Global News Journal

EU catches up in race to help Haiti

In the six days since a powerful earthquake struck Haiti, the world has responded with vast amounts of aid and promises of long-term reconstruction, something the Caribbean country’s creaking infrastructure desperately needs.

The World Bank and the United States pledged $100 million each, the United Nations promised $10 million and announced a “flash” appeal for $500 million more, and dozens of companies including Google, Microsoft and Bank of America committed $1 million a piece. Hollywood stars, rap singers and tennis champions all immediately raised money themselves or lent their support to encourage donations to the relief effort.

The European Union was, at least initially, a bit more low-key.

The bloc of 27 countries has a foreign aid budget of nearly 8 billion euros ($11.4 billion), around 45 percent of which is allocated to humanitarian relief and development work. But 24 hours after the quake hit, with fears of up to 200,000 dead, the EU as an institution had promised only 3 million euros of “fast-track funding”. Individual member states had made their own, generous bilateral pledges to Haiti, but the EU and its executive Commission was still battling to coordinate a unified response from the 27 member states as a whole.

Two days after the earthquake struck, the EU’s newly appointed high representative for foreign affairs, Catherine Ashton, said  EU ministers would meet to discuss the situation. Over the weekend — with bodies still being dug out of the rubble in Haiti — the EU announced that ministers would discuss holding an international conference on Haiti during Monday’s meeting, but didn’t say when any such conference would take place or where, or what the aid funding target might be.

When the ministers met on Monday morning, emergency relief and long-term reconstruction assistance of more than 420 million euros was announced, including 137 million euros of immediate aid. That will go a long way to helping the tens of thousands of Haitians who still don’t have proper food, water or shelter nearly a week after the quake hit.

The message is clear: when the EU wants to act, it can do so decisively and generously. The problem is, it takes time before the wheels of the 27-country juggernaut start to roll. For Ashton, who must coordinate the EU’s foreign and security policy, including the work of 3,000-strong European diplomatic corps, that is going to be one of the foremost challenges.

from Tales from the Trail:

Helping Haiti: the nightmare scenario

About the only thing that has gone right in the Haitian earthquake is the weather.

The dry, warm nights have been kind to the multitudes of homeless, injured and terrified Haitians sleeping out in streets, parks and pavements all over the nation. Not to mention the ever-growing legion of foreign rescuers, aid-workers and journalists who -- like the locals -- fear sleeping indoors because of still-rumbling aftershocks.

Apart from that, it has been a sheer nightmare for millions of Haitians, and for aid-groups wanting to help them, after the worst disaster on record in the Western hemisphere's poorest nation. No one knows the death-toll, and many bodies still lie untouched in the street, but clearly thousands, or tens of thousands, have perished. The Red Cross here estimates 45-50,000 dead, and 3 million injured and homeless.

It could not have happened to a more vulnerable nation.

Battered by storms in recent years, and still suffering from a long history of political turmoil, Haiti has struggled in the past to cope with far lesser disasters. Its government has precious few resources and the collapsed roof of the white presidential palace in downtown Port-au-Prince symbolizes its impotence. And of course many officials and policemen are too busy hunting for friends and relatives of their own, and picking through the rubble of their own homes, to turn their attention to any sort of nationwide rescue effort.

Local aid groups are decimated too. Many organizations -- including the United Nations, which has 9,000 peacekeepers here -- have suffered damage to their buildings and lost personnel, equipment and supplies. That makes it far harder for the many foreign groups piling into Haiti with lots of enthusiasm to help, but no one to work with.

U.N. staff look as stunned as the Haitians. I spoke to a group of Chilean soldiers who arrived for their tour of duty just a few days before the earthquake struck. "How unlucky was that?" one of them said, sitting on a tractor in front of a mound of rocks he was supposed to move.

from Tales from the Trail:

Haiti … Too Much Suffering

Having hurtled by car through the Dominican Republic to the ramshackle Haitian border, I and four other foreign journalists were desperate to reach Port-au-Prince by nightfall. So after exchanging Ramon's beaten-up taxi for the the back of a modern pickup owned by one of Haiti's elite families, our speed stresses were soon put into terrible perspective.

Just a mile or two into Haiti, a group of people stood disconsolately by the road, trying to flag down any vehicle that would stop, and pointing to the collapsed face of a nearby quarry. "There's someone inside there," one of them said, pointing to a pile of rocks.

Before we had time to even consider helping them, our car -- like all the others in the convoy -- had sped off, kicking up dust. The Haitians driving myself and four other foreign journalists into the earthquake zone took the morally nightmarish decision for us. After all, they had their own missing friends and family to find fast in Port-au-Prince.

Later in the day, after several hours winding round collapsed buildings, and corpses which at first we had mistaken for people sleeping, we found a hotel prepared to take us in. Or at least let us sleep in the open-air by the swimming pool. (The Hotel Villa Creole has generously opened its doors and facilities -- despite considerable damage -- to aid-workers and foreign reporters for free.)

As we pulled up, we were stopped by dead bodies lying in the road, and then a crowd of injured Haitians lying and sitting in front of the hotel lobby where some minimal medicines were being dispensed. As we hauled our four large boxes of drinking-water bottles out of the car, one injured lady held out her hand and asked for water. Then another, and another, and another. Perhaps mindful of the horrors of the quarry, we entered the hotel with half our water supplies gone.

Reuters photos by Eduardo Muñoz and Carlos Barria.

YOUR TURN TO ASK: Karel De Gucht, EU humanitarian aid chief

** This post is from Alertnet, the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s global  humanitarian news Web site.**

Earthquakes, floods, the global recession and recurrent famines have been keeping aid professionals across the world as busy as ever. Such crises hit poor countries the hardest, focusing increasing attention on preventing and preparing for disasters rather than dealing with their devastating aftermath.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, is one of the biggest sources of humanitarian and development aid in the world. For emergency response to recent earthquakes in Indonesia, it has provided $4.4 million – more than any other donor so far.

To help the Philippines currently recovering from two typhoons, the European Union and some member-states have contributed a total of $5.6 million – again, more than sent or promised by any other foreign donor.

How to help the developing world, not just when they are disasters, will be at the core of debates among heads of states, top European Union officials, Nobel Prize winners and other experts at an international conference in Stockholm between Oct. 22 and Oct. 24, called European Development Days.

Ahead of the conference, European Union Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Karel De Gucht will take questions from readers on this year’s topics for discussion: the impact of the economic crisis on developing countries, climate change and the link between democracy and development.

You can participate by using the comments section below or by using the #askEUaid tag on Twitter. Please post your questions by Thursday, Oct. 15.

A month after quake, gratitude turns to impatience

A month after an earthquake killed nearly 300 people in Italy, the initial goodwill towards authorities for their swift handling of the disaster appears to be giving way to anger as survivors face an uncertain wait for promised funds and the prospect of a long summer in tents.

Italy’s government is promising to start providing the thousands made homeless in the central Italian region of Abruzzo with new, furnished houses by September — in what would be record speed anywhere. But continued aftershocks, rain and chilly temperatures have made life increasingly difficult for survivors in tents, which left-leaning newspapers have seized upon to issue long accounts of the “nightmare” of life in the 170 tent camps.

“I feel like I’ve already spent an entire lifetime inside here but only 30 days have passed,” one tent-dweller, Claudio, told La Repubblica newspaper, which said the arrival of reconstruction funds in installments meant some people might have to wait nearly two years for a house.

    A government decree promising 8 billion euros ($10.7 billion) to rebuild the areas devastated by the earthquake has also fallen under a cloud of controversy. Mayors in quake-hit towns complain it undermines their role in rebuilding efforts and the opposition say it is inadequate. 

   Even normally pro-government bodies like the business lobby Confindustria are beginning to question how much money will actually arrive, and when.

   “The first thing that must be done is to understand well how much money is really and immediately available for spending, because businessmen have told us that operations related to re-opening businesses need to be done quickly,” Emma Marcegaglia, the head of Confindustria, said on a tour around the hard-hit town of L’Aquila this week.

PLAYING WITH FIRE — Life in the shadow of an erupting volcano

    You’re having breakfast and the earth starts to shudder. Outside, a column of volcanic ash soars miles into the air. Is this the big one that sends millions of tonnes of ash and molten rock crashing down to vaporize what is left of a volcano-ravaged town?     With Chile’s Chaiten volcano in deepest Patagonia still erupting 9 months after stirring to life for the first time in thousands of years, ripping a hole through the middle of the picturesque town in its shadow, residents like mechanic Cesar Barria Umanzor are running the gauntlet daily.     Looking at the devastation wrought by the volcano when it erupted last May sending ash 20 miles (32 km) into the stratosphere, you don’t have to be a volcano expert to realize the town is a write-off — especially given true experts warn the volcano’s cone could continue to collapse as it did last month, potentially smothering the remains of the town.     With the volcano 6 miles (10 km) from the town, residents reckon they would have around 7 minutes to get out of the way if there is a major eruption. But where to? With the road out in places, that leaves jumping into the sea or a scramble uphill along a scree track.     Houses swept off their foundations as a torrent of ash redrew the course of a river last year lie buried up to their rafters in debris at haphazard angles.  Children’s toys are strewn abandoned in the dirt months on.     The government has decided to move the town wholesale 6 miles up the road. But not everyone will move.     “I’m not afraid. I want to stay here. I built this house from scratch. I started out with one nail, denied my kids candy when they were young to pay for it, and now the government just want me to walk away? Well I won’t,” Umanzor said.     He and his family are among a few dozen die-hard residents who vow to stay put, despite the fact there is no running water and no electricity.     With no cars to fix, Umanzor is instead using his time to work on energy self-sufficiency. He has a diesel generator, but the authorities will only give fuel to emergency services.     So he has connected a series of tractor batteries to a transformer to generate current and is now using hoses to connect a homemade water-wheel to a nearby stream to recharge them. Those batteries kept my laptop going. To read more, click on http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN26229857

Myanmar: Bloggers discuss cyclone disaster

Mong Palatino is South East Asia editor of Global Voices, which monitors citizen media in the developing world. Thomson Reuters is not responsible for the content of this post — the views are the author’s alone.

Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar last weekend which devastated five regions. State-run media reported that more than 22,000 people are found dead with another 41,000 missing. Hundreds of thousands are now homeless. The following is a collection of quotes from regional bloggers about the devastation.

Bangkok Pundit comments on the soaring number of casualties:

“It was 351 then 4,000, then 10,000. Now, even state media are reporting 22,000 dead and 41,000 missing. By the time this is all over, a death toll of over 100,000 is not improbable. The Burmese government can’t handle the situation on their own.”

Indeed, the death toll could still rise. The Irrawaddy explains:

“Witnesses who have managed to get out of Laputta Township in the Irrawaddy Delta have told The Irrawaddy that 22 villages were completely destroyed and that the death toll could be much higher. A local source from Laputta Township estimated a total of 60,000 people could have been killed by the cyclone. This estimate could not be independently confirmed.”

Rule of Lords gathers eyewitness accounts of the disaster: