Disaster in Haiti is now turning to disgrace. The international community is failing the people of Haiti because no one can answer the simple question: who is in charge? A week after the earthquake, it is unclear who is directing the attempts to get aid to those who need it — and people are dying as a result. Effective government is rarely the direct and immediate cause of life and death. But that is the situation in Haiti today.
Who could provide the leadership that has so far been so disastrously absent? The candidates are America, the UN or Haiti’s faltering Government. There are problems with all three.
America is understandably reluctant to exceed its brief. The US is inevitably central to the relief effort, but it needs the UN to provide a stamp of international authority. The US has already faced childish criticism from President Ch?vez of Venezuela that it wants to create a militray occupation under the guise of humanitarian aid. And yesterday Ban Ki Moon, the UN SecretaryGeneral, had to defend the US (which controls Haiti’s airport) against charges that it had given undue priority to its own military flights.
The UN also faces its own chronic problems in Haiti. Its headquarters were flattened by the earthquake, causing the biggest single-day loss of life in the UN’s history. All that notwithstanding, the UN has made a shameful start to the rescue effort. There is little sense in its decision to make the Haitian Government the arbiter of the relief effort. “We are here to support the Government. They are the ones leading the recovery and reconstruction effort,” said Edmond Mulet, the acting head of the UN mission.
But the Haitian Government — however unpalatable the alternatives — cannot be the solution. The UN claims that Haiti, as “a sovereign nation”, must determine its destiny. But there is no evidence that it is equipped to do so. The presidential palace and the buildings of every key Haitian ministry have been flattened; 3,000 inmates have escaped from jail; the police force is depleted and overrun; and the nerve centre of the Government is now a rundown police station by the airport on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince.
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While lynch mobs and looters endanger the rescue effort, President Pr?val has appeared diffident and baffled. The day after the earthquake, he believed that the disaster had struck at 12 o’clock when it was in fact 5pm. The Government was unable to administer the country even in peacetime. The scale of the current challenge is far beyond its abilities.
Above all, the international community cannot run the risk that the relief effort follows the usual pattern of Haitian government, in which the elite take care of themselves while ignoring the needs of those they notionally serve. Haitian politicians have traditionally done a good job of cornering the market in favours and money. They must not be allowed to do the same with clean water, medicine and famine relief.
So there is no alternative. The UN must accept responsibility for directing the humanitarian effort and promptly appoint a powerful single figurehead to adminsiter it. Nor will the appointment of Bill Clinton as a special envoy to Haiti suffice. Mr Clinton may be a brilliant figurehead who is capable of rallying international heads of state. But he has no practical experience of rescuing and rebuilding a nation in chaos.
That is the job that needs to be done, and only the UN can provide a figurehead with the authority to do it. The turmoil in Haiti demands a leader who is capable of gripping the situation and has a track record to prove it. The search is on. The indecisive and chaotic nature of the rescue effort has already cost too many innocent lives. It is long overdue that the UN stepped forward and found that leader.