More interesting is how the video was initially obtained, through what local activist Ernso Valentin called, “the strategy of the population.” Yesterday evening I found the two young men who, by all accounts, swiped the video from a soldier’s phone. They explained to me what happened – about a week after July 18, they said, the date of the assault. It all started with an upbeat, pulsating Spanish song (which I stupidly mistook for Konpas at first).

21-year-old Viaud Fegens on the right, with his 18-year-old friend Leveille Jean-Michel, whose phone swiped the video.

Viaud Fegens: “Me and Jean-Michel were passing by the base. A soldier named Leo called out to us. I went and sat down and he to put the music on his telephone.”

Leveille Jean-Michel: “We were listening to some music and he liked it.”

VF: “We’ve passed by the base before playing Spanish music. This time, he liked it. He asked me to put it on his phone and he gave me his phone. So I went into his phone to see if it had cool things or nice videos on it. I took his phone, and I’m looking inside to see what it has on it. Then, I came upon the video! When I saw the video, I said [to Jean Michel], ‘Hey look at this!’ The soldier went to sit down. So we’re looking at the phone, and we see the video. I said, ‘Look, that’s my cousin. My cousin, Johnny.’ I’m looking at it and I see what they did. I said, ‘Oh mezami [roughly translates to holy crap]!’ I transmitted the video via Bluetooth onto this phone. I said, ‘Go give him his phone.’ So then I have the video, I’m watching it again, and it’s dominating me. It’s giving me problems [in my head]. So then later, we had a meeting across from the Commiseriat. MINUSTAH was there. We talked about everything bad that MINUSTAH does in Port Salut. They’re dumping their trash in aviation… Now when we come to the subject of what they did to Johnny, they said they don’t believe it happened. Then we showed them the proof. The MINUSTAH chief saw the video, and he’s shocked! He sweats!”

LJM: “He’s afraid. He’s afraid.”

VF: “There were three of them. The deputy was there too. He asked us to transmit it by Bluetooth for him. We did it. He looks again, he watches again, and he’s shocked, sweating.”

LJM: “It was weighing on me since I saw that. I was shocked when I was seeing it, it made me feel terrible. They committed the act but they didn’t want people outside to know about it. Yes, I thought it was rape. Because he’s yelling, ‘Help!’”"

VF: “He’s saying, “Problem, problem, that he’s in a problem.” And they pulled down his pants. The video is proof. Because when they saw it, they could see what the soldiers did. Everyone who sees this video can see what happens. I heard about the protest tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll attend. But MINUSTAH represents a force in the country. It’s MINUSTAH that helped created a situation where we don’t have war or gunfire. They gave us some calm. But they violated a young man, they’re dumping trash, [AH: didn't understand this part]… this isn’t good. We didn’t have these things in our country. It’s them who gave us cholera. We never had these things before.”

Viaud’s mother is worried. “Are they going to be ok? I’m scared. Will something happen to them?” she kept asking me. I left my number and tried to assure her that nothing bad would happen.

Update 9/16/11: After removing the photo and the boys names on the advice of some commenters, I’ve just restored them. I’m in touch with the boys and they want recognition for what they did. Viaud specifically asked that his photo and name be included. His mother never objected.

I spoke to some Haitians in displacement camps – living there since about the time of January 12, 2010 earthquake – about President Michel Martelly’s first 100 days in office. They voice their perspectives in this story for Free Speech Radio News broadcast on Friday:

Download the MP3. You can also hear an archived interview with me about Haiti and WikiLeaks from KOOP Radio’s People United program here – my part starts at the 37 minute mark.

Camp kids playing Mortal Kombat

Long-term journalists based here with the Miami Herald and Associated Press did almost the exact same story about Haiti’s World Cup Fever last month, after AFP did another. They have not covered physical harm against displaced Haitians (of which there are still around 2 million) by landowners, gangs, and neglect by organizations supposed to be distributing food, water, and shelter.

Besides the soccer articles, their output over the past month reads much like a list of press releases from various authorities on their plans for the country – Bill Clinton, the US Senate, the Haitian government, and international institutions. This news, generated in air-conditioned offices and upscale hotels, seems rather inconsequential to the everyday reality here in Port-au-Prince. Perhaps the assumption is that the average quake victim is poor and miserable as always and it’s not worth trying to explain why any more. (Reaching, the Miami Herald today published an astonishing piece claiming that Haiti’s tiny middle class is suffering as much or more as the vast poor majority.)

I didn’t author much work individually last month, but I’m keeping busy (trying with others to stop camp evictions as they happen, at times) and working towards some worthwhile longer-form stories. Glad to participate in several radio interviews and stories last month concerned mainly with the conditions facing the Haitian poor. Listen below.

June 28 on Flashpoints Radio in the Bay Area

We’ll bring Haiti back into the spotlight with an update on the ground with independent journalist Ansel Herz about growing desperation in the survivor camps, where an estimated 2 million Haitians are trying to survive as rains increase and hurricane season serves as another threat; we’ll also speak with Robert Roth and Laura Flynn about grassroots efforts to rebuild Haiti; Finally, we’ll hear from Leilani Clark, an Arizona activist who spoke to us last week from the US Social Forum about her protest of Senate Bill 1070, including her recent arrest and court appearance as well as the discovery of over 110 unidentified rotting bodies along the Arizona-Mexico border.

Listen here (Direct MP3).

June 19 on WBAI’s Haiti the Struggle Continues in New York City

Today, with million internally displaced, limited arable land, and few jobs in the countryside, devastation in its capital, and international peace-keepers and non governmental organizations assuming duties that would-as some say still should be-the provenance of Haiti’s government, we will talk about tent cities, reconstruction that honors the people and protects the earth, promised elections and more with guests Yanique Joseph, Executive director of Green Cities-Green Villages, and Ansel Herz of Free Speech Radio News.

Listen here (MP3).

June 14-23: Reports on Free Speech Radio News and American Public Media’s ‘The Story’

A radio version of my last written story about camps threatened by landowners aired on FSRN.

I helped produce interview segments with a homeless Haitian street vendor and family in Leogane for The Story, which airs on dozens of stations nationwide.

June 4 on CKUT’s Off the Hour in Montreal

Probing interview with host Chris on demonstrations against Monsanto and Preval, MINUSTAH, and what the political landscape looks like going forward.

Listen here (MP3).

I also spoke with host Wilbur Larch on WUSB 90.1 FM in Stony Brook, New York on June 12, but can’t find it online anywhere. We discussed questions surrounding the American Red Cross’ millions of dollars raised and their hardly visible presence here in Haiti, among other subjects.

(Switched up this site’s design a bit, let me know if you see any bugs.)

I spent a few days at Port-au-Prince’s only public hospital this past week. A heartening and heart-wrenching experience. My report for yesterday’s Free Speech Radio News broadcast:

MP3. Also, I want to share why I love working for an organization like FSRN (besides their great editors). This piece prompted a medical worker in Port-au-Prince to send the following feedback by e-mail:

I am listening to your radio broadcast this morning and there is a report about Port Au Prince, where I am currently working as a nurse. I was horrified to hear the the reporter (at 7:21 a.m. Haiti time) state that there has been a huge influx of money into the medical system in Haiti. This statement is overstating the situation and if you would like to see this “huge” influx of money, which I assure you does NOT exist, please come visit us. I am currently working at the Project Medishare Hospital and I assure you there is no great flow of aid assisting the Haitians. This grossly misrepresents the situation here and you should be ashamed for reporting that there is aid allowing Haitians to access medical care that could even barely compare to the US system.

Good points all – except that “huge” was never mentioned in the report. My substitute editor, Shannon Young, promptly wrote back:

I am writing on behalf of Free Speech Radio News as the editor responsible for the segment you have commented on.

First, allow me to express my sincere appreciation for the work you are currently performing in Haiti.

Second, thank you for taking the time to email your feedback because it gives me a chance to clarify a few points.

I am including a full transcript of the news report below for reference. You can also find the audio here: http://www.fsrn.org/audio/despite-assistance-health-care-haiti-still-struggles-meet-needs/6785

At no time did the report qualify the influx of aid as “huge” and at least two sources interviewed in the report made it clear that the current system is well below the US standard. The point that was made is that the general hospital is now able to offer services for free that had to be paid for in the past…but that there is no security that such services can retain their level of accessibility after June.

I hope this clarifies the report’s representation of the situation.

Thank you for your time and your service.

And finally we received this reply back:

Thank you so very much for passing this on and for sending me the
response. It genuinely makes me happy to know that you guys and FSRN
care enough to read the emails and I am going to read the entire
transcript, as I may have misheard or misinterpreted some of the
information (I was typing as the reporter was talking and sincerely
thought he used the phrase “huge influx of aid”). There are so many
misleading reports about the situation in Haiti and once I have read
the transcript thoroughly I would like to know if it is okay to send
you an update (factual rather than emotional) about the report. I
don’t have Shannon’s direct email address and if you could please
forward this note, I would greatly appreciate it!

We are working so very hard here and just by accident I found your
online radio broadcast, which I enjoy and adore! I am even more
impressed now because of your quick response and Shannon’s reply to my
email. We have very little in the way of news/media here and when I
can get a connection, I tune in to detour!

Please keep Haiti in your thoughts – things are not getting better
here, quite frankly they are getting worse.

Also, if you know of anyone who would like to investigate a disturbing
situation – ask them to look into the Red Cross and where the millions
of dollars in relief aid for Haiti has really been spent. jVery
little is being spent for relief efforts in Haiti, which very few
people realize (even though the Red Cross makes public its financial
reports). I’ve asked Senator Grassley’s office to investigate their
practices — specific to donations/aid allegedly collected for Haiti
(because his office has previously looked into their questionable
practices). Any additional legitimate investigators/reporters that
put pressure on the subject could be instrumental in getting that aid
directed to Haiti, therefore saving the many lives at risk.

Again, thank you and please pass on my thanks to Shannon for the quick response!

I’ll be contacting the medical worker soon to see if we can look into Red Cross spending. But really: independent, alternative, non-corporate media for the win.

I spoke at a few venues in Seattle, but I want to pass on this live radio chat from yesterday morning on 90.3FM KUOW’s Weekday program. Host Steve Scher interviewed me, NPR sometime-Haiti correspondent Martin Kaste, and longtime Haiti relief worker Jack Andrew. There was some back and forth at times, and knowledgeable talk about how Haiti got to where it was before the quake. I learned some things! Listen below, or at KUOW’s page. Skip ahead to around the 12 minute mark past the pledge drive.

MP3 here. Let me know in the comments if there are messages you want me to pass on to folks here in DC…

Update: I also spoke (a little more openly about the political problems in Haiti) to 91.3FM KBCS’s One World Report last week, scroll down and find the clip here.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Mar 30, 2010 (IPS) – On an empty road in Cite Militaire, an industrial zone across from the slums of Cite Soleil, a group of women are gathered around a single white sack of U.S. rice. The rice was handed out Monday morning at a food distribution by the Christian relief group World Vision.

According to witnesses, during the distribution U.N. peacekeeping troops sprayed tear gas on the crowd. (Jan. UN photo above)

“Haitians know that’s the way they act with us. They treat us like animals,” said Lourette Elris, as she divided the rice amongst the women. “They gave us the food, we were on our way home, then the troops threw tear gas at us. We finished receiving the food, we weren’t disorderly. ”

Some 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers, known by the acronym MINUSTAH, have occupied Haiti since 2004, including 7,000 soldiers of which the majority are Brazilian. The mission has been dogged by accusations of human rights violations.

“It’s time to begin thinking about changing the nature of MINUSTAH’s mission,” Brazilian Defence Minister Nelson Jobim told the Brazilian newspaper O Estado after the January earthquake struck Haiti.

“MINUSTAH’s mandate is to maintain the peace, that is, security, but the U.N. needs to realise that its mission is no longer solely to strengthen security but also to build the infrastructure,” he said.

So far, there’s no evidence of a shift in policy.

“Red zones are no-go zones, you’re not supposed to be there whatsoever,” said Regine Zamor, a Haitian-American who arrived days after the earthquake to find her family. She’s been coordinating among NGOs to distribute aid in Carrefour Feille, one of the hardest-hit areas of the city.

“We only found out for folks in our community that it was a red zone because we weren’t getting any help,” she said. “That green, yellow, and red zoning actually comes from maps when there’s war, but there’s no war here in Haiti.”

Even the famous Oloffson Hotel in downtown Port-Au-Prince is part of the red zone, according to Zamor and the hotel’s outspoken owner, Richard Morse.

U.N. spokesperson George Ola-Davies provided IPS with a copy of a security zoning map, showing red zones only over the slum areas of Cite Soleil and Bel Air.

“Security measures start with oneself, so everyone’s been advised to be cautious,” he said. “Kidnapping is not a new phenomenon in Haiti. It was at a peak at one time, then it went down. Now it’s starting again.”

Two Doctors Without Borders staff were kidnapped this month in Petionville, an upscale district zoned as green on the security map – then released for a ransom.

Meanwhile at the U.N. headquarters near the airport, Haitians looking to coordinate relief efforts with aid agencies are routinely turned away at the gate, if they don’t possess U.N. passes.

The mayor of Cite Soleil and a camp committee member from Leogane were nearly blocked from entering the base, according to Emilie Parry, co-author of a Refugees International report blasting the U.N. for not involving Haitian community-based organisations in the relief effort.

“We were concerned they would be kicked out,” Parry said. “So we walked with them to try and identify agencies and people working in their communities – there weren’t many. Like most others, they were turned away and went home empty-handed.”

U.N. spokesperson Ola-Davies said any Haitian who has an appointment can enter the base. Dozens of shining white Toyota and Nissan sport utility vehicles shuttling aid workers around the city enter and exit the base each day.

“The U.N. is a big, huge, heavy bureaucracy. And bureaucracies do not work well in places that need flexibility and adaptation. Haiti is one of those places,” said Jean Luc “Djaloki” Dessables, co-coordinator of the Haiti Response Coalition, a group that includes small Haitian organisations.

The Haiti donors’ conference begins Wednesday at U.N. headquarters in New York City. The Haitian government estimates 11.5 billion dollars are required to recover from the quake.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission spends 700 million dollars annually. A new Brazilian force commander was appointed this month, while the number of U.S. soldiers on the island dwindles further.

In Potay, a neighbourhood near downtown Port-Au-Prince, a dozen U.S. soldiers toting automatic weapons walked past men drinking beer on a stoop.

Wearing jeans and a black vest, Brital, one of Haiti’s most well-known rappers with the Barikad Crew, watched them go past his collapsed home.

“I don’t think we need soldiers with guns. We need engineers the most,” he said. “I’d prefer to see soldiers who could educate instead of those with guns. Soldiers that can come and build roads, bridges, universities and hospitals.”

U.S. Senator Chris Dodd proposed Monday placing Haiti under a trusteeship system and broadening the U.N. mission in the country. He wrote in the Miami Herald that Haiti should not be occupied by foreign powers, but that the country is incapable of leading its own reconstruction.

The story for a newspaper mentioned in my last post is here. And a short radio piece for FSRN about Lavalas protests against Presidents Bush and Clinton, from last week, can be found here.

Update: Thanks to Common Dreams for re-publishing the IPS piece and linking to it from their front page.

I got a call yesterday afternoon from a newspaper. They asked me to track down a Haitian family and interview them – the only information they had was the general area where they live and some of their names. “I think this will be a test of your detective abilities! Also, don’t take any risks,” the editor wrote to me.

Of course, it wasn’t too difficult to find them. Everyone knows everyone. I called Weed, a motorcycle taxi driver I met after the earthquake who has since become a trusted friend (he’s teaching me how to drive a moto). He picked me up and we headed out, camera slung over my shoulder.

Over some broken, pothole-filled roads out of Delmas, until we hit Grand Rue and weaved through traffic. I remembered how eerie Grand Rue was, the morning after the earthquake, smelling faintly of bodies, quiet and empty of cars and people. Life goes on.

Weed pulled over into a dim alley. Hopped off the moto and asked two men sitting against wall if they knew the family. I mispronounced the surname at first, then got it right. “Oh yeah we know them. He’ll take you there.”

We were led through a maze of narrow alleys – past old men playing checkers, naked children bathing, women washing clothes. Expressions that sometimes seem like glares softened into little smiles each time I said hello. A baby girl sleeping face down on the grimy concrete, a smudge of feces on her butt. I fought off the impulse to snap a photo.

The family is desperately poor, living under a thin tarp that leaks in the rain in an alley. 19 people all together in one tiny space. When we finished the interviews thirty minutes later, the same guy led us back out, taking a different route. “Pi rapide konsa” – it’s faster this way.

Arrived back at the guest house. Amber Munger, a human rights worker, saw me walk in. “You should know something,” she said.

Since I arrived in Haiti last September, I’ve never once thought twice about traveling the way I do – whether by moto, tap tap or on foot, without “security” and certainly not inside an SUV with the windows up, like most NGO workers. We go places, we talk to people, they’re kind and helpful, and usually we find what we’re looking for. I’ve been told motos are too dangerous; I’ll be killed in car crash (I’ve seen far fewer accidents in the streets in Port-Au-Prince than in the States, perhaps three total). I’ve been told certain areas are too dangerous; I’ll be robbed. It’s never happened and I’ve never felt in danger.

After the earthquake, editors from a big media outlet staying at the Villa Creole hotel contacted me. When I mentioned that I go in and out of Cite Soleil on a moto frequently, they were amazed. They published my story about the reaction to the UN’s high-energy biscuits in a Cite Soleil camp, but not before adding lines about gangs and violence to it. When I complained, they simply edited the story days later without notation.

Most times I interact with foreigners, they’re worried about violence in Haiti. I think it’s based more on a fear of poor black people than on reality.

But yesterday was a little different. Amber speaks kreyol fluently. She’s been working in Haiti for 13 years, recently in a desolate area called Anse Rouge with women’s groups.

She said a friend of a friend was kidnapped days ago near this area, where I’m staying, called Delmas 33. “It’s happening again,” she said.

Haiti went through a wrenching period of constant kidnappings after the 2004 coup against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. About five years ago. It was mostly Haitians who were taken. Some foreigners too.

Earlier this month, two aid workers from Doctors Without Borders were kidnapped in upper-class Petionville – the green zone on the UN’s security map – and released a few days later. They were out late at night, which is stupid.

Still, it probably makes sense to be a little more cautious than before.

And there’s the question: why kidnappings again, now? After several years during which they happened relatively rarely? After an earthquake?

I recently interviewed Jean Luc “Djalòki” Dessables, a Co-Coordinator of the Haiti Response Coalition, for a story that’s not ready yet. He lived through the last period of kidnappings, and has seen so many blan come and go from Haiti. His insights into the reasons for kidnappings, as well as a host of other topics, are well worth hearing. You probably won’t hear them anywhere else. He’s speaking for himself, not the Coalition. Here’s some of what he had to say:

Haiti is a safe country without military. It becomes unsafe, when militaries are here. Haiti is a safe country when we don’t have the presence of too many people to aid us with a lot of money and a lot of white skin.

I’m not saying people from North American and European countries shouldn’t come here – of course they should. Not only do we need help right now… We also have things that we can contribute. Maybe they need our help. Even if it’s awkward to hear that in this situation. But in the spirit of solidarity, Haitians are a people who want to connect and to be in solidarity with all people in the world. And of course we want to come out of the isolation that we’ve been in forever.

But whenever there’s an increase in violence, or murders in the streets or even kidnappings, it is directly connected to an increased presence of white people with money, even if they are not the ones being kidnapped. But the money is there. And the visibility, the eye is on Haiti. Or very strangely, at the end of the [peacekeeping] mandate of the UN that has to be voted… the raise of violence justifies the extension of the mandate for a few months.

Everywhere needs some regulatory force, some security. But I think that in the world, the Haitian people are one of the rare people who can assure a minimum level of security by themselves without armed force. Maybe not in ways that would please people who say that they are democratic. It may not look very democratic from a certain perspective.

But in normal communities – and I’m not necessarily talking about the city right now because the city is completely out of control… But even the cities. Like a city the size of Port-au-Prince, if you compare it with other cities in the world of the same size, I think it’s fair and safe to say that Port-au-Prince is one of the safest.

Listen to the entire interview with Djalòki below. MP3.

Update: I’m told that the man who was kidnapped near here has since been released, after being beaten and held one night. I’ll add that Djalòki’s words are remarkably prescient, having been made before we learned of this recent round of kidnappings.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Mar 9, 2010 (IPS) – Perched near the top of a steep hill, the fractured pink walls of Villa Manrese overlook the rest of the capital city. Both ends of the three-story compound have collapsed, spilling into mounds of rubble. The first floor was pulverised into a layer of dust. There are still bodies inside.

But in the adjacent garden behind the Catholic retreat, also known as Centre Saint-Viateur, life sprang anew after the Jan. 12 earthquake struck Haiti.

Some 250 families, comprising 1,500 people from the surrounding area of Haut-Turgeau, crowded together in the small field. Father Paul André Garraud, a Haitian priest based in the villa, helped procure tents, food, and medicine from relief agencies.

“We were doing well because they organised us. We weren’t hungry,” said Lubin Pierre-Louis, 52, leaning on a cane in the middle of the empty field. Three boys play soccer with a dirty plastic bottle on the wet ground behind him.

The camp vanished overnight on Mar. 2.

“It’s wrong. They told us to leave in the middle of the night,” Pierre-Louis said. “Just staying here now is a resistance. If they ask me to leave, I’ll be forced out.”

Residents who formed the informal committee running the tent camp swept through at 11 p.m., according to witnesses, telling everyone they had to leave immediately.

Families were told that bulldozers would come onto the field early in the morning to demolish Villa Manrese. No demolition crew arrived and the villa is still standing.

“They told us the bulldozer was coming to intimidate us,” said Johnny Cherezard, a 23-year-old student. “The government said nobody has a right to push people out unless they have a place to go. We had people who were sick and injured.”

“The Father gave the signal to the committee to force people out,” he said. By 3 a.m., most people had left the camp.

Father Garraud is living in a neighbour’s gated home 40 yards away from the camp. In an extended interview next to the pool, he blamed the removal of the people from the area on the camp’s committee members.

“The committee was organising so badly. I told them one month in advance to prepare places because they’re going to have to move for the demolition,” he said. “They didn’t do anything.”

Garraud said he slept through the night and was surprised Wednesday morning to see the empty field. He claims the committee acted on its own.

Four of the committee members, sitting on the steps of a nearby building together, insist the priest told them that night to move everyone out because the villa would be leveled in the morning.

“The priest has to protect himself, that’s why he blames it on us,” said Damis Duviose, a heavy-set young man. “We lived in the camp too, now we’re just down the road. We didn’t make the decision, we can’t do anything without the priest saying so.”

Jane Elizabeth Avenell-Guardigli is a British woman living in the Dominican Republic. With some friends, she brought supplies over the border after the earthquake and wound up staying at the same house as Father Garraud.

“We were awoken in the night,” she said in an interview. “There was lots of screaming and people calling for Pѐre Garraud. He was up and listening, but he did not go to see them.”

“We stayed up all night listening to the screaming. They all had to go back to their streets, by the ruins of their homes,” Avenell-Guardigli said.

“There’s no way I can imagine justifying their actions,” she added.

At least one Canadian body, along with the body of a French national, still lie beneath the rubble. Haitians call the area around Villa Manrese “Impasse Canada” because so many Canadians came to stay there.

Five staff from the Canadian embassy came to the site to talk with Father Garraud. The embassy asked the Haitian construction company Vorbe Et Fils for an estimate on removing the body, but gave the contract to the state construction company CNE.

The priest said CNE told him several times last week they were coming to begin the operation, but they never came. The French embassy asked the Canadians to pull out the French body as well in the operation.

The camp committee members believe Father Garraud was pressured into moving ahead with demolition by construction companies and the Canadian embassy. Garraud denied being pressured by anyone.

The Canadian embassy did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.

Around a dozen men, women, and children still occupy the field.

Leonardo Delzor, 11, lost his aunt, uncle, and father in the earthquake. “I came to sleep here sometimes,” he said Saturday. “But last night when it was raining, I slept standing up. I had to hide my body in a little corner. ”

“I want somebody to help me, even if he only gave me a tarp, because I could spread it out to sleep on it,” he said. His blue shirt is smudged with brown mud.

“They moved people out that night, but I stayed here because I have nowhere to go,” Delzor said.

First photo by Jane Elizabeth Avenell-Guardigli, second from me. Before March 2, and after. The dirt is still lined with trenches, made by camp-dwellers to divert the rains.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Feb 23, 2010 (IPS) – A cacophony of murmurs and cries echoed through the neighbourhoods of Haiti’s capital city Monday night as a violent aftershock shook people awake. Ten minutes later, another tremor rocked the ground, this time more smoothly back and forth.

The 4.7 magnitude tremors were a momentary distraction from pressing concerns over Haiti’s oncoming season of heavy rains, said to begin in March and last three months.

Shelter is now the top priority for relief groups, ahead of food and water distribution. They are rushing to supply thick plastic tarps, rather than tents, to over 500,000 internally displaced people in Port-Au-Prince – many still living under bedsheets tied over sticks in crowded settlements.

At a shelter distribution by CARE International at a camp in a Petionville public square, the tarps were received with a mixture of confusion and disappointment.

“It’s not clear for us. We can’t set them up because they don’t send anyone to give an explanation,” said Joseph Jean-Ones, whose family lives in the camp, as he tried to fit one metal pole on top of another.

His wife was given a gray tarp, a set of gleaming metal poles, and a single piece of paper with pictoral diagrams showing how to tie the materials together. The tarps do not come with text instructions, in Haitian Creole or any language.

“They should teach people how to set them up before distributing them,” said another man, setting the supplies down on the ground. “Now we don’t know what to do with it. It’s like they’re distributing problems to us.”

An aid worker with CARE International, who asked not to be identified by name, said non-Haitian staff with her organisation are not supposed to walk into any camps alone. Seeing this reporter walk in and out several times, she asked to tag along.

“Maybe we should have tried doing this ourselves first,” she said quietly, while attempting to show a confused family how to construct the tarp shelter.

At least 330,000 people throughout Port-Au-Prince have received tarps so far, according to the U.N.

The dark gray tarps are widely visible in camps throughout the city, tied at varying angles over wood and metal objects that make up the walls of makeshift shelters.

“No one is pretending that this offers anything but very partial protection from the rains,” Alex Wynter, spokesman for the International Federation of the Red Cross, told reporters in a press briefing.

“I would say that the tents and tarpaulins, in addition to giving people a modicum of privacy, give people a tool with which they can stay dry overnight,” he said. “But there’s no doubt that we face a very grave crisis here, when the rains come.”

Wynter said the peculiarities of Haiti’s climate make the rainy season “especially violent, even by tropical standards worldwide.”

There are also concerns over poor sanitation and the possibility of water-borne diseases spreading quickly in the camps. Haitians are being encouraged to dig shallow trenches for drainage.

Plastic tarps are far more prevalent than tents in the city’s camps. Large white domed tents, called Shelterboxes, from the UK-based charity of the same name, are scattered by the dozens in a few camps.

“What we’re about is shelter, warmth and dignity – it’s difficult to get that with tarps,” said John Leach, Shelterbox’s Head of Operations, in an interview. He said the plastic tarps will prove inadequate under heavy rains.

“If tarps are that great, why are all the U.N. people living in tents?” he asked.

NGOs working to provide shelter for the population are coordinating through a “shelter cluster” team based at a U.N. base.

Asked about the balance of tarps versus tents being distributed, Gregg McDonald, a lead member of the shelter cluster staff, said, “There are 142 agencies in the cluster that agree with this strategy [of tarp distribution], a couple of irresponsible agencies still doing tents.”

“Tents are inappropriate now. The extra floor space is not available,” he said. Tarps “can move, have a lot more versatility, strength, and are longer-lasting.”

Luckner Thervius, one of two dozen committee members organising the camp in Petionville, said he understood why tarps were necessary. “It would be better if everyone had a small one,” pointing to a rectangular green tent shared by several families. “That one is too big. There’s not enough space if everyone had one like this.”

CARE International contacted IPS after the tarp distribution to say that their staff would set up a tarp shelter as an example in each camp from now on.

GRAND GOAVE, Jan 28, 2010 (IPS) – Two gray 23-million-dollar hovercrafts sitting in the middle of a sandy tropical beach look like they are from another world. A pair of 15-foot-wide propeller fans sticks out from the back of each behemoth.

Along the narrow dirt road to this seaside town’s centre, families live under blankets stretched over sticks.

A tent city occupies the town’s main square, surrounded by crumbling buildings. Joseph Jean-Pierre Salam, the mayor of Grand Goave, about 15 kilometres west of Port-au-Prince, estimated that some 70 percent of the city’s important structures fell during the 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti on Jan. 12.

“They have made many promises, but we don’t see the action yet,” Salam said, referring to the international community. “We have a lot of people suffering. There is an expectation that help will come.”

Little food and water has been distributed by the dozens U.S. troops milling about the beach since the earthquake, according to local leaders.

“I went there to talk to them,” said Jean-Jacob Renee, an English teacher. “They said they are there to set up some tents for themselves, but they did not come with food or water – anything for the people.”

He said the only aid the military brought to Grand Goave was distributed by Catholic Relief Services, an international NGO. “When they are in the town, we don’t know. We don’t have their phone number,” he said. “Nobody has helped us.”

U.S. military personnel on the beach were busy unloading construction material and heavy equipment from cargo boats. Senior Chief Petty Officer Steve Krutky told IPS his disaster recovery team cleared a rockslide out of the road and worked to repair local orphanages run by evangelical missions.

The U.S. military did not respond to IPS requests for further clarification of the Navy’s role in Grand Goave.

An analysis by the Associated Press on Wednesday found that 33 cents of every dollar towards emergency aid in Haiti goes to military aid, more than three times the nine cents spent on food.

Residents of Grand Goave said there is a network of seven neighbourhood leaders for each section of the city that has not been tapped in the relief effort. Friends are pooling resources to purchase rice when possible, but family after family living outside the rubble of their homes told IPS they have received no assistance.

The roof of Rinvil Jean Weldy’s modest one-story brick house is broken off, resting at an angle on top of a kitchen table covered in dust. The rear wall crumbled, spilling onto the cracked ground. His wife remains at a nearby hospital nursing an injury from the quake.

“We need a tent, we need food and water, all the normal things,” Weldy said, pointing at his sons, who were hammering together scraps of wood to build the frame of a tent. “To the U.N., I say, I need help now.”

Weldy has been expecting compensation from the U.N. since Nov. 10, when he and numerous witnesses say part of a bullet fired by U.N. peacekeeping troops hit his shoulder. Four days before the earthquake, the U.N. said an internal investigation into the incident cleared the soldiers of any wrongdoing.

Witnesses told IPS the troops fired into the ground in an attempt to control a curious crowd, not into the air, as the U.N. maintains.

The U.N. peacekeepers are roundly dismissed by many Haitians as a source for relief in the country. “We have been living with the U.N. for many years, but now we see them very little,” Mayor Salam said matter-of-factly.

In Leogane, on the route back from Grand Goave to Port-Au-Prince, 500 families from a tent city in a field lined up in an orderly queue to receive food packages, in contrast to chaotic aid dispersals seen in Port-Au-Prince. Individuals walked into a clearing to grab a box each time a young Haitian man called out numbers through a megaphone.

“For us, it was very important to do this without military,” said Dolores Rescheleit, an aid worker with a German NGO called Arche Nova that provided the food. “Because the people in the camp are very strong. When you give the responsibility to the people in the camp, they will do it better than we will with the military.”

A committee of Haitians, with sub-committees to handle security, hygiene, and aid distribution, is governing the camp without problems, Rescheleit said. Women smiled as they walked back to their tents, balancing boxes of food on their heads.

I spoke to the New York Times Lede blog yesterday about what I’ve seen in Haiti over the past few days – chaotic food distributions, pros and cons of the US military’s presence, and the politics surrounding the question of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s return. I’m disappointed that their writers went for the most sensational angle and highlighted the first subject, leaving the others in separate, less prominent audio embeds.

I have footage of Grand Goave, Cite Soleil and so much more, to share too – if I can sort some technical issues out. Point me towards specific instructions on a reliable way to export videos from Final Cut Pro into a format suitable for viewing on YouTube and the web if you know where I can find them.