Former US presidents George W. Bush (2001-2009) and Bill Clinton (1993-2001) visited Haiti for one day on March 22 to call for international aid for the country. The visit helped set the stage for a United Nations (UN) donors' conference which is to be held in New York on March 31. Current US president Barack Obama appointed Bush and Clinton to head up US relief efforts following a Jan. 12 earthquake that killed more than 220,000 people in Port-au-Prince and other parts of southern Haiti. This was Bush's first visit to Haiti, but the third since the earthquake for Clinton, who is also the UN's special envoy for Haiti.

On March 12 several hundred Haitian students and activists gathered at a memorial service for Jean Anil Louis-Juste, a sociology professor at the State University of Haiti (UEH) who was shot dead in downtown Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12 a few hours before a massive earthquake hit the city. A well-known author and activist, Louis-Juste was a strong supporter of the militant student movement that erupted in the spring and summer of 2009.

About 100 Canadian soldiers were scheduled to leave Haiti on March 7 and return to the Valcartier base northwest of Quebec city. An 850-member force deployed to the Port-au-Prince area from the base after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated much of southern Haiti on Jan. 12. The Canadians indicated that they were planning to withdraw the rest of the troops gradually, but Canadian defense minister Peter MacKay, who was in Haiti on March 7 during a two-day visit, said his government would be doubling the size of its contingent in the 9,000-member United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which has occupied the country since June 2004. (Radio Métropole, Haiti, March 7)

A heavy rain fell on Port-au-Prince for about a half hour in the early morning of Feb. 11, drenching the estimated 1.1 million people who have been sleeping outdoors or in improvised shelters since a magnitude 7.0 earthquake destroyed or seriously damaged their homes on Jan. 12. This was the first heavy rain in Haiti's capital and the surrounding area since the quake, which occurred during the dry season. More frequent rainstorms may come as early as March, and medical experts warn of a great increase in disease if better shelters aren't constructed in time.

On Feb. 3 several hundred Haitians marched in Pétionville, a generally well-to-do suburb southeast of Port-au-Prince, to protest what they said was corruption in the distribution of food to survivors of a Jan. 12 earthquake that devastated the capital and surrounding cities. The demonstrators said Pétionville mayor Claire Lydie Parent was illegally charging 150 gourdes (about $3.77) each for the coupons now being used to organize distribution of food. The protest began in front of the military academy on the Route de Frères and then moved to an encampment outside the mayor's office.

On Feb. 5 Puerto Rican independence activist Avelino González Claudio, a suspected leader of the rebel Popular Boricua Army (EPB)-Macheteros, pleaded guilty in US District Court in Hartford, Conn., to charges in the 1983 armed robbery of $7.1 million from a Wells Fargo depot in West Hartford, one of the largest robberies in US history. González Claudio, arrested in Puerto Rico in 2008 after 22 years in hiding, was charged with conspiracy to commit robbery and transportation of stolen money out of the country, allegedly to finance Machetero activities. According to US intelligence, most of the money ended up in Cuba.

Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, at a meeting on earthquake recovery aid in Ottawa, played down reports of growing violence in ravaged Port-au-Prince. "There is a lot of talk about violence, it's not true in Haiti," he said, insisting that the city is calm. "I am extremely impressed as prime minister by the resilience of people." (Bloomberg, Jan. 24) The following day, 15-year-old Fabienne Cherisma was shot dead when police opened fire on looters in Port-au-Prince. (The Guardian, Jan. 26) The day after that, Uruguayan UN peacekeepers fired rubber bullets while attempting to contain a thousands-strong mass of desperately hungry Haitians who had mobbed a food distribution point. Asked by a reporter why the peacekeepers weren't giving instructions to the crowd in French or Creole, one shot back in Spanish, "Whatever we do, it doesn't matter—they are animals." (Herald Sun, Australia, Jan. 26)

PORT-AU-PRINCE — More than 100 people were pressed against the iron gates of the mayor's office in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville. "When will we get that food?" voices called out to the mayor, Claire Lydia Parent, who stood behind the closed gates. The problem Parent faced was how to explain to the frustrated crowd that the food they just saw being delivered on Jan. 23 was intended for a neighboring community.