Who’s running Haiti? No one, say the people

PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – Desperate Haitians  turned rubble-strewn streets and parks into makeshift hospitals  and refugee camps yesterday in the absence of any noticeable  response from authorities in Haiti after Tuesday’s earthquake.

With the 7.0 magnitude earthquake collapsing the  presidential palace, a string of ministries and the  headquarters of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the country,  Haiti faces a dangerous vacuum in security and government.

The Caribbean nation of 9 million people, the poorest in  the western hemisphere, has a turbulent history of conflict,  social turmoil, dictatorship, fragile institutions and  devastating natural catastrophes.

Many in the capital Port-au-Prince picked away at shattered  buildings with bare hands, sticks and hammers hoping to find  loved-ones alive. Thousands of homeless people began to set up  their own camps anywhere they could, the biggest right opposite  the collapsed presidential palace.

“Look at us. Who is helping us? Right now, nobody,” said  Jean Malesta, a 19-year-old student who was the only survivor  when her apartment building collapsed from the powerful quake  that has killed thousands, possibly tens of thousands.

She and a dozen others lay under a tent they had set up in  the park opposite President Rene Preval’s palace. His weak and  under-resourced government appears totally unequipped to handle  the crisis, its officials in disarray and nowhere to be seen.

“So far, they have brought us nothing. We need water, food,  shelter, everything, but we are on our own,” Malesta added, to  cries of agreement from women sitting and lying around her.

A major international aid effort has not yet kicked in,  although plenty of small groups, many from the United States,  have scrambled quickly, moving personnel into Haiti by plane  and overland from neighbouring Dominican Republic.

“The problem is that unlike traditional disaster situations  we have few local partners to work with, because most of them  have had their buildings destroyed and are looking for their  own dead and missing,” said Margaret Aguirre, a senior official  with International Medical Corps.

Haitians are doing their best to survive chaotic conditions  in the absence of any clear leadership, said Latin America  expert Dan Erikson of the Washington-based Inter-American  Dialogue think tank.

“The sad truth is that no one is in charge of Haiti today.  This vacuum, coupled with the robust response from the Obama  administration, has inevitably created a situation where the  U.S. will be the de facto decision-maker in Haiti.”