<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="97%" align=center> <TR> <td vAlign=top> Prime minister: Haiti needs help to rebuild BY JACQUELINE CHARLES jcharles@MiamiHerald.com Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive says Haiti's earthquake crisis is a thread of opportunity to help the country rebuild, but it cannot happen without the assistance of Haitians living in the diaspora or people in the international community. But with thousands of civil servants lost in the quake, a capital in ruins and 1.5 million people still living underneath tents and tarps, Bellerive said the country needs help to capitalize on those opportunities. ``A lot of people came back,'' Bellerive said Wednesday during a visit with The Miami Herald editorial board. ``Now, we have to organize the return or reorganize the support.'' Bellerive said his message to those wanting to help: come with a plan on how you can be integrated in Haiti. Bellerive's comments came at the end of a two-day visit to Miami during which he also gave the keynote speech at a Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce luncheon. He told business leaders at the lunch that Haiti's rebuilding efforts are dedicated to the estimated 300,000 men, women and children who lost their lives in the Jan. 12 earthquake, and that he and President René Préval are not content with simply rebuilding. ``We are intent on rebuilding a stronger, better Haiti from the ground up, a Haiti capable of realizing her full potential as a self-sufficient, independent and democratic nation,'' he said. On Thursday, the first official meeting of the full Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC) will take place in Port-au-Prince. Bellerive is co-chairman of the commission along with former U.S. President and U.N. Special Envoy Bill Clinton. Under the terms of the reconstruction, the commission must approve all projects, from schools to hospitals to roads. At the same time, countries are asked to donate money to a trust fund. So far, only Brazil has signed a $40 million payment, and the Haitian government has been criticized for not having a clear plan on what a new capital should look like, and how to remove an estimated 1.5 million quake victims from public plazas and private lands. Bellerive sought to downplay the slow delivery of more than $5 billion in promised pledges made at an international donors conference in New York for Haiti earlier this year. ``Now, we need better coordination,'' he said. He also fought back criticism by aid groups that a lack of land -- and land-use policy -- is delaying efforts to reconstruct temporary shelters. ``If we are going to create communities, we are going to support that and find land for that,'' Bellerive said. </TD></TR></TABLE>

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