Haiti under the Martelly era, one month after

By Jean H Charles



I flew to New York one day after the inauguration of Michel Martelly as the 56th president of the Republic of Haiti. I returned to the island nation one month after to gauge and taste the change on the street and in the spirit of the people. I have not seen any change yet. The president has been facing gridlock on all sides.

The former president Rene Preval on his last day in power may have orchestrated a constitutional subterfuge, sending to the national printing house an amended version of the constitution that was not approved by the parliament.

This malicious maneuver is creating all types of setback that the new president finally has rescinded the entire project of constitutional amendment. It took two weeks for him to do so.

The legislature with a small majority in the Preval camp therefore not on the side of the president is lingering, taking its time before engaging the dispositions to receive, hear and approve the program of government of the new prime minister, Gerard Rouzier. Some senators had even openly demanded bribes before sitting for the session. Martelly has firmly stated that he has a popular mandate to bring about change. He will not be bought.

His detractors, mainly those with a sour grape from the Myrlande Manigat camp, his former rival, are criticizing every utterance, every move with an intensity that freezes stupidity.

Item, Martelly has brought back the custom of a national holiday on Ascension Day. He is accused of mutilating the modern republican spirit of God versus State.

Item, Wilson Jeudy the mayor of Delmas, a suburb of Port au Prince, has taken responsibility to dislodge some earthquake refugees on a park leading to the airport. That camp is suspected of being a hotbed for bandits harassing the travelers at night. The full national and international public relations system, including the American legislative Black Caucus, has been engaged to condemn Michel Martelly for this assault on democracy. The mayor of Delmas is accusing a senator from the north, Moise Jean Charles, a fierce supporter of the former president, of being the instigator of the confusion for political reasons. The citizens of Delmas, victims of the hooliganism in that camp, are grateful and thankful to the mayor.

Item, Michel Martelly is also being accused of using sexual innuendos that cannot be printed in this essay to describe his satisfaction of the shape and form of a new school building he was dedicating. Education for all is his passion. Sexual innuendos included.

The Diaspora has its grief against the new president for demanding a tax of $1.50 per international transfer and 5 cents per minute on calls to Haiti. The contribution will augment a fund dedicated to making schooling free and universal in the entire country. Privilege comes with responsibility, legislation is on the way to provide the Diaspora with voice and vote.

The hurricane and the rainy season are already creating havoc in parts of the country. Some thirty citizens have lost their lives due to flooding. There is urgency in protecting lives and limb yet the debate amongst the protagonists of the president has been around comma and style.

Haiti, like a fine flower, is in danger of extinction due to environmental negligence and the pressure of the population, accumulated through sixty years of ill governance, forcing the people to concentrate in the main cities without a proper assessment of its environmental impact.

President Martelly, as the first pilot helping Haiti and its people to take off, must focus on the big picture as well as the small details. I have often said that a nation at its transition is like an airplane taking off. The pilot must use all the power at its disposal so the plane will reach its cruising altitude.

The old guard wants nothing but the crash of the airplane and the pilot, so it can, like the vultures, enjoy the carcass.

President Martelly’s budding passion for Haiti, the genuine love and generosity of his wife for the lowly, can only augur the success of his government in spite of the odds against him. Stay tuned for an update six months from now.

June 13, 2011

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Haiti at the dawn of a new era!

By Jean H Charles



On Saturday, May 14, 2011, Joseph Michel Martelly was sworn in as the 56th president of the nation of Haiti. It has been a transition fought for and earned by the people of the country against all odds, national and international. The first round was mired with irregularities that only popular anger forced corrective measures to put Michel Martelly on the next round of the balloting.

The second round was enmeshed with allegations of corruption by and in favour of the legislators affiliated with Unity, the government sponsored political party. President Martelly has a cry of heart, begging the electoral board not to derail the beginning phase of his lobbying effort to tell the world that Haiti, free of political strife, is once again open for business!

This island nation, well known now all over the world, because of the devastating earthquake that destroyed its capital on January 12, 2010, has been languishing in economic stagnation for the past sixty years because of poor at best, corrupt and criminal governance at worst.

The first one hundred days will indicate the new direction of the Martelly government. The masses deprived of the most rudimentary indices of amenities – water, electricity, decent roads -- have high expectations from the new regime.

The recent earthquake has brought into the country widespread devastation, and it has brought also universal cooperation from the most obscure to the well known international service agency. To the naked eye as well as to the astute observer, it seems as though such massive outpouring of help went into the country as a flood pours into an open field.

Haiti is the best field study of the axiom that “those who can, will not, and those who will, cannot.” The government of Michel Martelly wants to prove that those who will can turn things around very quickly if there is a convergence of the right actors with the right policies. A day before the inauguration of his mandate he energized a million men and above all women to take a broom to clean the streets in a mass movement of voluntarism.

The right policies include turning around the two parts of the head that form the nation to make it look at the same vision of the future for each citizen. This operation demands an affirmative action on behalf of those who are the most deprived of financial incubation to create products with plus value to increase their wealth. It demands also reaching out to those who already have, with tax incentives to build a national economy that will satisfy the expectation of a 10 million strong population with growing purchasing power.

The right policies called for the (re)building of the infrastructure of the nation, starting with the smaller rural counties to the capital. For the past two hundred years in the life of the nation, no rural county, nay no town or city, has received a minimum annual earmarked funding for the building or the upkeep of essential services such roads, sewers and waste disposal, potable water, electricity and internet services.

The Preval government created the CNE (National Center of Equipment) to build and maintain local roads. That instrument was transformed into an electoral machine, turned sometimes into a criminal enterprise at the service of one man instead of the nation.

The Martelly government will need to revamp this institution to supplement and intensify the contribution of the EU – European Community – in infrastructure support to Haiti.

The new government is very friendly to the concept of PPP -- public-private partnerships -- to circle the country with all the modern infrastructural apparatus -- transportation, fiber optics, ferry services, electricity, and communications, etc.

Efficient international trade requires, as said Alan Beattie in False Economy, good communications, cheap and reliable transport, as well as certainty about getting the goods on time to the customer along with the certainty that the exporter will get paid on time. Haiti is too close to the largest market in the world (the United States) not to take advantage of that opportunity.

The institutions in Haiti in the Preval government have been either an instrument of propaganda with minimum service delivery or a private fief of someone close to those in power to distribute favors, exact pay offs and humiliate and frustrate the ordinary citizen. To obtain a passport, pay domestic taxation, or receive a certified copy of one’s birth certificate, you must visit the capital, stay in a long line and sometimes pay a corrupt broker to obtain service that should be in the regular line of business of each county.

The Martelly government will need to institute in its first one hundred days the culture of hospitality in the delivery of services. That culture should be extended also to the coordination of the international organizations so they can become more effective in their mission as well as the mission of the government in becoming a state friendly to its citizens.

Last but not least the Martelly government will need to extend a hand to the Diaspora so it can energize the reconstruction of the country. He has done so at a gala given by the Diaspora in his honor. He told the crowd, at last “the Diaspora has its own government.” The new amended constitution gives the voting power to the Diaspora. With rights comes also responsibility. I have demonstrated in an earlier essay that the Diaspora as a tool for nation building can be organized only from the home country. The Haitian government must be the moving force incubating the regional organizations to make them effective tools of the Haitian recovery.

The input of the Diaspora has been so far as fragmented as the support of the international organizations in Haiti: a flood spreading into an open field. The sustainable effect has been minimal at best. The forthcoming Diaspora sponsored civil society plan to provide each town with an endowment of 3 million dollars per year for infrastructure and institution building should receive the full blessing of the Haitian government.

The energy of the new president, Michel Joseph Martelly, gives the possibility of forecasting the dawn of a new era of Haitian leadership in the Caribbean. The big international issues, such as the smooth insertion and the re-education of the criminal returnees, the free flowing of services and labor throughout the region, the control and the management of the illegal drug business will find a firm hand in securing the Caribbean basin for growth and development.

Last but not least, the last time there was some muscle (for the best or for the worst) engagement from the big brother (the United States) in the financial situation of the Caribbean was during the governance of Ronald Reagan. The Obama government will have to look at its neighbour, the Caribbean area, and provide at least the 3 billion dollars annual aid that Ronald Reagan, thirty five years ago, provided to the region. Haiti will provide the leadership for such engagement!

May 16, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

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