A year later, Haiti is still desperate

One year after the catastrophic earthquake that struck Haiti, killing more than 230,000, it's easier to measure the declining interest in news of that stricken nation than it is to find evidence of real progress.

A quick check of Google searches for the word "Haiti" shows a sharp spike upward in the days after the Jan. 12 earthquake, then a precipitous drop in the days and weeks that followed. The number of searches has remained flat ever since.

But Haiti has far more important problems than a decline in curiosity: The snail's pace of reconstruction; the slow flow of the $11 billion pledged by donor nations; the cholera outbreak that has killed more than 3,000 people and threatens to infect as many as 400,000; and the desperation of a million people living in temporary camps, with many women subject to rape and all at risk of eviction by those claiming title to the land.

Far from realizing the noble goal of building back better, Haiti isn't really building back at all. Far from recovering, it is struggling just to keep from falling further into the abyss.

But what to do? It's easy enough to make a to-do list for the Haitian government: For one thing, it should stop forced evictions from displaced persons camps, as the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, an advocacy group, recommends. For another, it should provide more people in the camps with the preventive treatment that they need to keep the cholera epidemic from worsening.

But the government is stuck on hold, as the international community sorts out what happened on Nov. 28. The turnout to elect a new president and a national legislature was abysmal: well below 30 percent. And the result, shrouded in allegations of fraud and missing vote tallies, is far from clear.

The top vote-getter was former first lady Mirlande Manigat. Initially, number two appeared to be Jude Célestin, favored by President René Préval and his party. But on Monday, an election panel from the Organization of American States found that a popular singer, Michel Martelly, finished narrowly ahead of Célestin. That would pit Martelly against Manigat in a runoff - but only if the Provisional Electoral Council, dominated by Préval loyalists, agrees. That's not at all certain.

In any case, some Haiti advocates argue that the election was so flawed that a runoff couldn't possibly produce a government that the Haitian people will trust to partner with the international community in the reconstruction. They believe the United States, which paid much of the cost of the balloting, should urge Préval and the council to set a date for a new election. That seems the best of a bad set of choices.

Our nation should also move faster to admit 55,000 Haitians already approved for visas, with family here pledged to support them. That would get them out of a hellish situation and let them work here and send money back home to other relatives.

And all of us should do what we can to keep the suffering of Haiti foremost in the collective conscience of the world. Reconstruction can't happen without remembering. hN