespread violence and insecurity.<br><br> It concerned me because I thought that it was a predisposition not to trust the Haitian people to try to recover in a more peaceful way. So I wanted to ask Karel that you mentioned you heard gunshots at night and there was some violence, but do you think that the fears expressed in the media were overstated or appropriate. And I wanted to ask General Self what lessons the military learned from trying to get the balance right between having security for the troops going in to help and then getting operations up and going because I knew there were criticisms from Europeans and others who were disappointed that they couldn't land planes quick enough and yet at the same time I was ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 30 impressed by how quickly the airport was operational again because it wasn't going to run that afternoon after the earthquake.<br><br> Thank you. MR. CASAS-ZAMORA: Let's take this round.<br><br> There were a couple of questions for Beth about the move to the countryside and about preventing violence in displacement camps. Then one for Bill about civil society, and then one for Karel on the fear of violence, and General Self about the balance between security and the efficacy of operations. MS.<br><br> FERRIS: To start with a response to Andrew's question, yes, the decentralization offers positive opportunities particularly with increased investment, attention to long-term transition and recovery, the infusion of money into areas which have been deprived of those resources, but it all depends on how it's carried out with questions of not fueling resentment from those who are hosting these large numbers of IDPs and how long they stay. Welcome wears thin after a few weeks or few months or few years so I think it does offer an opportunity and hope that people are thinking long term. I don't know if Allan or others know more about provisions of security in IDP camps.<br><br> What I do know is that those people who were involved are asking the right questions and are deeply concerned about sexual gender-based violence and see it as a real possibility, but the capacity is pretty limited I think in terms of actually providing on- the-ground security in those very dispersed settlements. MR. O'NEILL: A quick point on that is that the Haitian National Police were also devastated in this attack.<br><br> I think someone mentioned the police headquarters collapsed and a lot of leadership was killed and that a lot of police themselves were killed or their families are in great distress, so on the security side who would provide it if it's not the Haitian National Police it's going to be a big question. But that leads into civil society ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 HAITI-2010/01/29 31 because there's an old custom from even Haitian slave days, combit (?), and you see this I think in the neighborhoods where Haitians just organize themselves, and as Karel was saying, the last thing they would think would be to dial 911 if there were such a thing. So they do it themselves, and so civil society has always been one of Haiti's great gifts and great strengths.<br><br> I'm sure they are reeling under this too. I've been listening to some of the radio stations and after the music they did start to broadcast. Signal FM for anybody who understands Creole, I urge you to get online and listen to Signal FM on the internet because they're doing some really good broadcasts including phone-ins and people are telling about what's happening and how they're organizing themselves and it's quite moving.<br><br> I'm going down on Monday so in a few weeks I'd be able to give you a much better answer because I'm going to be trying to contact in person a lot of friends who I know mostly in the human rights and women's rights sectors, children's rights, who I have worked with in the past to check up on how they're doing. From what I can tell, and Karel was just there, maybe as opposed to the State of the Union message, the state of Haitian civil society is strong and it really is and I think it's going to be with the Diaspora one of great advantages Haiti has as it tries to move forward. MR.<br><br> ZELENKA: If I ma

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