One month after quake, Haitians mourn dead together

PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – Thousands of Haitians  prayed, wept and danced among tent shelters in the capital’s  main square yesterday as President Rene Preval asked his people  to ‘dry their eyes’ and rebuild a month after the catastrophic  earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people.

Haitians joined in a national day of mourning and prayer  amid the rubble a month to the day after the magnitude 7 quake  wrecked the capital, Port-au-Prince, and surrounding towns and  cities, and left 1 million people living in the streets.

In his first live, nationally broadcast speech to the  impoverished Caribbean nation since the quake, Preval said  Haitians’ courage had sustained their government as it looks  for ways to relieve the suffering of some 300,000 injured and  those living in hundreds of spontaneous tent encampments.

“Haitians, the pain is too heavy for words to express.  Let’s dry our eyes to rebuild Haiti,” Preval said at a ceremony  held on a flower-decked platform at the University of Notre  Dame’s nursing school in the capital.

“Haitian people who are suffering, the courage and strength  you showed in this misfortune are the sign that Haiti cannot  perish. It is a sign that Haiti will not perish,” said Preval,  wearing a black armband of mourning over his white shirt.

The ceremony marked a brief pause in the government’s  recovery effort from Haiti’s worst natural disaster. The quake  killed about 212,000 people, according to the government, and  Haitian officials, along with international aid groups, are  struggling to house and care for those living outdoors.

Thousands took part in the prayers and dancing in front of  the wreckage of the National Palace and in the Champs de Mars,  the main downtown square, which after the quake became a  sprawling city of shanties, tents and shelters make of rope and  bedsheets.

Little girls dressed in their Sunday finest were a stark  contrast to the squalor of the camps, where a woman tossed a  blanket over her shoulders and bathed from a bucket as people  prayed and danced around her.

Preval, who has made few public appearances since the  quake, joined Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and government  ministers for a somber ceremony at the university beginning a  six-day period of national mourning for the quake victims.

Senate President Kely Bastien, who was pulled from the  rubble of the Parliament building and had surgery for a serious  foot injury, hobbled in on crutches.

Preval recalled his own experience the day of the quake.

“When I went out in the streets the night of Jan. 12, in  Bel-Air I was stepping over bodies in the streets. In the  nursing school, I heard students who were calling for help  under the concrete,” he said.

“I went downtown on the main street, throughout the city,  all I could see was bodies, people who were under the  concrete,” he added.

“My only answer to all the pain was and is to continue to  look for relief, particularly abroad, to help ease the pain of  those who are suffering,” he said.

The leaders of the country’s two main religions,  Catholicism and voodoo — Archbishop Joseph Lafontant, who took  over after Archbishop Serge Miot died in the quake, and Max  Beauvoir, Haiti’s high priest of voodoo — sat side by side.

“Never has a disaster stricken such a great number of  Haitians at the same time,” Lafontant said. “But as paradoxical  as it could appear, today’s prayer has turned us toward hope  for life.”

Preval also asked Haitians to pray for former U.S.  President Bill Clinton, who left hospital in the United States  on Friday after surgery to insert two stents for a blocked  artery in his heart.

Clinton, the United Nations special envoy to Haiti, was  appointed along with former President George W. Bush by U.S.  President Barack Obama to direct Haitian relief efforts.

“We are with his family in the same way he was with us  through our misfortune,” Preval said.

In Washington, the White House issued a statement saying  the people of Haiti “will continue to have a friend and partner  in the United States of America.”

“Guided by the roadmap for cooperation and coordination  developed by the government of Haiti, the United States will  support our Haitian partners as they transition from emergency  assistance to recovery and long-term reconstruction,” said a  statement by Obama’s press secretary Robert Gibbs.

The Haitian government said the mourning would conclude Feb.  17 in a “celebration of life” with a party in the Champs de Mars  featuring artists and musicians.