Former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton shake hands with earthquake survivors during a visit to Champ de Mars near the national palace in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on March 22, 2010

“It will be war – open war,” Max Beauvoir, supreme head of Haitian voodoo, told AFP in an interview at his home and temple outside the capital. “It’s unfortunate that at this moment where everybody’s suffering, that they have to go into war. But if that is what they need, I think that is what they’ll get.”

The quake also left more than a million homeless and much of the capital and surrounding areas in ruins in this Caribbean nation of more than nine million.

Police said a pastor urged followers to attack the Cite Soleil ceremony. A crowd of people threw rocks at the voodoo followers. Rosemond Aristide, a police inspector in Cite Soleil, said he had spoken with the pastor, who agreed to allow voodoo ceremonies there. But he would not explain why no arrests were made.

Beauvoir claimed the Protestant Evangelicals attacked the ceremony along with other people they hired. He also accused Evangelical denominations of using aid supplies to try to “buy souls”. “I would like to see each one of them tied up in ropes and thrown in the sea, and I hope the best of them will be able to catch a plane and run away and leave in peace,” the voodoo priest said. “Because this is what we need right now – peace.” Asked whether he would encourage voodoo followers to respond with the same kind of violence, Beauvoir said he would. “They have not been aggressors,” he said of voodooists. “I think they are aggressive (attacked), and they will have to answer with the same type of aggression. I don’t mean for (Evangelicals) to die. I am not out to kill them.”

About half of Haiti’s population is believed to practice voodoo in some form, although many follow other religious beliefs at the same time. The religion – whose practitioners often use the vodou spelling – evolved out of beliefs slaves from West Africa brought to Haiti. It is now deeply rooted in Haitian culture.

A voodoo priest named Boukman has been credited with setting off the country’s slave rebellion in the late 18th century, which led to the creation of the world’s first black republic. But Evangelicals have been making inroads lately. One Evangelical priest in the middle-class Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville claimed more than 200 people came to his church to convert after the January 12 quake.

“They say that God struck the country,” said Sainvoyus Raymond of the First Baptist Church of Petionville, adding that some converts were previously voodooists. Raymond, however, condemned the attack in Cite Soleil, saying violence should not be condoned and anyone was free to worship in whatever way they chose. Raymond said the disaster was God’s response to all evil in Haiti, including violence and kidnapping.

Beauvoir said the government had brought the earthquake onto itself by denying the country’s roots in favour of the beliefs and habits of “settlers”, referring to Haiti’s colonial past.

“Sorry that it took so long,” said former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s envoy from the UN in Haiti including the capital Port-au-Prince and its region were devastated by an earthquake, January 12 .

“I try to solve the congestion for the shipment of food is carried in sufficient quantity,” he said, promising that he does not want to pose as “governor” of the stricken country.

Saturday, Colonel Gregory Kane, director of command operations in Haiti, confirmed the continued commitment of U.S. forces on the ground. “We will be in Haiti as it will be useful, the military aspect of the operation, under the experience will probably be 45 to 50 days” in everything he said to the press.

“It is a political decision to be taken by the U.S. government,” he qualified, however. The Pentagon has so far released over 200 million dollars in disaster assistance, according to USAID, the U.S. government agency responsible for development aid. He helped transport assistance, both in men and medical equipment, food and drinking water.

U.S. troops have been deployed up to 22,000 in Haiti or in wide, said Colonel Kane, ensuring that it remained current 17,000 including 7,000 on the ground, providing equipment and distribution of food in 16 different sites.
Meanwhile, the 10 American Baptist arrested January 30 at the Dominican border with 33 children described as orphans but undocumented, should be transferred to the men at the national penitentiary for women in prison in Petion-ville on Heights of Port-au-Prince.

“Doing Business”? Not so simple if we are to believe a report from the World Bank is studying the regulation of business in 183 countries worldwide. Haiti therein to 151st rank. “It is very difficult to transact in Haiti and property rights are poorly protected, described Sylvia Solf, one of his editors. We must get the approval from many agencies and the highest authorities of the State to start a business: it takes 195 days on average! ”

Delays are also among the highest in the world to obtain a building permit, connection to electricity and telephone. The World Bank, “we will have rapidly simplify all the basic procedures and secure the title if it wants to attract investors.

And even more so, says Ms. Solf, that “there is a correlation between the complexity of procedures and recourse to corruption.” That is one major concern of donors, while international organizations and “friendly countries” in Haiti were recognized at the Montreal meeting, January 25, the Haitian state, despite governance weaknesses exacerbated by the earthquake was only legitimate to manage and coordinate reconstruction aid for which the total could approach $ 20 billion (14 billion euros).

“The management of this money worries us: we fear that some of the aid is diverted and does not benefit Haitians in need,” warns Marilyn Allien, president of the Heritage Foundation in Haiti, the local branch of Transparency International. This nongovernmental organization has assigned to Haiti note of 1.8 out of 10 in its index of corruption perception in 2009. Only seven countries are rated worse.

“Corruption is endemic in public institutions in Haiti, describes Mrs. Allien. The practice has become routine. The perpetrators enjoy total impunity. It is a practical high performance and low risk for the whole world: officials and elected parliament, the executive, the judiciary, the private sector … ”

The creation between 2004 and 2006, a unit of the fight against corruption, a National Commission on public procurement and a unit of financial information was not enough to clean up the economy. “The head of the National Procurement was kidnapped in February 2006, was never found his body,” sighed Mrs. Allien.

A previous concern especially Transparency International organization denounces the opacity which it claims surrounding the use of program funds to support after the hurricanes of 2008. Including 197 million dollars (141 million) loan from Venezuela under the PetroCaribe funds. “41% of this amount has been allocated to the National Equipment Company, managed by a close associate of President René Préval, said Mrs. Allien. Impossible to know what exactly has been done with this money. According to some allegations, some have served to finance the election platform unit set up by President Préval. ”

The former Prime Minister Michele Duvivier Pierre-Louis, who had requested the audits on the use of these funds has been sacked. It now proposes that the reconstruction is copilotée by Haitian authorities and the international community. It will likely be heard.

“Given the state of the Haitian public, we will develop tools for monitoring and management strengthened, said Bruno Lemarquis, an expert in the office of the crisis the United Nations Program for Development. It is possible that international agencies install their own services on site to implement the programs. ”

Control all the more necessary as the World Bank has proposed to create a single fund bringing together all funding for reconstruction. “However, such a trust fund requires the country to distribute general budget support and not grants arrow on specific projects, observes a French diplomat. This involves a lot of confidence in the ability of countries to manage its budget in a transparent manner. ” Trust: a further element in rebuilding Haiti.

Haiti’s ambassador to Washington since 2004, was invited by First Lady Michelle Obama to join him in his box of Congress to attend the speech by her husband before the elected and the nation, highlight the political year U.S., according to the White House.

Among the guests of Mrs. Obama also included, in addition to Jill Biden, wife of Vice-President Joe Biden, students and entrepreneurs, a veteran wounded in Iraq in combat and a police official military base of Fort Hood ( Texas, south), scene of a fatal shooting in November.

Mrs. Obama has also invited the wife of a firefighter Virginia (is) deployed to Haiti as part of U.S. aid following the earthquake that struck near the capital Port-au-Prince January 12, killing some 150,000 lives, according to an estimate by the Minister of Health of the country.

1. Some small grocery stores are starting to reopen in Port-au-Prince.
2. The sidewalks were crowded with street vendors and kiosks, and many small food stores were open.
3. Dozens of individual fruits and vegetable vendors were out on the side of the streets.
4. The streets were jammed-pack with tap-taps and mini buses.
5. Money transfer offices were opened for the first time since the January 12, 2010 earthquake
6. And finally, Haitian police and U.N. military vehicles were common, and local authorities seemed to take an increased posture.

Source: CNN

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit at 6:03 a.m. about 35 miles west of the capital, near the town of Petit Goave. It struck at a depth of 13.7 miles but was located too far inland to generate any tidal waves in the Caribbean. – MiamiHerald

CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the 40-year-old medical correspondent and practicing neurosurgeon, who turned down the position of U.S. surgeon general in 2009, has stepped in to the fill the very void he was sent to Haiti to cover as a journalist. – cnn.com

Dr. Gupta arrived in Haiti on Wednesday, a day after the 7.0 earthquake that shocked the crowded city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The following day Dr. Gupta examined a 15-day-old Haitian baby girl with a head injury whose mother had died in the quake. After placing the child on a wooden plank serving as a makeshift exam table, Dr. Gupta gently probed the baby’s skull for signs of a fracture. He concluded that she didn’t appear to have a fracture, and then he and a producer wrapped the infants head in gauze.