With the National Palace uninhabitable and his own home destroyed, Haitian President Rene Preval is trying to run his country from a dilapidated police station near the heavily damaged national airport.
The US military controls his airport. International aid workers fret about a lack of government control. The Haitian police force is severely overworked.
Saturday brought Preval's troubles into sharp focus. He convened his cabinet ministers in a circle of plastic chairs under an open sky and hustled to welcome US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Preval also urged aid donors to stop arguing.
"This is an extremely difficult situation," he told The Associated Press after one meeting. "We must keep our cool to coordinate and not throw accusations at each other."
Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, with a history of corruption, political infighting and negligent administrations, resulting in decades of poor-to-mediocre services
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for ordinary citizens, half of whom live on less than $1 a day.
The country slowly had been regaining its footing in the past couple of years, thanks largely to the presence of 9,000 UN peacekeepers sent to help restore order following the violent
rebellion in 2004 that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. New businesses were opening and former US president Bill Clinton, now the UN special envoy for Haiti, had been working to attract foreign investment.
The earthquake has turned back the clock. For days, quake survivors and aid workers have complained about a lack of police. Law-and-order needs have fallen largely to the 9,000 UN peacekeepers and international police in Haiti - themselves coping with tremendous loss.
Meanwhile, the ousted Aristide said he wants to return from his exile in Africa to help, though no concrete plans for that were apparent.
Clinton tiptoes on issue of soveriegnty
Against that backdrop, Hillary Rodham Clinton was careful to say the US government would not be taking power from Haitian officials.
"We are working to back them up, but not to supplant them," she told reporters accompanying her on her flight to the Caribbean nation.
Asked about her plans for meeting with Preval, she said she wanted to "listen to him, to be sure we are as responsive as we need to be".
Acknowledging the government's insistence that its "highest priority is to save lives", Clinton said it also would be helpful if the Haitian parliament would issue an emergency decree it was expected to debate on Saturday.
Such an action would give the Haitian government "enormous authority" to meet the people's needs, Clinton said, and to delegate tasks to foreign governments trying to help - not replace
- the Haitian government.
US ambassador to Haiti Kenneth Merten said US officials were in regular contact with Haitian officials about what their needs were and about distributing aid. Communications continue to be a problem for everyone, however.
"We can't even communicate amongst ourselves at the embassy," he said.
Trouble at US-controlled airport
But late on Saturday night Haitian time, anger was mounting at the US-controlled airport.
where aid flights were still being turned away and poor coordination continued to hamper the relief effort four days on.
"Let's take over the runway," shouted one voice. "We need to send a message to Obama," cried another, referring to US President Barack Obama.
Control remained in the hands of US forces, who face criticism for the continued disarray at the overwhelmed airfield.
Dozens of French citizens and dual Haitian-French nationals crowded the airport Saturday seeking to be evacuated after Tuesday's massive 7.0 earthquake, which leveled much of the capital Port-au-Prince.
But at the last minute, a plane due to take them to the French island of Guadeloupe was prevented from landing, leaving them to sleep on the tarmac, waiting for a way out.
"They're repatriating the Americans and not anyone else," said Charles Misteder, 50. "The American monopoly has to end. They are dominating us and not allowing us to return home."
The crowd accused American forces, who were handed control of the airport by Haitian authorities, of monopolizing the airfield's single runway to evacuate their own citizens.
The US embassy denied it was putting the evacuation of the approximately 40,000 to 45,000 American citizens in the country first.
Others waiting for a way out were taken aback by the chaotic scenes that confronted them when they arrived at the Toussaint L'Ouverture airport.
"I haven't been able to tell my family that I'm alive. The coordination is a joke," said Wilfried Brevil, a 33-year-old housekeeper.
The UN Security Council was to meet Monday to discuss coordination of the aid effort, Mexico's foreign ministry said, as Haitians complained they were being kept in the dark.
"The Haitians haven't been notified about the arrival of planes. And when they do land, there's no one to take charge and a large amount of goods are arriving without coordination," said Haitian government official Michel Chancy.
