ANDREW RETTMAN
EU foreign ministers have opted to send 300 or so military
police to support the aid effort in Haiti, on top of a massive US
security force.
[euobserver.com] France and Italy pledged to send over 100 gendarmes each at the
ministers‘ meeting in Brussels on Monday (25 January). Portugal is to
contribute around 50 people and Spain 40.
The
EU mission is getting ready to go in the next few days and will fall
under UN command when it arrives in the earthquake zone.
The modest size of the EU-hatted deployment stands in contrast to US
plans to have 20,000 military personnel on the ground by the end of the
week.
But EU foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton said UN chiefs had
asked her for specialists to help with specific policing problems
rather than to provide general security in the collapsed state.
"The UN is looking for people with expertise to do specific things,"
she said. "We need to help support the [Haiti] administration get back
to life."
EU development commissioner Karel De Gucht said, following his visit
to the Caribbean island over the weekend, that the country has been
"decapitated."
"The Haitian state has practically disappeared. We met the
president, the prime minister and senior officials, but we were meeting
them in a disused police station. That’s all that the government
consists of," he said.
The commissioner paid tribute to nurses and doctors working "around
the clock" in "a sort of war zone" to help the 250,000 people injured
in the disaster on top of the 200,000 or more dead.
The EU foreign ministers on Monday also set up a "co-ordination
cell" in Brussels to help ensure that the mixed bag of bilateral EU aid
to Haiti is delivered as efficiently as possible.
Twenty four EU countries as well as the European Commission have put
forward over €450 million in cash, 12 search and rescue teams, 130
civil protection experts, two field hospitals, 38 medical teams, six
water sanitation units and an aircraft carrier with two hospitals on
board.
Going into the meeting on Monday French EU affairs minister Pierre
Lellouche voiced concern that the EU is playing second fiddle to the US
in terms of its international profile on the Haiti crisis: "We’re going
to try to do better in terms of the union’s visibility," he said.
Ms Ashton batted aside press questions about the importance of the EU’s image, however.
"There’s been a recognition from the people of Haiti, the US, the UN
and others of the extremely important role the EU has played. On the
main issue, we should ask, have we tried to save lives, to support the
people of Haiti? Yes we have," she said.
Source: http://euobserver.com/9/29336
