Haitians wary of US military reduction
Posted: 10 March 2010 1040 hrs

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PORT-AU-PRINCE: A US Navy hospital ship was recalled from Haiti Tuesday as the US military cut its emergency deployment to the quake-hit nation, where aid efforts are now turning to reconstruction.

The USNS Comfort, which had been anchored off Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince for the past seven weeks, was to leave Wednesday for its base in Baltimore, Maryland, US officials in Haiti and in the US Defense Department's Southern Command said.

More than a quarter of the 11,000 US service personnel currently in and offshore Haiti are to pulled out in the days ahead, according to the Southern Command, bringing the number of those remaining to approximately 8,000.

That figure marked a significant reduction from a peak of 20,000 personnel days after the quake.

The news of the US draw-down was greeted with trepidation by many of Haiti's residents, especially in camps housing some of the 1.3 million left homeless by the January 12 earthquake.

Milto Belfleur, 21, standing on crutches after losing his right leg in the quake, said US army medics had saved his life.

"US military doctors amputated my leg and gave me medicine and cleaned the wound and gave me these crutches," he told AFP in one of the camps -- a former golf course that is now a tent city watched over by US military police.

In a makeshift store in the middle of the camp, Lucien Samedi, 23, said he feared that, "if the Americans go, there will be many problems afterwards" in terms of security.

"I will be sad if they go, because they do a lot to help the people here, especially in terms of security," Natascha Sincere, 22, said as she hung out washing between tents in the hot sun.

US soldiers, however, said they had little to do now that the initial urgency of responding to the disaster was over.

With attention now turning to civilian-intensive tasks such as preparing Haiti's population for the looming storm season, re-opening schools and moving those in the camps to "transitional" settlements outside the capital, there was little need for aid convoy protection and food drops.

The USNS Comfort, which had treated nearly 900 patients in the immediate aftermath of the quake, had been sitting empty without any patients for several days.

"I just want to get out of here as quickly as possible," said Specialist Michael Bennet, a 21-year-old MP filtering access to a quake survivor's camp from under the shade of a tree.

"There's no reason to be here anymore," he said.

His fellow MP on duty, Specialist Jerald Griffin, 23, said those stationed at camps like this one were reduced to "pulling guard duty and playing cards." He added, though, that military police were likely to be the last to go.

Private Fernando Rodriguez, a 19-year-old watching over the camp from a chair next to a graffiti-clad water tank with his weapon lying in his lap, said the deployment was worthwhile.

"It felt good being here, helping other people. I felt much better about myself because I actually did something with my life, to help people here in Haiti," he said.

But if and when his order comes in to return to the United States, the first thing he would do "is go and try a real cheeseburger," he said.

US troops still cut a high profile in Haiti, driving around in Humvees painted for desert warfare in Afghanistan or Iraq.

But they are far outnumbered on the streets by vehicles with UN and other aid workers.

In a sign of how many are being pressed into service unrelated to earthquake relief duties, a couple of US soldiers were even seen directing traffic in downtown Port-au-Prince.

- AFP/yb