Haitian Beatz

(AP)   Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said the Haitian government will appropriate privately-held land to build temporary camps for earthquake victims.

Bellerive told The Associated Press in an interview that the government owns some land but not enough, meaning he has no choice but to take over private terrain.

He would not say how much terrain will be taken over.

Haitian law provides for such takeovers as long as they are in the public interest and the owners are fairly compensated, said lawyer Benissoit Jude Detournel, who handles property disputes.

"There has to be a just and equitable indemnity, taking into account the market value of the property," Detournel said.

Setting a price is difficult now in the quake's aftermath, he added.

The government has appropriated land in the past without conflict - to build a wider road on the western outskirts of Port-au-Prince four years ago, to protect underground water aquifers 14 years ago and to construct government buildings in downtown Port-au-Prince in the 1970s, according to Jean-Andre Victor, an agronomist who worked on a failed government attempt to survey land ownership in 2003.

Now, international aid groups say hundreds of acres are needed to get quake victims out of overcrowded makeshift camps in public parks and lots in Port-au-Prince. Officials say 1.2 million Haitians were left homeless by the Jan. 12 quake, about half of them in the capital.

Camps have sprung up on every bit of available land in Port-au-Prince - school and university grounds, public gardens, a golf course, the central Champ de Mars plaza or simply on sidewalks.