Despair and salvation

HAITI | While the UN grapples with unruly crowds, The Salvation Army peacefully distributes food | Jamie Dean

82nd Airborne keeps order (AP/Photo by Ariana Cubillos)

In a sign of the growing desperation of languishing Haitians, nearly 20 armed men tried to hijack a relief convoy carrying food through Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, the two-week anniversary of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that leveled much of the nation’s capital and killed as many as 200,000 people. Haitian police scattered the crowd by spraying gunfire into the air.

One week earlier, when a group of 18 UN peacekeepers from Uruguay faced down 4,000 people outside the collapsed Presidential Palace in downtown Port-au-Prince, the scene grew ugly. The teeming crowd of starving Haitians swarmed the small force of troops trying to distribute rice and soy oil. The peacekeepers used pepper spray and rubber bullets to keep the crowd at bay before speeding off within minutes. The London Timesquoted one peacekeeper as saying, “Whatever we do, it doesn’t matter—they are animals.”

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It’s a cruel assessment of thousands of Haitians who have shown remarkable restraint in the face of degrading deprivation over the last two weeks. The UN estimates that as many as 1 million people are homeless, and UN emergency coordinator John Holmes acknowledged that aid delivery remains painfully slow.

But in other parts of town, private aid groups are quietly getting work done. Kelly Ponstler of The Salvation Army reported from Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, painting a very different picture than the scenes described by the UN: “At 2 p.m. local time today, the convoy of [relief] trucks arrived. Escorted by four vehicles carrying approximately 40 members of the US 82nd Airborne Division, The Salvation Army quickly took command of the access road. . . .”

Ponstler reported that the aid workers and soldiers were in place within minutes, and said the crowd followed an orderly process: “As smoke billowed from the ravine of smoldering rubbish which runs along the narrow road, family members followed in turn to present their food ration card for a stamp. . . . The [food] packages provide a family of five with a week’s worth of nutrition.”

The bottom line: “An estimated 552,000 meals were distributed this afternoon in less than four hours.”

While the UN grapples with the maddening conditions of delivering aid in Haiti, groups like The Salvation Army are proving a point: Some of the best aid is coming from the groups with long-standing connections on the ground. The Salvation Army maintains headquarters in Port-au-Prince, though their buildings—like the UN headquarters—were significantly damaged in the quake.

Despite the damage, within days Salvation Army staffers formed a plan to be the lead group providing care for a crowd nearing 20,000 people near their compound. At a UN meeting last Monday, The Salvation Army was one of just five non-governmental organizations with a concrete plan for managing a camp. It was the only American group, and the only Christian group with an immediate plan. (The other four groups were Islamic Relief, Portuguese Civil Defense, Turkish Red Crescent, and the German Red Cross.)

As other Christian and secular groups make steady strides, officials from the Haitian government and the UN haggle over how many tents are needed for homeless residents. One thing they all agree on, according to the UN’s Holmes, “We still have a significant way to go before reaching everybody who needs food, and on the shelter side as well.”