By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/haiti1quake011610.html
UNITED NATIONS, January 16 -- While UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has repeatedly said that all aid to Haiti should be coordinated through the UN, this is not happening, according to two U.S. officials' description on Saturday morning of American activities.
On a press conference call from Haiti, U.S. Senior Regional Adviser Tim Callaghan described American search and rescue teams from Fairfax, Virginia coordinating with the government of Haiti and "the consulate."
These teams, he said, have rescued 15 people: seven Americans and eight Haitians. It was notable that this U.S. report included no other "internationals," on whom the UN has focused, as least in its own reporting.
A reporter from Brazil asked why the U.S. is controlling the airport when "the UN should control on the grounds." Responses by Callaghan and U.S. National Security Council chief of staff Dennis McDonough sought to assure the Brazilian media that President Barack Obama spoke with President Lula. The UN peacekeeping mission MINUSTAH was mentioned only in terms of the Brazilian role in and leadership of its military component.
In the health sector, the U.S. is giving "what we call WHO medical kits" to the Pan American Health Organization. In the water and sanitation cluster, which the UN's John Holmes acknowledged on Friday to Inner City Press is usually coordinated by UNICEF except they lack presence in Haiti, the U.S. is giving water bladders to the International Committee of the Red Cross, and a water purification system to an Argentinian hospital.
A reporter from Argentina asked about an Argentine Hercules aircraft, full of medical supplies, which could not land in Port au Prince and is now waiting in the Dominican Republic.
The American briefers said they would look into it. They confirmed to CNN that a medical donation from Israel "has arrived" but had no information on offers, including of oil, from Venezuela. Call it the politics of aid.
An American radio reporter demanded to know if Secretary of State Clinton's visit today was blocking other aid getting in. McDonough quickly "disabused" the reporter of the idea, saying that the flights used will also bring aid, and take evacuees out.
Is that the case, one UN correspondent wanted to know, with the plane to be used on Sunday by what's now know as the Ban-tourage, the UN's Ban Ki-moon and entourage, including the documentarians from the UN and Ban's native South Korea? Again, the politics of aid. Watch this site.
