NEWS
The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - 5
Floods kill more than 570 in Haiti; death toll rising
GONAIVES, Haiti (AP) - The death toll
from a tropical storm that devastated parts of
Haiti rose to 573 late last night as search crews
recovered hundreds of bodies carried away by
raging weekend floods or buried by mud or the
ruins of their homes, officials said.
The bodies of at least 500 people killed by
Tropical Storm Jeanne were filling morgues in
Gonaives, according to Touissant Kong-Doudou,
a spokesman for the U.N. mission. Fifty-six were
killed in northern Port-de-Paix and 17 died in
the nearby town of Terre
Neuve, officials said. "I l m ..
"The water is high. As I iOst my
it goes down, we expect to there's not]
find more bodies," Kongo-
Doudou said. can do. ...
Two days after lashing
Haiti, Jeanne regained IS Complete
hurricane strength over
the open Atlantic on and the clo
Monday but posed no ,
immediate threat to land. I'm Wearin
Since it developed last
week, Jeanne has been
blamed for at least 598
deaths, including 18 in Mo
the Dominican Repub-
lic and seven in Puerto
Rico.
"I lost my kids and there's nothing I can do,"
said Jean Estimable, whose 2-year-old daughter
was killed and another of whose five children
was missing and presumed dead. "All I have is
complete despair and the clothes I'm wearing,"
he said, pointing to a floral dress and ripped
pants borrowed from a neighbor.
Many of the bodies stacked in Gonaives'
flood-damaged General Hospital were children.
In Gonaives, a city of about a quarter million,
people waded through ankle-deep mud outside
the mayor's office, where workers were shovel-
ing out mud and doctors treated the wounded.
Dieufort Deslorges, a spokesman for Haiti's civil
protection agency, said the town's situation was
"catastrophic." He said survivors "need everything
from potable water to food, clothing, medication
and disinfectants."
A school bus lay smashed against a utility
pole and waterlines up to 10 feet high showed
the passage of the storm waters, which turned
some roads into fast-flowing rivers. Floodwaters
destroyed homes and crops in the Artibonite
region that is Haiti's breadbasket.
Katya Silme, 18,
ids and
hing I
All I have
e despair
thes
-Jean Estimable
ther of 2-year-old
killed in storm
said she, her mother and six
siblings spent the night in
a tree because their house
was flooded.
"The river destroyed my
house completely, and now
we have nothing. We have
not eaten anything since the
floods," she said.
Silme said she saw neigh-
bors swept away in the
waters Saturday. As she
spoke, two dead children
lay on a nearby porch, their
faces covered with cloths.
Ronald Jean-Marie, 38,
said the waters tore down the
concrete walls of his home in
Raboteau slum and that his
neighbors, a woman and her two young children,
disappeared in the fast-moving current.
The storm came four months after devastat-
ing floods along the southern border of Haiti and
neighboring Dominican Republic. Some 1,700
bodies were recovered and 1,600 more were
missing and presumed dead.
Floods are particularly devastating in Haiti,
the poorest country in the Americas, because
it is almost completely deforested, leaving few
roots to hold back rushing waters or mudslides.
Gonaives also suffered fighting during the
February rebellion that led to the ouster of Presi-
dent Jean-Bertrand Aristide and left an estimat-
ed 300 dead.
AP PHOTO
Cars destroyed by floods lie on a street in Gonaives, Haiti, yesterday. Receding floodwaters raged through neighborhoods of Haiti's
third largest city, dragging people from their homes and forcing survivors to spend the night in trees, atop cars and on roof tops follow-
ing Tropical Storm Jeanne.
Argentine troops who are among more than
3,000 U.N. peacekeepers in Haiti treated at least
150 people injured by the floods in Gonaives,
mostly for cuts on feet and legs, said Lt. Cmdr.
Emilio Vera.
One man stood outside the flooded base used
by the troops and asked soldiers to remove 11
bodies that were floating in his house, including
four brothers and a sister.
"I would. like to see if the soldiers could do
something about these bodies," said Jean-Saint
Manus, a 30-year-old student. "The door was
closed. Everybody was trapped inside."
Equipment including the X-ray machine was
covered with mud at Gonaives's General Hospi-
tal, said Dr. Pierre-Marie Dieudonne, a doctor
with the Catholic agency Caritas. He said there
was a great need for antibiotics, food and water.
Three trucks carrying Red Cross relief sup-
plies from tents to blankets rolled in yesterday,
but two were mobbed by people who grabbed
blankets and towels. U.N. troops stood by watch-
ing. Only one truck arrived intact with tents at
the mayor's office.
'Bush lifts most sanctions on Libya
Removal triggers aid to Pan Am 103 families
WASHINGTON (AP) - President
Bush yesterday removed a ban on com-
mercial air service to Libya and released
$1.3 billion in frozen Libyan assets in
recognition of "significant" steps to
eliminate its deadliest weapons pro-
grams.
In response, Libya is expected to dis-
burse $1 billion in compensation pay-
ments to 269 families of the victims of
the 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing.
Libya, which has acknowledged
responsibility for the bombing, had con-
ditioned release of the money on an end
to the two sets of U.S. sanctions. It had
established a deadline of tomorrow for
Bush to act.
White House press secretary Scott
McClellan said Bush lifted the sanc-
tions by signing an executive order.
He credited Libya with having taken
significant actions over the past nine
months to eliminate its chemical, bio-
logical and nuclear weapons programs.
"Concerns over weapons of mass
destruction no longer pose a barrier to
the normalization of U.S.-Libyan rela-
tions," McClellan said.
He added that Libya facilitated the
removal of all significant elements of
its declared nuclear weapons program
and began a process of converting a
chemical facility at Rabta to a pharma-
ceutical plant.
The country also destroyed chemi-
cal munitions and removed highly
enriched uranium for its research
reactor and equipment for uranium
enrichment, he said. Libya also
eliminated one class of Scud missile
and agreed to eliminate another, he
added.
"They have pledged to halt all mili-
tary trade with countries of proliferation
concern and increased our understand-
ing of the global black market in the
world's most dangerous technologies,"
McClellan added.
Libya's disarmament plan has led
to a substantial improvement in ties
with the government of Libyan leader
Moammar Gadhafi, once considered
to be among the most dangerous of
U.S. adversaries. During the 1980's,
President Reagan twice ordered air
strikes against Libya.
Still on the books is Libya's inclu-
sion on the State Department's list of
state sponsors of terrorism, which sub-
stantially restricts commercial activi-
ties between the two countries. State
Department spokesman Adam Ereli
said terrorism remained a concern and
cited reports that Libya may have been
involved in an attempt on the life of
Saudi ruler Crown Prince Abdullah.
In the Pan Am bombing, all 259
people on board were killed, includ-
ing 189 Americans. Also killed were
11 people on the ground in Lockerbie,
Scotland.
INTEGRATION
Continued from page 1.
"What do you tell students when
they ask, 'How can affirmative
action be working if students form
cliques?"'
While Anderson conceded that self-
segregation can serve an important
purpose - social comfort for racial
minorities is one -simultaneous efforts
to integrate should always be at the fore-
front of our minds.
"We are involved in a process that
will take many decades," Anderson said.
"We're overcoming entrenched habits.
Habit change - we know - is very dif-
ficult."
"Racial Integration as a Compelling
Interest" was one in a series of brown
bag lectures to be held throughout the
academic year by the Institute for the
Humanities.