Haitian Government

Dumped in a squalid holding cell and then shunned by a society he doesn't know, Patrick Escarment struggles to learn Creole and build a life in earthquake-devastated Haiti. His arrival here this year was not voluntary. Escarment was in the first group of Haitians with criminal records to be deported from the United States to Haiti after a one-year moratorium. After the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake that destroyed most of this capital and killed more than 300,000 people, the Obama administration suspended deportations.

Instead of the commuters typically packed into the bright blue and red "tap tap" pickup truck weaving through Haiti's capital, a man, shrunken, dehydrated, dressed in a diaper and attached to an IV, lay on the floor. As the ad-hoc ambulance in Port-au-Prince attested, cholera refuses to leave the country. The bacterial disease that ravaged Haiti last fall had spread quickly to all regions, but calmed down in the dry spring months. With the rainy season now in progress, clinics across the country are again bustling with seriously ill patients.

Gregory Mevs leaped from his armored silver Toyota SUV and marched past the guards and mango trees into what serves these days as the center of the Haitian government. He was ready to dispense a million gallons of fuel to the earthquake-ravaged capital. But the paperwork was not in order. He needed the Haitian prime minister's signature. Ten minutes later, he had it. Mevs can do that. He has the prime minister's ear. He hobnobs with people like Bill Clinton, George Soros and the chief executives of the world's largest corporations.

Dumped in a squalid holding cell and then shunned by a society he doesn't know, Patrick Escarment struggles to learn Creole and build a life in earthquake-devastated Haiti. His arrival here this year was not voluntary. Escarment was in the first group of Haitians with criminal records to be deported from the United States to Haiti after a one-year moratorium. After the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake that destroyed most of this capital and killed more than 300,000 people, the Obama administration suspended deportations.

Farrah Leolo, a 9-year-old with a charming smile, was dressed for an important journey. Her hair was braided and she wore a crisp white blouse and pink slacks. In her pocket, she had cookies and passport-sized photos. A few minutes after Farrah left the Horizon of Hope child-care center with French Embassy officials this week, her adoptive mother called the center's owner, Kathelen Douyon, from Paris. "She looked so beautiful," Douyon told the mother. Then, choking back tears, she silently handed the phone to an aide and put her face in her hands.

Here's what's wrong with Haiti right now: A year after an earthquake ripped through the capital and nearby towns like an atomic bomb, killing an estimated 300,000 people, the Haitian government is wasting its limited energies politicking rather than working on a serious recovery plan. Pushed by an international community that wants to know what government it will be dealing with as promised foreign recovery monies come into the country, Haitian officials have fallen into a vortex of farcical horse-trading to determine who will next take hold of this bucking and plunging country and try to ride it into the future.

Instead of the commuters typically packed into the bright blue and red "tap tap" pickup truck weaving through Haiti's capital, a man, shrunken, dehydrated, dressed in a diaper and attached to an IV, lay on the floor. As the ad-hoc ambulance in Port-au-Prince attested, cholera refuses to leave the country. The bacterial disease that ravaged Haiti last fall had spread quickly to all regions, but calmed down in the dry spring months. With the rainy season now in progress, clinics across the country are again bustling with seriously ill patients.

There are as many theories about why Jean-Claude Duvalier returned to Haiti as there are cracks in the crumpled walls of the presidential palace. Did the doddering dictator come home to die? Or is a still-wily Baby Doc here in a scheme to recover millions of looted dollars? Or is he a pawn in a ploy to upend an unresolved political process ? and to the favor of whom? Duvalier himself has uttered only a few words publicly since he stunned the world by returning to Haiti on Sunday, ending a quarter of a century in exile in France.

The United States anticipates difficulty in dealing with the new government of Haiti if its army is to be headed by a colonel facing a drug indictment in Florida, the White House said today. Frantz Lubin, Haiti's director of information, said in Port-au-Prince over the weekend that Jean-Claude Paul, commander of the Dessalines barracks, was assuming command of the army. However, Gen. Prosper Avril, in announcing Sunday that he is assuming the presidency, did not mention Paul.

The State Department called on the Haitian government Tuesday to take "dramatic and credible steps" aimed at punishing those responsible for the terror campaign that led to the postponement of national elections Sunday. Department spokesman Charles Redman renewed the U.S. call for a restoration of democratic processes in Haiti, and he held out the possibility that the Organization of American States may issue a similar appeal.

There are as many theories about why Jean-Claude Duvalier returned to Haiti as there are cracks in the crumpled walls of the presidential palace. Did the doddering dictator come home to die? Or is a still-wily Baby Doc here in a scheme to recover millions of looted dollars? Or is he a pawn in a ploy to upend an unresolved political process ? and to the favor of whom? Duvalier himself has uttered only a few words publicly since he stunned the world by returning to Haiti on Sunday, ending a quarter of a century in exile in France.

Here's what's wrong with Haiti right now: A year after an earthquake ripped through the capital and nearby towns like an atomic bomb, killing an estimated 300,000 people, the Haitian government is wasting its limited energies politicking rather than working on a serious recovery plan. Pushed by an international community that wants to know what government it will be dealing with as promised foreign recovery monies come into the country, Haitian officials have fallen into a vortex of farcical horse-trading to determine who will next take hold of this bucking and plunging country and try to ride it into the future.

Haiti is scheduled to hold elections on Nov. 28, and nothing ? neither the cholera outbreak that has killed more than 1,000 people nor the fact that more than 1 million earthquake survivors remain homeless ? seems likely to convince the Haitian government or its international backers that the vote should be postponed. It should be. Why? The electoral process is rigged. Unfortunately, the Obama administration seems happy to go along with the charade. Earlier this month President Obama rightly condemned the bogus elections in Burma (renamed Myanmar by the military regime)

Six months after Haiti was ravaged by the fifth deadliest earthquake in history (according to the U.S. Geological Survey), it's hard to find anybody involved in the reconstruction effort who isn't deeply frustrated by the lack of progress. Relief organizations rail against the Haitian government for its failure to come up with a plan for removing debris or perform other vital logistical duties; government ministers fire back that the nonprofits are confusing matters by failing to coordinate their efforts.

U.S. officials on Wednesday pledged $1.2 billion to rebuild Haiti under an ambitious but controversial plan that would hand the country's government -- long considered corrupt and ineffective -- broad, new control over how to spend the foreign aid money. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced the two-year U.S. pledge at a donors conference at the United Nations, declaring that world powers "cannot retreat to failed strategies" of working around the Haitian government.

A Haitian judge has decided to release 10 U.S. missionaries accused of kidnapping 33 children and trying to spirit them out of the earthquake- stricken country, a judicial source said Wednesday. The source said the missionaries, who have been in jail since they were stopped at Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic on Jan. 29, could be released as early as Thursday. "The order will be to release them," the source, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. The decision has not yet been made public.

The Clinton Administration is considering sending a small contingent of U.S. troops to Haiti, mainly to help with reconstruction efforts, if the United Nations succeeds in brokering a settlement this week that would restore democracy to that strife-torn nation. The plan, described by senior U.S. officials, was disclosed as U.N.

U.S. officials on Wednesday pledged $1.2 billion to rebuild Haiti under an ambitious but controversial plan that would hand the country's government -- long considered corrupt and ineffective -- broad, new control over how to spend the foreign aid money. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced the two-year U.S. pledge at a donors conference at the United Nations, declaring that world powers "cannot retreat to failed strategies" of working around the Haitian government.

David Saill is 10 years old, and he came to school Monday in a freshly ironed shirt and baggy black slacks to reclaim a piece of his lost life. He couldn't have it all back. Not his home, which collapsed in the Jan. 12 earthquake. Not his very best friend, Laguer, who died when his own house fell on him. Not the sense of security he felt before he knew that the earth could shake apart his known universe. But school -- that he could have back. Or so he was told. Monday was the first day that schools in Haiti could reopen after the earthquake, which was centered near the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Farrah Leolo, a 9-year-old with a charming smile, was dressed for an important journey. Her hair was braided and she wore a crisp white blouse and pink slacks. In her pocket, she had cookies and passport-sized photos. A few minutes after Farrah left the Horizon of Hope child-care center with French Embassy officials this week, her adoptive mother called the center's owner, Kathelen Douyon, from Paris. "She looked so beautiful," Douyon told the mother. Then, choking back tears, she silently handed the phone to an aide and put her face in her hands.