Haiti earthquake: Angry crowds bemoan lack of government response

The streets of Port-au-Prince are teeming with people. Entire swaths of the city are full of residents, carrying empty water containers, watching neighbors dig out their relatives still buried in rubble, or camping out in plazas and sidewalks and city squares.

One thing that is sorely missing on the scene: the Haitian government.

International firefighters and paramedics have cordoned off recovery sights and are busily trying to rescue anyone who still might be alive. The United Nations forces guard the sites, trying to keep order amid the sometimes frantic desire among family members outside anxious for news. International relief organizations have started to land at the airport, and are slowly setting up operations.

But many Haitians say that in their loss and pain, their government has offered little solace.

“It is either international groups, or personal efforts – individuals looking for their family members or depending on one another,” says Enouk Anglade, a Haitian waiting for news of her cousin buried in the rubble of a building. “In Haiti we do not know how to deal with disasters.”

On Saturday, Haiti's President Réne Préval met with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for an hour in an air-conditioned tent at the Port-au Prince airport, discussing how to coordinate the relief effort. The two will issue a joint communiqué on Sunday laying out plans for delivering emergency aid and for longer term cooperation in rebuilding the country’s communications, electricity, and transportation infrastructure.

But in the streets, Haitian government aid efforts are barely visible. On Saturday, government water trucks began patrolling the streets, mobbed whenever they were
stopped by people desperate for water. And police officers have emerged on the streets, where looting has broken out and where, with so little infrastructure in place, Haitians are bathing in stagnant fountains.

“It is not an easy situation,” says Ralph Stanley Jean-Brice, the head of the Haitian National Police in the zone that covers Port-au-Prince.

He says his force is down by about half, both because of casualties and because officers are attending their own ruined homes and deaths in their families.

At the central gardens, where thousands are sleeping, residents have a view of the cumbled national palace – a powerful symbol of the government's lack of muscle right now.

The situation has angered some Haitians.

“The government has given us nothing, no medical services or water,” says Martine Mateus, tending to his ailing sister who has been sleeping on the ground for days.

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