In Haiti: Re-locate One Million Stricken to High Ground, Start Rebuilding Before Flood Season

Feb. 26 (LPAC)--In the first phase of assistance to Haiti after the Jan. 12 earthquake, search-and-rescue operations took place, along with emergency medical care; this has been followed by the present phase of efforts to supply food, water, hygiene and shelter--all of which are inadequate in scale, and doomed in intent so far, because there is no mission to rapidly re-locate the 1.1 million quake-zone Haitions to higher ground and safety.

The rainy season April-October is imminent, which means guaranteed floods, landslides, and diseases. The Red Cross
reports that already, the number of cases of diarrhea and malaria are on the rise. One U.S. Army serviceman has contracted leptospirosis. In addition, quake after-shocks are expected in this zone over the next 3-12 month period. The stricken throughout the nearly 500 congested camps in Port-au-Prince, Leogane, and the other towns at the epicenter of the quake, must be removed to new, provisioned civilian camps in other parts of the country, while infrastructure plans are set in motion to build a modern economy and restore a nation.

On Feb. 22, Lyndon LaRouche called for this approach, warning that the obstacle to taking needed emergency action, is President Obama staying in office. Yesterday, LaRouche again stressed, that there must be a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approach. "What has to be done... is an evacuation of people to areas where the flooding is not going to be severe, which would be a catastrophe now, where people are now." Logistics experts internationally are extending agreement and proposals in response to LaRouche's call. For example, besides the Army Corps of Engineers itself, the U.S. Navy Seabees--emergency construction specialists--has one of its two principal bases on the Gulf of Mexico at Biloxi, Mississippi.

Two possible reception regions for large-scale, interim civilian camps, have been proposed in the departments (states) to the north of the Port-au-Prince earthquake zone, on the plains of Arbonite and Centre, and in the Nord department.

In opposition to this approach, the Obama Administration is operating through its institutional chain-of-command, to have the Agency for International Development (AID) restrict relief to only the most de-limited kind of aid for Haiti. Under AID (in the State Department), the U.S. military SOUTHCOM, has made the most minimal deployment of the Army Corps of Engineers contingent in Haiti, and is also drawing out forces. At peak, there were 20,000 U.S. servicemen detailed to provide aid support in Haiti, now down to some 12,500. There is no follow-on at all for large-scale re-location out of the threatened population out of the danger zone.

AID Administrator Rajiv Shah, appointed by Obama last October, has not even given a public briefing on U.S. Haiti disaster relief since Feb. 12. A Feb. 18 AID Fact Sheet gives brief specifics on how the $450 million U.S. Federal aid
allocation is being spent for food, water, etc.

In short, AID, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent, the World Food Program, along with scores of other aid agencies, and military and relief forces from many nations including Brazil, Venezuela, Canada, Cuba, and others around the world, are trying to provide food, water and shelter logistics--all desperately needed, for the hundreds of thousands displaced. But even if it all were to work overnight, there is no flood protection, no landslide protection, and no public health infrastructure, in a known "high hazard" zone of the Western Hemisphere.

The U.S. Geological Survey on Feb. 23 gave updated assessments for likely aftershock activity, projecting that for a magnitude 5 or greater on the seismic scale of 10, there is a 55% chance of activity in the next 30 days; 80% in the next 90 days; and 95% within a year, in the fault zone through the Caribbean, along which Haiti was already hit. (mgm)