Spotlight on US soldiers in Haiti

Spotlight on US soldiers in Haiti

Demonstrators from a women's group rallied outside Haiti's ruined National Palace on Tuesday.

They said they are angry with their government, and with the United Nations, which they believe isn't doing enough to provide shelter.

"We don't have any tents! We haven't gotten help from anyone," one of the demonstrators told me.

Over and over, Haitians tell foreign visitors they have lost all faith in their government. Many say they are pinning their hopes on their superpower neighbour to the north.

"If the Americans stay, my life will change. Everyone's life will be changed. We want the Americans to take over the country, today," a man selling fruit outside the palace grounds told me.

"We want American people to be in charge, not the Haitians. If Haitians officials are in charge of the aid, they will only help their own families and friends."

But some Haitians, like former foreign service official Daniel Supplice, who worked in government under the former President-For-Life Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, view the American military presence with suspicion.

Supplice thinks the US may be using the disaster as an excuse to flex its military muscles.

"Some believe we are now dealing with a new version of the militarisation of the area," he said. "And some think the reason for the presence of those troops here is because of the friendship this government [of President Rene Preval] has with Cuba and Venezuela."

Much of the help Haiti needs is now being funnelled through the dilapidated seaport in Port-au-Prince, which I visited on Tuesday.

The docks were badly damaged in the earthquake. US military engineers and civilian contractors have put some of it back in working order.

US army Colonel Robin Akin, a short, effervescent woman, is in charge of the US military's logistical operations in Haiti. Her unit's last assignment was in Baghdad. She says this one's completely different.

"The biggest difference is this is a permissive environment, not a combat environment," she said. "Our soldiers aren't wearing [body armour]. They are here to hep the people of Haiti."

With Akin, I toured a US army transport vessel docked at the port. If Haiti were a combat mission, the boat would likely be loaded with 26 Abrams A1 tanks. Instead it's carrying 43 shipping containers full of food, medicine and military supplies.

As of Tuesday, there were 7,200 US troops on the ground in Haiti, most of them involved in providing security at UN food distribution points.

Another 10,200 are on ships offshore, for a total of 17,400 in the area.

One might think that with so many US and UN troops on the ground, the ordinary resident of Port-au-Prince would feel safe and secure.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Every night hundreds of thousands of people here bed down in fear - fear of the gangs of ruthless thieves and robbers who prey on the weak.

Under cover of darkness, there are many robberies, assaults, and rapes.

Earlier this week I saw the body of a man lying by the side of a busy road. He had been shot, and metal wire was wrapped around his neck.

None of the passersby seemed to know - or care - what had happened.

The Haitian police are nominally in charge of preventing crime but they are ineffective.

Thousands of hardened criminals in the country's main penitentiary escaped after the earthquake, and an unknown number remain at large.

US troops, Akin told me, are only responsible for safeguarding food convoys and keeping order at distribution points. They have no brief to stop Haitian-on-Haitian crime.

In the early stages of the relief effort US forces were sharply criticised by aid groups and some governments for giving landing priority at the Port-au-Prince airport to military and security flights instead of field hospitals and medicine.

Latin American leaders including Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denounced what they called a militarised aid effort.

But UN stabilisation force chief Edmond Mulet told Al Jazeera he' not worried that the US is trying to take over the mission.

"Oh, not at all," Mulet said. "The US military mission, like those of Canada, France and other countries, is a very limited one." He added that he believed the US troops will be gone in three or four months.

US officers will not say when the US military presence here will end, saying only that they will stay as long as US President Barack Obama tells them to.

But if Haiti remains unstable, they may need to stay for awhile.