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
