Elections on hold in Haiti: Stability versus democracy

By Clement Doleac
Research Associate for the Council On Hemispheric Affairs:


Democracy in Haiti is again at risk, as a fierce political battle has erupted, preventing the scheduling of new elections.  The United Nations (UN), the Organization of American States (OAS), along with the US and French governments have all called for the adoption of a new electoral law, which would allow the elections to go forward.  However, given the deeply flawed nature of the present Haitian political system, it is far from clear if just holding elections will accomplish much.

An Unsettled Past


Haiti’s political landscape is today comprised of poorly-organized and highly fluid coalitions of parties, a situation which grows out of the troubled nation’s tumultuous recent history.  François “Papa Doc” Duvalier was democratically elected – after a fashion – in 1957, although he quickly came to believe that he was indispensable, declaring himself president for life.  He delivered on this threat, ruling as a cruel and paranoid dictator until his death in 1971.

With the passing of Papa Doc power fell to his son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, who continued his father’s authoritarian regime.  Opposition gathered and in 1986, Jean-Claude was finally forced to flee Haiti, one step ahead of an armed revolt against his repressive dictatorship.

In the years since 1986, democratically elected presidents have governed Haiti, most notably the charismatic Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991, 1995-1996, and 2001-2004) and today the talented and handsome singer Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly (2011-present).

Haiti’s Jumbled Party System

However all is not well in the Haitian democracy, where anarchy reigns in the nation’s fragmented political system.  A bewildering array of parties are presently represented in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

Overall, a total of 18 parties are represented in the Chamber of Deputies and seven in the Senate.  Because of their small size, most Haitian political parties tend to organize themselves into loose political groupings to build electoral alliances.  For example, Inité (Unity), which dominates the current composition of Congress, was formed as a political grouping of several smaller parties to support former president René Préval.

The report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) correctly sums up the chaotic situation.  The lack of “ideolog[ical] […] clarity leaves citizens unable […] to choose between clearly defined platforms” in this fragmented political landscape.  “Over 100 parties and groups have produced the 5,000 signatures required for registration,” the report continues, and yet for all this diffusion of political input, actual power rests in the hands of only a few well-positioned party leaders.  As it stands, the Haitian political parties fail at the most basic tasks, failing to articulate institutionalized policies and to effectively reach out to the citizens.

Citizenship Skepticism

The weak democratic institutions and the power vacuum provoked by the 2004 crisis led to the absence of strong parties.  The ICG report stated that charismatic personalities and “shallow politicians are unfortunately filling this vacuum”.  Rather than holding politicians accountable for not addressing Haiti’s economic and social troubles, these personalities have removed citizens from decision-making, who in turn have rendered public policy suspect because of a lack of confidence in the democratic system.

This political skepticism, as the myriad of small parties who have little organization, inconspicuous ideologies, and murky proposals consequently created a moldable alliance system and indecipherable political game.  However, there are some stable identifiable structures in recent Haitian political history.

For example, former President Préval’s platform Inité (Unity, formerly referred to as Lespwa, Hope) counting with a majority in the Senate and partly representing the Fanmi Lavalas tendency (from former elected President Aristide); and the Convention of political parties which brings together 12 political parties and represents the Fanmi Lavalas political group.

Another notable party includes the Mouvement de l’Opposition Démocratique (“Democratic Opposition Movement,” MOPOD), an opposition platform led by Mirlande Manigat, former ex-first lady before 2011 and the unfortunate candidate for the 2011 elections.

To most Haitian citizens, politics seem to be little more than an unseemly scramble by opportunistic charlatans fighting over the spoils of office.  To most people, their elected political officials seem to be utterly devoid of any guiding principal, faithlessly switching allegiances overnight, and accepting alliances with the very leaders they so convincingly denounced just the day before.  The political effect of this is to remove ordinary voters from the decision-making process.  Given the endlessly shifting positions of all politicians, no one have any real idea about what they might be voting for.

It is within this context that the long overdue elections for the Chamber of Deputies and a third of the Senate, along with local and municipal elections, were supposed to take place this year.  Initially scheduled for 2012, then 2013, and finally October 26, 2014, the elections have now been delayed once again, this time indefinitely.  It is anyone’s guess when, or if they might be held at all.

President Martelly’s Pressure Led to a Legislative Blockage

On September 24, the Haitian Prime Minister, Laurent Lamothe, tried to resolve the situation, promising that “we will continue working to ensure that the elections take place as soon as possible.  There … [has been a pending] law in Parliament for more than 185 days,” Prime Minister Lamothe explained, “[but it is] awaiting ratification by the Senate, where there are six […] extremists who [are] block[ing] the vote, so that the elections are not [being] held.”

The six senators are from the opposition grouping, mostly from Inite such as Jean-Baptiste Bien-Aimé (elected in the department of the North-East), Jean-Charles Moïse (elected in the department of the North), Francky Exius (elected in the department of the South), John Joël Joseph (elected in the department of the West), Westner Polycarpe (from Altenativ party and elected in the department of the North), and Jean William Jeanty (from Konba party, elected in the department of Nippes).

In the opinion of this so-called “G-6” (group of six), the presidential draft of the Electoral Law was adopted without any respect for the Constitution or the legislative process.  Legislators previously proposed a first draft in 2011, but it was never ratified by President Martelly. The G-6 criticize the way the executive power by decree imposed the members of the Conseil Electoral Provisoire (Provisional Electoral Council, CEP) to be in charge of ruling the electoral process.

As The Miami Herald pointed out, “[i]n addition to the senators, several large political parties in Haiti are also opposed to the agreement and were not part of the negotiations [the so-called El Rancho Accord].  In addition to raising constitutional issues, Martelly’s opponents have also raised questions about the formation of the CEP tasked with organizing the vote”.  Many feel that it is currently being controlled by the President.”

International Support to an Authoritarian Electoral Process

The Permanent Council of the OAS, weighing in on the matter, blandly and predictably called for the prompt carrying out of the overdue elections.  The Permanent Council expressed its, “deep concern for the lack of progress in the electoral process” in Haiti, and urged all political stakeholders to continue dialogue and to fulfill their obligations under the Constitution.  The OAS depicted the six senators as the culprits in the electoral hold up.

“The Draft Electoral Act, an essential tool for organizing these elections,” the OAS noted, “was passed on April 1 2014 by Haiti’s Chamber of Deputies and immediately transmitted to the Senate for its consideration and approval.”  However, the OAS, pointed out, “no action has been taken by the Senate” on this matter.  Samantha Power, US Ambassador to the UN, has echoed this outlook, noting with dismay that “a group of six senators seems intent on holding elections hostage to partisan concerns, even going so far as to prevent a debate on the electoral law.”

However, Mirlande Manigat, Haitian constitutional scholar and runner up in the 2011 presidential elections, blames President Martelly: “for three years, he refused to call elections,” she said.  “A large part of this is his fault,” she added, “[and it is therefore] unfair to accuse the six senators for the crisis.”

Last year, Sandra Honoré, the head of the UN Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH), explained what caused the G-6 senators to unite: “Despite the executive branch’s repeated public statements in favor of holding the elections as soon as possible […] [it] had intentionally delayed the process to ensure that Parliament would become non-functional.”

Despite this, problems are much deeper regarding political governance in Haiti.  The principal opposition party, Fanmi Lavalas, was not allowed to participate in past presidential elections for questionable reasons, which later led to a boycott of legislative elections.  Besides the boycott, some political actors of Fanmi Lavalas ran in the last electoral race and got elected thanks to the Lespwa political platform (and joined Inite), and represent now four senators of six who oppose the actual draft of the Electoral Law.

Even with no official representation in the official bodies of the State, Fanmi Lavalas is one of the strongest platforms in the country and should be able to participate in the electoral process.  The CEP should also have the support of every political party in the country, in order to avoid future electoral disputes.

Why Hold a Flawed Election?

The Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) concluded last month how the United States and other countries involved in Haiti, having done no more than making speeches each year calling for fair elections, “are now willing to accept any sort of election”, even at the cost of violating the Constitution.  One of the ICG’s principle recommendations in their February 2013 report was for Haiti to seek “to develop and promote more genuinely representative, better-structured parties capable of formulating and sustaining substantive platforms and playing a more effective role in the country’s development.”

Only this, the ICG stated, would allow Haiti to achieve “truly inclusive and competitive elections.”  This seems accurate.  Certainly Haiti needs to hold elections, but after the fiasco in 2010, with massive fraud and less than a quarter of potential voters bothering to cast ballots, it is highly doubtful that simply holding an election will resolve the long-term problems of Haitian political life.  It may be impossible to have democracy without elections, but, as Haiti is proving, it is all together possible to have elections and still not have anything close to resembling democracy.  What Haiti needs is a real democracy, and elections alone will not accomplish that.

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, founded in 1975, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt research and information organization.  It has been described on the Senate floor as being "one of the nation's most respected bodies of scholars and policy makers."  For more information, visit www.coha.org or email coha@coha.org

December 11, 2014

Caribbeannewsnow 

Paramilitarism and the assault on democracy in Haiti

By Belen Fernandez

Haiti's brutal paramilitary campaigns received scant media coverage, while "political violence" was decried at length.

The Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Haiti was instrumental in the 2004 coup d'état that deposed Aristide [EPA]

In the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti, certain media outlets painted a picture of a country overrun by looters and at the mercy of gang members and other criminals, including thousands of prisoners jolted free by the quake.

Relevant details were ignored, such as the contention by prominent Haitian human rights attorney Mario Joseph that 80 per cent of said prisoners had never been charged.  The media effort perhaps aided in rendering less incongruous in the eyes of the international public the deployment of a sizeable US military force to deal with quake-affected people who did not seemingly require military attention.

A Reuters dispatch from one week after the disaster - which reported "marauding looters", "scavengers and looters swarm[ing] over damaged stores", "increasingly lawless streets" and "[h]eavily armed gang members" - offered the following plea from policeman Dorsainvil Robenson: 

"Haiti needs help ... the Americans are welcome here.  But where are they?  We need them here on the street with us."

The whereabouts of the ever-elusive Americans are of course hinted at two paragraphs later, when we learn that "the White House said more than 11,000 US military personnel are on the ground, on ships offshore or en route".  Elsewhere, French Co-operation Minister Alain Joyandet was quoted as commenting in reference to seemingly skewed US priorities: "This is about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti".  As foreign military monopolised the Port-au-Prince airport, teams of paramedics and first responders were delayed in the critical hours immediately following the earthquake.  

Subscribers to the fantasy that the US is somehow qualified to counteract violence and install order in the Caribbean nation would do well to peruse a new book entitled Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti, in which author Jeb Sprague masterfully documents - among other topics - the detrimental role of US and fellow international actors in Haitian history.

Offering new evidence obtained through interviews and a massive amount of formerly classified US government documents, the book clarifies how Haiti's post-quake reconstruction rests on a foundation of total impunity achieved by the country's most brutal paramilitaries and their financiers. 

Legacy of violence 

As Sprague notes, the US occupation of Haiti from 1915-1934 under "the pretext of possible German encroachment during the First World War… caused the deaths of an estimated 15,000 Haitians and saw the imposition of slave labour".  It also imposed "a modern army, one that would continue the US occupation long after US troops were gone", functioning on behalf of the Haitian elite and their American counterparts. Observes Sprague: "The US occupation wedded the country’s future to North American business interests."
 

Later, during the reign of Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier in the 1960s, US Marines trained the dictator’s Tonton Macoutes paramilitary force, known for "leaving bodies of their victims hanging in public, a clear warning to anyone stepping out of line, most especially leftists, socialists and pro-democracy activists".  Linked to the business elite and the military itself, the Macoutes were "vital for upholding a system based on severe inequality and class privilege". 

Following the transfer of power to Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, a brutal counter-insurgency force known as the Leopards was trained and equipped "by former US marine instructors who were working through a company (Aerotrade, Inc and Aerotrade International, Inc) under contract with the CIA and signed off by the US Department of State". 

Prior to becoming Haiti's first democratically elected president in early 1991, the young liberation theologian, Jean-Bertrand Aristide "denounced the historic role of the United States in founding, arming and training Haiti's military, which had been responsible for so much of the violence in Haitian history".

Sprague quotes Aristide: "They [the United States] set up the Haitian Army, they trained it to work against the people".  Indeed, it would be difficult to argue that the army was working for the people by massacring citizens attempting to vote in 1987, or by overthrowing the newly elected Aristide in September 1991 and slaughtering his supporters. 

Aristide's coup-inducing crimes included inviting street children and homeless persons to breakfast at the National Palace and endeavouring to raise the daily minimum wage from $1.76 to $2.94.  As Joanne Landy wrote in the New York Times in 1994, the latter effort was "vigorously opposed by the US Agency for International Development because of the threat such an increase would pose to the 'business climate', particularly to American companies paying rock-bottom wages to workers in Haiti". 

Aside from USAID, another relevant euphemism from the coup period was the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), a paramilitary organisation intimately linked to the Haitian military that assumed the task of terrorising the non-elite masses under the military junta. "Internal US government documents reveal that FRAPH was founded in part at the behest of the US Defence Intelligence Agency," Sprague notes. 

Recycling brutality 

After years of brutality and corruption, the military dictatorship faced growing resistance at home and abroad.  Aristide was thus reinserted in his lawful post in 1994 in exchange for, inter alia, committing to be more attentive to the needs of the US agriculture industry and drastically slashing tariffs on imported rice. 

Upon reinstatement, he logically moved - with overwhelming public support - to disband the armed forces and the section chiefs (the hated rural constabulary).  His government, and the elected governments that followed him, also gathered testimonials from thousands of victims of paramilitary violence and undertook judicial proceedings to prosecute military and paramilitary criminals. 

However, as researcher Eirin Mobekk has critically pointed out and Sprague has underscored, "only the army as an institution was dissolved… In a country where the army had run political life for decades it was an illusion to think that its networks would disappear with the removal of uniforms and the use of its buildings for other purposes".

US contributions to the dissolution of the army included maneouvering to insert allied Haitian ex-military officials into what was supposed to be a civilian police force and eliminating officers seen as overly loyal to Aristide or less than enthusiastic about the coup.  Some Haitian police officers were trained in the United States, where they were susceptible to overtures by the CIA, which also funded various FRAPH leaders and other paramilitaries. 

Given the high level of impunity enjoyed by military and paramilitary members who had committed atrocities - not to mention US insistence on a full amnesty for the coup perpetrators - it is somewhat less than astonishing that Aristide's re-election in 2000 also culminated in a coup d'état.  Instrumental in the overthrow was the Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Haiti (FLRN), which as Sprague explains was "led by renegade police officials who were from among the same ex-FAd'H [Haitian Armed Forces] pushed into the country’s new security force by the United States in the late 1990s". 

Backed by some wealthy Haitians, neo-Duvalierists, sweatshop owners, and government and army officials from the neighbouring Dominican Republic (who didn't want Aristide's anti-military, pro-human rights rhetoric rubbing off on their own citizenry), the FLRN staged incursions into Haiti from Dominican territory with the ultimate goal of forcing the re-establishment of the Haitian army.

Of course, the sign of any good army is its ability to safeguard the domestic population, and these incursions provided the FLRN with an opportunity to showcase its skills - which it did by massacring and assaulting supporters of Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas party, often with sickening tactics. Citing formerly classified US embassy cables, Sprague uncovers how a small but powerful fifth column within the government was also working to undermine Aristide. 

According to Sprague, it is likely that French and US intelligence facilitated the paramilitary insurgency in some way, while "the International Republican Institute (an organisation funded by the US government that promotes 'democratisation programmes' around the world) provided a forum through which the [Haitian] political opposition strengthened its ties with the paramilitaries".

As journalist Max Blumenthal has documented, the IRI benefitted in its underhanded dealings from the diplomacy of Roger Noriega, an Iran-Contra-era figure recycled into the Bush II administration along with his Cold War Manichean fantasies according to which Aristide and anyone else with less than extreme right-wing political convictions is a communist demon.  

Sprague aptly comments that US' "knowledge that [sectors of] Haiti's 'business community' [were] strongly backing paramilitary terror underscores the cynicism of Washington’s constant demands that Aristide seek 'compromise' with his 'peaceful opponents'".  In the end, the compromise consisted of Aristide's removal on a US military plane to the Central African Republic in 2004 and the installation of Gerard Latortue as head of state.  The ensuing peace is recalled by historian Greg Grandin: 

"During Latortue's brief stint in office, 2004 - 2006, Haiti experienced some 4,000 political murders, according to The Lancet - while hundreds of Fanmi Lavalas members, Aristide supporters, and social movement leaders were locked up - usually on bogus charges. Latortue's friends in Washington looked the other way." 

Sprague, meanwhile, observes that "Bill Clinton's [former] policy of inserting a handful of ex-FAd’H criminals into Haiti's police force… was now put on steroids" and that "in 2004 -5 the United States and the UN oversaw the recycling of 400 ex-army paramilitaries into a revamped police force" - paving the way for yet more repetitions of history. 

Media coups 

Why is it that Haiti's brutal paramilitary campaigns received scant international press attention while quantitatively and qualitatively inferior political violence by a small number of Fanmi Lavalas supporters (which occurred in the context of clashes with the opposition) was decried at length? 

Obviously, media coverage is shaped by geopolitical and financial interests, with the terms of events defined by the powerful.  This is how, for example, terrorism conducted by the US and Israel becomes "counter-terrorism", "self-defence" and "democracy promotion" in the Western mainstream media. 

Sprague documents how, in the case of Haiti, the press in the US, France, Canada and other locales undertook to demonise Aristide and rebrand the violent and unpopular uprising against him as non-violent and popular. As US-trained FLRN commander Guy Philippe remarked to journalist Isabel McDonald following the coup: "[The] international media, the media leaders helped us a lot.  And thanks to them we were able to overthrow the dictator.  And without them I don't think that we could have".  

"Obviously, media coverage is shaped by geopolitical and financial interests, with the terms of events defined by the powerful."

In an essay for the London Review of Books, Paul Farmer describes how Aristide was made the scapegoat for crimes committed by the very people who overthrew him.  Summarising Philippe's pre-coup history, which involved reincarnation as a police chief following the demobilisation of the military, Farmer writes: 

"During his tenure, the UN International Civilian Mission learned, dozens of suspected gang members were summarily executed, most of them by police under the command of Philippe's deputy. The US embassy has also implicated Philippe in drug smuggling during his police career.  Crimes committed in large part by ex-military policemen are often pinned on Aristide, even though he sought to prevent coup-happy human rights abusers from ending up in these posts." 

Farmer also noted that "Philippe has been quoted as saying that the man he most admires is Pinochet".  The bloody legacy of the Chilean dictator offers a reminder of how helpful US-backed coups and violence can be when it comes to introducing neoliberal reforms. 

After the second overthrow of Aristide, Sprague writes, the temporary regime set about "securing [Haiti] as a platform through which global capital could flow freely", in accordance with instructions from the IMF and other interested parties: 

"The interim government laid off between eight and ten thousand civil sector workers, many from the poorest slums of Port-au-Prince. Other programmes under the Aristide government, such as subsidised rice for the poor, literacy centres and water supply projects, came to a halt following the coup d'état." 

The long-fantasised-about mass privatisation of Haitian state assets, however, appeared more difficult to pull off - until, that is, the country was shattered by the 2010 earthquake and control over Haiti's energy, water and other sectors was divvied up between international players like the World Bank and USAID. The 2011 debut of singer-turned-head of state Michel Martelly, elected with the support of a mere 16.7 per cent of the electorate and described by former Financial Times journalist Matt Kennard as a "shock president" prepared to enforce economic shock therapy, seems to have set the stage for the conversion of Haiti into a neoliberal fairytale kingdom. 

It is fitting that Martelly, whose presidential objectives include a resurrection of the Haitian armed forces rather than the pursuit of projects benefitting the majority of the nation's citizens, is himself a longtime close associate of Duvalier's paramilitary Tonton Macoutes.  

Belen Fernandez is the author of The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, released by Verso in 2011. She is a member of the Jacobian Magazine editorial board, and her articles have appeared in the  London Review of Books blog, AlterNet and many other publications.

04 October, 2012

Source:

Al Jazeera

The Martelly government and the will to create a modern and hospitable Haitian society ...out of the medieval and inhospitable Haiti ...of which we are living in today ...in the year of our Lord - 2012

The Martelly dilemma

By Jean H Charles

This month of September brings back the specter of 55 years of a life of horror endured by the Haitian people.  It started with the Duvalier regime that haunted Haiti for 29 years (September 22, 1957, to February 7, 1986).  It continues with the bad memory of 20 years of pseudo Marxist regime of the Lavalas and Lespwa governments, Jean Bertrand Aristide and his nemesis Rene Preval (February 7, 1991 – May 14, 2011) with in between militarism disguised as a democratic carnival (1986-1991).

I thought that at least and at last we have a hoof with a good government that would ease the pain and the suffering of the Haitian people.

The President’s enemies

Joseph Michel Martelly, who followed the Preval regime, is facing, after one year in power, stiff opposition from several segments of the population.  I would divide this opposition into three groups.

There is first the factions of the old regimes, as well the majority of the defeated political class that is frustrated that this government with no political foundation and no political acumen could succeed where they have all failed miserably.  They intend to leave no room for action for the Martelly government to govern in peace.  They are like the scribes and the Pharisees in Jesus time, picking up faults in everything and everywhere.

Each action or non action of the regime is studied with a fine microscope lens for alleged infractions of the Constitution.  The president’s push, to establish a Permanent Electoral Board mandated by the Constitution some twenty five years ago, is facing stiff resistance by the political class, which is crying foul that he may be packing the Board with only his cronies.

They have found their hero in Senator Moise Jean Charles, a former mayor from Milot near the Citadel Henry, who became a senator due to President Preval’s good graces.

He has been pounding the Martelly government with big and small punches, one after the other.  It was first the issue of double nationality of the president, which was a mountain made out of a molehill; then a story of corruption with the then candidate, now President Danilo Medina of the Dominican Republic.  It ended as well as a storm in a teacup.

Senator Moise Jean Charles was recently at the Black Caucus of the American Congress in Washington DC drumming up support to seek the destitution of the Martelly/Lamothe government.

President Martelly has also amongst his enemies his best friends.  They have been his companions on the road for long time.  Their sense of entitlement to privileges and bounties of the republic seems without limit.  The life of luxuries of the friends of the regime is in stark contrast with the privation of the majority of the population.

President Martelly is also facing an opposition factor in the mass of Haitians to whom he has made the promise of lifting them from their sordid and miserable life in which they have been living for the past two hundred years.  It is the first time such a promise has been made to the Haitian people since the days of the founding father Jean Jacques Dessalines, who in 1804 exclaimed: “What about the former slaves?  Don’t they have also the right to enjoy the patrimony of the labour of their ancestors who toiled for three hundred years to build this nation!”

The Haitian people, with a zombie-like patience that accepted a de facto status that lasted for generations, are now awakening.  As a child not accustomed to the discipline of delayed gratification, as if two hundred years of ill governance must be corrected within one year; it is demanding results now.  Several demonstrations took place in the major cities, mainly Cape Haitian and Les Cayes.

But with unemployment hovering around 85% in the population, any demonstration can be bought on the cheap by Martelly detractors.

President Martelly has, to his credit, the confidence of the populace that he is filled with goodwill and he is definitely committed to changing the living conditions of the most desperate of the population.

His dilemma is how to go about moving mountains of structural problems that are not even on the agenda of policy solutions.  Haiti described by the Wall Street Journal as the poorest nation on the planet (it used to be the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere) is facing the same problems of non nation status as Central African Republic, its nemesis on the ranks of failed nations.

The Haitian dilemma

Its mass of poor and uneducated peasants, who lived in the mountains that are now depleted from its trees to prepare charcoal, the readymade cash crop, are invading the outskirts of the cities, creating insurmountable environmental problems of urbanization.

Will this problem be dealt with sentimental and cosmetic solutions or will the government, surrounded by competent and forward looking ministers, tackle the problem at its source, creating a nation out of the Republic of Haiti, one where its people will be no more nomads in their own country?  Travelling from hamlet to cities, and from there negotiating an illegal trip abroad in search of a friendlier sky!

The government is seeking new investment to provide jobs to the populace.  The issue of unemployment is a global one, whether in Europe, where Spain has 50% unemployment, or the United States, where young graduates cannot find a job and unemployment is at 15%.

Europe and the United States have the infrastructure, the security and the education level to produce jobs.  Haiti has none of these assets; it only has a large, resilient and non educated population with no infrastructure and limited security.  The factory jobs friendly to Haiti are in the garment industry, the Caracol experiment; it will produce in the long run, only frustration or a dream deferred.

The Haitian solution

Haiti should rely instead on its natural and organic assets to produce jobs in organic or nostalgic agriculture for export (to its own Diaspora), husbandry with a human touch, with chicken so tender that they are in the delicatessen sections of all the supermarkets of the world (as the Haitian mangoes) and arts and crafts so peculiar to the creative talent of a critical mass of the population.

Later it will capitalize on its fascinating scenic beauty to create a niche market for tourists not afraid of strong memories and emotions drawn from the year long religious and cultural festivals.  They can also hibernate in a setting where land, labour and material is still cheap compared to the rest of the Caribbean.

I have made the point often in this column that education is the key to future development.  The government has embarked on a project of reaching out to all youngsters who have been out of school for years.  It is not enough.  An literacy program spurred by the Cuban brigade is receiving scant support from the government.  Yet all the studies have point to the direction that there can be no development if the majority of the population is not highly educated.

Last but not least the government must accelerate its project of re-dotting the country with the Haitian army.  Haiti is suffering of a deficit in the perception of security coverage.  The new Haitian army will provide that insurance.  Haiti is no less safe than most of the islands of the Caribbean yet perception (as location in real estate) is all that matters!

In the end, the Martelly/Lamothe government will have to harness all its muscle to discard the feelings of those who fail in the past to be compassionate to the fate of the majority. It must understand that the problems of Haiti are first structural -- cosmetic solutions will only compound the problem.  It needs the best collaborators to define and bring about corrective remedies.  It must rein in the gluttonous thirst of its best friends who, like some of the Haitian generals after the Haitian Revolution, took the position that the return from Haiti’s independence was only for themselves and for their families.

It should not be afraid of educating the Haitian people about the concept of deferred gratification for a better good later.  Bringing solace to the Haitian people must start with hospitality in the smallest territorial collective, building development from the ground up.

Creating a nation is a hard concept at home and abroad, it demands strong leadership.  Go and ask Dr Lee Kuan Yew, the founder of modern Singapore. He was the laughing stock of the Western world twenty years ago when he enforced the punishment of a young American to a flagellum for throwing chewing gum on the street.  Yet he has now one of the most developed and richest nations on the globe!

Haiti as a forward looking nation at its creation can again become a lightning rod for itself and for the world if its government takes steps to unleash the creativity of each one of its citizens.  The Martelly government has the whereabouts to accomplish that feat if only it can head into the lessons of this essay and start demonstrating it has the will to create a modern, hospitable, Haitian society out of this medieval inhospitable Haiti that we are living into today in the year of the Lord 2012!

September 29, 2012

Caribbeannewsnow

Haiti, its history, its culture and its people

By Jean H Charles

Its history

Haiti, previously called Ayiti by the Tainos who inhabited the island, was the most populous and the most organized of the chain of the territories of the Caribbean. Their days were changed on December 5, 1492, when Christopher Columbus arrived in a northern bay renamed Bay of St Nicholas because of the feast of St Nicholas on that day. The Tainos received the Spanish explorers with genuine hospitality, offering gold chains to the men. Columbus returned to Spain to inform Queen Isabella of his discovery, leaving behind a crew of sailors.

Within a generation, the population of some one million Tainos was reduced to hundreds. Those who were not decimated through new disease brought by the Spanish men, such as tuberculosis, gonorrhea and syphilis, were destroyed through hard labour, alcohol and plain mutilation.

Yet, the gold exploration had to continue, and a priest by the name of Las Casas, under the pretext of protecting the Taino population from oblivion, obtained from the Queen of Spain, the authorization to grant the right for merchants to seek and bring Africans into the Western hemisphere to labour in the mines.

From 1503 to 1793, almost three hundred years, the black slaves toiled the land, producing sugar, cotton and cocoa that enriched principally the French colonists, who ruled the island with an iron fist.

It was as such until a Jamaican slave by the name of Bookman organized a voodoo ceremony in the northern part of St Domingue on August 14, 1791, to energize the slaves in revolting with the slogan: Better death than return to slavery!

The destruction of the plantations followed, but Bookman was seized and killed. Toussaint Breda, who became later Toussaint Louverture, continued the movement. A well educated and profoundly religious man, Toussaint was aware of the wind of human rights brought upon St Domingue first by the American Revolution in 1776 and later by the French Revolution in 1789.

Through several battles, he defeated first the British, later the Spanish and proposed a French Commonwealth to Napoleon Bonaparte, leading the destiny of the island with prosperity and hospitality for all. His reputation as a nation builder was sterling. Indeed the second president of the United States, John Adams, already trading with the governor of the country, was contemplating advising him to become king of the island.

Bonaparte responded with an armada supported by the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. Through a ruse, where family affection was at the root, two sons of Toussaint were on the boat coming from France, and he was lured into the hands of Rochambeau, Bonaparte’s brother in law, who was the commandant of the naval regiment.

Toussaint was captured, imprisoned and sent to die in a prison in France. He had predicted that the roots of freedom were strong and deep and they would not wither.

Jean Jacques Dessalines took up the revolutionary movement and, within three years, he had succeeded, with the support of other generals such as Henry Christophe and Alexander Petion, to root out all the French soldiers from the island. In a memorable battle on November 18, 1803, the ragtag army of slaves succeeded where Spartacus with his 6,000 men could not accomplish with the Roman Empire some 2,000 years earlier in 70BC.

They rang the song of freedom for all slaves on the island and foreshadowed the beginning of the end of slavery in the world.

This saga was a short glorious moment for Haiti. Two years after Independence Day, on January 1, 1804, Jean Jacques Dessalines was assassinated on October 17, 1806, by his comrades in arms. His ideas of nation building, making Haiti hospitable to all were not the vision of the majority of the other generals. They envisioned the spoils of the colony for themselves only, and their families.

Haiti has never recovered. Through internal revolts fomented by foreign powers such as France, Germany and the United States, with the assistance of, first, mulatto rulers and later poorly educated black generals, Haiti and its people descended into a spiral of ignorance, misery and environmental calamity until today.

The latest one, the earthquake of January 12, 2010, destroyed its capital Port au Prince, as well as sending to death some 300,000 people. This disaster was preceded by 150 years of neglected mulatto governments and recently 50 years of black dictatorial regimes, followed by illiberal democracy that is closer to criminality than good governance.

Its culture

The slaves that climbed the mountains of Haiti after the Independence Day became the Haitian peasants. No one has ever bothered to ask them whether they should have good institutions such as schools and hospitals or decent infrastructure such as roads, electricity and communications. They have preserved intact the African culture mixed with the century’s old acculturation taken from the remaining Tainos and French masters during slavery times. Haiti is at the same time a mosaic of purely African, Santa Fe, USA, and Provence, France, culture.

The aftershock of the Haitian revolution was varied and unnerving as a cause. The Latin American revolution with Bolivar, through the help of Alexander Petion, took place. Abraham Lincoln and Frederic Douglass, inspired by Haiti, brought about the black emancipation. As such, the nation was ostracized by the then world order of slavery.

Only the Vatican, through a Concordat in 1860, accepted to send teachers to Haiti to educate the population. The priests and the nuns did what they could, they provided the bread of good formation to the tiny elite that peopled the cities, leaving behind the masses in the rural areas uneducated and ill advised.

Haiti is today a land of two cultures, the land of Catholic, refined, French-speaking and sophisticated city dwellers, as well as the land of voodoo practitioners, dispossessed former peasants living in squalid condition in shantytowns on the outskirts of prime land near the sea or peasants still forgotten in the mountains surrounding the cities.

Desperate, some have taken the ultimate chance of seeking a more hospitable sky through leaky boats to Florida, The Bahamas and all over the Caribbean islands, in particular, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, going as far as Suriname on firm land in Latin America.

Handy in arts and in art-craft, their production under different labels can be seen in the best hotels and shops on the tourist trail of the Caribbean, except that the label made in Haiti is removed. Good agricultural workers, from a native land that has been eroded by poor soil treatment and tree cutting for charcoal, they are replenishing the landscape of the Dominican Republic, Dominica and The Bahamas with fruit trees and hard wood that could have enriched their own country.

Its people

With a population of 10 million people, Haiti is in the enviable position of Sweden, Finland, Norway or Denmark; except it is not as cold. While the Haitian population is highly creative, it is not as educated and sophisticated as those Nordic countries, as such it miss the key ingredient that could propel the country into full employment and the bliss of growth and development.

It is a young population, eager to learn and pierce the world of modernity. Its adult population is resilient and willing to work hard for its daily bread. But its lack of education will continue to hamper the optimum utilization of its natural talents and the zeal to achieve.

In spite of this deficiency, Haiti, a small island with the proportions of the State of Maryland, has a brand name that goes beyond the Western Hemisphere. It has greatly contributed to the nation building process of several countries, through the utilization of its professional citizens, including the Congo, Brazzaville and Quebec, Canada. The famous Haitians, or celebrities with Haitian origins, include a roster that spans the arts, politics, sports and music. The list includes but is not limited to: E-W Dubois, James Audubon, Pierre Toussaint, Wyclef Jean, Edwige Danticat, Michaelle Jean, Andre Michael (boxer) Jean Michel Basquiat, Garcelle Beauvais, Jimmy Jean Louis, 50 Cent, Pierre Garcon, Jonathan Vilma, Maxwell Garcon.

Haiti experienced an avalanche of help from the nonprofit organizations and from the UN after the earthquake of 2010, but donor fatigue is languishing around because of a lack of good coordination and sound vision from the government. Will this new regime of Martelly/Lamothe deliver the goods to a nation and a people, so eager for so long to enjoy the bliss of hospitality?

It is too early to label the new regime as a Teflon government or a true agent of change that will transform the nation into the Tahiti brand of the western hemisphere, because of its natural and spectacular scenery, or the Bali brand of the Caribbean, because of its many cultural and religious festivals that are the staple of everyday life.

Anyway, Haiti has been too good for the region for humanity not to come to its help with enduring and sustainable tools that will change the lives of so many enduring and eager citizens ready to enjoy the bounties of God on this land that was once called the Pearl of the Islands.

August 25, 2012

Caribbeannewsnow

Who is Afraid of The Haitian People?

By Jean H Charles



President Michel Martelly has failed his appointment on November 18, 2011, to visit the historic and touristic city of Cape Haitian on the historic day of the Battle of Vertieres.   Previous presidents used to visit Cape Haitian on that date, to commemorate the final epic story of the slaves who defeated the mighty army of Napoleon on November 18, 1803, to render Haiti and the rest of the world free of the scourge of slavery of man by man.

They were all there -- the school children in bright costume uniforms marching to the beat of the drum and the sound of the trumpet, proud as the Spartacus of antiquity crossing the Rubicon to enter Rome, the conqueror that was at last defeated by a band of slaves.   The Haitian people have re-edited once more this event in the annals of world history.

Vertieres should occupy a preeminent place, along with Marathon, Waterloo, and Gettysburg in the record of great battles of the world!

It does not!

The people in Sunday dress were there on the battlefield en masse, waiting for the president and his officials to deliver the famous speech magnifying the glory of the past and urging the spirit of appurtenance to continue to build together a nation free and independent.   The momentum was at its peak.   The Haitian people were expecting Urbis et Orbi from Cape Haitian to the world, a mighty and revered president as the commander in chief declaring that the Haitian armed forces, issued from the patrimony of the ragged but dignified indigenous army, are reinstalled on the territory of the republic.

He was not there!

He has succumbed to the weight of the international community, France, the former slaveholder; the United States that profited from the Haitian victory to become from sea to shining sea a predestined nation in the Western Hemisphere; the United Nations, of which Haiti was a founding member, with its so called stabilization force, now the enforcer of the great powers agenda.

Who is afraid of the Haitian people is a legitimate question that astute observers should be concerned about?

I am!

Out of a population of 10 million people, 8 million of them are living in almost destitute poverty yet there is an energy of creativity and a reservoir of resilience coupled with a wit that sustains daily living.   This phenomenon is rare and maybe unique to Haiti.

The former slaves and their descendants have been denied for two hundred years the bread of education and the discipline of sophistication and refinement, as a line of demarcation for holding them indefinitely in the bondage neo-slavery.   They have survived by paying dearly for their children to be educated with the hope of a better tomorrow.

They have been deceived not only by the international community but also by their own nationals in positions of power and authority, who took their cue from those who assassinated their founding father to impose the rule that freedom was only for a few, not for all.

Finally, two hundred-plus years, 208 to be exact, Haiti has a president in love with Haiti and with the Haitian people.   He must be crushed by a Parliament, whose venal interests are in opposition to the national destiny.

I was not sure where this line of inquiry would lead me until I attended a conference this weekend in Cape Haitian on the national dialogue and fraternity in Haiti, organized by the Haitian Institute of the Christian social doctrine.   Two eminent bishops were present, the Archbishop Louis Kebreau, the president of the Haitian Episcopal, and the very intellectual and scholarly Bishop Dumas to underscore this momentous experience.

Dr Antonio M. Baggio, the main speaker for the day, was sharing with the audience the product of his research, a book entitled: Letters to France by Toussaint Louverture.   Dr Baggio has revolutionized the political thinking of the day by reviling and proving that Toussaint Louverture may have inspired the philosophical underpinning of the French Revolution not the other way around.

It will take some time for the world and the western civilization to accept this phenomenon that President John Adams of the United States had already perceived.   He wanted to help Toussaint to become king of Haiti and as such helping his own cause, liberate the slaves on the American territory half a century earlier.

Here we are!   Haiti that accomplished one of the most signature revolutions in the world does not have its place as a universal patrimony of the rational homo species.   Having forced onto the world order the concept of liberty, equality and fraternity for all, the concept of fraternity according to Professor Baggio has been eliminated from the political praxis and discourse.   (La fraternidad en perspective politica, exigencias, recourses, definiciones del principio olvidado.   Buenos Aires 2009 and La fraternita nella rifles-sione politoligica contemporanea, Roma 2007.)

Professor Emil Vlajki, as the great thinkers of the world who sing the same song in different languages from different countries (Moses, Jesus, Rousseau, Kant, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud), has reformulated the same concept by defining the world of absolute rationality (liberty, equality without fraternity) and the world of human rationality (liberty, equality with fraternity).

The young people of America assaulting Wall Street to demand fraternity, or human rationality in a world where cynicism is the rule are playing their own partition in this quest where fraternity must be, as dictated by Toussaint Louverture, a key underpinning of the world order.

President Michel Joseph Martelly, enrobed with a popular mandate, has the possibility to help Haiti recover for itself and for the rest of the world the possibility that fraternity, or human rationality becomes a reality in the country and by ricochet for the rest of humanity.

As in 1804, when slaves were ready to explode slavery of man by man, the Haitian people are ready today to follow a leader with the guts to confront the western powers to make this world a better one for all by injecting the concept of fraternity and human rationality as the oil that will fuel the transactional activities such as commerce, arts and industry between different and all nations.

November 29, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Haiti, past and present, exposes the ugliness of humanity

By Ben Roberts:


We see the devastation in Haiti.  We see the broken and lifeless bodies removed from the rubble.  We see the walking dead with their bloody wounds, skin whitened by plaster and falling dust, and their hands caked with blood and abrasions from pulling each other from the crushing skin of the earth.  We see the hand-wringing of anxious relatives wanting to know about the fate of their loved ones.

We see and hear Pat Robertson expound on his ‘pact with the Devil’ attempt at logical reasoning.  We hear of Rush Limbaugh, in all his omniscience, claiming ‘Don’t bother trying to donate to relief efforts.  We’ve already donated to Haiti.  It’s called the US income tax.’

We see the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, President Barack Obama, in no uncertain terms, directing America’s military, medical, recovery, and whatever else resources, post-haste to assist this stricken country.  We see regular genuine human beings from all creeds, colors, and walks of life of trying to be of help in this disaster.

We see all this and cannot help but wonder about our own humanity, about what we are doing in this world, and what we have done in this world.  This calamity in Haiti wakes us up to what we are and need to be doing.  But Haiti has been a never-ending calamity because of what we have done in this world.  Haiti needs us to keep its anemic body and soul together, but we need Haiti just as much to maintain our humanity by reminding us of how ugly the human spirit can be, and how low it can falter at times.

Pat Robertson claims that Haiti made a ‘pact with the Devil,’ and has suffered ever since.  For those not well-informed on the history of Haiti, it must be explained that, after Haiti defeated France and got its Independence from the yoke of slavery in 1804, the French demanded one hundred and fifty million francs as compensation for its loss of the wealth it would have realized had slavery remained intact in that former colony.  How diabolical! But that is not all.

Think of the world in 1804.  In 1804 a hundred and fifty million francs would have amounted to a king’s ransom.  Where would a shattered Haiti have gotten this money?  A loan from Britain?  From America?  From Spain?  From private entrepreneurs?  Not a chance.  And who, on moral grounds, would stop France from making this demand?  No one, since all these nations were profiting beyond their wildest dreams from slavery.

So this new nation of Haiti, if it wanted to join the club of nations, thought its best bet was to comply with this diabolical demand.  Believe it or not Haiti’s way out was to borrow the hundred and fifty million francs from France at extortionist rates.  Now that is a pact with the Devil if there ever was one.

In most wars in history the victor demands reparations of the vanquished.  In this instance the victor has to compensate the vanquished and has no choice but to get the loan from the vanquished to do so.  How low can humanity sink?  What a stain on us all who claim to represent a civilized world.  No, Haiti did not make a ‘pact with the Devil.’  It made the mistake of not abiding by this long-held saying: ‘When you sup with the Devil be sure to use a long spoon.’  The Devil being all those who had designs on that bountiful nation.

Rush Limbaugh, as stated above, exhorts that we should pass on donating to Haiti since we already do in the income tax we pay.  I sometimes wonder who actually listens to this man who pretends to be so informed and all-knowing.  Does he even know that his own President James Madison initiated contact with Toussaint L’Overture, imploring him not to send his Haitian agents provocateurs into the US to disseminate word to American slaves that Haiti had defeated their French masters and attained their freedom?

This would have been a disaster to American wealth and profits if American slaves got wind of this and challenged the institution of slavery.  Because Haiti wanted to maintain good relations with the United States, Toussaint apparently complied with this request.  Now that is a pact.

Honoring such a request from the leader of a country which, a scant twenty nine years earlier, had fought its own war of Independence guaranteeing the rights of man.  A war of independence where a number of the prominent Haitians in that nation’s War of Independence had fought valiantly with American soldiers in its War of Independence from the British.

So you see why Rush Limbaugh needs to be informed or read some more before coming out and pretending to be some repository of knowledge about what America has donated to others.  If Pat Robertson wants to know about the human capacity for diabolical violence then he should read about the top French military man in Haiti, General Rochambeau, and his mass drowning of Haitians in the harbor of Cap Haitien.

He should read about British military overlord for the region, General Maitland, and his unrivaled wolfish propensity for deception.  (Yes. The British were also present in Haiti at this same time, complete with a fort, with designs on Haiti, the bountiful prize sought over by all the major world powers of that time).

If Rush Limbaugh wants to know about outlays to other countries he should read about the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution where his country insisted that the Haitian government change its Constitution to allow outsiders to own property.  A decision that affects Haiti to this day.  In order to learn about all this these men should find and read: The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James.  In fact anyone who takes the time to read this text will have no choice but to rethink what they thought they knew about Haiti.

Definitely a country with a dual personality.  On the one hand it represents the hopes, dreams, indomitable spirit, and ability of a people and segment of humanity to fight and succeed against unimaginable odds to establish their unquestioned legitimacy as members of the human race.  On the other hand it represents the fears of another segment of humanity at the prospect of losing their privileges and presumed superiority in the human race.

Simply put, Haiti represents the unlimited potential for the human race to overcome and move into the light.  Alternately, it represents the ugliness and darkness of the human race.

But enough of gloom and these bombastic individuals claiming to be authorities on something of which they seem to know very little.  They remind one of a quote by the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu in his book The Tao Te Ching: ‘Those who know don’t talk, and those who talk don’t know.’

It is heart-warming to see President Obama taking charge and, in no uncertain terms, making it a priority to put resources into Haiti.  What a sight to see the potent military assets of America, such as the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, and a Predator drone, being put to use in this calamity.  Weapons of war highly capable of raining down death and destruction being utilized to extend hope and life.  America never looked so good or so strong.  It gives hope for a better world.  Too bad it takes a calamity of such earth-shattering proportions for us to get to that point.


Ben Roberts is a Turks & Caicos Islander.  He is a newsletter editor, freelance writer, and published author.  He is the author of numerous articles that have been carried by a variety of Internet websites and read worldwide.  He is often published in Turks & Caicos news media, and in the local newspapers where he resides.  His action adventure novel, Jackals of Samarra, can be found at Amazon.com, and most of the major Internet book outlet sites.

January 20, 2010

caribbeannetnews