It was the darkest times, when people were still digging themselves out from beneath the rubble, that Bassan Lumumba Pierre will remember as the highlight of his managerial career.
Canada’s Air Force had just swooped into town, transforming his sleepy regional airfield into a buzzing international airport equipped with a real control tower. Hundreds of aircraft were landing each week – small charters, helicopters and massive military planes. One day, Angelina Jolie touched down.
The flurry gave Mr. Pierre, Jacmel’s airport manager, a vision of how an international airport could brighten the future of his city. But that dream evaporated last week when the Canadian Forces dismantled their camps and pulled out of Jacmel at the end of a two-month relief mission.
In their wake, Canada’s soldiers left an unintended vacuum that seems to be sucking parts of the city they worked so hard to rebuild not forward, but back. That includes the airport, now a shell of what it had become under the Canadians, with an average of less than one plane a day setting down on its deserted landing strip. The Canadian pullout has also hampered the flow of aid through the city’s seaport.
Many of the aid groups that remain in Jacmel blame Canada’s military withdrawal for hampering their efforts – and by extension, the pace of the city’s reconstruction.
“I love team Canada. … But you came to stabilize and you created more destabilization by taking things away,” said Justin Baker, founder of Conscious Alliance, a U.S.-based aid group that has been on the ground solving logistical problems for a network of small non-governmental organizations.
Canada’s soldiers took with them the fleet of heavy lift machinery delivered to Jacmel after the earthquake, even though aid groups were hoping some of it would remain. That would have allowed them to receive large shipments at the port, which is hampered by its utter lack of cranes and unloading equipment.
A 100-tonne barge loaded with shipping containers for aid groups is due to arrive in Jacmel any day now. Without the Canadians to help unload it, no one knows if they’ll be able to get the material off the barge and into the city.
At the airport, operations have been all but abandoned. The open-air office that served as the control tower – set up by Canadian soldiers with portable communications equipment when they arrived and dismantled before they left – has been evacuated. The main terminal, which is empty save for a few folding metal chairs, was also stripped. Without a control tower, immigration office or soldiers to provide security, Mr. Pierre was forced to close the airport to international traffic.
“I will not continue operating without proper equipment,” Mr. Pierre said. “There is a lot of demand. … But for me security is the main concern.”
Jacmel is no longer authorized to receive international flights directly, regardless of whether they’re carrying much-needed aid or volunteers.
Instead, flights are diverted to Port-au-Prince, where they must land and clear customs before proceeding to Jacmel. Before leaving Haiti, the planes must return to Port-au-Prince to clear customs and pay the third landing fee of the trip. The change is costly and time-consuming for scores of volunteer pilots upon whom aid groups have been relying. Many pilots have ceased making runs to Jacmel altogether.
In a written statement, Dana Cryderman, a spokesperson for Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa, noted that Canadian soldiers were deployed in the aftermath of the disaster with a mandate to provide immediate relief in the form of medical support, producing potable water and facilitating logistics to ensure aid reached Haiti quickly.
