Port Au Prince

The signs of tension here are everywhere as Haitians prepare for a presidential election next Sunday. A youth, well-known for his activities against former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, was shot and seriously wounded by police in the northern city of Gonaives as they attempted to arrest him. An army soldier was shot in the head Friday and his automatic rifle was taken by two unidentified men who fled. Another man who is a critic of the election was reportedly beaten in a taxicab the same day, according to the influential Catholic radio station, Radio Soleil.

MIREBALAIS, Haiti - Luc Bouquet set foot in the United States for the first time in August 1988 and built himself a life that by any measure would be considered an immigrant's dream. But he has never felt at home in his adopted country. Born in Mirebalais, a small village in the Goat Mountains about 40 miles outside Port-au-Prince, Bouquet was essentially an orphan. After his mother died when he was 7, his father abandoned the family. Bouquet managed to get himself through high school, was sponsored to attend Johnson Bible College in Knoxville, Tenn.

More than two years after one of the worst earthquakes in Haiti's history devastated the country's capital, families are still homeless, basic medical needs are not met, and finding safe drinking water remains a daily challenge. The 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck near Port-au-Prince spurred a global relief effort that some fear has fallen out of the public's consciousness. Maurine McFarlane, who visited Haiti days after the second anniversary of the Jan. 12 earthquake, was shocked by her first visit to Port-au-Prince.

Mutinous soldiers today opened fire on the home of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Government sources said the president was safe, but a radio report said 15 to 20 people were killed and more than 120 wounded in fighting caused by the rebellion. It was the most serious challenge to Aristide since he took office Feb. 7 as this Caribbean nation's first freely elected leader. Radio Antilles reported a prominent critic of Aristide, politician Sylvio Claude, was killed and burned in the streets in an apparent backlash by the president's supporters.

ANOTHER cheering throng. Another caravan of conquering heroes surrounded by a thicket of skinny arms waving in salute to their latest liberators. It's a scene reminiscent of so many "triumphal" marches into Port-au-Prince. The object of their adulation this time is Guy Phillipe, a "rebel" leader who looks too young to have voted for Jean Bertrand Aristide in 1990. He may not even remember the repressive regime of "Papa Doc" Duvalier, Haiti's President-for-Life, who sacked the treasury in 1986 just before his retreat to an elegant exile in France.

At Radio Vision Celeste yesterday, the programming went beyond hard news from Haiti's shattered capital, Port-au-Prince. For the estimated 90,000 Haitian immigrants in Southeastern Pennsylvania and South Jersey, the station passed on personal appeals from those desperate to learn about their loved ones, using shortwave radio communications with the handful of stations still in operation there. If the person in Haiti could be located, that message was passed back and broadcast from Radio Vision Celeste's studio in Northeast Philadelphia.

The Pentagon has warned the U.S. Embassy in Haiti that 27 political opponents of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide may have been selected for assassination, the New York Times reported today. The newspaper quoted senior U.S. Defense Department officials as saying the list was compiled in the last several days from intelligence information and after analyzing supposed "hit lists" that have circulated in Haiti and in the Haitian-American press. A senior official said the main potential threat "could be pro-Aristide elements," but not necessarily linked to the president.

On Day Two in Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second largest city, American GIs were being cheered as liberators - "Now everything will be better," a Haitian soldier even effused. But that was not the image or necessarily the sentiment that dominated the news back home. The incident that captured Americans' notice was the ugliness in Port-au-Prince, where Haitian police repeatedly charged celebrating crowds, having at women and children with the same vigor they clubbed men, at least one of whom died within view of U.S. combat troops.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Days after the earthquake killed their young daughter and destroyed much of their house, Meristin Florival and his family pitched a makeshift tent on a hill in the Haitian capital and called it home. Two years later, they're still there, living without drains, running water, or electricity. A few miles away, Jean Rony Alexis has left the camp where he spent the months after the quake and moved into a shedlike shelter built on a concrete slab by the Red Cross.

I FIRST HEARD about the earthquake in Haiti when I was home in Naples, Fla., for the offseason, and I immediately wanted to help. Although I do not have any familial connections to Haiti, the photos and news articles flooding the TV were enough to grip my heart. Even before the earthquake, I knew my church in Naples was working with an organization in Haiti. So, when it happened, I contacted my pastor to see what I could do. The organization that my church, Summit Church, worked with was called Mission of Hope Haiti.

More than two years after one of the worst earthquakes in Haiti's history devastated the country's capital, families are still homeless, basic medical needs are not met, and finding safe drinking water remains a daily challenge. The 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck near Port-au-Prince spurred a global relief effort that some fear has fallen out of the public's consciousness. Maurine McFarlane, who visited Haiti days after the second anniversary of the Jan. 12 earthquake, was shocked by her first visit to Port-au-Prince.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Days after the earthquake killed their young daughter and destroyed much of their house, Meristin Florival and his family pitched a makeshift tent on a hill in the Haitian capital and called it home. Two years later, they're still there, living without drains, running water, or electricity. A few miles away, Jean Rony Alexis has left the camp where he spent the months after the quake and moved into a shedlike shelter built on a concrete slab by the Red Cross.

I FIRST HEARD about the earthquake in Haiti when I was home in Naples, Fla., for the offseason, and I immediately wanted to help. Although I do not have any familial connections to Haiti, the photos and news articles flooding the TV were enough to grip my heart. Even before the earthquake, I knew my church in Naples was working with an organization in Haiti. So, when it happened, I contacted my pastor to see what I could do. The organization that my church, Summit Church, worked with was called Mission of Hope Haiti.

MIREBALAIS, Haiti - Luc Bouquet set foot in the United States for the first time in August 1988 and built himself a life that by any measure would be considered an immigrant's dream. But he has never felt at home in his adopted country. Born in Mirebalais, a small village in the Goat Mountains about 40 miles outside Port-au-Prince, Bouquet was essentially an orphan. After his mother died when he was 7, his father abandoned the family. Bouquet managed to get himself through high school, was sponsored to attend Johnson Bible College in Knoxville, Tenn.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - For the first time in a week, Luc Bouquet would have more than his fill for breakfast. His 82-year-old father-in-law had arrived the night before with a haul of fresh fruits and vegetables from the family's farm four hours outside Port-au-Prince - passionfruit, grapefruit, yams, and three kinds of bananas. "Ah," he said, sitting down to a heaping bowl of boiled yams, plantain, mackerel, and fiery tomato sauce. "This is too much. We can't eat all this.

The devastation in Haiti becomes clearer each day, both in the sheer magnitude of the tragedy and in the individual stories of survival. More than 200,000 people are now believed to have died in the earthquake last week that leveled much of Port-au-Prince. More than 70,000 bodies have been recovered so far, as dump trucks haul them off to mass graves. Other victims are still trapped and likely dying in the rubble, while a few survivors have been found. An additional 200,000 are injured, many in desperate need of medical attention.

FOR DAYS, I found myself unable to look at the photos from Haiti. When I start an article datelined Port-au-Prince, I had to force myself to finish it. I donated to Doctors Without Borders because they've been in Haiti a long time and will be able to use the cash quickly. But I have no illusions about my tiny donation, or the group's ability to help. I have no illusions about anyone's ability to help, for this is not just a natural disaster: It's a man-made disaster first and foremost, and so it will remain.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Britt Parvus, a 33-year-old ophthalmology fellow at Wills Eye Institute, was headed to the elevator with her boss, Carol Shields, Friday morning and decided to hint, none too subtly, about the need for donations to a small health clinic in Haiti. The two-year-old nonprofit project called, straightforwardly, Haiti Clinic normally provides basic first aid and primary care to the residents of Cite Soleil, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. But after Tuesday's devastating earthquake, no one knew whether the clinic, operated out of a school building, had survived.

PORT AU PRINCE HAITI - Britt Parvus, a 33-year-old ophthalmology fellow at Wills Eye Institute was headed to the elevator with her boss, Carol Shields, Friday morning and decided to hint, none too subtly, about the need for donations to a small health clinic in Haiti. The two-year-old non-profit project called, straightforwardly, Haiti Clinic, normally provides basic first aid and primary care to the residents of Cite Soleil, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. But after Tuesday's devastating earthquake, no one knew if the clinic, which operated out of a school building, had survived.

At Radio Vision Celeste yesterday, the programming went beyond hard news from Haiti's shattered capital, Port-au-Prince. For the estimated 90,000 Haitian immigrants in Southeastern Pennsylvania and South Jersey, the station passed on personal appeals from those desperate to learn about their loved ones, using shortwave radio communications with the handful of stations still in operation there. If the person in Haiti could be located, that message was passed back and broadcast from Radio Vision Celeste's studio in Northeast Philadelphia.