Helping Haiti

By Ken Russell in Articles

Looking at Haiti's present needs, and past neglects.

It's rare if the holiday season is not punctuated by some great drama, some tragedy elsewhere that has the capacity to jolt us out of the lethargy occasioned by sleepy days at the crib, or whatever it is that rings our bells in the long hot New Zealand summer. (No, not a sick joke!)

We had the drama in the Antarctic. None of us have any time for the Japanese and their 'scientific' whaling charade, but when it comes to the high stakes being played out by the vigilante Sea Shepherd organisation, rammed and sunk for their troubles, some of us doubtless took the side of Foreign Minister Murray McCully and wrote the protest off as irresponsible and foolhardy. Others, like me, remembered with a trace of nostalgia the frigate Norman Kirk despatched to Mururoa in 1973 that registered in no uncertain terms New Zealand's abhorrence of what the French were doing to poison Pacific waters, and we wondered why the same abhorrence of the intending slaughter of a thousand whales in the current summer in the waters between us and Scott Base warranted not even a rebuke from our leaders 38 years later? But that's another story.

Then there was Haiti. Who will ever forget the visual impact of the scenes first televised to the world, the total devastation, the screams and moans of the injured, the total confusion and bewilderment of the people? And has there ever been a more immediate summoning of assistance than that of Pres. Barack Obama on behalf of the poorest nation in the western hemisphere, nor the deployment of a more impressive aid force than descended on the small Caribbean island nation? $ 100 million has been promised in US aid, most of it military. And not only America. Every country in the world able to do so sent an emergency response unit did so, so many in fact that it was reported they vied with each other for the opportunity of pulling an ever-diminishing number of survivors from the rubble. The logistics of deploying such a force, with every road broken, to actually reach the injured and starving was mind boggling. On a cheerier note, the evidence seems to be that after days, weeks, of frustrating delay the huge stock of much needed aid accumulated at Port au Prince airport is ever so slowly getting to the people for whom it is intended.

"The worst human catastrophe in living memory" is the way it's being described by those in a position to know. The earthquake's tragedy compounds the chronic poverty of generations. There is no infrastructure in Haiti, no ability to bounce back from such a crisis. There is scant government, and a law enforcement system helpless in the face of gangs, drug lords and an impossible chasm between a few privileged rich and the many down-trodden poor. The re-location of whole communities, involving as many as a million people, is the task facing the aid community. It's mind boggling, but the reality is that even Haiti is likely to have only a relatively small window of opportunity. Like everything else, aid is a commodity of limited supply and duration, and despite impressive promises from the likes of Mr Obama, Haiti's current priority will rapidly slip away when the next earthquake, tsunami or God-only knows what next catastrophe besets another hapless member of the world community. So meantime, most of us are digging deep for Haiti, and so we should!

I am not normally a member of the cynical brigade, but with some good reason I have come to expect that hard on the heels of every "act of God" wrecking havoc on the poorest communities, comes the evidence of previous neglect, corruption or exploitation making an already tragic situation so many times worse.

No surprises, then, that Haiti's history is littered with the all too familiar facts of those same neglects, corruptions, and exploitations in which unhappily, the United States has always been a major player. The literature on it is readily available from Google and is well documented. It gives a less flattering perspective to the apparent overwhelming generosity of the US in the current aid rush.

Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier became president of Haiti in 1957, and upon his death in 1971 was succeeded by his son Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. During their 30 years of rule 60,000 Haitians were killed and many others were tortured by death squads. The Duvaliers, supported by the U.S., enriched themselves with foreign aid money. The Haitian people worked in sweatshops for pennies a day while foreign industrialists made millions. In 1986, a people's rebellion forced Baby Doc out, and the U.S. installed a military government, which continued to terrorize the citizens.

In 1990 Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a Catholic priest, was elected president in Haiti's first free democratic election. He surprised the western world by winning 67% of the vote in a field of 12 candidates, including an officially sponsored U.S. candidate. The Council on Hemispheric Affairs said at the time "Under Aristide...Haiti seems to be on the verge of tearing free from the fabric of despotism and tyranny..." But months later Aristide was overthrown by a US-back military coup.

For the next three years anarchy reigned in Haiti. A study by Boston Media Action revealed that while human rights abuses attributed to Aristide supporters were less than 1% of the total, they comprised 60% of the coverage in major American journals during the two weeks following the coup.

Aristide was finally allowed to return provided that he accept a number of political and economic conditions mandated by the United States, and he was re-elected president in a free election with over 90% of the vote. But again, the Organization of American States claimed that the election was rigged, and the U.S. began to withhold foreign aid from Haiti. In 2003 the country was forced to send 90% of its foreign reserves to Washington to pay off its debt. Pressure from business and international organisations was relentless. Aristide was vilified by the US and international media, and in 2004 forced out of office. He was flown by the U.S. to the Central African Republic.

Conditions in Haiti have remained desperate, with crumbling roads, nonexistent public services, unemployment at 70%, half the adults illiterate, and the richest 1% of the population controlling nearly half of all of the wealth. As one student of Haitian affairs put it recently, "It doesn't seem possible that the situation could get worse. But now it has."

Prominence was given to former President Bill Clinton, tears welling and hand on heart professing his love for Haiti and Haitian people, He of all people as UN special envoy for Haiti should know the tawdry story of why his country, of all countries, should stop at nothing to come to Haiti's rescue. But this time they need to do it better, without conditions, for Haiti's sake, and be prepared to be in it for the long haul.

-- Ken Russell

First published as a Connections article in the Parish bulletin, Feb. 7, 2010.