HE can only give his children two spoonfuls of rice every day. "When my child whimpers, 'Father, I'm hungry,' I can only look away. This hits us hard and makes us furious," says Saint Louis Meriska.

And so it was that at the beginning of last April Meriska and hundreds of Haitians went to the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince. They demanded President Rene Preval step down for failure to provide cheap food to the people in the poorest country in the