Haitian presidential election: I am voting (again) for Michel Martelly!

I am voting (again) for Michel Martelly!
By Jean H Charles



I predicted in a previous column that the final round in the Haitian presidential election will be between the two Ms -- Michel Martelly and Mirlande Manigat (Caribbean News Now, November 27, 2010, “I am voting for Michel Martelly”).

I predicted also that the Haitian government, supported by and with the connivance of a sector of the international community, will try to disrupt the proceedings to manipulate the outcome. The acquisitions of the Haitian and of the universal democratic process are so strong that corrections have been made to rectify the results of the election to suit my prediction.

I am voting again for Michel Martelly in the final proceedings of Sunday, March 20, 2011.

Based on conversations with and observations of the electorate on the ground, I am predicting Michel Martelly will be the winner of the election. My conviction has been validated when, a week before the balloting, a poor young man living in Port au Prince told me he has been saving his meager salary to go back home to Cape Haitian where his electorate card was registered so he can vote for Michel Martelly.

I belong to the small intellectual elite of the Haitian Diaspora and/or homegrown, who should root for Mirlande Manigat. With a doctorate from or enough credits for one, from Sorbonne France, Mirlande Manigat belongs to the cosmopolitan Haitian pack who can teach in or are the students of the best universities of the Western world. She is proud of her knowledge of and experience about constitutional law. She called herself or she is being referred as a constitutionalist.

By contrast, Michel Martelly has no college degree; he completed his Baccalaureate in Haiti, attended courses in community colleges in the United States and has spent a life as a bad boy leading a very popular band throughout the Caribbean community, named Sweet Micky.

Yet I have chosen to cross the railroad yard and join the Haitian electorate in electing Michel Martelly as the next president of Haiti. The choice is visceral as well as cerebral. I am, as Michel Martelly, angry at the state of state of the Republic of Haiti. A country rich in cultural values, historical significance, abundant scenic vista, and a young, resilient and creative population, Haiti should shine in the Caribbean basin as it did during the three hundred years of the colonial era.

Instead it has lagged as a pariah amidst the squalor in the midst of its splendour because of the predatory nature of its successive governments, including the last one, as well as the connivance of a large sector of the international community.

Michel Martelly has an excellent grasp of the needs and of the solution for resolving the Haitian dilemma. He is aware of and plans to implement the Renan principles of nation building:

- Negotiate the incremental withdrawal of the United Nations forces to replace it with a national force of development that will protect the population against disaster, drug transshipment, as well as enhancing the environment.

- Uproot the internal refugees of the earthquake from the fetid camps as well as those who live in the favellas of the cities to root them in their original villages with the institutions and the infrastructure to enjoy and prosper in their beautiful setting.

- Michel Martelly will, last but not least, create a Haiti hospitable to all; free from the cultural traits of exclusion that have been the hallmark of the Haitian panorama for the last two centuries.

Mirlande Manigat has the intellectual capacity to apprehend this reality, yet she has expressed neither for me nor for the electorate the emotion as well the discipline of a rigorous analysis to indicate she has the vision and the strength to deliver?

Haiti, in spite of the saintly resilience and the male courage of its female population, has not been well served by its past pioneer female leaders.

They tend to give away the store too easily.

Ertha Pascal Trouillot, the first female president, opened (in spite of strong dissent within her policy advisory board) the vein for the close intrusion of the United Nations into the internal affairs of Haiti. The jury is still out whether the UN’s record for the past twenty years in Haiti has been a positive one so far!

Michelle Duvivier, the last Haitian female prime minister, has exhibited a loyalty firmer with the outside world than with her own government.

I am voting for Michel Martelly because, akin to the popular vote, I am taking a chance for a complete break with the past. Whether under the dictatorial, the military, the transition or the democratic regimes, the political class that surrounds Mirlande Manigat has found a way to remain the staple of the command chain that has led and continues to lead the destiny of Haiti so far into an abyss.

To the question whether morality has taken a back seat position in endorsing Michel Martelly, I have looked at the candidate in the eyes and asked him that very question? His answer resembles strangely to the question of Jesus to the Pharisees willing to stone the prostitute, while writing on the ground: May the one amongst you who is without sin send the first stone. John 8 verse 1.

“I will apologize when those who left my people without food and water, do so. I will apologize when those who left the detritus on the street for months without consideration for the health and the welfare of the population. I will apologize when those who left the majority of the people in extreme misery while they are running high with the national and international resources!” His anger went up one decibel higher as he was speaking!

A group of Christian ministers who endorsed his candidacy have produced several biblical arguments for doing so: Matthew 21, verse 42: “The stone rejected has become the cornerstone.” They went further to evoke in Corinthians 1 chapter 13, Saul who became Paul: “When I was a child, I acted as a child; now that I am an adult, I act as an adult.”

As in the first round of the electoral process the caesarian procedure towards the true delivery of democracy will be a difficult one. The new baby Haiti that will come out of the electoral operation will be a beautiful one that will grow in wisdom and in prosperity for the glory of the region and for the rest of the humanity.

Note:
I was one of the godparents, who were at the baptismal when the party “Reponses Peasants” (the umbrella under which Michel Martelly is conducting his campaign) was created. The party has adopted the vision of inclusion, hospitality and collegiality so often probed in my column. I will be there to ensure that this vision becomes the trend in the nation and in the region.

March 19, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

Trying to deconstruct the surprise visit of the former Haitian dictator Jean Claude Duvalier to Haiti... twenty five years after his forced departure

Cherchez la femme!
By Jean H Charles



Trying to deconstruct the surprise visit of the former dictator Jean Claude Duvalier to Haiti exactly twenty five years after his forced departure on February 7, 1986, I have resorted to the well known French dictum: cherchez la femme, as the most plausible line of inquiry.

The young Duvalier, who grew up in the national palace with the military and the militia at his feet, became an indulgent playboy, who loved fast cars, boats, women and debauchery. He was, nevertheless, less cruel than his sadistic father. The whimsical and witty Haitian people have a recurrent joke which is telling: if you happen to have in one day, fast and decent transportation, electricity, water and telephone functioning at the same time, in the city, for sure Jean Claude Duvalier has returned into the country!

Things have been going so downhill since; the story is amusing and apropos!

Feeble in mind and in spirit, he failed to listen to those who advised him not to take the beautiful but intriguing and Jezebel-like Michelle for his wife. Haiti became the modern day Corinth, where the rich and the powerful indulged themselves in a luxurious and lascivious life in the midst of the squalor and the misery of the masses. The state funds were Michelle and Jean Claude’s private piggy banks, taken or rather stolen at will.

The people were offered, as in Marie Antoinette’s time, cake instead of bread by the lean and svelte Michelle. Their anger took another turn after a strong repression in the city of Gonaives, where three young lads were killed by the militia. The entire country stood up as one to force the departure in the middle of the night of the couple, Jean Claude and Michelle, from the enchanted but rendered despicable land.

They found refuge in France, the home of Marie Antoinette, where the bankers and the lawyers helped them to continue the station of life they were accustomed to in Haiti. But soon Michelle found herself a new paramour more glamorous than the former president; she left Jean Claude penniless ensuring that she took with her the gold, the bags and the children.

There was left untouched 5 million dollars (now 6 million) stashed in Switzerland belonging to the Michelle Benett Foundation. Through a long legal procedure the court in Geneva wanted to return the money to Haiti. But in Haiti, the governments since have been so corrupt and so inept that they could not present a powerful legal argument to convince the Swiss judge that Haiti should get the money.

In the interest of justice, the Swiss legislature has formulated a novel legal theory: the lex Duvalier. As of February 1, 2011, the money will be returned to Haiti unless Jean Claude Duvalier can prove to the Swiss Court that he can return harmless to Haiti without any legal pursuit.

Enter a new woman, Veronique Roy, a nemesis of Michelle and of Jezebel, born in Tunisia, where another dictator has just been chased out by its people. She has developed the dream of becoming one day the first lady of Haiti or packing with Haiti assets in Jean Claude’s trust to live a new life in luxury abroad.

While Jean Claude could not come into the country in the past few years, she was a frequent visitor to Haiti, developing a whole slew of nostalgic followers who dreamt of a nation where the ruler was the master of life and limb.

Frail and febrile, eaten by a pancreatic cancer that will soon consume his life, Jean Claude Duvalier is under the spell of another strong woman, who cannot wait to put her hand into the last stash of funds that would send children to school in Haiti, provide safe water to a population against the looming cholera epidemic.

There are stories that France and the United States conspired to bring Jean Claude Duvalier to Haiti to influence the final results of the election. There are further stories that the very Haitian government facilitated the return of Jean Claude to create an aura of evasion against all the recurring national problems such as inept leadership in the recovery from the earthquake, the cholera epidemic as well as the fiasco of the elections.

I believe, rather, Jean Claude’s return has a personal touch of follow the money or cherchez la femme!

There are two legal theories to build a legal action against the former dictator. The Haitian government could have commenced a legal action in Haitian courts to judge by contumacy Jean Claude Duvalier for the repression, the theft and the revilement of the state funds.

The Haitian government in the last twenty five years has been exceptionally delinquent in pursuing all the legal avenues to bring about justice on behalf of the Haitian people for the crimes and the malfeasance of the Duvalier regime. The Prosper Avril government has also withdrawn the international suit against Duvalier, all commenced under the Henri Namphy regime.

Any victim of the regime could have seized the court of a country friendly to international human rights. Spain, with Judge Balthazar Garson as a knight errant, prosecutes with vigor and passion any and all violation or infringement of rights anywhere in the world. No one has taken that road.

Furthermore, Haiti has failed or purposely refrained from signing the Rome convention allowing the pursuit of crime against humanity ad infinitum. If legal proscription (25 years without a legal action) could muzzle the hands of the state in pursuing Jean Claude Duvalier in Haiti, it could have another avenue offered by the international community any time after.

As such, Jean Claude Duvalier is home free in spite of the legal demagogy of being placed now under Haitian judicial custody.

There is a mood towards reconciliation now in the nation. The youth of today did not know firsthand the repression of the Duvalier regime. They are also the witnesses that the ensuing governments (albeit with improvement in freedom of speech) have been more delinquent in security in the area of public health and environmental and public safety. The international human rights organizations (Amnesty International and all) have exhibited no interest in the right to schooling, decent housing, health care and incubation to employment for the Haitian people in general.

Watch for Veronique being wedded in a civil and secret ceremony in Haiti with Jean Claude Duvalier before his untimely death, so she can go back to Switzerland, claim the money that rightfully belongs to the Haitian people. As Graham Greene has so aptly said about Haiti, the comedy is playing with national and international actors for the delight of the promoters, the confusion of the extras as well as the trepidation and the sorrow of the Haitian people!

Note:
Under the Prosper Avril government I was offered the job of Director of the Michel Bennett Foundation, which ran a modern and efficient hospital. When I asked for a forensic accounting of the 5 million dollars in the budget, the job and the position disappeared. The hospital has since been disaffected and in ruin!

January 29, 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

One year since the earthquake in Haiti

Bill Van Auken


Today marks the first anniversary of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that devastated the impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti, leaving a quarter of a million of its people dead, more than 300,000 injured, and approximately a million and a half homeless.

One year after this natural disaster, the horrors facing Haiti’s population have only deepened, with a cholera epidemic claiming thousands of lives and a million left stranded in squalid tent camps.

This festering crisis underscores the social and political sources of the suffering inflicted upon Haiti’s working class and oppressed masses. That such conditions prevail virtually on the doorstep of the United States, which concentrates the greatest share of the world’s wealth, constitutes a crime of world historic proportions and an indictment of the profit system.

Those familiar with the conditions on the ground in Haiti provide an appalling account of the indifference and neglect of American and world imperialism toward the country’s people.

“The mountains of rubble still exist; the plight of the victims without any sign of acceptable temporary shelter is worsening the conditions for the spread of cholera, and the threat of new epidemics becomes more frightening with each passing day,” said former Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, the Caribbean community’s special representative to Haiti. “In short, there has been no abatement of the trauma and misery which the Haitian populace has suffered.”

Roland Van Hauwermeiren, country director for the NGO Oxfam in Haiti, described 2010 as “a year of indecision” that had “put Haiti’s recovery on hold.” He added, “Nearly one million people are still living in tents or under tarpaulins and hundreds of thousands of others who are living in the city’s ruins still do not know when they will be able to return home.”

Of the approximately one million people living in makeshift tents or under tarps in the crowded camps of Port-au-Prince, more than half are children.

The Haitian capital remains buried in rubble. It is estimated that less than 5 percent of the debris has been cleared by Haitian workers attacking the mountains of fallen concrete and twisted metal with shovels and their bare hands. Heavy equipment has not been present in any significant amount since the withdrawal of the US military more than six months ago.

At its height, the US deployed some 22,000 soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen in Haiti, seizing unilateral control of the country’s main airport, port facilities and other strategic facilities. The US military’s priority was to secure the country against the threat of popular upheaval and to deploy a Coast Guard and naval force to prevent Haitian refugees from making their way to the US.

To those ends, in the critical first weeks after the earthquake when aid was most needed to prevent loss of life and limb for the hundreds of thousands of injured, the Pentagon repeatedly turned away planes carrying medial aid and personnel in order to keep runways free for US military assets.

Within just 11 days of the earthquake, the US-backed Haitian government of President Rene Preval declared the search and rescue operation over—with only 132 people having been pulled alive from the rubble. Had an adequate response been organized, many more could have been saved. Decisions were taken in Washington based not on humanitarian considerations, but rather on the cold calculus of national interests and profits. Undoubtedly, this included the calculation that rescuing injured Haitians would only create a further drain on resources.

In contrast, the spontaneous response of the people of the United States and the entire world was one of solidarity with the suffering Haitian masses. An unprecedented outpouring of support yielded $1.3 billion in contributions from the US alone, the vast majority of it coming from ordinary working people.

One year later, however, just 38 percent of those funds have actually been spent to aid in the recovery and rebuilding of Haiti, according to a survey by the Chronicle of Philanthropy. In Haiti, there are widespread suspicions that vast amounts of money have been diverted into the coffers of NGOs and aid organizations.

Even worse is the response of governments. At a donors’ conference convened in March of last year, more than $5.3 billion was pledged. Of that, only $824 million has been delivered. Worst of all is the response of Washington, which pledged $1.15 billion for 2010, only to subsequently announce that it was postponing payment of virtually the entire pledge until 2011.

Last July, former US President Bill Clinton, who serves as the Obama administration’s envoy to Haiti, the UN’s special envoy to the country and the co-chair together with Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), expressed frustration over the slow pace of the payments and promised to pressure donors to make good on their promises. Apparently he has had little success in this effort, including with his own wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. He has repeatedly made it clear that the only acceptable path to Haiti’s reconstruction lies through private investment and the assurance of profitable conditions—based largely on starvation wages--for US-based banks and transnationals.

On top of the earthquake’s devastation has come an epidemic of cholera, which has already claimed 3,600 lives and is expected to infect at least 400,000 people. Public health experts acknowledge that the spread of the disease has still not peaked, yet the terrible toll of this disease merits barely a mention in the US media.

The Obama administration’s indifference to Haitian life has been underscored by the decision to resume deportations to the country, with 350 Haitians slated to be sent back this month. With many of these people destined for incarceration in Haitian jails, which are rampant with cholera, the action amounts to a death sentence.

The epidemic is not a product of the earthquake, but rather, like the extraordinarily high death toll from the quake itself, the outcome of grinding poverty and backwardness resulting from the domination of Haiti by imperialism and, in particular, the role played by the US government and American banks and corporations over the past century.

Haiti is by far the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Even before the earthquake, less than half of the urban population and less than a fifth of those in rural areas had access to sanitation, leaving the country vulnerable to cholera. Prior to the quake, nearly three quarters of the Haitian populace was living on less than $2 a day, while barely 20 percent had jobs in the formal economy and 86 percent of urban dwellers were housed in slums.

These conditions are inextricably bound up with an oppressive political and social order that was forged through the US military occupation from 1915 to 1934, the savage 30-year dictatorship of the US-backed Duvalier dynasty, and the subsequent enforcement of so-called "liberal free market" policies by Washington and the International Monetary Fund.

The growing frustration and anger of the Haitian people over the criminal policies of Washington and the country’s narrow and corrupt financial elite have erupted repeatedly in mass resistance in recent months, first against the United Nations troops over the spread of cholera and then in response to the fraudulent November 28 election.

This popular resistance deserves the full support of working people in the US and internationally. The demand must be raised for immediate and massive aid to Haiti.

But aiding the people of Haiti and rebuilding the country on the basis of human needs rather than the interests of the native elite and the foreign banks and corporations can be achieved only by uniting the working class in Haiti, the US and throughout the hemisphere in a common fight for the socialist transformation of society.

12 January 2011

wsws

Bahamas Blog International

One year after: Taking stock of the Haitian recovery

By Jean Herve Charles


Every year at the beginning of the New Year I take time to stop, to take stock of the Haitian situation. Haiti has been going from bad to worse every year during those last ten years! It is true 2004 was also an annum miserabilis but the wave of misery fallen on the nation and the people of Haiti in 2010 was so frequent and so wide and deep that the year can be characterized as an annum miserabilissum.

At the dawn of the year, and the end of a magnificent tropical winter day filled with golden colors of the sun going to sleep on the hills surrounding Port au Prince, the land shook so violently under the capital and the adjoining cities that 300,000 people were found dead and 1.5 million have remained without a home. There was also inundation in the spring causing more damage to the land, followed by the seasonal hurricane during the summer.

As if it was not enough an imported germ of cholera from South Asia brought by one of the UN contingent into the country, has decimated some 3,000 people and sending 50,000 to hospital during the fall. The tropical winter has brought its lot of misery in the form of a political crisis when the Haitian government, supported by a sector of the international community, in particular the OAS-CARICOM team, has stolen the vote of the Haitian people thirsty of a life of peace and prosperity in one of the most beautiful place on earth.

The international media will descend en masse to Haiti on January 12, 2011 to make an assessment of the progress realized since the earthquake. They will be disappointed to find there was no progress according to the lowest standard of evaluation. Only 15 percent of the debris has been removed. The majority of the people are still living under tents, in fetid and dependent condition.

There was a massive outpouring of goodwill and financial support from the world community to Haiti. The Haitian government has exhibited a level of leadership so frail, mixed with a culture of corruption so deep, draped with complete indifference to the fate of its people that the enthusiasm of the donors and the NGOs has been reduced to naught.

The president of Haiti, Rene Preval, as well as his government led by Mr Bellerive, after two non consecutive mandates has no idea where he wants to lead his people. He is only concerned about remaining in power through a subaltern in order to dole out to associates and to partisans the spoils and the funds of the reconstruction without concern for the welfare of his citizens.

One would expect that the leadership vacuum in service delivery could have been filled by the myriad of non-governmental organizations that received the bulk of the funding raised for and on behalf of the Haitian people. Haiti is the perfect example that a nation cannot be developed harmoniously when the government as the main vehicle for service delivery has outsourced to NGOs the steering wheel to lead the growth process.

Case at point is the policy of building Corail (the biggest and the largest ghetto in the Caribbean) under the supervision and the expertise of the largest international NGOs such as Food for the Poor, International Red Cross, and Doctors Without Borders, etc.

Haiti’s recovery stands in the policy choice of building Corail or rebuilding the nation. So far the choice has been to rebuild Corail and ignore the rebuilding of the nation. The republic of Haiti with its 365 rural counties, its 142 towns, its 10 cities and the capital is either in complete ruin or has never been constructed. After January 12, 2010 Haiti had a chance to start de novo and rebuild itself. I am witnessing with the building of Corail, the compromising of the rebuilding of the rural villages, the towns and the cities of Haiti.

I have visited Corail on several occasions. On a rugged deserted hill facing Port au Prince, where you will not find one single tree, a sprawling new fevella or ghetto is being constructed, with homes designed by the international community no larger than a slave cell, while ignoring or feigning to ignore the fact that this agglomeration is ferment for future social explosion. The funding for this monstrosity should go instead to rebuild the town of Corail (a real agglomeration in the south of Haiti) as well as the other similarly situated 150 other towns of the nation.

The concept of nation building includes the concept of rooting the citizens in their own localities with their culture, the infrastructure, the institutions and the creative incubation to insure that they not become nomads in their own land. If the Haitian government has been delinquent in formulating and enforcing the policy of rooting their citizens at home in their towns or their villages, I would expect the international community, with funding from the good people of this earth, would know better!

I am observing a culture of map roule or faking diligence or disguised empathy practiced by both the Haitian government and the international community. The true beneficiaries of the avalanche of international NGOs in Haiti are the well wheeled Haitians who own a splendid villa for rent at the rate of $4,000 per month and/or a brand new 4/4 diesel jeep with a driver for rental at the rate of $4,500 per month.

Haiti has a window of opportunity this month and in the coming weeks to escape from its turbulent life of misery and squalor. The OAS as a corrupt incubator is multiplying its intervention in Haiti to keep alive a culture of death that is now sixty years old. It will become clearer for each and everyone to assess whether the international community is a foe or a friend of the Haitian people. It has in the past hijacked its political transition at each significant corner to maintain the economic strangulation.

The test will be whether the ghetto of Corail, right across the magnificent bay of Port au Prince shall continue to be a permanent fixture in the Haitian panorama or whether significant funding will trickle down into the rural villages, the towns and the cities of Haiti so the nation can rebuild itself on a permanent and sustainable basis!

The test will be also, whether the OAS/CARICOM tandem will succeed in reviving against the will of the people of Haiti, the Preval regime through a Siamese brother to maintain the misery of the majority of the population.

Stay tuned next week for an essay on: The epidemic of cholera and Haiti.

January 1, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

What's next for Haiti?

By Jean Herve Charles


The elections of November 28, 2010 represent a watershed for the nation of Haiti. The government has tried to disrupt the proceedings through violence, manipulation and plain inept practice. Yet the people have stood fast to vote en masse for fundamental change against a regime that was neither communist nor capitalist but disguised with the veil of democracy while wearing the gangster suit of misappropriation, indifference to misfeasance and just plain arrogance.

This charade was facilitated by the international community that could not be naïve about the true colors of the Executive and the Legislative that seem to function just for their own insatiable benefit to the detriment of the needs and the interest of the people of Haiti.

It has been as such for the past sixty years, to be exact, fifty four years, when the government of Paul Eugene Magloire was forced into exile in December 1956 while he tried to remain in power beyond his designated mandate. There were first the dictatorial regime of the Duvalier father and son that lasted thirty five years, than the military regime of Namphy, Avril and Cedras followed by the anarchic and demagogic regime of the Aristide and Preval, which is now twenty years old.

Throughout that ordeal, the Haitian people have suffered, repression, misery, exile, occupation, natural and consequential catastrophe, disease and major epidemic including this outbreak of cholera.

What’s next for Haiti?

This island nation that was once the pearl of the Caribbean for three centuries during the French occupation has known only hard times during its self governance, which is now two hundred years old. The only successful slave revolt to lead into a nation-building experience in the world, the Republic of Haiti was doomed to fail as it challenged the world order of black enslavement. From a de jure slave controlled entity it was transformed into a de facto failed nation where the majority of the people were subjected to the same humiliation and the same deprivation endured by their forefathers.

As in Africa, where black rulers contributed to the sale of their subjects for the perpetuation of the Atlantic Middle Passage, successive Haitian presidents have facilitated the degradation of the environment, the pauperization of the population and the brain drain of the best minds that could have build the nation and challenge the status quo.

Enter this era when Joseph Michel Martelly, a Haitian bad boy, iconoclast and true patriotic, stands ready to shake things up and bring about the Haitian Renaissance. He will need to call upon the vast reservoir of the Haitian Diaspora, dispersed as the Jewish population all over the world. He will need also to challenge the international community that used a wall of silence and accomplice to incubate a toxic transition at each window of opportunity from squalor to more squalor.

Haiti, well positioned as a pearl in the middle of the Caribbean chain, can become the catalyst for the true growth of the region. It has a natural physical beauty with a pastoral life reminiscent of Switzerland minus the snow but filled with sea sand, sun and surf. It has a large population -- ten million people -- that are creative, industrious and resilient.

They only need to be educated; a high school coupled with a technical component in each neighborhood shall be the staple for the basis of the country recovery. The first shift for instruction – 8.00 am to 12.pm -- shall be dedicated to the very young. The second shift -- 1.00 pm to 5.00 pm -- to the not so young, and the last shift -- 6.00 pm to 10.00 pm -- will be reserved for the adults.

Haiti was the product of its indigenous army; its very creation was laid down by its founder father the General Jean Jacques Dessalines as a gift that should be cherished with care and devotion. As such it cannot continue to exist without its essence. The new government shall invite the UN deployment force to leave the country so it can reconstruct its own army hopefully with the butin de guerre of all the war toys – tanks trucks and equipment -- brought into the country by MINUSTAH. This new army shall protect the environment, safeguard the population in case of disaster and facilitate the rebuilding of the country through technical assistance.

The successive callous governments have caused the population to become a nation in transit. From the deserted and abandoned rural villages the people have migrated to the small cities en route to the shantytowns of the larger ones, marching on to the capital causing environment disaster of biblical proportions. The audacious ones have embarked on leaky boats for illegal travel to The Bahamas, Florida and beyond in search of a hospitable sky.

The new Haitian government shall root its population with infrastructure and adequate institutions in their own locality. It shall have also an eye for leaving no one behind with an affirmative action program on behalf of those with no lineage pedigree.

Is Michel Martelly the black knight bent to avenge the nation and its people against the curse of misery, mistreatment and malediction? The next five years shall bring the ascent of a new and prosperous horizon for Haiti and for its neighborhood all over the remaining chain of the Caribbean islands. Haiti shall regain its tradition of enlightened leadership for the region and for the world!

December 4, 2010



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Haiti a nation beset by catastrophe inflicted by man, God and nature!

By Jean Herve Charles



It is November, the hurricane season should be on its death bed, yet Tomas, the latest hurricane, strong as a young lad, has just created havoc in St Lucia, Barbados and St Vincent and the Grenadines. It is on its way to Haiti where, month after month, a new catastrophe raises its inflicting and destructive head, causing death and material destruction all over the country.

On January 12, 2010, on a sunny afternoon, a major earthquake took place around the capital; it was baptized goudougoudou by the locals as they try to mimic the sound of the hurricane as the destruction took place. It caused 300,000 deaths and 1.5 million internal refugees are still under tents or makeshift tenements, where the natural elements -- rain, wind and flood -- visit them without an invitation.

Last October an outbreak of cholera in three of the ten states of the island nation has caused the death of some 500 people and the hospitalization of 7,000 Haitian residents. The scientific analysis by the CDC (Centers for Disease control) in Atlanta has concluded that the origin of the virus can be attributed to the strain found in South Asia.

The people of Haiti blame the Nepal contingent of the UN force dispatched in the region of Mirebalais, where the epicenter of the disease has been established. The Haitian government as well as the UN management for political and diplomatic reason refused to point the finger at the root cause of the public health outbreak.

Paul Farmer, the expert in epidemiology, reminded the authorities that “good public health dictates that knowing the point source of the disease is good for everyone and good for public health”. John Mekalanos the chairman of the School of Public Health at Harvard University clarified that the virulent strain of cholera found in Haiti is unknown in the Western Hemisphere. The evidence points the finger at the Nepalese soldiers who arrived to Haiti this October.

After my essay on the gift of education by the Royal Caribbean cruise line to Haiti, it was my intention to dwell on the splendor of the nation instead of the squalor of the country. The successive wave as well as the most recent catastrophe inflicted by men, God and nature has upset my original plan.

On the splendor side, I still have in mind the full display of culture in the town of Grand River as the people were celebrating the Day of the Dead on November 1. Eat your heart out New York, Roseau or Osaka, the dancing in the cemetery as well as the grand ball with the Tropicana orchestra has excited all the senses of my American travel companion, P. Scott Drahos, who promised to become the ambassador for the next year event bringing lot of visitors to the city.

Traveling from Cape Haitian (my outpost for the winter) to Port au Prince, I have contemplated the lush vegetation on the northern side of Haiti, where the grapefruit and the oranges trees filled with succulent oranges and grapefruits provide a backdrop for the giant poinsettia trees with their red flowers in full display and on time for the Christmas season celebration.

The capital city is cleaner; the government wants its candidate to continue its policy of ill governance with the forthcoming election as such, a best effort has being made to clean up the city so as to avoid the ire of the electorate.

With Tomas on its way, the cholera disease not dampened, the destructive remnants of the earthquake still visible, one would thought that a full scale election should be the least of the expectations. In fact, the majority of the Haitian people are neutral at best or at worst inimical to the exercise that has not and will not change their condition of life one iota.

The political tragedy that adds to the recurrent natural disasters has been in the Haitian national theater for a long time. For the first 150 years of the life of the nation, Mulatto rule brought little benefit to the people. In the last 50 years, the dark skin rule has been as – if not more – repugnant. They have instituted the clan politics that kills all sentiment of civics, solidarity and patriotism, including the sense of noblesse oblige, one of the staples of the Haitian safety net.

Adding insult to injury, the international community has been a steady and loyal patron of the tenets of the clan politic doctrine. Duvalier, Aristide and Preval have cultivated a following in the United States, Europe and Asia (Taiwan).

The international institutions are also in bed with the principals of the clan politics. The United Nations, under different acronyms, have occupied the Haitian space during the last twenty years with no significant impact – in disaster preparedness, security, good governance or economic growth.

Colin Granderson, the CARICOM representative, was recently at the extraordinary meeting of the OAS pushing for the masquerade election, knowing full well that the country and the people are not ready for the exercise. Some fifteen years ago, the same Colin Granderson was the proconsul in Haiti, demanding that the embargo that destroyed the Haitian flora and economy should not only be maintained but extended.

Indeed, man, God and nature have not been friendly to Haiti. As Job of the Bible, the people of Haiti have remained faithful to their God, who is urging them to stand up against the forces that suppress and kill their civic pride. Will hurricane Tomas be the last straw that will galvanize the resilient Haitian people to stand up and take charge of their beautiful country against the forces that pretend to lead their destiny for the best while in the end bring only disaster after disaster, with only the promise of redemption?

November 6, 2010

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Haiti a missed opportunity!

By Jean H Charles:




Haiti, the first and only successful slave revolt experience to become a nation, has been a failed opportunity to polish its raw material and remain the pearl of the islands. After the earthquake of January 12, 2010, Haiti has failed to embark into a mode of development to recuperate the two hundred years of failed opportunity.

Some will say it is too early to tell. Seven months into the process, is not enough for a prediction into the future! Yet it is enough time to indicate the direction of the wind, is it towards change or towards the status quo?

On the ground in Haiti, I am witnessing all the elements are in place for a complete disaster in the coming months as well as the harbinger of years of unrest in the future.

I have developed in this journal, for the past two weeks, the conceptual framework attributing the notion of the failed state business systematically replacing the slaving business. I have also advanced the hypothesis that Haiti was the first nationally and internationally organized failed state entity.

Alexander Petion and his successor Jean Pierre Boyer, in accepting to negotiate the price of French recognition, has set a mortgage so high on the back of the brand new nation, it was designed to fail. When later that mortgage has been renegotiated, it was not to pay the installments but to kill each other in clan politics. This tragedy or that drama lasted two hundred years.

In this modern day era where an event of biblical proportion happened to Haiti, one should expect a new national and international order; it is business as usual in Haiti. Alie Kabbar of the United African organization on CBS today complained that “the American Red Cross that collected 465 million dollars on behalf of the people of Haiti is spending the money on five figure salaries, hotels, car rentals, air-conditioned offices for its staff instead of (or in addition) to spend the money for real people with real needs on the ground.”

Lionel Trouillot, the celebrated Haitian essayist wrote in a piece signed as of today, there is a smell of putrefaction in the air in Haiti. It is the smell of lies, the smell of big salaries of the multinational NGOs mixed with the fetid smell of the camp right across the hotel on the main plaza of Port au Prince.

I would add there is also the smell of resignation, the smell of laissez faire. I was invaded by that smell, because as of yesterday, I could not get myself into writing this essay, I was telling myself, it does not matter to raise the world consciousness about Haiti; things will remain the same.

I have in mind this lady in the camp right across the main hotel of Port au Prince, the Plaza Hotel, who told me not to take her picture. She is tired of people taking her picture and promising to do something for her and for her baby. Nothing has happened.

The machine set by the Haitian government, the United Nations, the OAS and Caricom for a faked election where the three main political parties have been ostracized, with the result, selected by the president, is already in motion. The thousands of NGOs from all over the world faking development initiatives while building mainly latrines and paraphernalia of that sort is suffocating.

The mammoth UN agency MINUSTHA faking support to the people of Haiti with the entire material one can order all over the world used only for its own needs. The city of Port au Prince at night is a ghost town with only the UN complexes lighted as in a developed country.

I am constantly stimulated by the high and down of feeling of anger and bliss – anger, because of the arrogance and the lack of empathy of the UN people vis a vis the displaced Haitians and the populace in general as well as the feeling of bliss for living in a land so lush where the cost of living is so low and the opportunity so plentiful that maybe Haiti is the lost paradise!

Speaking with a an investor friend at the hotel, musing on why Haiti cannot take off, he told me that Haiti needs the creative strength of the United States. I retort that no country in the Caribbean has so many creative people as Haiti! His answer was illuminating:

“They may be creative in arts! They need to be creative in engineering, in machinery, in planting, in soil conservation, in husbandry. Any farmer from the United States can help the Haitian people with those skills you do not need any PhDs for that.

“That is the reason why I am here to show them how to build their own anti-earthquake home. How to recycle the plastic material with scrap wood to produce building blocks stronger and cheaper than the cement block in use in Haiti now.”

He has been looking for an audience with those in authority, so far with not much success. Containers of prefabricated homes have already been secured by those close to the power base!

Will Haiti recover from this devastating earthquake? Or will it surge from its failed state status to an enlightened one? I suspect it will take a critical mass of Haitian people to understand that they have the undeniable right to the pursuit of happiness and to justice in their own land.

The national and international apparatus in place now is ensuring that critical mass of understanding does not occur. I am not optimistic for or about Haiti!

The woman who spoke to me at the Camp right outside the Plaza hotel

August 28, 2010

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Haiti and the international community

By Jean H Charles:


There is a tug of war going on, right now between the nationals of the Republic of Haiti and a sector of the international community. The citizens of Haiti, the candidates to the presidential election, the political parties, the civil society, the churches (with the exception of the Voodoo imam) are all in unison refusing to go to the poll under the baton of the current president and the current electoral board.

The international community led by Edmond Mulet, the UN resident in Haiti, is pushing full speed ahead for the election to take place on November 28, 2010, under the direction of the discredited principals. Who is the toro (the bull) in Haiti? The people of Haiti or the international community? This determination will soon come to a final decision. The cost of the election as set by the board is around 27 million dollars. The Haitian government has earmarked only 7 million, expecting the additional 20 million to come from the international community.

What are the issues behind the tug of war?

The present Haitian government for the past ten years (in spite of the presence of international observers) has exhibited a pattern of deception, fraud, strong-hand maneuvers, abuse of the state purse for politicking, even commanding execution killings to lead the result of the election to suit its political ambition.

The devastating January 12 earthquake has brought about a paradigm shift in the mind and the determination of the people and the political class in Haiti to bring about significant change in the way business is conducted in the country. It is clear that, six months after the disaster, the Haitian government has not risen up to the task of leading the way for the reconstruction of a new Haiti.

As such there is a line on the sand. Akin to 1800 when the former slaves refused to go back to the slave plantations under the command of Napoleon and his deputy Bonaparte, the Haitian people in 2010 are united, ready to fight, not to return to the status quo of the past, the culture of disrespect for the majority of the people, the culture of corruption with arrogance. If history is a guide that helps to pierce the future, I am predicting the Haitian people will have the upper hand in this tug of war.

What are the stakes?

The stakes are high, Haiti’s name and future is on the radar of the international press. Some 1.5 million people are under tents that are being tested by the inclement weather. Half a million people may have perished with inhumation in the ground or under the rubble without proper identification. Internal migration in and out of the city of Port au Prince, not by choice but by necessity, is widespread. The emotional stress of some 4 million, nay their physical being has not been addressed.

Rene Preval and the international institutions with crocodile tears on their faces request an election for the sake of political stability. Indeed, moderate free and fair elections took place in Haiti during the last twenty years only during the political transition -- Trouillot -- Latortue -- that led to Aristide and Preval governments.

An international community ready to bring solace to the Haitian people would welcome an enlightened transition that would provide coordination for the recovery, leadership for the reconstruction and equity for a free and fair presidential election.

When the Preval government has demonstrated that it is unable and unwilling to provide elementary first aid to the refugees of the earthquake, compounding its task with a mammoth crucial presidential, legislative and local sheriffs’ election is foolish at best, aiding and abetting a criminal enterprise at worst.

Already the liberty of the press has been compromised. The threats, the menaces have become stronger. Even a well known Haitian American of the caliber of Wyclef Jean has been a target for elimination because of his position that paints the true picture on the ground. Dr Tunep Delpe, a well known political leader, was saved from assassination through the diligence of some alert citizens. Social and political blogs have been closed because of genteel but persistent threat against the blogger.

What is the alternative?

Legitimacy has been the concern of those seeking the umbrella of political stability. The present Interim Haiti Reconstruction Committee, created to manage the business of rebuilding the country, is running on a slow line. Rene Preval, the Haitian president, is at best lukewarm, at worst suspicious of the committee. He took months to name an executive director.

When he did it was his buddy instead of the best economic mind that the country has produced. (No offense to my buddy!) The French Ambassador to Haiti, Didier Le Bret, qualified the situation as “inexistent progress”. US lawmakers labeled the members of the Haitian government as “virtual incapacities”. Senator Richard Lugar of the US Senate characterized the Haitian president as “a self-destructive individual”. The ordinary citizen said the government is nowhere visible.

On the eve of the impending hurricane season, utmost care and attention should be focused on the at-risk population, numbered now at some three million people. The international community should have a hands-off attitude, when the Haitian people as a whole are putting in process a mechanism for denying legitimacy to the corrupt, inept and maybe criminal Haitian government.

It should have been the province of the court to make such a political decision. The Preval government has been so derelict in its duties and constitutional obligation that he has failed to name the Chief Judge for the past five years.

The Haitian Constitution has ample provision for a vacancy due to unexpected circumstances. The most senior judge of the Supreme Court shall run the executive office assisted by a prime minister of popular consensus.

I have already suggested names of individuals with high degree of competence, passion and equity ready to assist the international community and the Haitian people to help Haiti engage in the fast road of recovery for the welfare of the people, not the present bogged down politics of disaster profiteering mixed with arrogance and indifference towards those in distress.

Pierre D Sam with 20 years experience abroad with the FAO and twenty more years experience locally, with successive Haitian governments, as well as younger economic experts in food and environmental security such as Jean Erich Rene and Guichard Dore would fit jointly or individually the bill with elegance, expertise and competence.

A national strike was scheduled for this week, an atmospheric deformation filled with rain and hell is scheduled to hit Haiti hard this weekend. There has been demonstration on the street every day; time is of the essence to bring at least and at last well deserved solace to the resilient people of Haiti!

July 26, 2010

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Haiti six months after - a national and international shame

By Jean H Charles:


On July 12, 2010, the international press has returned en masse to Haiti for an evaluation of the progress in the rebuilding effort after the earthquake of 1/12. It has been reporting on whether the outflow of global donations has contributed to bring solace to the people of Haiti. The verdict is unanimous: the effort in rebuilding has hit a discomforting snag.

To start with, only Norway, Australia and Brazil have delivered on their promised pledges, or 10% of the $5.3 billion raised at the United Nations last March. Only 250 million tons of rubble out of 3 billion metric tons has been removed. The majority of the 1.5 million displaced people are still living in tenuous conditions in tents and shacks. The international Jesuit Society summed up the general sentiment; Haiti six months after the hurricane is a national and international shame!

Wyclef Jean, the ubiquitous Haitian-American artist, gave us the picture of the situation on the ground. “I arrived here 24 hours after the quake and I will say that minus the bodies on the floor, and minus the smell, it looks exactly the same today as it did then. Nothing has changed and people are getting frustrated. The youth is frustrated.”

The Haitian government continues to exhibit the same indifference towards, and the same lack of leadership and coordination in leading the way for an effective recovery. In canvassing the pile of literature on the process of reconstruction, I have been able to find only three points of light.

- The 7 Day Adventist Relief fund has built, with recycled material, some 500 solid homes to house displaced families from the earthquake.

- Venezuela, in the city of Leogane, operates an effective tent city with the support system that makes the lives of the people much better than before the earthquake.

- There is no major outbreak of disease because of the abundance of vitamin D from the tropical sun and the medical care of organizations such as Doctors without Borders and the chain of international medical volunteers who commute to Haiti week after week.

The rest is promises and promises, without a delivery mechanism system. The Haitian people, passionate fans of soccer, have observed a hiatus of three weeks during the World cup season. The World Cup is over; Haiti this summer will be a hot one! The people are already on the streets demanding the resignation of the inept and corrupt government.

The amount of discontent is broiling. The Haitian government is requesting a 20% tax to admit donated material into the country. The warehouses near the airport are filled with food and medicine; yet, because of indifference, dysfunction, nepotism and corruption, the food and the medicine are not delivered to those in need. Worse, some of the medicine is now expired and some of the food is now rotten.

Having invested so much emotion and empathy in Haiti after the earthquake, the rest of the world is crying for some explanation. Leadership matters. The current issue of Foreign Policy has provided an excellent analysis on why Haiti will continue to sink itself and the rest of the world with it. Haiti is pregnant with the lethal cocktail that feeds the appetite of the type of leadership that we find in countries like Somalia, Guinea, and Niger in Africa. Weak and bad leaders make their countries weaker, threatening world security.

Rene Preval the president of Haiti is benefiting of an aura of goodwill fed by a sector of the international community. Yet he fits into what Paul Collier, the eminent economist, called the bad guy, whose survival is incubated against the interest of its people by a combination of support from the international powers, big business and international institutions, labeled the enablers by Paul Wolfowitz.

The neocolonial ruse of using corrupt leaders to maintain the grip on the country’s resources and its people is alive and kicking in Africa and in Haiti. France has recently helped Bongo junior to succeed Bongo senior. The United Nations is making the bidding for some named foreign countries in planning to help Preval to succeed himself through a clown puppet with a botched and flawed election.

The takeover of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, in France did have unintended consequences some fifteen years later in Haiti. It produced the country’s independence in 1804. Be ready for a rough ride this summer! Haiti, the rebel daughter of Africa has a way of setting an international trend. The undemocratic practices of some Western powers, supported by corrupt national leaders, might be in the beginning of their end. It seems Haiti is ready to ring the bell for the death of the failed States as it did some two hundred years ago by dismantling the world order of slavery.

Haiti needs the support of all people of goodwill in the world as it crosses the river from that painful transition of a failed state status to an enlightened nation, ready to provide service and leadership to the world. Stay tuned for updates on the mahogany revolution in progress, in Haiti!

July 17, 2010

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It is time to halt the impending disaster in Haiti

By Jean H Charles:


There has been rain every day since the beginning of the rainy season in Haiti. The weather experts have predicted some twenty-three hurricanes till October. More than one million refugees are living in sordid condition under tents that now have holes in them in a setting where torrential rain will pour in from the scorched mountain-land, deprived of trees. Yet the chief of the United Nations in Haiti, embedded with the Preval government. has no other emergency action than the election preparation.

The civil society, the political parties, the masses of Haiti have all decided not to go into the electoral process with this present government. All his elections have been flawed, with the use of political terror as the best instrument to keep opponents at bay. Mr Edmund Mulet has embarked upon the mulette (donkey in the Creole language) of Preval to be the cheerleader for a flawed election that will seal the status quo of squalor for another five years in Haiti.

It is time for John Holmes, the United Nations Humanitarian Chief, to halt the impending disaster. Some sixteen years ago, 800.000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in Rwanda under the watch of Kofi Annan as the UN representative in that country. Mr Holmes has twice expressed his frustration and his outrage at the slow pace of relief to the refugees in Haiti. Showing his displeasure is not enough. Real life is at risk. Another Rwanda (a former UN trust territory) is on the way in Haiti, caused by preventable natural conditions.

An impartial finding should reveal that the main obstacle to relief for the people of Haiti is the very Haitian government. The largest land owner in the Republic of Haiti is first and foremost the Haitian government, followed by the Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church. By not releasing land for the resettlement or urging the refugees to return to their villages with adequate support for self sustenance, the government is compromising the recovery.

The Haitian government at home and abroad has no idea how to run the business of governance for the benefit of his people. A case at point, I was at the Caribbean Week in New York hobnobbing with the tourism ministers and the directors of tourism from all over the Caribbean.

I asked the CTO coordinator (Caribbean Tourism Organization) why Haiti was not represented at the market place? He told me for years he has been trying to lure Haiti into participating to the exchange. He has sent several e-mails to the minister of tourism. He finally met him; the laconic answer of Lionel Delatour, Haiti’s tourism minister reflects the familiar arrogance of his ministry. “I have received your many e-mails, and, I did not open them.”

A recent editorial in the New York Times, reproduced by National Public Radio, pictures the callous nature and the poor planning of the Haitian government. A temporary shelter built near the old military airport, ‘stands mostly empty with battered tents, flapping in the wind, guarded and waiting for a refugee influx that has not been arranged.’ The facility was visited in March by the writer who returned in June to find out that the camp is still unoccupied.

In the United States, advocacy by politicians and ordinary citizens have forced the American government to grant TPS (temporary protection status) to the Haitian people, as those from Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador. Poor communication and timid leadership from the Haitian ministry abroad or the Haitian consulates have resulted in a low participation in the program. Out of 300,000 estimated illegal Haitian entrants, only 40,000 Haitian people have profited from the policy that will stop as of July 20, 2010.

The generosity of the world towards the Haitian people is on the verge of going to waste due to the arrogance of the senior UN resident, Mr Edmond Mulet, and the callousness of the Haitian government. The Haitian people will have to deal with its government. It is time for John Holmes to deal with his agent in Haiti and halt the impending disaster!

June 12, 2010

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Up to 300,000 people killed in Haiti quake, says UN

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) -- Haiti's devastating January 12 earthquake killed between 250,000 and 300,000 people, the head of the United Nations mission in the country said Thursday.

Until now, the Haitian government death toll was more than 220,000.

April 21 "marked the 100th day since the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti, leaving between 250,000 and 300,000 people dead," said Edmond Mulet, the head of the UN mission in Haiti.

Mulet also said that 300,000 people were wounded in the disaster, and more than one million people were left homeless.

The 7.0-magnitude quake left much of Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince in ruins, destroying infrastructure and the seat of government and causing a humanitarian catastrophe in a country already considered the poorest in the Americas.

Mulet, speaking at a press conference, said that he wants the UN Security Council to send an extra 800 police officers to provide safety in the refugee camps.

"In the history of humanity one has never seen a natural disaster of this dimension," said Mulet, adding that the Haiti quake death toll was twice the toll of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II.

Mulet said that the next 12 to 18 months will be "critical," noting that peacekeepers in the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) will focus on five areas: helping support the government organize quick elections, coordinate "post-disaster" humanitarian aid, provide general security, support the Haitian government in carrying out its reconstruction plan, and "help Haiti rebuild its human capital."

Concerning security, Mulet said MINUSTAH forces will help the Haitian National Police have "a more visible presence" to help the tens of thousands of people living in 1,200 refugee camps.

Mulet, a native of Guatemala, took over the UN mission on March 31, replacing Tunisian Hedi Annabi, who was killed in the quake.

If the Security Council accepts Mulet's recommendations, the overall number of UN police in Haiti will rise to 4,391.

When the MINUSTAH peacekeeping soldiers are also counted -- though Mulet has not asked for an increase in this force -- the total UN force would reach 13,300 supported by more than 2,000 civilians.

Separately, Mulet said the Haitian government on Thursday ordered a three-week moratorium on the forced evacuation of refugees camping out on private land, schools or markets.

For nearly two weeks, the authorities and private property owners have urged people squatting on their property to leave.

More than 7,000 people who took refuge at the Port-au-Prince stadium were moved out 10 days ago, and last week some 10,000 Haitians living in a school were ordered out.

"There are students that want to return to their schools to continue their studies, and there are refugees living in the schools. So in order to avoid clashes, a moratorium was established," Mulet said.

UN officials have opened two refugee camps on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince in order to accept some 10,000 refugees currently in danger of being affected by flooding as the Caribbean rainy season is set to begin.

Mulet also said that Haiti "is going on the right path" towards reconstruction, and that he was showing "prudent optimism." He also urged people to "not underestimate the size of the task and the challenges that Haiti faces."

April 23, 2010

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Thank you, the world, on behalf of the people of Haiti!

By Jean H Charles:



An unprecedented event happened on Wednesday at the United Nations in New York. Some one hundred countries sent their Ministers of Foreign Affairs or their Ambassadors to pledge their contributions to the earthquake stricken Haiti.

As in a Baptist church, each nation stepped up to present its envelope to the Speaker on behalf of Haiti. At the end of the day some ten billion dollars was raised for the Haitian people who are still in the mud in the refugee tents of Port au Prince and in the rural hamlets in the mountains of Haiti, deprived of any modern infrastructure.

This unexpected global response on behalf of Haiti moves me personally; the people of Haiti should know the entire world is on their side.

The speeches by the delegates were in unison, praising the resilience and the patience of the Haitian people. They deserve a helping hand.

Will it be trickling down to those in most need? It was the underlying issue expressed by the Chinese representative, who contributed only one million dollars to Haiti. I shared my surprise to the Chinese diplomat sitting near by me in the hall of the United Nations.

He told me China is concerned about management and transparency at all levels: the Haitian government, the United Nations, the Red Cross, etc.

He added we have been able to raise the welfare of some 800 million Chinese to the middle class level in less than a generation (25 years) without asking or borrowing one cent!

He said further, helping the nine million Haitians arrive to an income from $1 to $100 a day is a child’s game if only we have a minimum of diplomatic relationship with Haiti!

The enthusiastic response indicates the nations of the world are ready to offer more than money at the donor’s conference. It is important to encapsulate the energy into resources that can be utilized to bring about growth to Haiti.

The nations of the world are at an impasse; the Haitian government has failed to provide a minimum coordinating unit that would facilitate the delivery of services to the refugees. Yet in deference to the Haitian government, the foreign allies have hesitated to create an effective coordinating unit.

In the end the victims are the Haitian people who are still in the mud in spite of the outpouring of love and support from the whole world.

To solve this issue, I would propose a strategic winnable solution. The country of Haiti a nation of nine million people is divided into ten departments or ten states.

To facilitate the delivery of services in the face of the compounding problems, it would serve the Haitian government and the donating countries to divide Haiti into three clusters of three million people each for the purpose of coordinating the rescue and the resettlement process.

The Northern part of Haiti that include the departments of the North, North East and North West, the Artibonite and the Center, with approximately three million, would be shepherded by Canada, leading the role of a quarterback, with other countries attaching themselves to that main branch.

The second branch of quarterback would be played by the United States helping the western part of the country that includes the capital city, Port au Prince, to move from a desperate situation to some normalcy. The United States would call on other countries to plug themselves into the aid movement.

Last but not least, France would coordinate the southern part of Haiti that includes South-east, Nippes, South and Grand Anse. Akin to the other quarterbacks, France would call on any other nations that want to help in that venture.

Those countries -- Canada, United States and France -- have been chosen because of their affinity with Haiti. They all have a large Haitian Diaspora that can play a crucial role in facilitating the development of the country.

This division of labor would have the convenience of not offending the sovereignty of the Haitian people and the sensitivity of the Haitian government.

It would place some coordinating responsibility into the hands of the quarterback nations, while leaving the moving force to the Haitian government and to the Haitian people.

It would provide immediate relief and start the decentralization process of the Haitian nation. It is a win-win solution that can and should satisfy all parties.

Next September, the United Nations promised to call on the parties again to review the job done; this time instead of announcing, as the United States has done, successive grants totaling 4 billion dollars since 1990 with no visible signs of results, the Haitian government along with the three quarterbacsk will stand up to report on a job well done.

To arrive at that result, a minimum of 3 million dollars should be spent in each one of the 150 small towns along with their rural hamlets. This financial structural engagement has not been done since the nation was born two hundred years ago. It would provide, in addition to the wireless internet -- a pet project of Bill Clinton -- clean water, decent housing, elementary education, clean sewers, and paved streets to a nation thirsty for a modern standard of living.

The earthquake on January 12, 2010 has pulled out from the underground a little dirty secret of the Haitian ethos. A proud daughter of Lady Liberty, Haiti has turned into a de facto apartheid system, where the majority of its citizens live in almost abject poverty similar to their ancestor’s time during the slavery era.

Since it has been discovered, the problem of Haiti is now the world’s problem. The trio of quarterbacks will have to help Haiti with that fault line by facilitating a culture of a shared vision of the future amongst all the citizens.

The Haitian people, so patient and so resilient, would be on their way to having a decent job, a roof that would not fall on their head, potable water to drink, children happy and well fed, who learn in school, young men who give up the gang culture because they are learning a trade. This Haiti is possible if only a minimum of strategic coordination is implemented after this biblical outpouring of love and support.

Note: The map of Haiti with the delimitation of the catchments area of each cluster.

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Bahamas Blog International

Port au Prince, Haiti: Nou Bouke! We are exhausted!

By Jean H Charles:


This graffiti is now covering most of the remaining walls of Port au Prince, Haiti. During election time, candidates commandeered slogans and graffiti on the walls for a price. This slogan Nou Bouke (pronounced key) has nothing to do with politics; it is the cry of exasperation of a people that have endured misery, deception, earthquake, hurricane and ill governance constantly for the past sixty years!

I received last week a challenge from a brother from Jamaica now living in the Turks and Caicos asking me to clarify or expand on the issue of governance and democracy in Haiti, the relevance of the demise from Haiti and the forced exile to South Africa of Jean Bertrand Aristide and last but not least the issue of redemption to Haiti from France. I welcome the challenge hoping neither of us will be a winner but the larger community will benefit in knowledge and understanding from the exchange.

On the issue of redemption for past slavery, one will be surprised to find out I have single-handed initiated the process for putting on the table the issue of redemption for Haiti. It all started during a cursory visit to a bookstore in downtown Port au Prince. I came upon an issue of Paris Match where I read that a legislator from Martinique has succeeded in having the French Parliament pass a resolution condemning slavery as an act of cruel and inhuman treatment inflicted by France upon million of slaves. My legal mind told me that France has opened a hole that will make it liable and vulnerable to demand for compensation from former colonies in general and from Haiti in particular.

In a follow up conversation with my father, a retired chief judge of Haiti Civil Court and past Dean of a law school, I revived the discussion concerning the pros and cons of such an approach. On a strict construction of the law, the doctrine of clean hands and the doctrine of viability of an action in criminal matters are in full force. France cannot continue to benefit from the billion of dollars in retribution paid by Haiti while it has enjoyed the forced labor and the sweat of generations of slaves enriching named French citizens individually and the nation as whole for several centuries. Haiti has conquered its freedom on its own, paying a price in gold to have that freedom recognized by France is unconscionable morally and it is illegal now, considering the resolution passed by the French Parliament. There was a guest in my home at that conversation; he was a personal advisor of Jean Bertrand Aristide. He brought the issue to the President, the rest was history.

President Aristide could have called upon the best legal minds of the world, including those from France to make the legal case for Haiti for retribution in light of this new development. He chose instead to pursue a political and demagogic road poisoning for ever the legal advantage. At the other end of the spectrum France and Belgium owe the rest of their former colonies an obligation to help extract the virus of distrust, dissent and internal fratricide injected into the ethos and the culture of most of the former French and Belgium colonies. From Congo to Madagascar, from Haiti to Gabon and from Senegal to Tunisia, the story is the same with some variances, France meddling and the sequels of French culture is at the heart of the poor governance, the internal fighting and the robbing of the natural resources depriving the citizens of enjoying in peace their God given national endowment.

Should President Aristide have been deposed from power and sent to exile? This debate will continue for generations yet the truth of the matter is Aristide was deposed by a popular movement of the people of Haiti led by students who found his policies of dividing the already disjointed Haitian family too much to endure. As usual, France and the United States have come at the end to claim the paternity of the movement and lead the transition to their own advantage. Sending Aristide to exile was a small price to pay to bring about solace to million of Haitian families.

Under the Duvalier regime, the repression was codified and led by uniformed tonton macoutes, under Arisitide, the repression, the kidnapping and the killings were done by thugs, hired renegade paid by the government with not even a uniform to claim the appearance of a state enterprise. His complete disregard for law and order was putting the nation at its core into the path of disintegration. This axiom enshrined in the Preamble of the, Constitution of the United States is of value to the people of Haiti as well as the people of the world:

“All men are created equal; they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute a new government. It is the duty of the people to rise and to defend themselves against that tyrant.”

We often tend to follow the politics that the mice are smaller than the rats, as such we can live with the mice. Duvalier’s son was better than Duvalier therefore we can live with him. Arisitide was better than Duvalier fils therefore he is acceptable. Preval is better than Aristide, we should give him a chance.

The principle of democracy is a simple one. I have often called upon Ernest Renan as my preferred prophet for spreading the message. You shall defend your frontiers and your territory with all your might! You shall instill into the souls of your citizen the love and the admiration of the founding fathers! You shall take all the necessary measures to insure that no one is left behind!

In Haiti today the people are crying nou Bouke! nou Bouke! We have enough of this government that is interested in perpetuating itself while playing a scant view of the welfare of its people. Confirmed reports have informed me that before the earthquake some 900 projects vetted by Haiti’s own service of business promotion that would bring jobs for the Haitian people have been blocked by the Haitian government because graft has not been tendered for a final approval. After the earthquake the only reconstruction firms that can obtain a permit to start demolition projects are those introduced by or retained with the first Lady of Haiti.

It might be time for Haiti and for the friends of Haiti to plan regime change in Haiti, if the country should enjoy free and fair elections leading to democracy. The Haitian people did have their Friday of Crucifixion for too long it is time now for them to have their Easter Sunday. It is also the quickest way to bring about a minimum of coordination to the avalanche of help brought about by the international community to the gallant people of Haiti averting as such a second disaster.

It was a brother from Jamaica who sparked the Haitian revolution changing the world for ever and for the better! His name was Bookman. Would you, my dear brother from Jamaica, lend a hand again?

March 20, 2010

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Bahamas Blog International

The President of Haiti and the concept of leadership

By Jean H Charles:


The earthquake of January 12, 2010 that shook Port au Prince and its surrounding areas could not find a country so ill prepared for such catastrophe as the Republic of Haiti. It has no building code enforcement mechanism, property insurance is not mandatory; squatting on public land (and on private property) by internal migrants is not prevented by public authority and the Haitian government has failed to heed the advice of national and international experts in preparing its people for elementary steps to be taken in case of an earthquake disaster.

Countless people have died because they have rushed into crumbling buildings thinking they were facing the end of this earth. By contrast, similar or stronger earthquakes in San Francisco, have produced only 64 deaths, and in Chile 200 deaths. Haiti may have more than 500.000 deaths, making this disaster one of the most devastating events in modern history!

It is as such, proper and fit to look into the leadership style of the Haitian government, in particular its president, Rene Preval, to understand why there is such a large discrepancy in the protection of life and lamb in Haiti. I have met President Preval twice in my life. I met him some five years ago, when he was out of power (Preval has been president of Haiti twice) in the bucolic village of Marmelade where he retreated after his first term as president. I was the guest of one of the advisers of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide on his trip to Marmelade as the village was celebrating its patron Saint, Mary Magdalena. My friend was representing the president at the official Catholic mass in the village fiesta.

After the ceremony, friends and officials were invited to the president’s parental home for what I was expecting to be a small gathering with some coffee, Haitian patties and the customary pumpkin soup. To my distress, Preval (not president then) did not offer anything to his guests. I later presented to Mr. Preval my congratulations for dotting his village with the rudiments of good living that I am expecting to see in all the other villages of Haiti: a good school, access to internet, paved streets, a bamboo furniture factory. I suggested to him that such aura of welfare should be extended to the other two surrounding villages of Dondon and St Michel, creating as such a halo of sustainable growth in the region.

He left me thirsty for an answer or even an explanation of why he could not go further. I met President Preval again last year at a meeting arranged by the Clinton Global Initiative in New York while he was an official guest of the annual Conference. I shared with him the project for the decentralization of Haiti, while using some of the funds of the Petro Caribe dollars (an arrangement where Haiti receives oil from Venezuela below market price with 60% paid up front and 40% financed with a soft loan to be repaid in 25 years at one per cent interest) to initiate such a policy. His non-commitment as well as the non-engagement of his economic advisers is symptomatic of the style of government of President Rene Preval.

The president of Haiti does not understand that the buck stops with him. His most important task is to make decision. He would engage commissions for different tasks, but when the commission is over, the president must decide on one alternative or the other, yet the work of one commission after the other is catalogued into a drawer with no cause for action.

President Rene Preval comes from a middle class family in the northern part of Haiti. His father, Claude Preval, was a competent agronomist with a sterling reputation who scaled the rank of public service to become a Minister of Agriculture under President Paul Magloire. Rene did his elementary studies at George Marc College run by a friend of the family, one of the best mathematicians that Haiti has ever had. He was sent later to Brussels to complete his professional studies. To the deception of his father, young Rene was more interested in Marxist dialectic than in pursuing a regular course of study leading to a professional degree. He enrolled on his own in Lumumba University in Moscow.

On his return to Haiti he tried a bakery business, where he reconnected with some friends from Brussels, in particular Claudette Antoine Werleigh, who was engaged with Jean Bertrand Aristide in the underground movement to uproot the dictatorial and military regime of the Duvaliers. He was presented to Aristide by Werleigh; history has it they became like Siamese brothers.

From 1991 until today 2010, in the last twenty years President Rene Preval has occupied one way or the other the seat of power in Haiti. I have again, with permission of a friend, attended a Lavalas-Lewpwa meeting in the town of Terrier Rouge, Haiti, where the members have pledged they would hold power for the next forty years in Haiti.

President Preval’s most important task in ruling Haiti has been to uphold that pledge. No decision is taken without that goal in mind. On his last visit with President Barack Obama last Wednesday, his main request was not to help the millions of Haitians get out of the fetid and horrid tent cities into their ancestral villages with all the amenities that would retain them there; it was instead to get 100 million dollars to conduct an election where he would manipulate the electoral machine to perpetuate his grip unto power.

President Preval and his Siamese brother Jean Bertrand Arisitide during these last twenty years (20) have managed to sink Haiti into an abyss much deeper than the twin father and son Duvaliers have done in their thirty five (35) years of bad and dictatorial governance. He is proud of two achievements: road building and governance continuity. Yet these trophies are pregnant with the seed of corruption. Employees and government officials known as graft specialists are maintained or promoted. The program of road building is funded through the Petro Caribe trust that the president refuses to put into the regular public treasury account for transparency and accountability.

Leadership is the complex set of character that distinguishes one leader from the other. After the depression of 1929, President Herbert Hoover believed that the government should stay out the personal lives of the citizens, as such prolonging the crisis. By contrast, Franklin D. Roosevelt, upon assuming office in 1933, brought a pro-active leadership, offering a new deal to the American citizens, while instilling into the men and the women of America to live according to their means; pennies were saved, belts were tightened. His motto: “The only fear we have to fear is fear itself”, resonates again today. The president used the crisis to attack several fronts at the same time, funding to revitalize business, food and shelter for the needy and job creation in the big projects that last again today; America was reborn, stronger and better.

After the 9/11 attacks, the rest of the world saw itself as American, we thought frivolity was no more a cashable currency but this expression of good will was squandered and not turned into a new blood to push forward the American manifest destiny.

Haiti’s disaster lesson could go to waste if President Preval does not change course in his style of leadership. As President Obama just told President Preval, the country is set for another disaster as the hurricane and the rainy season is on the way. The world cannot continue to look at Haiti with the same detachment that it did in Rwanda or in Burma.

President Preval, as well as his Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive, keeps complaining about the ill-engagement of the international organizations in Haiti yet the appointment of a strong Minister of Coordination with the NGOs (with a small portion of their funding going towards financing that Ministry) would go a long way in helping service providers and Haitian refugees to receive much needed solace.

A project of decentralization with adequate funding going towards the small villages will propel Haiti into an orbit it has never been in before. An influential member of the Preval government has told me he has not been able to convince the government that he should engage into that path, instead of building the tent cities. The horde of refugees is needed for election time. Buying each vote with a token is easier and preferable to the government than the welfare of each individual.

For those guardians of the status quo in Haiti, the souls of those half a million unnecessary deaths will haunt you at night, scratching your feet and preventing the benefit of a peaceful night while turning your days into a mortal zombie!

As I have said in previous columns before the earthquake, the year 2010 is a turning point for Haiti; the whole legislative body, all the mayors, and all the sheriffs of the rural villages as well as a new president must be elected.

As goes Haiti, so goes the rest of the world! It was first to uproot the world order of slavery in 1804; it was again first to propagate the people’s revolution of 1986, it was first to start the food riot in 2004, questioning the developed world payback to their agriculture industry; the chain of earthquakes in this decade has started first with Haiti.

Helping to usher a democratic, fair and competent leader in Haiti, away from the plethora of corrupt, inept and non sensitive Presidents that Haiti have known for the past 60 years, will be the signal that this world is ready to enjoy a string of a better years to come!

March 13, 2010

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