The RAND Corp. report being released Friday ticks off a crushing litany of problems in the Caribbean nation, many predating the Jan. 12 earthquake _ unqualified government workers, general lawlessness, horrific prisons, incapable police, an onerous business climate.

But it was the post-earthquake landscape that shocked James Dobbins, a former U.S. special envoy to Haiti and director of the RAND International Security and Defense Policy Center.

“Clearly the scale of the damage was surprising,” he said. “We’re also somewhat surprised at the Haitian and international response. Not the humanitarian response, which was actually dramatically quick. But the second stage _ so little of the rubble has been cleared, and so few of the basic decisions have been made.”

Leaders of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee have portrayed Haitian President Rene Preval as an ineffectual leader who has hindered recovery from the quake and urged their colleagues to reconsider sending money to Haiti if reforms are not made.

That Haiti is in disarray comes as no surprise to Jill Marie Michel, a 33-year-old mother of two living in a tent in one of the dozens of sprawling camps for Haitians left homeless by the quake.

She joined about 100 people in a public protest Thursday in front of the collapsed presidential palace in Port-au-Prince. She and others said the government is failing on its promises to provide housing as private landowners pressure the camp residents to leave.

At a large tent camp across the street, naked children bathed in buckets wedged between the gutters and tents.

“I don’t know where that change is going to come from,” said Michel, who also cares for an orphaned niece and goddaughter whose families died in the earthquake.

The report from the Santa Monica, California-based think tank gives recommendations on what the Haitian government and donor governments and groups should focus on in coming years, identifying key areas such as governance, education, health, security, justice and economic policies.

Donors, it says, should focus more on “state building” rather than rebuilding earthquake damaged structures.

The most important tasks, according to the report:

_Accelerate removal of rubble. The report calls that “the single most important step toward reconstruction of housing and infrastructure that the Haitian government and donors can take.”

_Reduce the cost and time to open a business or obtain property. “Haiti is poor in great part because of its difficult environment for business,” the report says.

_Build up the national police’s capacity and keep United Nations peacekeepers here for at least the next five years.

_Create a modern civil service. The report suggests Haiti’s government just monitor and regulate education and health services and not provide those services itself.

Dobbins said the current situation stems not only from hundreds of years of corruption and mismanagement but also from Preval’s inaction.

“Preval is well intended, but he’s characteristically indecisive,” said Dobbins. “We’re seeing results of that.”

Washington takes some of the blame in the report, and Dobbins recommends the Obama administration appoint a special envoy to Haiti.

“I think everyone has been moving too slowly,” he said. “It’s time to get with it.”

Not everything is bad news. Dobbins said that unlike other “fragile” countries, Haiti is not in a troubled region, there is no internal ethnic conflict, and Haitians living abroad are large in number, skilled and economically supportive.

“Daunting as the current challenges are _ acute problems layered on chronic ones _ the need for reconstruction and the likelihood of an infusion of international resources to fund it open up the possibility of laying a new foundation for stability and economic growth,” the report says.

Before the earthquake, Haiti experienced five consecutive and unprecedented years of economic growth.

“Just to further underline what a low base we’re starting at, the current government we have is one of the best we’ve had in 200-plus years,” Dobbins said.

Many in Haiti hope November elections may usher in change. Haiti’s next president is slated to oversee the spending of nearly $10 billion in reconstruction aid promised at a March U.N. donors conference _ though less than 10 percent has been delivered so far.

Possible presidential candidates to succeed Preval include Haitian-American singer Wyclef Jean and former prime minister Jacques Edouard Alexis.

The former Fugees frontman made the comments to Radio Metropole on Tuesday after returning to Haiti from the United States.

Politicians in Haiti traditionally speak mainly Creole and French _ the latter for many things being the language of government in Haiti. Jean’s American-accented Creole and lack of French are constant reminders he did not grow up here.

Jean, who was born in Haiti but raised in New York City, also urged overseas Haitians to invest in Haiti.

Jean announced his candidacy Aug. 5, then left Haiti the next day. He returned Tuesday afternoon, an adviser said in an e-mail.

He had been scheduled to appear at a fundraiser in Massachusetts for Gov. Deval Patrick on Tuesday evening, but bowed out to travel to Haiti.

It was unclear how long the 40-year-old Jean, who owns a home in New Jersey and property in Haiti, would be in the country.

There is some debate over whether Jean will even be on the presidential ballot Nov. 28. According to the constitution, Haitian presidents must have lived in the country at least five consecutive years before election day.

An eight-member provisional electoral council is spending this week verifying candidates’ credentials.

Jean’s campaign is expected to argue that his 2007 appointment as an ambassador-at-large for Haiti exempts him from the requirement.

He has entered a highly competitive and crowded race for a difficult and dangerous job. Only one person has completed a democratically elected 5-year term in Haiti’s history _ current President Rene Preval, who is poised to do it a second time and hand off to an elected successor since he is barred from seeking re-election.

The winner of the election will take on responsibility for a destroyed capital, 1.6 million homeless people and countless groups fighting over billions of dollars in international reconstruction funds pledged after the January earthquake that killed an estimated 300,000 people.

With Haiti still struggling to recover from a devastating earthquake in January that left more than 250,000 fatalities and millions homeless, seeking to rule the troubled nation is hardly an enviable task. But if anyone has the spunk, passion and tenacity for such an assignment, Jean does, though he has yet to make a firm commitment.

Haiti’s current leader, President Rene Preval, is not eligible to seek another term, having been the only elected president to serve two full terms in Haiti’s turbulent and often corrupt political history.

Preval had honored Jean as the nation’s roving ambassador, a role he relished and promoted with great insight and enthusiasm. Running the Haitian government, which for all intents and purposes is non-existent, will challenge the ex-Fugee, whose voice and guitar mastery has earned him international acclaim.

It has been this immense popularity and his charitable contributions via his Yele Haiti Foundation that makes him such a formidable candidate for the presidency.

Recently, Jean, 37, who was born in Haiti and raised in Brooklyn, told the press that he intended to play some role in the upcoming November 8 elections without actually spelling out that role.

“Do I have political intentions? At this time, no. But what I do have is a movement—it’s called Face a Face, ‘Face to Face’,” Jean said. ‘‘The youth population…we are going to encourage them to vote.”

Jean may be among several candidates seeking the presidency and he has an August 7 deadline to declare his bid. According to news accounts, opponents of Preval have threatened to block the November 28 vote if the president-approved electoral council is not replaced, which Preval has refused to do. It is simply amazing, given the nation’s demolished infrastructure and economic distress, that it’s able to mount a presidential election that will cost millions to conduct and oversee.

To become a legitimate contender, Jean only has to prove he has resided in Haiti for five consecutive years, owns property in the country and has never been a citizen of any country other than Haiti.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI, 19 January 2010

It’s a place where women are raped so frequently it takes place in broad daylight, where gang members roam the narrow, stinking tented alleys with weapons, and where newly-orphaned street children fight over the odd piece of change handed out by aid workers stopping to take photos in front of the ruined palace.

At the President’s medal ceremony, there was talk of hope and progress. It was acknowledged that better performance was needed to deal with the aftermath of the disaster. But that was followed quickly with reminders of the scale of the tragedy and of the achievements made over the past six months.

Outside, nobody in the camp even knew the significance of the date, such is the day-to-day nature of existence for many here. Our friend Joel Joseph arrived in Champ de Mars on the first night after the quake. He had just watched his house collapse with his young daughter inside. He hasn’t worked for months, but he speaks four languages, in a small, sad voice that only gets louder when he’s asked about the international aid effort.

Joel says the lack of obvious progress has convinced many Haitians of conspiracy theories: that NGOs are paying families to stay in camps to prolong the emergency and receive more funding; that reconstruction and rubble-removal are on hold so the government can extract the maximum from international donors. “Even this isn’t for us,” he added, pointing to food distribution by Brazilian peacekeepers just meters from where foreign media were gathered for the medal ceremony. “They haven’t done this here for months, why today? They pretend to help us, but the truth is we’re not receiving any help at all.”

During my six months in Haiti, I have seen an aid effort proceed on an uneven course – from its problematic inception, to successes in disease prevention, and back to somewhere in between. As the UN Mission Chief Edmond Mulet and others freely admit, the sense of urgency has been lost here. That might sound hard to believe when there are more than 1.5 million living in squalid camps, exposed to the elements with extreme weather on the way, but it’s true.

And for most Haitians, the failures of the aid effort are more obvious than its successes. The fact that in six months only 5,500 storm proof shelters have been built in the entire country, the huge rise in assaults on women in the camps, the rubble spilling out over every neighbourhood, a city which still looks much the same as it did in the days just after the quake…

Perhaps it’s a little early to be giving out medals?

The Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission aims to oversee every rebuilding dollar that comes to Haiti through next year. The hope is that it will ensure transparency and encourage investment, helping transform a dysfunctional, cripplingly poor country crushed by the Jan. 12 earthquake into a self-sustaining nation with a prosperous middle class.

“The prime minister and I have made a commitment to the people of Haiti and the people of the world to make this process both transparent and accountable,” Clinton told reporters before the meeting.

Outside the cracked, upscale hotel where it met in a convention room, a better future seems a long way off. More than five months after Port-au-Prince shook, collapsed buildings line the streets and families live under leaky tarps at risk from floods, hunger and disease. Rebuilding has been hampered by organizational problems, government disfunction and the scale of the disaster itself.

Long-term money has also been slow to arrive. Some $3 billion has been committed for humanitarian aid such as immediate post-disaster rescue, medical care, emergency shelter and food, according to the United Nations.

But despite international pledges of some $5.3 billion over two years at the United Nations donors’ conference for Haiti in March, only a fraction has actually been delivered _ just $40 million from Brazil. Though other pledges are expected to be delivered soon, much of that to be held in a Multi-Donor Trust Fund administered by the World Bank, Haitians are growing restless.

Enter the commission. The 26-member body was empowered under an 18-month emergency declaration by Parliament passed shortly before most members’ terms expired and the body essentially dissolved last month.

Half its voting members are Haitian officials, the rest representatives of each donor pledging at least $100 million or $200 million of debt relief: the United States, Canada, Brazil, Spain, France, Norway, Venezuela, Japan, European Union, Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank. President Rene Preval has a veto.

The concept is that the commission will oversee the spending of every donation above $500,000 to Haiti. Organizations will present their projects to the fund, needing its approval to get government and other support to move forward. The process will be tracked on the commission’s website.

On Thursday, Clinton and Bellerive announced the commission’s first approved spending projects:

_ $45 million from Brazil and Norway in direct funds for the Haitian government, closing a quarter of its estimated $170 million budget shortfall.

_ $1 million from the Clinton Foundation for buildings that can be used as storm shelters in the quake-ravaged towns of Leogane and Jacmel, which are often in the path of Atlantic hurricanes.

_ A $20 million fund to provide loans to small- and medium-sized Haitian businesses, provided by Mexican communications magnate Carlos Slim and Canadian mining investor Frank Guistra.

USAID Cash Prizes To Haiti

The project is different from the foundation’s more common approach, which would be to ask for proposals, make grants and then hope for good results. This time the foundation _ and its partner, the U.S. Agency for International Development _ wants to see the results first and then hand out some cash.

USAID is adding another $5 million to the project for help with technical assistance.

In addition to death and destruction, the January earthquake devastated Haiti’s financial system, destroying automatic teller machines, preventing some people from getting cash and making a possession of cash unsafe when nearly everyone was sleeping on the street, said Priya Jaisinghani, senior adviser to USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah.

“If successful, this could be a transformative measure for Haiti,” she said.

In the past four years, the Gates Foundation has committed nearly $500 million toward helping the poor get mobile access to financial services, mostly in Africa. The foundation has also given $2 million toward relief efforts in Haiti, including shelter, food, sanitation and health.

In Kenya, for example, the M-PESA mobile money service allows 9 million people to pay for everything from clothing to school fees using their mobile phones, said Amolo Ngweno, deputy director of the foundation’s financial services for the poor program.

The transactions are easier and safer than carrying cash, save the cost of traveling to and from actual bank branches, and have allowed them to increase their savings and their earnings by between 5 and 30 percent, according to early results of a recent study by the University of Edinburgh.

In Haiti, the foundation hopes to encourage existing cell phone companies, banks or technology companies to give people easy access to financial aid and let them spend money for necessities now, and improve the ability of Haitians to save money for the future, Ngweno said.

“We saw this as an opportunity to intervene, not just for the short term but also for the longer term, to help people have a mobile financial existence,” she said.

Before the earthquake, fewer than 10 percent of Haitians had ever used a commercial bank, according to USAID.

The foundation is offering a prize of $2.5 million to the first company to launch a mobile money service in the next six months that meets certain criteria, which include being a broad service that has the potential for scaling up across the whole country.

“What we don’t want to encourage is short-term or small operators to get into the market just to earn the award,” Ngweno said.

The second successful operator within the first 12 months will get $1.5 million. Another $6 million will be distributed after the first 5 million transactions take place and will be divided among those companies that enabled the transactions.

“We set up this fund to harness the power of the market,” Ngweno said. “They should be actively seeking the right solutions for Haiti.”

Haiti has three cell phone companies and at least two were already looking into the possibility of mobile banking, Jaisinghani said.

Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, now has no further payments due to the Washington-based lending institution.

The bank said Friday the debt cancellation was made possible by contributions from Japan, Canada and 11 European nations.

Since the earthquake, the bank said, it has provided Haiti $479 million in grants for recovery and development through June 2011.

The proposal introduced by senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and Bob Corker of Tennessee calls for spending nearly 25 percent more than President Barack Obama had said in March was needed to rebuild. Kerry is the chairman and top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Corker is the committee’s No. 2 Republican.

Proponents say the legislation is essential to help a country of nearly 10 million people that saw its capital destroyed, government decapitated and 1.3 million people left homeless by the magnitude-7 quake. The Haitian government estimates between 230,000 and 300,000 people were killed.

In addition to tripling U.S. funding for next year, the bill would create a senior Haiti policy coordinator, appointed by Obama and based in the State Department, to oversee a program of improving governance, economic growth, environmental restoration and investment in women and children.

The measure includes the $1.15 billion pledged in March at a United Nations donors conference for Haiti, plus adds an additional $500 million a year through 2014, on top of other funds already pledged by Congress.

That would raise the total money pledged by the international community for Haiti’s rebuilding to nearly $15 billion, including the money pledged by nearly 50 donors at the U.N. conference and $2.7 billion already pledged for humanitarian relief.

The international aid group Oxfam praised the Kerry-Corker bill for supporting Haitian-expressed needs and leadership in the country’s rebuilding. But it expressed concern that the policy coordinator would keep development experts from effectively organizing the U.S. response.

The money could still be a long way off: Even if the bill passes the Senate and House, its proposals then would have to be separately approved by congressional appropriations committees, which would take it up as a contentious midterm election approaches.

Kerry and Corker’s bill is the latest in a flurry of Haiti-related legislation in recent weeks.

On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill to expand trade preferences for Haitian textiles. Lawmakers had already passed bills that make it easier to contribute to Haitian relief efforts and calling on international financial groups to forgive Haiti’s $1 billion in international debts.

Tents. As many as they could haul back to Haiti.

“I eat well here. I sleep well,” forward Charles Herold Jr. said in French, speaking through a translator. “But I cannot help but think of my friends and family who don’t have that. I can’t get that off my mind.”

Unable to practice in Port-au-Prince since the Jan. 12 earthquake that killed as many as 250,000 people, the Haitian team is staying in Texas until its May 5 game against Argentina. Players say a victory is badly needed to boost their country’s spirits, even though they are heavy underdogs against one of the top teams in the world.

The Texas trip was organized by the nonprofit group San Antonio Sports, which is providing the training getaway for the devastated Haitian soccer federation. Players who’ve slept in the streets for the past three months have been feted with brisket and trips to shopping malls.

Players are already wrestling with the guilt of their relatively better fortunes. Forward Eliphene Cadet, 29, escaped from his house in Port-au-Prince after the roof caved on him and two children.

Leaving Haiti meant leaving his family in a tent in a field, near where his house once stood. Other players left their families in similar conditions.

“All the guys talk about it,” Cadet said. “I know that they’re here. There are still tremors now. That’s our biggest worry.”

The Haitian team has actually emerged from the earthquake luckier than some. All members of the national team survived, including those whose houses crumbled on top of them.

But 32 bodies were pulled from the rubble of the soccer federation’s three-story headquarters, including coaches and top officials. Yves Jean-Bart, president of the soccer federation, was among only a few who escaped alive.

Some homeless families are still encamped at the national soccer stadium, and fields elsewhere remain blanketed by a canopy of makeshift tents and tarps. Robert Jean-Bart, the son of Haiti’s soccer federation president and who lives in Boston, said there is virtually nowhere in the country to play soccer.

Jean-Bart said it was only last weekend that families began moving off the playing field in the stadium. He said the federation is trying to schedule a game in Port-au-Prince as early as August, but it will depend on how quickly the turf can be repaired.

Even before the quake, Haiti did not qualify for the World Cup. The international soccer federation FIFA ranks Haiti No. 91 in the world _ behind Iceland but above Gambia _ and the country’s national team has not played an official game in nearly a year.

But players said facing Argentina _ ranked No. 9 _ will be as important to Haiti as a World Cup match.

“In Haiti, people say ask when we’re going to play Argentina. People think you’re going to do something good for the country,” said defender Peter Germain. “If we win against Argentina, the people are finally going to be happy. We can do something positive for this country.”

Nerves from the earthquake remain raw. On the bumpy flight last week to San Antonio, a bout of turbulence had Haitian players pressing their fingernails into the armrests.

“Even when the plane rumbles, it make them nervous,” said Jean Roland Dartiguenave, an assistant coach whose cell phone store in Haiti was destroyed. “It reminds them of the tremors.”

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti  _ A brief rain storm flooded Haiti’s earthquake camps Wednesday, worrying residents hours after they were told to brace for a more-active-than-usual hurricane season.

A windy 20-minute downpour left a half foot of water inside makeshift tents on the sloping golf course of the Petionville Club, now a tarp-and-tent neighborhood of about 45,000 people.

People ran for cover in viscous mud wearing plastic shower caps and towels over their heads. Leaks sprung in emergency tarps given by aid groups after the Jan. 12 earthquake destroyed their homes.

“Of course I am worried about the rain. I have my mother here with high blood pressure and my family lives here,” said a 37-year-old woman who gave her name as Ammeni.

Earlier Wednesday, Haitian radio broadcast a forecast from Colorado State University researchers that the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season will be more active than usual because of warm sea temperatures.

That team said in a Wednesday statement that moderating El Nino conditions in the Pacific were likely to dissipate by summer, creating a likelihood of 15 named storms between June 1 and Nov. 30 _ four of those major hurricanes.

That could cause havoc if any struck near the quake-ravaged capital, where officials are racing to improve shelter for 1.3 million people made homeless by the earthquake. Some will be relocated to camps outside the city; most others are being encouraged to return to their neighborhoods.

U.N. officials are still analyzing $9.9 billion in pledges from a March 31 donors’ conference for Haiti. It is not yet clear how much of that will go toward improving shelter.

Rains are expected to grow more intense as hurricane season approaches. In 2008, nearly 800 people were killed as Haiti was wracked by four named storms in the space of a month.

The ex-presidents are spearheading U.S. fundraising in response to the Jan. 12 earthquake. Tapped by President Barack Obama for the role, they are making the one-day visit to assess recovery needs.

Charged memories of their policies toward the impoverished Caribbean nation are already mixing with frustration over deplorable living conditions among the 1.3 million homeless quake survivors. Supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide have scheduled protests for Monday _ demanding the return of their exiled leader and pleading for more aid.

“We are going to bring our message to the presidents, that our situation here is no good. The way people are living in Haiti is no way for anyone to live,” said Fanfan Fenelon, a 30-year-old resident of the Bel Air slum.

Monday will be Bush’s first trip to Haiti. Clinton, who is the U.N. special envoy to the country, has made two visits since the quake and five in the past two years. He also visited as president.

The pair will arrive in a country struggling to feed and shelter victims of the magnitude-7 quake, which killed an estimated 230,000 people. Hundreds of thousands still live in dangerous camps, some already flooding ahead of the April rainy season.

On Sunday, a small earthquake caused an apartment building to collapse in the northern city of Cap-Haitien, killing at least three people, according to U.N. spokesman Louicius Eugene. Three people were rescued from the rubble.

President Rene Preval’s government has criticized non-governmental organizations for not being accountable to the Haitian state. In turn, Haitian officials have been accused of ineffectiveness and corruption. On Tuesday, a group of Haitian and U.S. human-rights advocates will ask the Organization of American States for an inquiry into why $2.2 billion in aid has not helped more people.

Those exchanges will only grow more heated with the approach of the March 31 donors’ conference at the United Nations, where the Haitian government will ask for $11.5 billion.

Enter Clinton and Bush, an unlikely duo that have arguably shaped Haiti’s history as much as anyone alive today.

Clinton presided over a refugee crisis borne of the 1991 ouster of Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president. He returned Aristide to power in 1994 with a force of 20,000 U.S. troops.

Many of the country’s elite have disliked him ever since. Aristide’s luster dimmed for others as his two nonconsecutive terms gave way to accusations of rigged elections, pocketed foreign aid and attacks on opponents.

Bush is acutely remembered by many Haitians _ especially the thousands in Port-au-Prince’s teeming slums _ as the U.S. leader whose administration chartered the plane that flew Aristide back into exile during a 2004 rebellion, then backed an interim government that carried out reprisals against his supporters.

“We don’t have a very good ’souvenir’ of President Bush, as you might suppose,” said Patrick Elie, who served as a defense official under both Aristide and Preval. “I hope that this crisis is not another opportunity to weaken the Haitian state even more.”

Business leaders and others in positions of power are excited for the presidents’ visit.

“The fact that two presidents of the United States are coming to visit is proof that the subject of the reconstruction of Haiti is not a partisan issue,” said Patrick Delatour, Haiti’s tourism minister and part-owner of a construction company who was tasked by Preval with leading reconstruction efforts.

The nonprofit Clinton Bush Haiti Fund has raised $37 million from 220,000 individuals including Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who gave $1 million, and Obama, who among other donations gave $200,000 of his Nobel Peace Prize. About $4 million has gone to such organizations as Habitat for Humanity, the University of Miami/Project Medishare mobile hospital in Port-au-Prince and the U.S. branch of the Irish charity Concern Worldwide.

The rest has yet to be allocated. There is heated discussion, inside Haiti and out, about where future funds should go.

James Morrell, director of the Washington-based Haiti Democracy Project, said he welcomes the ex-presidents’ efforts but that government corruption will block any serious effort to develop the country.

“They need to go back to Obama and say, ‘Let’s not put all our eggs in one basket,”’ he said.

Others want nothing to do with the visit at all.

“Those people have a lot of money. They could do something for Haiti, but they haven’t done it,” said So An, a powerful leader of Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas party. “I don’t want any words from now on, I want action.”

On a street corner in the Bel Air slum this weekend the debate over the presidents’ visit was already under way.

Neighbors crowded into a narrow alley behind partially collapsed buildings to shout their opinions: Bush is bad, Preval ineffective and Clinton disappointing as U.N. envoy.

But all agreed _ they’ll take any help they can get.

It is the first reported kidnapping since Haiti suffered a magnitude-7 earthquake with catastrophic damage on Jan. 12. More than 5,000 prisoners fled jails that collapsed or were damaged in the temblor. About 200 have been captured.

The international aid agency refused to identify the kidnap victims or the abductors. Spokesman Michel Peremans said they were seized Friday during the day in Haiti’s Petionville suburb and released Wednesday night. He would not say if a ransom was paid.

Kidnappings for ransom had declined in Haiti after years at epidemic levels.

A proud Petion-Ville native, he spent most of his early childhood in the suburbs of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. A country recently devastated by tragedy. Growing up, Jean-Louis, who has lived and worked in various countries such as Italy, England, Spain and South Africa as a model and dancer, recalls his childhood in Haiti as an extremely idyllic one.

“It was a great and a very happy experience. Even though we were restricted as far as water and electricity was concerned, it didn’t stop us from having fun and being kids. I think my childhood helped me in staying in touch with nature — staying in touch with basic needs and the simple things people take for granted,” he says.

[Humble Beginnings]

As a child, Jean-Louis dabbled in sports; particularly soccer. An immensely popular sport in most Caribbean Islands, Haiti has produced many talented star players over the years.

“I didn’t know what an actor was or that such a profession as a model existed and Haiti is a place that loved soccer, so back then I wanted to be a professional soccer player because that is one thing I can relate to. We did have a couple of good Haitian soccer players who went to the world cup,” says the actor. “My parents wanted me to finish my studies and be an engineer or a doctor. Those professions were important to them at the time so being a model and anything that had to do with arts was completely out of my league so I didn’t think about them.”

In 1991, Jean-Louis landed his first job in a Coca Cola commercial when he was spotted dancing in a club. A lucrative career in modeling followed. With international assignments for designers Gianfranco Ferre and Valentino, he traveled extensively to Greece, Brazil, Turkey, Europe, South Africa and India, absorbing the culture around him, but after several frustrated years in France, he moved to Spain to join a musical theatre before finally ending up in the United States.

A role in Jean Claude Van Damme’s “Derailed” in 2000, set the stage for subsequent roles with other Hollywood A-listers and he went on to shoot “Tears of the Sun” with Bruce Willis, “Hollywood Homicide” with Harrison Ford and “Monster-in-Law” with Jane Fonda. Jean-Louis also stared opposite comedian and actress Monique playing a Nigerian doctor in the movie “Phat Girlz,” before becoming a household name as the aloof and mysterious ‘Haitian,’ who has the ability to erase the memories of anyone he wishes.”

“From the beginning, I didn’t have too much to say. It was a lot about the body movement and the look of the character. I used my background as a dancer to create a presence and character out of the very little I was given. I didn’t speak at all for the first few episodes and it’s pretty difficult to play a character who doesn’t say a word.”

Relying on his magnetic presence and poise, Jean-Louis, a talented and creative performer mesmerized audiences in the show which became a phenomenon and dramatically changed the course of his career.

“The success of the show allowed me to go to different markets in different parts of the world and be able to work easily as a result of the recognition. I did movies in France and Indonesia and a few projects in London. Playing a Haitian hero on television put some pressure on me as far as stepping up to the plate. Especially knowing the situation in Haiti, I had to speak up,” he says. “Haiti is an absolutely beautiful country with a lot of mountains, beautiful white sand and blue water, but very, very poor with not too much infrastructure.”

[Helping Haiti]

In 2008, Jean-Louis started up a non profit organization called Hollywood Unites for Haiti in an effort to help the citizens of his native country.

“Haiti was the first black republic to fight and win their independence and it’s something that changed the course of the world.  I initially started Hollywood Unites for Haiti (http://www.hufh.org) to help the underprivileged kids in Haiti.  A lot of what I do is towards the kids because obviously they are the future. So if you can’t take care of them, you know the future won’t be great. So that’s why I try to focus as much as I can on the kids.” Jean-Louis’ organization has been very instrumental in providing full sets of sports equipment to the national soccer team  in addition to much needed supplies for several Haitian communities.

With supporters who include actors Josh Brolin, Diane Lane and director Paul Haggis, it’s a mission which has now clearly taken on a different direction due to the recent catastrophe. Just a few days after the devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake, Jean-Louis flew to Haiti via Santo Domingo to reconnect with his family and at press time, the actor who lost numerous friends and relatives is still on the island working to raise awareness and much needed funds to help stabilize his native country.

Recently, Jean-Louis, who is also the Goodwill Ambassador for the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF) received an honor for his many humanitarian accomplishments by the city of Miami. He was presented with a golden key to the city, during the Fifth Annual Haitian Independence Month Celebration.

“It’s a great honor and it’s not an easy thing to get,” he continues. “Because Miami has a lot of Haitians, from time to time they recognize some of the faces out there and that’s why they invited me, especially with the work that I do and the non profit organization.”

A huge accolade, it’s another accomplishment the selfless actor can add to already colorful and enriching resume. A warm hearted family man with a wife and two kids, Jean-Louis, despite his early struggles in the industry, especially in Europe, has no qualms in letting his kids pursue a similar career in entertainment.

“They are eight and seven and at the age where they could have done a few things and I have no problem with them entering the industry. They just have to discover it by themselves and really want to do it. I wouldn’t want to push them to do it but if they want to do it then why not? I am already in it so I can guide them,” he says.

Extremely athlete and extensively traveled, Jean-Louis plays soccer several times a week, abhors junk food and has a rudimental workout regime.

“Because I travel quite a bit, I always do something wherever I am. Either I will have a football game or do pushups and pulls up, but most of all I also eat very well,” says the actor who has artists Bello, Fela Kuti, James Brown, Sade and of course Bob Marley on heavy rotation on his Ipod. And unlike his character Rene on the NBC show, if he were to possess an extraordinary ability in real life, Jean-Louis would rather have the power to fly than the ability to erase memories.

“I think flying is a good one because of the sense of freedom that you must have when you fly, if you can fly, and also the power to help take care of the current situation in Haiti. Really becoming a hero by using those powers would be great.”

And his greatest fear?

“Ignorance. Because I have been lucky enough to have traveled, it would have been petrifying if I had to be in one room or city and not have the freedom to see what is going on in the world and learn and experience,” he says.

Traveling is certainly an experience and opportunity, which has allowed the actor innumerable ways to help others. Something he intends to continue doing as his native country suffers its worst in tragedy in years, a devastation he agrees will require a long term relief effort and rebuilding process.

“Haiti has suffered many set backs in its rich history and yet the Haitian people have never lost the character to face adversity with creativity, resilience, and community. Sometimes just sending the message and doing a little bit could inspire a lot of other people to continue doing or to start doing as well,” says Jean-Louis. “I have a connection to my home country and whatever I can do for it to be better, I will do it, for I would love to see Haiti doing well so will try to do whatever I can to see that happen.”

To help Haiti visit http://www.hufh.org

After an Oval Office meeting, Obama stood beside Preval in the White House Rose Garden to praise the Haitian leader’s courage and the heroic work of Americans who rushed to help as rescue workers or with generous donations.

Obama said the challenge now is “to prevent a second disaster” with the start of the rainy season in a country where masses of people are without shelter.

“The situation on the ground remains dire,” Obama said, “and people should be under no illusion that the crisis is over.”

More than 230,000 people perished in the ruins of the Jan. 12 earthquake. Obama called it an “international tragedy” and said he was proud the United States has played a leading role in relief efforts.

Moving forward, the president told Preval, Washington will remain a partner with Haiti on the long road to recovery and reconstruction.

The gray-bearded Preval stood erect as he listened to Obama, responding with words of gratitude.

“I thank you not only for the material support but the moral support, the psychological support that made us know we were not alone,” the Haitian leader said.

At the same time, he said, rebuilding must take place in a way that benefits the entire country, not just the most devastated areas.

He said spreading “health care, education and jobs for all men and women” across his country would prevent “migratory flows to the big cities,” which produced the sprawling and poorly built slums of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Obama assured the Haitian leader that U.S. commitment “must and will endure” and that “America will be your partner.”

Preval also met with leaders in Congress, and the House timed his visit to pass legislation directing U.S. officials to take the lead in urging multilateral development institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to cancel all of Haiti’s debt. The Senate last week approved similar legislation.

Haiti owes some $828 million to these institutions, including $447 million to the Inter-American Development Bank and $284 million to the IMF.

Debt relief, said bill author Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is “the simplest but most important thing we can do.” She said it would “allow the government of Haiti to focus its meager resources on the essentials.”

The measure also asks the Treasury secretary to use his influence to bring about the cancellation of the $400 million Haiti owes individual countries.

As Preval was in Washington, the U.S. military hospital ship Comfort lifted anchor off Haiti for the return cruise to Baltimore. The Comfort has been stationed off the country’s coast for seven weeks, treating more than 800 earthquake victims.

The U.S. military also is scaling back in Haiti. The total number of U.S. forces there is expected to drop to about 8,000 in coming days, from a peak of around 20,000 on Feb. 1.

The “Hit For Haiti” match will be played March 12 during the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.

Tournament director Steve Simon says he expects a minimum of $1 million to be raised for Haiti earthquake relief efforts. A similar event held during the Australian Open raised more than $600,000.

Federer and Sampas will team for the doubles match against Nadal and Agassi.

Net proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to the American Red Cross. Fans will be able to donate through text messages and onsite contributions.

Software tycoon Larry Ellison, who recently bought the Indian Wells tournament, will make his own donation.