May the good people of the world align themselves with the people of Haiti to facilitate the birthing of this true era of democracy!

Have no fear, 2011 will be a great year for Haiti and for the world!
By Jean H Charles



On November 1, 2009, I attended for the second time (the first one being at the Brooklyn Museum in New York) a voodoo ceremony celebrating the guedes (the good and bad angels). The voodoo mambo or priestess made the prediction that 2010 will be an excellent year for Haiti and for the world.

In fact, 2010 was the worst year in Haitian history and in the rest of the world.

In Haiti, a devastating earthquake killed 300,000 people, while leaving 1.5 million homeless. A cholera epidemic brought into the country by the United Nations has killed 5,000 people; it might go to 10,000 before leveling off.

Throughout the world, according to a study made by the Center for the Study of Catastrophes of the United Nations, 2010 has been one of the most costly and deadly for decades. With 373 catastrophes, 200 million people without homes, 400,000 dead and $110 billion economic losses in the US, $18 billion in China and $4.5 billion in Pakistan, the year has wrought calamities beyond recorded observation. Haiti has rung the alarm bell but it was repeated in Chile, Russia, China and Pakistan.

The prediction that 2010 would be a great year for Haiti and for the world was indeed a voodoo prediction, filled with holes and spurious expectation!

Based on the natural principle, after the bad weather is the good one, after the rain is sunshine, have no fear! God has promised He will not bring about the deluge twice to mankind; I am predicting that 2011 will be a good year for Haiti and for the world.

The signals are already there. Tunisia that lives under a dictatorship for the past thirty years has booted out its dictator at the beginning of the month of January. The people want nothing more than true and real democracy. Egypt is on the verge of packing up Mr Mubarak, who ruled as a dictator for the past thirty years. Yemen and maybe some more of the repressed Muslim or Gentiles countries will be taken the lead of Tunis to tell the dictators they have no clothes, they should let the people go!

2011 will be a determining year for Haiti to find, at last, solace after experiencing with dictatorship, militarism and anarchism as a tool of governance. In reviewing the literature on Haitian history, I was surprised to find this gallant nation has been suffering for the past not 50 but 500 years the ignominy of humiliation, repression and plain disregard of their human dignity. For three hundred years during slavery it was the de jure bondage, right after the independence during the next two hundred years it was the de facto enslavement.

Throughout this long history, the ruling nationals intertwined with the international sector have always conspired to keep the masses at bay, ignorant, poor and not in control of their destiny. This February 7, 2011, Rene Preval, sustained by a sector of the international community, at the end of his mandate will either succeed in having the upper hand to continue the culture of squalor in Haiti or he will be butted out by the people power to yield the scene to enlightened governance that puts the needs and the aspirations of the people on the front line.

I am observing in Haiti a global waste of international resources with no significant impact for the population. The United Nations, with a purse in Haiti of $865 million per year, is the biggest culprit. Encircled with a total wall of silence, the 42 nations that comprise the personnel of MINUSTHA are engaged in a scam of diligence and make believe when they know that we know they are completely useless.

The only harm endured by the UN military in Haiti is the wearing of a heavy helmet under constant 90 degrees Fahrenheit weather. For all the propaganda of a violent population, the Haitian people are peaceful, resilient, and going about doing their daily business of survival with a saintly resignation and a shrug that necessitates a personal and collective overhaul.

The thousand of NGOs that took up residence in Haiti after the earthquake are maneuvering like chickens without heads. Without direction, coordination and vision they are spending the international funds mostly on their own needs first, on the needs of the Haitian people maybe or after.

The Preval government, using words instead of action, is busy bilking the NGOs and the international institutions instead of helping them to help his people. In a perverse symbiotic relationship that feeds each other, the government and the international institutions are comfortable with each other, afraid of standing up on the side of the Haitian people.

In the flawed election, planned and coordinated by the Preval government, with the logistic support of the UN and OAS, the people of Haiti have misled the prognosticators and the polls to keep their candidate close to their cards.

When the discredited Electoral Board pushed the government candidate for a second run, putting aside the candidate who carried the popular vote, all hell broke loose. There was rioting all over the country, in particular in Les Cayes (the southern part of Haiti). OAS/CARICOM, an incubator of the criminal conspiracy, was called again by the same Haitian government to correct its wrong.

This time, it has no other choice but to reverse the results and put the popular candidate Michel Martelly in the second round, setting aside the government candidate Jude Celestin.

The drama is not over because Jude Celestin is pulling the patriotic bell to generate national sentiment in his favour. Jean Claude Duvalier, with his surprise visit, is shuffling the cards. Jean Bertrand Arisitide has a expressed strong interest in returning into the country, putting the weight of his popularity in the mix. Rene Preval, in spite of his mediocre leadership standing, wants to remain the broker par excellence of the Haitian political transition.

Haiti will necessitate cesarean section to give birth to a new nation hospitable to all. I am confident the political skills of the people have reached a mature level to handle the birthing of true democracy without too much pain and suffering. .

Closer to home, P.J. Patterson, the Haiti CARICOM Representative, has called for helping Haiti to become the driving force of the Caribbean. He will need the credibility of his long years of service to face the Colin Granderson force embedded with the discredited Haitian government and a corrupt sector of the Haitian elite bent on keeping Haiti in bondage forever.

February 7, 2011, a day of reckoning, will be like the birth of Christ in the world, the day that will force the dawn of a new beginning in Haiti. May the good people of the world align themselves with the people of Haiti to facilitate the birthing of this true era of democracy!

February 5, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

Respect or the lack thereof, the missing ingredient to propel the Haitian recovery

By Jean H Charles


I have been reflecting and pondering on why Haiti is not developing harmoniously while it has an optimum population -- 10 million people -- resilient, industrious, willing to work for almost nothing (a base revenue or a salary of $500 per month for each working Haitian would create a brand new middle class and provide an extraordinary boom to the Haitian economy!) I have found respect or the lack thereof is the missing ingredient that could propel the Haitian recovery.

This lack of respect is almost universal. The Haitian government, the international community, the NOGs implanted in the country and by ricochet the Haitian people toward each other are all culprits in this chain of disrespect that infect the seedling of a relationship that would produce a tree filled with welfare, generosity and good hospitality for all.

As the Haitian people and the rest of the world were commemorating last week the January 12 earthquake that devastated the capital and the surrounding cities, it is proper to recall how the Haitian government under the baton of the man who is now proposed to become the next chief of state of the country has collected the bodies and proceeded with their inhumation.

Pay attention to this wrenching story as recalled by my parish priest of St Louis King of France in Port au Prince. Armed with a leadership style that is not obvious in Haiti, the priest went to scout out the place where thousands of victims of the earthquake were placed in order to bring the whole congregation to a pilgrimage to pay respect to the dead ones.

His description brought tears in the eyes of the parishioners. He could not find the place except the frame of a small hill where the goats and the pigs were roaming freely. An eyewitness told him that 60 large trucks were in line to dump the bodies to a former site -- Ti tayen -- where the dictatorial regime of the Duvaliers used to kill its opponents.

There was a small riot by the surrounding populace at the infamous site, forcing the macabre convoy to be diverted further to St Christopher, where they unceremoniously dumped the bodies. Dirt was put on the dead by tractors, making a small hill. The site has been abandoned since, with no memory and memorial, visited only by the goats and the pigs.

In life as in death, the Haitian government treats its people in oblivion. The living do not fare better. The capital city is filled with garbage not collected for weeks or months sometimes. The public market is in condition so filthy that it should shock the conscience of any civilized person.

Cape Haitian the second city of the Republic, a museum style treasure that should be cherished not only by the citizens of Haiti but by the rest of the world as a world heritage site because each house is a museum relic of the colonial era. It reflects the decomposition of the profound disrespect of the Haitian government towards its own people.

Sewers have not been cleaned for decades. For a population of half a million people there is no public water distribution. The lack of leadership in service delivery is only equal to the limitless resilience of the Haitian people in accepting and living with the squalor imposed upon them by their own government.

The rest of the country is completely abandoned with no dedicated funding going directly to any of the cities or the rural villages. The First Lady in a recent interview to the Associated Press was offended at the national and international press for treating her husband president as derelict in leadership style. Using the lowest denominator on the evaluation scale, one cannot find a better characterization. As a scholar educated abroad, I know the First Lady know better!

The international community, in spite of the outpouring of generosity following the earthquake, has treated Haiti and the Haitian people with contempt. The Organization of American States (OAS), the main actor in framing the political transition, has not made any excuses, pardon or retribution to Haiti for contributing to the destruction of its economy through the enforced embargo against the country in October 1992 for reasons that had nothing to do with reason, logic, and good politics.

The president (Jean Bertrand Aristide), who was expelled from the country, was so divisive in tearing apart the very fabric of society that it has not being able to be woven again. Imposing an OAS-led embargo for his return was the high point of insanity, nay, stupidity!

Accurate reports by international organizations have found one thousand children dead of malnutrition every month during the two years embargo. The destruction of the environment was accelerated and maintained since the embargo. The Haitian economy has taken since a deep decline it has never recovered from.

The disrespect of the OAS/CARICOM organizations towards Haiti is so deep that you will not find one single Haitian professional in the policy making decision of either organization, in spite of the fact the population of Haiti and the immigration issues confronting the region and its relations in the context of public private international law necessitates a Haitian voice and insight in the policy deliberations.

The OAS resident in Haiti, Mr Ricardo Seitenfus, a scholar on Haiti in his own right, in a departing shot, has expressed with a phenomenal clarity the true picture of Haiti vis a vis the international community. “The international reconstruction commission to this day is searching for its real functions. (As such) 11 billion collected for Haiti never got to the country. Haiti needs a peace mission not a war mission. MINUSTHA has been an albatross out of place devoid of a true mission thrown into Haiti as a cottage industry for its own needs not to bring relief to the people; in the case of Haiti we need not a security council but a council for social and economic development. If people imagine that Haiti future can be made through MINUSTHA or through the NGOS we are deceiving the public opinion and we are deceiving the Haitian people.”

For these accurate comments Mr Seitenfus was fired by the OAS Secretary General at a critical time when his judgment is necessary to facilitate the smooth transition of the Haitian democratic process.

In the next weeks the lack of respect of the OAS/CARICOM team will be more evident. A scheme concocted last June between the Haitian government represented by one of its ministers, at the headquarters of the OAS in Washington DC, with Mr Colin Granderson and Mr Albert Ramdin to facilitate the Preval regime to maintain its power through a flawed and corrupt election will be either confirmed or tossed out of the basket by the vigilance of the Haitian people and/or the leadership of some friends of Haiti, including the Obama government.

The NGOs have descended en masse into Haiti after the earthquake. The emergency support was unprecedented, yet the haphazard mode of reconstruction is offensive to the nation. A giant ghetto -- Corail -- is being planned and executed with the funds donated by the people of the world while the rest of the country needs decent housing, convenient school and hospitals and incubation for business promotion. Massive amounts of money are channeled to truck water distribution when the purification could be done easily at the source.

Their intrusion into the country would be beneficial if they would agree amongst themselves to coordinate their work and pay a decent salary to their workers – a minimum of $500 per month to the unskilled. The NGOS represent also a safe harbor for the thousands of Americans, Europeans, Canadians and South Asians who cannot find a job at home. One of them told me the truth: “But for Haiti, I would still be unemployed with a 14% rate of unemployment in Florida.”

Finally but not least, the lack of respect of the Haitian people amongst themselves is contagious. The public officials in their tainted cars with all the privileges showered upon them by the government exhibit an arrogance that echoes the master-servant relationship. Haiti, the land where democracy and human rights took birth in the western hemisphere, is today a de facto apartheid state. The vicious circle of disrespect by and amongst the ordinary citizen is pervasive. It can be seen in the public transportation, in the delivery of the health system, in schools and the organization of the public markets.

The rebuilding of the country must start with the most elementary ingredient: respect for each citizen and respect for each other. The spirit of the hundreds of thousands who lost their lives in the January 12, earthquake demand no less! One year after the earthquake, faced with a complete disorganization of the international institutions, as well as the low level of the trickling down of the recovery resource, it has become clearer for each Haitian that salvation can only come from within, starting with respect for and to each other.

Note:
January 12 of each and every year should be dedicated as a Day of International Solidarity with the people and the Republic of Haiti to honor the 300,000 dead from the earthquake, spirit the 1.5 million internal refugees out of the fetid camps into self dependence and last but not least usher into economic self sustenance eight million (out of ten million) Haitian people who live now in abject and extreme poverty!

January 17, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

Haiti in the time of indifference and insanity

By CLAUDE ROBINSON




AFTER sparing Jamaica serious damage, Tropical Storm Tomas gathered hurricane strength Friday morning heading for Haiti, threatening further suffering on people traumatised by an indifferent global response to disaster after disaster after disaster.

As yet another disaster appeared imminent, global news media and international humanitarian and non-governmental organisations were expressing deep concern for the hundreds of thousands of Haitians who prepared to face Tomas's fury in the flimsy tents they have called home since the devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010.

Without knowing the impact of Tomas on Haiti at the time of writing, we can draw from history to predict that the focus of concern will shift soon and the high-sounding words will not be matched by practical deeds.

Ten months ago, we witnessed an impressive outpouring of sympathy as ordinary people, institutions, governments, and international organisations from all around the world responded to the death, suffering and destruction that the category 7.0 earthquake wreaked on the second oldest republic in the Americas region.

More than 220,000 people died, about 1.5 million were made homeless and the Government was unable to function because the entire institutional capacity was in rubble.

After some initial bungling and bureaucratic humbug, humanitarian aid began to arrive, even though some of it was not getting to the people in need.

Despite all the activity and the presence of thousands of international aid workers, and despite the promises made at international forums, more than a million Haitians still live on the streets between piles of rubble.

And, on top of the earthquake disaster, a recent cholera outbreak has claimed more than 400 lives and sickened hundreds more. It is widely suspected that the outbreak originated with the Nepalese unit of United Nations peacekeepers on the island.

Back in January everyone with the authority and resources to act agreed that rehabilitation and reconstruction should move quickly to avoid an outbreak of disease in crowded camps and to house people properly before the hurricane season. So the events that are unfolding now were predicted and could have been avoided.

How could things turn out so badly after such a promising start? The proximate reason is that governments have not lived up to their commitments. Some 50 nations and organisations pledged a total of US$8.75 billion for reconstruction, but just $686 million of that has reached Haiti so far -- less than 15 per cent of the total promised for 2010-11, according to a recent investigation by the US-based news agency, the Associated Press (AP).

Caught in the logjam of American politics


One reason, according to the AP: "Not a cent of the $1.15 billion the US promised for rebuilding has arrived" in Haiti. And the other countries haven't done much better.

On a trip to Haiti in October former United States president Bill Clinton, who is the point man on reconstruction efforts in Haiti, explained that the money from Washington was delayed because of "a rather bizarre system of rules in the United States Senate".

He was referring to tactics used by Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn to block the flow of the entire package because the senator believed that $5 million of the provision "will be wasteful", the AP investigation revealed.

Senator Coburn's actions are part of a broader strategy by the Republican opposition in the US Congress to force the Obama administration to make deep cuts in the budget.

"Since I believe that we are still essentially a sane as well as a humane country I believe the money will be released, and when that happens that will also give a lot of other donors encouragement to raise their money," Clinton said in Haiti.

Few would quarrel with Mr Clinton's assessment of the humanity and decency of ordinary Americans, but the 'sanity' of the political process is another thing altogether.

Initial responses from Republican leaders to the gains made by their party in last week's mid-term elections affirm that there will be even greater opposition to President Barack Obama in the two years leading up to the 2012 elections.

In fact, Senator Mitch McConnel, the minority leader in the Senate, said Thursday that the real objective of the opposition was to make Mr Obama a one-term president while Senator Coburn said he would repeat the same tactics used to deny the Haitian reconstruction. He said Wednesday that if President Obama fails to cut spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, he may block an increase in the debt limit and risk federal insolvency.

Meanwhile, the lack of funds has all but halted reconstruction work by CHF International, the primary US-funded group assigned to remove rubble and build temporary shelters. Just two per cent of rubble has been cleared and 13,000 temporary shelters have been built — less than 10 per cent of the number planned, the AP report said.

Need for passionate advocacy


But while political infighting in Washington may explain the current financial logjam, there is a deeper explanation for what Myrtha Desulmé, president of the Haiti-Jamaica Society and a passionate advocate of the rights of the Haitian people, described as "genocide" in a conversation with Ronnie Thwaites on Independent Talk last week.

Ever since black people in Haiti waged a 13-year successful revolutionary war against the colonial might of Europe and declared their independence January 1, 1804, the Haitian Republic has been met by a pattern of crippling blockades and embargoes, isolation, aggression, invasion and punitive measures by Europe and America.

The imperialists found Haitian independence unacceptable on two levels: The military defeat of the major European armies by blacks led by Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines flew in the face of the notion of white superiority. Second, creating a successful black state out of a slave society would send the 'wrong' signal to enslaved Africans in the rest of the region.

Accordingly, Haiti was subjected to economic strangulation from the beginning. In 1825, France offered to lift embargoes and recognise the Haitian Republic if the Haitians paid out 150 million gold francs as restitution to France for loss of property in Haiti, including slaves.

Having no choice, Haiti borrowed money at usurious rates from France, and did not finish paying off its debt until 1947, by which time Haiti had become the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

In 2004, at the time of the 200th anniversary of Haiti's independence, the Haitian Government put together a legal brief in support of a formal demand for "restitution" from France. The sum sought was nearly US$22 billion, that is, the original 150 million gold francs, plus interest. France summarily rejected the claim.

There have been other interventions ranging from the US invasion and occupation from 1915 to 1934, at the request of the big New York banks to which Haiti was deeply indebted, to the more recent removal and exile of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and banning his party from the upcoming elections.

Of course, external aggression has been compounded by a string of dictatorships, environmental degradation, natural disasters and domestic misrule.

So what is needed now is not more expressions of sympathy. First, there has to be a new advocacy to pressure the US and the major donors to honour their current and historic commitments. This will require more than lip service from Caricom.

Former Prime Minister PJ Patterson, Caricom's point man on Haiti, has to become more vocal in advocating financing of the Action Plan for Haiti's National Recovery and Development that has been developed to rebuild the national infrastructure, modernise the main economic sectors and rebuild social infrastructure, including health and education. This may require more than his usual quiet diplomacy.

Also, regional voices in the media and the NGO community have to be more engaged and tell the Haitian story to other Caribbean people so that the country is not seen only through north Atlantic lenses.

kcr@cwjamaica.com

November 07, 2010

jamaicaobserver

Bahamas Blog International