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Why, after three years, is
there so little evidence of reconstruction?
Oxfam, for instance, has
spent more than one third of its $96 million budget on management costs
A Haitian family in
Port-Au-Prince is considered lucky if it can have at least one meal a day
The American-subsidized
construction of 750 houses in Caracol - were abandoned even before
half-complete
Genuine rebuilding must
take as its premise that the Haitian people are due a justice at least
200-years-old
500_debt_haiti_imara_guest
BlackCommentator.com:
The Debt Owed to Haiti
- By Nia Imara, PhD - BC Guest Commentator
The Debt Owed to Haiti
By Nia Imara, PhD
BC Guest Commentator
Three years after the
unprecedented earthquake in Haiti
that extinguished at least 300,000 lives and upended millions more, the world
is asking the same questions that were posed six months, one year, and two
years after January 12, 2010. Why, after three years, is there so little
evidence of reconstruction? Hundreds of thousands of homes and more than one
thousand schools were destroyed on January 12, 2010; given that the world
pledged nearly $10 billion in aid, why has there been hardly any construction
of permanent housing or new schools? Three years later, why do more than
350,000 Haitians remain homeless, living in tent camps, while foreign companies
are opening new, multimillion-dollar, luxury hotels?
The simple answer to these
questions is twofold. Amongst those with the power and resources to effect change
in Haiti,
there is not the will to rebuild the
country in a genuinely democratic and inclusive fashion. Secondly, efforts to
bring about an authentic reconstruction will be stunted, as long as Haiti - ruled
by a government not chosen by the people - continues to be under military
occupation.
A recent report in the New York Times gives an account of the
money contributed by the world to assist the earthquake victims and to help
rebuild Haiti
and, in doing so, provides a rather mild criticism of the work of
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) there.[1]
As estimated by the Times, of $7.5
billion in aid that has thus far been disbursed, half has gone to temporary
relief aid, including temporary shelters (i.e., tents), clinics, schools, and
emergency food relief. Of the remaining half, a small fraction has been
allotted for actual reconstruction.
Most earthquake survivors,
however, have yet to benefit from this aid in any meaningful or lasting way.
The majority of money has gone to foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
and private contractors, for whom the earthquake has proved to be tremendously
profitable. When these groups spend their collected money, a significant
percentage is invariably sucked into administrative costs before it ever
reaches the Haitians for whom it was ostensibly intended. Oxfam, for instance,
has spent more than one third of its $96 million budget (over a two year
period) on management costs. Additionally, many Haitians have expressed outrage
at how such NGOs and private contractors have driven up the cost of living
since the earthquake: while their employees rent expensive apartments, drive
around in brand new cars, and shop at grocery stores that most Haitians cannot
afford, a Haitian family in Port-Au-Prince is considered lucky if it can have
at least one meal a day.
A report by the Center for
Global Development corroborates the assessment of the New York Times that the reconstruction of Haiti’s infrastructure has been
lethargic, largely because the recipients of aid money have, more often than
not, been non-Haitian groups that have not prioritized actual reconstruction.[2] The
Center for Global Development report, less conservative than the Times estimate, discloses that $9.04
billion in aid has been disbursed since 2010, and that the majority has gone
back to the donors, foreign NGOs, private contractors, and the United Nations.
The Lack of Will
For all the data provided
in the New York Times and the Center
for Global Development reports, they ultimately miss the fundamental reasons
for why so little has improved in Haiti since the quake. In her Times article, Deborah Sontag attributes
the virtual lack of reconstruction to the immensity of the undertaking; to the
over-ambitiousness of donors and aid organizations; to the “weakness and
volatility” of the Haitian government. She reports on how millions of dollars
have been siphoned by planning meetings that never produce tangible results,
and how the handful of projects that were finally initiated - such as the
American-subsidized construction of 750 houses in Caracol - were abandoned even
before half-complete.
But to describe the
reconstruction efforts of foreign organizations and the Haitian government as
ambitious and “idealistic” must seem absurd to the homeless of Port-Au-Prince who have watched luxury hotels
sprout up on the hills of Petionville. This past December, after major setbacks
three years ago, the Royal Oasis Hotel opened its doors onto 128 rooms that
cost more per night than most Haitians make in a year. The Clinton Bush Haiti
Fund invested $2 million in the hotel, which - though its construction began
before the 2010 earthquake - reveals how expeditiously progress and profits can
be attained in Haiti,
if only there is the will. Best Western Premier is also scheduled to open a new
hotel in Petionville, and the International Red Cross is said to be considering
the building of a hotel on $10.5 million worth of land it purchased with donations
raised for quake recovery. Meanwhile, according to the New York Times article, the same Red Cross is sitting on more than
$500 million in donations.
What Sontag refers to as
the “weakness and volatility” of the Haitian government, a great many Haitians
see as outright deceit and illegitimacy. In September, October, and November
2012, Haitians throughout the country staged demonstrations to protest the
repressive, corrupt administration of President Michel Martelly, who ascended
to power a year after the quake in spite of fraudulent elections. Dominican
journalist Nuria Piera exposed Martelly for accepting $2.6 million in bribes
since the first round of presidential elections in 2010. And Haitian Senator
Moise Jean-Charles recently reproached him for getting a $20,000 per diem -
paid by the Haitian government - on his frequent trips abroad. As a solution to
the reconstruction stalemate, the Center for Global Development report
recommends that donors be more supportive of the needs and priorities of the Haitian
government. But similar to the foreign donors and organizations that have
attempted to reconstruct Haiti without seeking much input from Haitians
themselves, these recommendations fail to see that the priorities of Martelly
and his supporters have never been those of the majority of the Haitian people.
Fox Guarding the Henhouse
On each anniversary of the
2010 earthquake, the U.S.
media have remarked on the slow progress of reconstruction. They have generally
attributed America
and the world’s failure to live up to their promises to two interrelated
causes: the dysfunction of the Haitian government and the obstacles met when
trying to work with Haitian leadership. But this perspective misleadingly
presumes that the government, under Michel Martelly, has legitimacy. This point
of view ignores the fact that the current government was not democratically
elected, since the most popular political party, Lavalas, was banned from participating in the last several
elections. More fundamentally, it ignores the reality that Haiti is under a destructive, military
occupation that is maintained by some of the very parties who claim to want to
rebuild Haiti.
It seems absurd that those
responsible for undermining Haiti’s
democracy and supporting repressive regimes - the Duvaliers, Martelly - should
later rally to Haiti’s
cause. It is common knowledge in Haiti that the United States, France, and
Canada backed the February 2004 coup d’état in which then President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced into exile; without these nations’ financial
and military support, the kidnapping/coup and subsequent occupation would not
have been possible.
Michel Martelly’s
priorities are wholly opposed to those of most Haitians. Since his inauguration
in March 2011, the public has consistently called for his resignation. In
giving its support to Martelly, it would appear that the Obama administration
has implicitly threw its weight behind his repressive policies - in the form of
arbitrary arrests and political persecution; his paramilitary activities, his
laundering of national resources; his designs to change Haiti’s
constitution; and the forced evictions he authorized after the earthquake.
Who Owes Whom?
In February 2010, finance
ministers from the Group of 7 nations met and agreed to cancel Haiti’s
bilateral debt. The exact amount that was forgiven was not reported, but at the
time Haiti’s
debt was estimated at $1.9 billion, $1.2 billion of which was supposedly
canceled by the G7 the previous June.
Given that the earthquake
damage was estimated at nearly $8 billion - which surpassed Haiti’s gross
domestic product - the debt cancellation was praised by some who noted the
obvious: the Haitian people could now free up more of their limited resources
for rebuilding. But if one understands the history of Haiti’s exploitation by some of these very same
G7 nations - namely, France,
the US, and Canada - one
will see that their “forgiveness” came too little, too late. For this sort of
forgiveness seems rather like a thief throwing a few coins to the victim he
already robbed.
Twenty-one years after the
Haitian Revolutionary War ended, France demanded that its former
colony pay 150 million gold francs as compensation for its losses, which
included human “property.” In order to make the payment - valued at $21.7 in
2002 - Haiti
had to take out a number of loans from French and American banks, and her
economy, infrastructure, and educational system suffered.
Why didn’t the G7 nations
take this debt into consideration at their February 2010 meeting? The only
alternatives are to condone or condemn France’s
crime against Haiti.
Why didn’t the G7 nations
consider that most of Haiti’s
recent “debt” was incurred prior to the first democratic elections in 1990?
Loans that Haiti
received during this period fed and fattened the repressive Duvalier
dictatorship, including the death squads that murdered tens of thousands of
people.
Today, then, the question
ought not be how much debt the world superpowers condescend to forgive Haiti, nor even
how many millions they promise for earthquake relief. Genuine rebuilding must
take as its premise that the Haitian people are due a justice at least
200-years-old. Their claims for justice are both legally and morally sound and
have been ignored for far too long.
BlackCommentator.com Guest
Commentator, Nia Imara, is a member of Haiti Action Committee. www.haitisolidarity.net