From rubble to recovery
Published: February 13, 2010
Foreign Direct Investment
(Read the original article here)
A huge recovery challenge lies ahead for Haiti after its devastating earthquake, but could the rebuilding programmes bring about an essential economic restructuring? Michael Deibert reports from Port-au-Prince.
The incremental economic progress that Haiti, an impoverished Caribbean nation of 9 million people, had been experiencing over the past several years was brought to a cataclysmic halt late on the afternoon of January 12, when a 7.0 earthquake centred just south of the capital city sent the pillars of state and industry crashing to the ground in a heap of dust.
In a matter of seconds, Haiti’s Palais National, Palais de Justice, Parliament and many government ministries were either totally or partially destroyed. The top command of the UN mission, whose troops had been supporting the government of president René Préval since his 2006 election, lost their lives, along with an estimated 200,000 Haitians. Factories collapsed onto their owners and workers alike, and entire neighbourhoods tumbled down the brooding mountains that surround the capital city’s bay.
Further devastation
Haiti, already desperately poor but having experienced its first sustained period of political calm and stirrings of foreign investment interest in many decades, seemed as if it would be reduced to an even graver level than it had been before: mortally wounded, traumatised, ungovernable. In addition to the buildings destroyed, Haiti had also lost some of those best placed to aid its tenuous economic recovery, among them one of the country’s most respected economists, Philippe Rouzier, as well as Jean Frantz Richard and Murray Lustin Junior, the director-general and director of operations, respectively, at the Direction Générale des Impôts, the country’s main tax office in the capital.
According to the International Organisation for Migration, as of early February at least 460,000 people were still living in 315 spontaneous settlements throughout Port-au-Prince, while the World Food Programme said that more than 1.6 million people had received supplies since the start of the earthquake response.
Economic focus
But Haiti’s industrious population knows a little something about struggle and perseverance, even in the face of such a devastating tragedy. Within days of the earthquake, the country’s market women, taxi drivers and other labourers had returned to the streets, resuming commerce among the hundreds of thousands camped out between the shells of ruined buildings. Capital residents began to flow back into Haiti’s countryside, seeking family solace among the loss.
From a terrible misfortune, some hoped that Haiti might still have set in motion the seeds for a new beginning. Despite the ousting of a popular prime minister last autumn, Haiti’s modest economic engine, buoyed by an extended period of relative political tranquillity and an improved security situation, continued chugging along under a new prime minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, seemingly bearing out a December 2008 UN report asserting that it was striking “how modest are the impediments to competitiveness relative to the huge opportunities offered by the fundamentals” in the country.
Last year, billionaire George Soros’s Economic Development Fund announced plans to create a $45m industrial park in Cité Soleil, one of the capital’s poorest neighbourhoods, while two new hotels were set to open along the country’s lush south coast.
At the same time, the OTF Group, a competitiveness consulting firm credited with breathing new life into Rwanda’s tourism, coffee and agro-industry sectors following the country’s 1994 genocide, praised the business opportunities in Haiti. Focusing on several key “growth clusters” to drive economic development, it hoped to help create 500,000 jobs in Haiti within three years.
Following the earthquake, though reassessed, the group said its conclusions did not necessarily need to be shelved, just pushed back for six months to a year.
“The outmigration from [Port-au-Prince] is a huge opportunity to reverse the migration trends of the past two decades,” says OTF director Robert Henning. “If reconstruction can create opportunities and jobs outside of the capital, this will achieve an important goal of redistributing the influence and economic weight of Haiti.”
Trade possibilities
Though the country’s interior has been severely deforested over the past few decades, local groups, such as the Mouvman Peyizan Nasyonal Kongrè Papay, have worked for years on reforestation and irrigation projects and some areas, such as the Artibonite Valley, remain relatively fertile. With Port-au-Prince’s harbour severely damaged and the likelihood of recurrent large-scale earthquakes extremely high, according to the US Geological Survey, international attention has for the first time begun to look seriously at developing Haiti’s long-neglected interior with manufacturing and agricultural initiatives.
A long border with neighbouring Dominican Republic, which lends itself to the possibility of free-trade zones, and possible ports that might conceivably be expanded around the country – including Miragoâne (in the country’s west), Saint-Marc (in the middle region) and Cap-Haïtien (in the north) – would seem to support this possibility for future investment.
Following a decision last year by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank to cancel $1.2bn of Haiti’s debt – with the latter institution approving an additional $120m in grants for investments in key sectors such as infrastructure, basic services and disaster prevention, the G-7 countries told Haiti after a post-earthquake meeting in Canada in February that the country’s debts to the body did not need to be repaid.
New beginning
None of this in any way minimises the grievous shock – physical, psychological and economic – that Haiti’s people and its government have suffered because of those terrible moments in January. But, day by day, it appears to be picking itself up, dusting itself off and trying to decide where it will head from here.
“The extent of this disaster is also due to the fact that this country has not been managed, or rather has been ill-managed, for the past 50 years,” says Michèle Pierre-Louis, a civil society leader and former prime minister of Haiti. “Maybe after mourning our dead and saving the lives of the survivors, we should start thinking about ways to put together our energies, our solidarity, our creativity to rebuild our capital under some kind of strong leadership… [which] could eventually lead to rebuilding the entire country. Now is the time.”
Showing posts with label Michèle Pierre-Louis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michèle Pierre-Louis. Show all posts
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
A History of Troubles Is Helping Haitians to Endure
- AMERICAS NEWS
- JANUARY 22, 2010, 7:40 P.M. ET
A History of Troubles Is Helping Haitians to Endure
By IANTHE JEANNE DUGAN And MICHAEL DEIBERTThe Wall Street Journal
(Read the original article here)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—On a street corner amid a pile of rubble in Haiti's ravaged capital, life goes on. A man calmly polishes his shoes. Children run around dirty from the debris and half dressed but playing and laughing. A group of residents march by carrying mattresses on their heads, followed by another toting plywood.
As many as 200,000 people have died here, according to the government, and roughly one million have been made homeless. The roads from the capital are snarled with tens of thousands more fleeing the city. But many Haitians remain entrenched in the capital, and many are beginning to go about their daily routines, showing a resilience that some attribute to the nation's history of living from one disaster to the next.
"There are no other people besides Haitians who could come back this way," says Nadine Stremy, coming out of a supermarket carrying a bag of groceries. "They have learned through decades to survive."
A group of Haitians gathered around a car radio Wednesday night to listen to President René Préval's first speech since the earthquake that came eight days before. He said telephones were working again, the government is working, and called for courage and solidarity. "Solidarity!" someone shouted, smiling.
The next day, on Thursday, in the Canape Vert neighborhood, the local branch of Uni Bank opened its doors. Thousands of people waited outside, but the bank allowed only a few dozen business customers with whom it had relationships, according to an employee.
Nearby, at a Western Union, vast numbers waited in line to get in, many saying they were hoping for remittances from relatives in the United States.
"It's a terrible thing, but it is also life, so what else can I do but continue?" said Michelet Saint-Preux, who was on the third floor of the Université de Port-au-Prince when the four-story building collapsed, killing students, many of whom were attending after-work classes.
Mr. Saint-Preux's arm was bandaged and he had a deep gash in his chin. The structure still lay in ruins, with students' papers and notebooks scattered under concrete and jagged metal bars. The air reeked of the body that still lay pinned underneath a flattened Suzuki 4x4 jeep.
Near the collapsed palace, a group of men sat on the side of the road with an array of electric generators they were selling. Another man sold shoes and sneakers. In various spots around the city, hoses were set up with nonpotable water. Women with buckets washed their clothes on the side of the road, and children bathed. A ramshackle funeral parlor was open for business, and two hearses were being loaded.
Many Haitians say their resilience is rooted in Haiti's tortured history. Haiti overthrew French domination in 1804 to become the second independent republic in the Americas after the U.S. (Haiti's military victory inspired Napoleon to sell Louisiana to the United States). It later served as a base for South American leader Simón Bolívar, providing material and logistical support in the southern city of Jacmel for his campaign to liberate the Southern Hemisphere from Spanish rule.
But through the ensuing decades, they faced long periods of military juntas, dictatorship, and arbitrary justice. During the 29-year rule of the Duvalier family, Haitians quaked in fear at the bloody work of the dictatorship's paramilitary enforcers, the Tontons Macoutes.
During the more recent era of priest-turned-president Jean Bernard Aristide, the stuff of Haitian nightmares were the "chimere," named after a mythical fire-breathing dragon and comprising desperately poor, heavily armed gangs of young men who did Mr. Aristide's bidding.
"We have gotten through so much as a country," says Ms. Stremy. "This is why we consider each other brothers and sisters. We are survivors."
Just over a week after the quake, roadside markets where many people buy all their produce began to reappear for the first time. Along the capital's Avenue Pan American, an artist strung a fishing line between two trees and hung his wood carvings, against a backdrop of tumbled boulders. Near Champ de Mars square abutting Haiti's ruined National Palace, wood-carved furniture was being sold next to a dead body covered with a purple flowered sheet.
A pharmacy that had opened was mobbed—and robbed. So some stores opened for just a few hours and had security guards keep customers outside, letting just a few in at a time.
All over the city, signs have sprouted up in English, French and Creole. "Help us," says one. "We need food and water," reads another. Some carry phone numbers.
Michele Pierre-Louis, a former prime minister in the government of Haitian President Préval, said that despite incidents of violence, most people "peacefully pray, sing and help each other the best they can."
At a waterfront park on Wednesday, hundreds of Haitians lined up facing the water through a large iron gate. They were watching a Red Cross ship make its way to shore with supplies. On the other side facing them were military guards holding their rifles.
On the grounds of the capital's elite Petionville Club, several thousand Haitians waited patiently behind a rope barrier for food and water packets being distributed by the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division. In the capital's Canape Vert plaza, members of the Haitian National Police supervised the distribution of food donated by private individuals in the Dominican Republic.
"We are waiting to get some food and water," says Lesly Jeudy, who says that almost every structure in his Christ Roi neighborhood has collapsed. "We haven't had any food or water for two days."
Thursday, December 10, 2009
La Fondation Heritage Pour Haiti Attend Les Resultats des Verifications des Depenses Effectuees dans le Cadre du Programme d'Urgence Post-Desastre
La Fondation Heritage Pour Haiti (LFHH) - Section Haitienne de Transparency International (TI) - Attend Les Resultats des Verifications des Depenses Effectuees dans le Cadre du Programme d'Urgence Post-Desastre 2008
Port-au-Prince, le 8 décembre 2009 – La Fondation Héritage pour Haïti (LFHH) rappelle que le précédent gouvernement dirigé par Madame Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis avait affecté une partie des fonds de PetroCaribe dans le financement du programme d’urgence post-désastre 2008 à hauteur de 197,560 millions de dollars américains. Les allégations de corruption entourant la gestion de ces fonds par les différentes entités gouvernementales ont même fait l’objet des motifs de l’interpellation de la Première Ministre Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis, et de son gouvernement par le Sénat de la République en date du 29 octobre 2009, laquelle interpellation a débouché sur un vote de censure entraînant le départ du gouvernement.
LFHH estime que la nation haïtienne est en droit d’être informée en toute transparence sur l’utilisation des fonds de PetroCaribe dans le cadre du Programme d’urgence post-désastre 2008.
LFHH exhorte la Cour Supérieure des Comptes et du Contentieux Administratif (CSCCA), l’Inspection Générale des Finances (IGF) et l’Unité de Lutte contre la Corruption (ULCC) à réaliser des vérifications synchroniques de toutes les dépenses effectuées dans le cadre du Programme d’urgence, conformément à la requête formulée par l’ex Première Ministre, Michèle Duvivier Pierre Louis à travers deux correspondances datées du 28 octobre 2009 et adressées respectivement à la Présidente de la Cour Supérieure des Comptes et au Ministre de l’Economie et des Finances.
LFHH souhaite que l’actuel gouvernement dirigé par le Premier Ministre Joseph Jean Max Bellerive prenne toutes les dispositions nécessaires pour faciliter, de manière célère, la réalisation de ces enquêtes en vue de faire toute la lumière sur ce dossier.
LFHH pense que la publication des rapports d’enquêtes réalisées par les institutions de contrôle (CSCCA, IGF et l’ULCC) pourrait rétablir la vérité sur ce dossier en vue de fixer les responsabilités de chaque entité gouvernementale ayant participé à l’exécution du Programme d’urgence.
LFHH s’inquiète du fait que la société haïtienne ne soit pas informée sur la suite qui a été accordée à la requête de l’ex Première Ministre adressée à ces différentes institutions de contrôle en vue de diligenter les enquêtes administratives dans le plus bref délai possible. LFHH continuera d’attirer l’attention de la société haïtienne sur ce dossier qui avait déjà fait l’objet d’une première Déclaration de presse en date du 30 septembre 2009
Port-au-Prince, le 8 décembre 2009 – La Fondation Héritage pour Haïti (LFHH) rappelle que le précédent gouvernement dirigé par Madame Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis avait affecté une partie des fonds de PetroCaribe dans le financement du programme d’urgence post-désastre 2008 à hauteur de 197,560 millions de dollars américains. Les allégations de corruption entourant la gestion de ces fonds par les différentes entités gouvernementales ont même fait l’objet des motifs de l’interpellation de la Première Ministre Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis, et de son gouvernement par le Sénat de la République en date du 29 octobre 2009, laquelle interpellation a débouché sur un vote de censure entraînant le départ du gouvernement.
LFHH estime que la nation haïtienne est en droit d’être informée en toute transparence sur l’utilisation des fonds de PetroCaribe dans le cadre du Programme d’urgence post-désastre 2008.
LFHH exhorte la Cour Supérieure des Comptes et du Contentieux Administratif (CSCCA), l’Inspection Générale des Finances (IGF) et l’Unité de Lutte contre la Corruption (ULCC) à réaliser des vérifications synchroniques de toutes les dépenses effectuées dans le cadre du Programme d’urgence, conformément à la requête formulée par l’ex Première Ministre, Michèle Duvivier Pierre Louis à travers deux correspondances datées du 28 octobre 2009 et adressées respectivement à la Présidente de la Cour Supérieure des Comptes et au Ministre de l’Economie et des Finances.
LFHH souhaite que l’actuel gouvernement dirigé par le Premier Ministre Joseph Jean Max Bellerive prenne toutes les dispositions nécessaires pour faciliter, de manière célère, la réalisation de ces enquêtes en vue de faire toute la lumière sur ce dossier.
LFHH pense que la publication des rapports d’enquêtes réalisées par les institutions de contrôle (CSCCA, IGF et l’ULCC) pourrait rétablir la vérité sur ce dossier en vue de fixer les responsabilités de chaque entité gouvernementale ayant participé à l’exécution du Programme d’urgence.
LFHH s’inquiète du fait que la société haïtienne ne soit pas informée sur la suite qui a été accordée à la requête de l’ex Première Ministre adressée à ces différentes institutions de contrôle en vue de diligenter les enquêtes administratives dans le plus bref délai possible. LFHH continuera d’attirer l’attention de la société haïtienne sur ce dossier qui avait déjà fait l’objet d’une première Déclaration de presse en date du 30 septembre 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Un regroupement paysan met en garde contre des velléités d’un projet antidémocratique
Haïti-Politique : Un regroupement paysan met en garde contre des velléités d’un projet antidémocratique
mercredi 4 novembre 2009
(Read the original article here)
P-au-P, 04 nov. 09 [AlterPresse] --- Le Mouvement paysan national du congrès de Papaye (Mpnkp) lance un cri d’alarme sur le danger de mise en place d’un projet antidémocratique par le pouvoir en place, au regard des derniers développements de la conjoncture nationale ayant abouti au vote de censure contre la première ministre Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis.
« Nous appelons toutes les organisations paysannes, les organisations du mouvement social, les partis politiques et la population à barrer la route à tout projet antidémocratique », déclarent les délégués paysans du Mpnkp dans 9 des 10 départements géographiques du pays (à l’exception des Nippes / Sud-Ouest) dans une synthèse analytique sur la conjoncture politique nationale, dont une copie a été acheminée à l’agence en ligne AlterPresse.
Attention aux actes d’intimidation et aux manœuvres de manipulation de la présidence en faveur de l’établissement d’un parti politique unique, avertissent les délégués paysans du Mpnkp, rattachant le plan du regroupement politique « Lespwa » (Espoir, qui avait soutenu la candidature de René Garcia Préval à la présidence en 2006) à « l’échec total de la plateforme politique Lespwa devenue désespoir ».
Le regroupement paysan invite les partis politiques démocratiques à se démarquer véritablement du président Préval, en rassemblant leurs forces au sein d’une coalition antidictatoriale pour l’envoi de moins de candidates et de candidats aux prochaines élections de 2010, mais en se soignant contre la maladie dite « présidentite ».
La population nationale est appelée à la vigilance contre la tenue d’élections non transparentes, mais pour l’organisation de compétitions électorales libres, honnêtes et démocratiques sur tout le territoire national.
« C’est une indécence et une manipulation inacceptable que le président de la république se sert des ressources publiques pour tenter d’établir une dictature dans le pays », soutiennent les délégués du Mpnkp en se référant aux promesses faites par Préval aux représentants de 570 conseils d’administration de sections communales (Casec), il y a quelques semaines, pour les porter à intégrer un parti unique en formation.
La façon, dont les sénateurs de Lespwa ont voté la motion de censure contre la première ministre Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis, est identifiée par le Mpnkp comme un signe très clair d’une volonté de mainmise sur les ressources de l’Etat dans le cadre d’un projet de consolidation d’une dictature.
« Dans le milieu paysan, surtout dans le département de l’Artibonite (Nord), le pouvoir de Préval œuvre seulement avec sa clientèle politique, laquelle utilise les semences et les outils agricoles pour se rattacher des partisans pour la prochaine campagne électorale », dénonce le regroupement paysan.
En dépit d’une légère augmentation dans la production de riz dans l’Artibonite et d’une réalité similaire dans la production d’haricots (pois) dans certaines zones, une majorité de paysans ne bénéficierait pas d’intrants agricoles, ni de tracteurs.
Une grande partie des paysans se trouve davantage mise à l’écart par l’Etat, notamment dans le Nord-Ouest, département géographique où une sécheresse, enregistrée depuis les cyclones de septembre 2008 jusqu’en septembre 2009, a détruit toutes les plantations paysannes.
La sécheresse affecte le bétail dans le Nord-Est. Les paysans ont perdu leurs récoltes dans le Haut-Artibonite, le Haut Plateau central et une partie du Nord comme Limonade. Quant au département géographique du Sud, ce sont les inondations qui frappent l’attention.
La situation environnementale d’Haïti tend à la catastrophe, s’inquiète le Mpnkp.
« Rien n’est fait pour protéger les bassins versants, il n’y a pas de programme de conservation de sols, ni de reboisement ni de crédit. Il n’y a pas non plus d’assistance technique aux paysans. On ne parle plus de réforme agraire. Ce qui a droit de cité, ce sont les plantations sur lesquelles est envisagée la culture de jatropha (plus connue en Haïti sous le nom de gwo metsiyen) pour l’implantation de zones franches », signalent les délégués paysans du Mpnkp, aux yeux de qui le pouvoir en place serait intéressé à « céder aux multinationales de l’agrobusiness des terres arables à forte productivité alimentaire » au lieu d’une politique de développement agricole national.
mercredi 4 novembre 2009
(Read the original article here)
P-au-P, 04 nov. 09 [AlterPresse] --- Le Mouvement paysan national du congrès de Papaye (Mpnkp) lance un cri d’alarme sur le danger de mise en place d’un projet antidémocratique par le pouvoir en place, au regard des derniers développements de la conjoncture nationale ayant abouti au vote de censure contre la première ministre Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis.
« Nous appelons toutes les organisations paysannes, les organisations du mouvement social, les partis politiques et la population à barrer la route à tout projet antidémocratique », déclarent les délégués paysans du Mpnkp dans 9 des 10 départements géographiques du pays (à l’exception des Nippes / Sud-Ouest) dans une synthèse analytique sur la conjoncture politique nationale, dont une copie a été acheminée à l’agence en ligne AlterPresse.
Attention aux actes d’intimidation et aux manœuvres de manipulation de la présidence en faveur de l’établissement d’un parti politique unique, avertissent les délégués paysans du Mpnkp, rattachant le plan du regroupement politique « Lespwa » (Espoir, qui avait soutenu la candidature de René Garcia Préval à la présidence en 2006) à « l’échec total de la plateforme politique Lespwa devenue désespoir ».
Le regroupement paysan invite les partis politiques démocratiques à se démarquer véritablement du président Préval, en rassemblant leurs forces au sein d’une coalition antidictatoriale pour l’envoi de moins de candidates et de candidats aux prochaines élections de 2010, mais en se soignant contre la maladie dite « présidentite ».
La population nationale est appelée à la vigilance contre la tenue d’élections non transparentes, mais pour l’organisation de compétitions électorales libres, honnêtes et démocratiques sur tout le territoire national.
« C’est une indécence et une manipulation inacceptable que le président de la république se sert des ressources publiques pour tenter d’établir une dictature dans le pays », soutiennent les délégués du Mpnkp en se référant aux promesses faites par Préval aux représentants de 570 conseils d’administration de sections communales (Casec), il y a quelques semaines, pour les porter à intégrer un parti unique en formation.
La façon, dont les sénateurs de Lespwa ont voté la motion de censure contre la première ministre Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis, est identifiée par le Mpnkp comme un signe très clair d’une volonté de mainmise sur les ressources de l’Etat dans le cadre d’un projet de consolidation d’une dictature.
« Dans le milieu paysan, surtout dans le département de l’Artibonite (Nord), le pouvoir de Préval œuvre seulement avec sa clientèle politique, laquelle utilise les semences et les outils agricoles pour se rattacher des partisans pour la prochaine campagne électorale », dénonce le regroupement paysan.
En dépit d’une légère augmentation dans la production de riz dans l’Artibonite et d’une réalité similaire dans la production d’haricots (pois) dans certaines zones, une majorité de paysans ne bénéficierait pas d’intrants agricoles, ni de tracteurs.
Une grande partie des paysans se trouve davantage mise à l’écart par l’Etat, notamment dans le Nord-Ouest, département géographique où une sécheresse, enregistrée depuis les cyclones de septembre 2008 jusqu’en septembre 2009, a détruit toutes les plantations paysannes.
La sécheresse affecte le bétail dans le Nord-Est. Les paysans ont perdu leurs récoltes dans le Haut-Artibonite, le Haut Plateau central et une partie du Nord comme Limonade. Quant au département géographique du Sud, ce sont les inondations qui frappent l’attention.
La situation environnementale d’Haïti tend à la catastrophe, s’inquiète le Mpnkp.
« Rien n’est fait pour protéger les bassins versants, il n’y a pas de programme de conservation de sols, ni de reboisement ni de crédit. Il n’y a pas non plus d’assistance technique aux paysans. On ne parle plus de réforme agraire. Ce qui a droit de cité, ce sont les plantations sur lesquelles est envisagée la culture de jatropha (plus connue en Haïti sous le nom de gwo metsiyen) pour l’implantation de zones franches », signalent les délégués paysans du Mpnkp, aux yeux de qui le pouvoir en place serait intéressé à « céder aux multinationales de l’agrobusiness des terres arables à forte productivité alimentaire » au lieu d’une politique de développement agricole national.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
A few notes on the dismissal of Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis
mardi 3 novembre 2009
A few notes on the dismissal of Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis
By Michael Deibert
(Read the original article here)
It was said that during the reign of Jean-Jacques Dessalines - liberation icon, military dictator and “emperor” who ruled Haiti from 1804 until 1806 - a certain level of corruption was tolerated and dismissed with the phrase plumez la poule, mais ne la faites pas crier. Pluck the chicken, but make sure it doesn’t squawk. That tradition of corruption has been a woeful constant in Haiti’s political life since Dessalines was assassinated over 200 years ago.
Another chapter in the disregard for honesty and transparency that infuses the marrow of Haiti’s political class was written last week with the ouster of Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis by a parliament dominated by the allies of Haitian President René Préval, who appointed Pierre-Louis to the position a little over one year ago.
Since she assumed office in September 2008, Pierre-Louis was probably more responsible than any other single individual in beginning to restore some level of confidence in Haiti’s government and in encouraging the stirrings of international investment in a nation of industrious but desperately poor people all-too-often written off as an economic basket case. During her tenure, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the the Inter-American Development Bank collectively canceled $1.2 billion of Haiti’s debt, while the latter institution approved an additional $120 million in grants to aid Haiti to improve such sectors as infrastructure, basic services and disaster prevention.
Having previously led FOKAL, a civil society group supported by businessman and philanthropist George Soros’ Open Society Institute, Pierre-Louis was well-regarded both at home and abroad for her personal incorruptibility, and displayed a surprisingly adroit political touch on the international diplomatic stage.
That being the case, one might then ask why Haiti's senate, dominated by partisans of Préval’s LESPWA political current, chose this moment to oust Pierre-Louis under the almost-laughable rationale that, in her year in office, she had not solved the problems caused by two centuries of what Haitian writer Frédéric Marcelin in 1904 called “civil strife, fratricidal slaughters, social miseries, economic ignorance and idolatrous militarism.”
With the ouster of Pierre-Louis spearheaded by such LESPWA stalwarts as Senators Joseph Lambert and Jean Hector Anacasis, and with René Préval himself remaining publicly silent as the plot to remove his Prime Minister came to its inevitable and absurd conclusion, there appears to be an explanation as simple as it is depressing for removing Pierre-Louis at a moment when Haiti finally appeared to be gaining some international credibility: The Prime Minister was standing in the way of some powerful people making quite a lot of money.
Government insiders speak darkly about millions of dollars in aid money being siphoned off via the Centre National des Equipements, a body established by the Préval government to aid in Haiti’s efforts at reconstruction after a trio of hurricanes killed at least 600 people last year and further devastated the country's already fragile infrastructure. The machinations of the Groupe de Bourdon, a cabal of allegedly corrupt businessmen with firm roots in Haiti’s elite who have the president’s ear, are also mentioned as culprits. Many of the leaders of the drive to oust Pierre-Louis in Haiti’s senate are also individuals around whom allegations of corruption - and worse - have swirled for many years.
Pierre-Louis’ assertion to me when I interviewed her in Haiti this past summer that “chaos is good for a few sectors” and that Haiti's political system would reject anyone who would not allow themselves to be corrupted now appears to have been prophetic [1].
After his return to office in 2006, René Préval succeeded, against all the odds, in bringing relative peace to Haiti after years of bloodshed, something for which he should be lauded in no uncertain terms. However, the weight of corruption, along with a tradition of impunity, is continuing to strangle Haiti under his watch, and the ouster of Michèle Pierre-Louis is a worrying sign for Haitians who have long sought in vain for decent leaders who would build a government responsive to the nation’s poor majority.
The fact that Pierre-Louis’ replacement, Jean Max Bellerive, served in the personal cabinets of both Jean-Marie Chérestal and Yvon Neptune, Prime Ministers during the 2001-2004 tenure of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, an era that was marked by both widespread corruption and political violence, is cause for further concern. Bellerive has more than once been described to me with the rather nasty Kreyol phrase se yon ti poul ki mare nan pye tab yo, an allusion to someone who essentially does whatever they are told.
So the forces of disorder have won this latest round in Haiti. No doubt Haiti’s parliamentarians and perhaps even Préval himself are congratulating themselves at their cleverness, with the country’s corrupt bourgeois no doubt equally thrilled to now have a government with a popular base that will more or less allow them to continue unmolested with their nefarious activities.
But, as Haiti’s politicians strut around in expensive suits and travel over decaying roads in SUVs with impressive armed escorts, they seem not to realize that they should take no pride to occupy the position that they occupy with their country in such a state, a fact that remains equally true for many of Haiti’s economic elites.
Since the deployment of an international peacekeeping mission in Haiti in February 2004, almost 50 members of the United Nations mission in the country and thousands of Haitian civilians have lost their lives to political violence, criminal banditry and environmental catastrophes whose severity is directly linked to the inability of the country’s political class to create some semblance of a state to serve its people. This despite the presence of 7 UN missions to Haiti over the last two decades. Haiti’s long-suffering people deserve better than the country successive generations of leaders have bequeathed to them.
In his finest novel, 1955’s Compere General Soleil, Haiti greatest novelist, Jacques Stephen Alexis (who would be slain by agents of dictator François Duvalier in 1961), wrote of the journey of a pair of Haitians home from near-slavery in the neighboring Dominican Republic that “the closer they came to the promised land, the more they felt the net tightening around them.”
The net of corruption has been tightening around Haiti for far too long, and one hopes that those remaining honest people in Haiti’s political and business sectors, and Haiti’s genuine friends abroad, may find the tools to cut free that confining web that has succeeded in almost choking the life of the country that once taught the world so much about freedom.
Michael Deibert is the author of Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti. His blog can be read here.
[1] "The Elites Are Like a Huge Elephant Sitting on Haiti," Michael Deibert interviews Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis, 3 July 2009, Inter Press Service
A few notes on the dismissal of Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis
By Michael Deibert
(Read the original article here)
It was said that during the reign of Jean-Jacques Dessalines - liberation icon, military dictator and “emperor” who ruled Haiti from 1804 until 1806 - a certain level of corruption was tolerated and dismissed with the phrase plumez la poule, mais ne la faites pas crier. Pluck the chicken, but make sure it doesn’t squawk. That tradition of corruption has been a woeful constant in Haiti’s political life since Dessalines was assassinated over 200 years ago.
Another chapter in the disregard for honesty and transparency that infuses the marrow of Haiti’s political class was written last week with the ouster of Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis by a parliament dominated by the allies of Haitian President René Préval, who appointed Pierre-Louis to the position a little over one year ago.
Since she assumed office in September 2008, Pierre-Louis was probably more responsible than any other single individual in beginning to restore some level of confidence in Haiti’s government and in encouraging the stirrings of international investment in a nation of industrious but desperately poor people all-too-often written off as an economic basket case. During her tenure, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the the Inter-American Development Bank collectively canceled $1.2 billion of Haiti’s debt, while the latter institution approved an additional $120 million in grants to aid Haiti to improve such sectors as infrastructure, basic services and disaster prevention.
Having previously led FOKAL, a civil society group supported by businessman and philanthropist George Soros’ Open Society Institute, Pierre-Louis was well-regarded both at home and abroad for her personal incorruptibility, and displayed a surprisingly adroit political touch on the international diplomatic stage.
That being the case, one might then ask why Haiti's senate, dominated by partisans of Préval’s LESPWA political current, chose this moment to oust Pierre-Louis under the almost-laughable rationale that, in her year in office, she had not solved the problems caused by two centuries of what Haitian writer Frédéric Marcelin in 1904 called “civil strife, fratricidal slaughters, social miseries, economic ignorance and idolatrous militarism.”
With the ouster of Pierre-Louis spearheaded by such LESPWA stalwarts as Senators Joseph Lambert and Jean Hector Anacasis, and with René Préval himself remaining publicly silent as the plot to remove his Prime Minister came to its inevitable and absurd conclusion, there appears to be an explanation as simple as it is depressing for removing Pierre-Louis at a moment when Haiti finally appeared to be gaining some international credibility: The Prime Minister was standing in the way of some powerful people making quite a lot of money.
Government insiders speak darkly about millions of dollars in aid money being siphoned off via the Centre National des Equipements, a body established by the Préval government to aid in Haiti’s efforts at reconstruction after a trio of hurricanes killed at least 600 people last year and further devastated the country's already fragile infrastructure. The machinations of the Groupe de Bourdon, a cabal of allegedly corrupt businessmen with firm roots in Haiti’s elite who have the president’s ear, are also mentioned as culprits. Many of the leaders of the drive to oust Pierre-Louis in Haiti’s senate are also individuals around whom allegations of corruption - and worse - have swirled for many years.
Pierre-Louis’ assertion to me when I interviewed her in Haiti this past summer that “chaos is good for a few sectors” and that Haiti's political system would reject anyone who would not allow themselves to be corrupted now appears to have been prophetic [1].
After his return to office in 2006, René Préval succeeded, against all the odds, in bringing relative peace to Haiti after years of bloodshed, something for which he should be lauded in no uncertain terms. However, the weight of corruption, along with a tradition of impunity, is continuing to strangle Haiti under his watch, and the ouster of Michèle Pierre-Louis is a worrying sign for Haitians who have long sought in vain for decent leaders who would build a government responsive to the nation’s poor majority.
The fact that Pierre-Louis’ replacement, Jean Max Bellerive, served in the personal cabinets of both Jean-Marie Chérestal and Yvon Neptune, Prime Ministers during the 2001-2004 tenure of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, an era that was marked by both widespread corruption and political violence, is cause for further concern. Bellerive has more than once been described to me with the rather nasty Kreyol phrase se yon ti poul ki mare nan pye tab yo, an allusion to someone who essentially does whatever they are told.
So the forces of disorder have won this latest round in Haiti. No doubt Haiti’s parliamentarians and perhaps even Préval himself are congratulating themselves at their cleverness, with the country’s corrupt bourgeois no doubt equally thrilled to now have a government with a popular base that will more or less allow them to continue unmolested with their nefarious activities.
But, as Haiti’s politicians strut around in expensive suits and travel over decaying roads in SUVs with impressive armed escorts, they seem not to realize that they should take no pride to occupy the position that they occupy with their country in such a state, a fact that remains equally true for many of Haiti’s economic elites.
Since the deployment of an international peacekeeping mission in Haiti in February 2004, almost 50 members of the United Nations mission in the country and thousands of Haitian civilians have lost their lives to political violence, criminal banditry and environmental catastrophes whose severity is directly linked to the inability of the country’s political class to create some semblance of a state to serve its people. This despite the presence of 7 UN missions to Haiti over the last two decades. Haiti’s long-suffering people deserve better than the country successive generations of leaders have bequeathed to them.
In his finest novel, 1955’s Compere General Soleil, Haiti greatest novelist, Jacques Stephen Alexis (who would be slain by agents of dictator François Duvalier in 1961), wrote of the journey of a pair of Haitians home from near-slavery in the neighboring Dominican Republic that “the closer they came to the promised land, the more they felt the net tightening around them.”
The net of corruption has been tightening around Haiti for far too long, and one hopes that those remaining honest people in Haiti’s political and business sectors, and Haiti’s genuine friends abroad, may find the tools to cut free that confining web that has succeeded in almost choking the life of the country that once taught the world so much about freedom.
Michael Deibert is the author of Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti. His blog can be read here.
[1] "The Elites Are Like a Huge Elephant Sitting on Haiti," Michael Deibert interviews Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis, 3 July 2009, Inter Press Service
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Playing politics in Haiti
Posted on Wednesday, 10.28.09
Playing politics in Haiti
Haiti headed for disaster in effort to oust prime minister
The Miami Herald
(Read the original article here)
As the end of the hurricane season nears, it appears Haiti may avoid getting hit by a natural disaster this year. Not so for man-made disasters, however.
A political maelstrom is brewing that could destroy the international effort to rebuild Haiti following a series of storms that ravaged the island last year. This menace takes the form of an effort in the Senate to remove Prime Minister Miche`le Pierre-Louis, who has managed the government capably in the 14 months since she was appointed by President René Préval.
Ms. Pierre-Louis was ratified by the National Assembly after her predecessor was fired, ushering in a needless and prolonged period of political bickering over who would fill the position. All this followed years of instability and political violence that came to a halt only after U.N. peacekeepers arrived.
Now Haiti has a chance to turn the page. Only three weeks ago, former U.S. President and U.N. Special Envoy Bill Clinton led a historic trade mission to Haiti that held out the promise of new investment and new jobs, both of which Haiti desperately needs. Investors need to be reassured, though, that Haiti's leaders can manage their political affairs without needless upheavals and unrest.
Removing Ms. Pierre-Louis for no good reason sends precisely the wrong message. Sen. Jean Hector Anacasis, a leading adversary, told Miami Herald Caribbean correspondent Jacqueline Charles that there is too much discontent among the populace because of the slow pace of recovery. That's a thin reed upon which to hang the current government. Recovery has been slow because of scarce resources, but that is not the prime minister's fault.
On the contrary, Ms. Pierre-Louis has apparently won the confidence of international groups and potential investors. Her removal would destroy momentum to rebuild Haiti with support from abroad.
President Préval must try to halt this oncoming disaster by strongly expressing his backing for his prime minister. He has been too quiet through this whole affair, as if it does not concern him, yet he is the head of state, and his party controls the Senate. He has a responsibility to lead, and now is the time to show it.
Ms. Pierre-Louis has been summoned to the Senate on Thursday, where she will surely be mauled by her adversaries, and then probably voted out of office.
What a shame. It would produce another round of musical chairs in which ministers leave office to be replaced by other ministers who barely have time to learn their jobs before another government falls and they, too, are booted. That's a recipe for unending political instability, the last thing Haiti needs.
Haiti's 10 million people deserve better. Their leaders should think about them, for a change, instead of playing politics with Haiti's future.
Playing politics in Haiti
Haiti headed for disaster in effort to oust prime minister
The Miami Herald
(Read the original article here)
As the end of the hurricane season nears, it appears Haiti may avoid getting hit by a natural disaster this year. Not so for man-made disasters, however.
A political maelstrom is brewing that could destroy the international effort to rebuild Haiti following a series of storms that ravaged the island last year. This menace takes the form of an effort in the Senate to remove Prime Minister Miche`le Pierre-Louis, who has managed the government capably in the 14 months since she was appointed by President René Préval.
Ms. Pierre-Louis was ratified by the National Assembly after her predecessor was fired, ushering in a needless and prolonged period of political bickering over who would fill the position. All this followed years of instability and political violence that came to a halt only after U.N. peacekeepers arrived.
Now Haiti has a chance to turn the page. Only three weeks ago, former U.S. President and U.N. Special Envoy Bill Clinton led a historic trade mission to Haiti that held out the promise of new investment and new jobs, both of which Haiti desperately needs. Investors need to be reassured, though, that Haiti's leaders can manage their political affairs without needless upheavals and unrest.
Removing Ms. Pierre-Louis for no good reason sends precisely the wrong message. Sen. Jean Hector Anacasis, a leading adversary, told Miami Herald Caribbean correspondent Jacqueline Charles that there is too much discontent among the populace because of the slow pace of recovery. That's a thin reed upon which to hang the current government. Recovery has been slow because of scarce resources, but that is not the prime minister's fault.
On the contrary, Ms. Pierre-Louis has apparently won the confidence of international groups and potential investors. Her removal would destroy momentum to rebuild Haiti with support from abroad.
President Préval must try to halt this oncoming disaster by strongly expressing his backing for his prime minister. He has been too quiet through this whole affair, as if it does not concern him, yet he is the head of state, and his party controls the Senate. He has a responsibility to lead, and now is the time to show it.
Ms. Pierre-Louis has been summoned to the Senate on Thursday, where she will surely be mauled by her adversaries, and then probably voted out of office.
What a shame. It would produce another round of musical chairs in which ministers leave office to be replaced by other ministers who barely have time to learn their jobs before another government falls and they, too, are booted. That's a recipe for unending political instability, the last thing Haiti needs.
Haiti's 10 million people deserve better. Their leaders should think about them, for a change, instead of playing politics with Haiti's future.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Haiti - Back to life
Haiti - Back to life
Published: October 15, 2009
Foreign Direct Investment
(Read the original article here)
The violence, poverty and corruption that has blighted Haiti over the past few years has given way to an air of peace, efficiency and optimism. Michael Deibert reports.
Politically aligned gangs warring across the ramshackle capital of shanty towns and gingerbread houses are a thing of the past in Port-au-Prince, the capital city of Haiti, and visitors cannot help but be struck by the feeling of change in the air.
An airport previously staffed by political cronies, where passengers sweated in boiling halls, is now a model of air-conditioned efficiency. Streets once deserted after sunset now teem with life, with upper-class restaurants in the hillside Petionville district and the kerosene-lit roadside stands of the ti machann (vendors) downtown luring customers late into the evening, something unthinkable only a few years ago.
Peace has been brought to this Caribbean country of 9 million people through the work of president René Préval’s government, and the 9000-member United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, known as MINUSTAH.
Haiti was previously ruled by the erratic priest-turned-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide from 2001 until his ousting in February 2004. This was followed by turmoil under an interim government that ruled until President Préval’s inauguration in May 2006.
From a police force of just 3500 at the start of Minustah’s mandate, Haiti now boasts 9200 police officers, a number projected to grow to 10,000 by the year’s end, and to 14,000 by the end of 2011. Recent mid-term parliamentary elections passed largely peacefully – no small feat in a country where ballots often threatened civil order.
In addition, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) collectively cancelled $1.2bn of Haiti’s debt in June, erasing almost two-thirds of the country’s outstanding debt in one stroke. The IADB went even further, approving an additional $120m in grants to help Haiti improve its infrastructure, basic services and disaster prevention plans.
“Haiti has a lot of potential,” says Michèle Pierre-Louis, the country’s prime minster and a respected civil society leader before she joined President Préval’s government. “But we have a very fragile civil society, and we’ve never thought of social mobility and prepared for a middle class.”
Positive outlook
Many observers and investors feel a guarded optimism about the country’s political and economic prospects.
“The investment climate in Haiti is far better now than it was during the [interim] period or the days of President Aristide, that can be said without any doubt,” says Lance Durban, a US businessman who first arrived in Haiti in 1979 and now runs Manutech, an electronics manufacturing company employing about 450 people. “You’re close to the US market, you have a lot of people who speak English and you have the lowest wages in the Americas.”
Last year, Haiti boasted modest-though-respectable GDP growth of 2.3%, and at the beginning of 2009, President Préval created the Groupe de Travail sur la Compétitivité, a body designed to increase Haiti’s competitiveness in attracting global businesses.
Beyond the manufacturing sector, new avenues in Haiti’s potential for investors are also opening up. The garment industry, once a lynchpin of Haiti’s economy, could help the country’s economic revival, if given the right incentives and support. In the US, the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act of 2008 (HOPE II) built on a 2007 measure that provided certain Haitian textiles with duty-free status when entering the US. Mining is another area of interest (see In Focus, below).
Tourism targets
Also on Haiti’s business landscape is the OTF Group, a competitiveness consulting firm credited with breathing new life into Rwanda’s tourism, coffee and agro-industry sectors following the genocide in the country in 1994. OTF has found encouraging evidence that Haiti might be ripe for a similar renaissance.
“In terms of the business opportunities, I am amazed by what I think is possible,” says OTF director Rob Henning. “And our role is to facilitate a process by which the Haitians, both the public and private sector, take ownership over industries and try to create a prosperous Haiti where poverty is reduced through wealth creation and the creation of businesses.”
Though Haiti currently ranks 154 out of the 180 countries covered by the World Bank’s Doing Business Index, substantial improvement has been made in cutting down the red tape that once made investing in the country an inexplicable maze for foreign capital.
It generally now takes a maximum of 40 days to incorporate a company in Haiti, as opposed to the 202 days that it took as recently as 2003.
However, the challenges the country faces remain substantial. Weak infrastructure, environmental degradation and deforestation contributed to conditions which saw a trio of hurricanes kill at least 600 people in 2008. After Haiti’s Senate passed a measure in May raising the country’s minimum wage to a rate of about $4.90 a day, a 300% increase from its current level, President Préval balked at signing the measure, fearing that it would jeopardise Haiti’s already fragile employment sector.
In unison
Despite this, however, Haiti’s business class and its poor majority have learned some hard lessons about working together.
In the once-violent Port-au-Prince neighbourhood of Saint Martin, member’s of Haiti’s private sector and local community leaders have been meeting with the support of the Irish charity Concern Worldwide since 2007. A ‘peace and prosperity’ committee in the district boasts three members from Haiti’s private sector and 12 representatives from the community of Saint Martin. A recent general assembly to address community concerns attracted nearly 150 people.
“You can no longer put a business in a community where it is built against the community,” says Ralph Edmond, the president of Farmatrix, which has manufactured pharmaceutical products in the district since 1994, and who is active in the debate. “If we are to live in this country, then we have to live differently than our fathers did before.”
COUNTRY PROFILE
HAITI
Population: 9.03 million
Pop. growth rate: 1.84%
Area: 27,560 sq km
Real GDP growth: 1.3%
GDP per capita: $1300
Current account: -$611m
Largest sector (% of GDP): Agriculture 66%
Labour force: 3.64 million
Unemployment rate: na
Source: CIA World Factbook, 2009
IN FOCUS
MINING INDUSTRY TO STRIKE GOLD?
Eurasian Minerals, a Colorado-based mining company, in association with Newmont Mining Corporation, has initiated exploratory prospecting procedures at several sites in the north of Haiti, where there could be substantial gold and copper deposits.
In the neighbouring Dominican Republic, the Pueblo Viejo gold deposit has proven to be one of the largest in the Western Hemisphere, with proven and probable reserves of 570,000 kilograms of gold, 3.3 million kg of silver and 192 million kg of copper.
“Mining could represent a substantial investment in the country, its economy and its infrastructure,” says Eurasian Minerals CEO David Cole, noting the potential for “very large” gold deposits in Haiti that have never been properly explored.
Published: October 15, 2009
Foreign Direct Investment
(Read the original article here)
The violence, poverty and corruption that has blighted Haiti over the past few years has given way to an air of peace, efficiency and optimism. Michael Deibert reports.
Politically aligned gangs warring across the ramshackle capital of shanty towns and gingerbread houses are a thing of the past in Port-au-Prince, the capital city of Haiti, and visitors cannot help but be struck by the feeling of change in the air.
An airport previously staffed by political cronies, where passengers sweated in boiling halls, is now a model of air-conditioned efficiency. Streets once deserted after sunset now teem with life, with upper-class restaurants in the hillside Petionville district and the kerosene-lit roadside stands of the ti machann (vendors) downtown luring customers late into the evening, something unthinkable only a few years ago.
Peace has been brought to this Caribbean country of 9 million people through the work of president René Préval’s government, and the 9000-member United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, known as MINUSTAH.
Haiti was previously ruled by the erratic priest-turned-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide from 2001 until his ousting in February 2004. This was followed by turmoil under an interim government that ruled until President Préval’s inauguration in May 2006.
From a police force of just 3500 at the start of Minustah’s mandate, Haiti now boasts 9200 police officers, a number projected to grow to 10,000 by the year’s end, and to 14,000 by the end of 2011. Recent mid-term parliamentary elections passed largely peacefully – no small feat in a country where ballots often threatened civil order.
In addition, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) collectively cancelled $1.2bn of Haiti’s debt in June, erasing almost two-thirds of the country’s outstanding debt in one stroke. The IADB went even further, approving an additional $120m in grants to help Haiti improve its infrastructure, basic services and disaster prevention plans.
“Haiti has a lot of potential,” says Michèle Pierre-Louis, the country’s prime minster and a respected civil society leader before she joined President Préval’s government. “But we have a very fragile civil society, and we’ve never thought of social mobility and prepared for a middle class.”
Positive outlook
Many observers and investors feel a guarded optimism about the country’s political and economic prospects.
“The investment climate in Haiti is far better now than it was during the [interim] period or the days of President Aristide, that can be said without any doubt,” says Lance Durban, a US businessman who first arrived in Haiti in 1979 and now runs Manutech, an electronics manufacturing company employing about 450 people. “You’re close to the US market, you have a lot of people who speak English and you have the lowest wages in the Americas.”
Last year, Haiti boasted modest-though-respectable GDP growth of 2.3%, and at the beginning of 2009, President Préval created the Groupe de Travail sur la Compétitivité, a body designed to increase Haiti’s competitiveness in attracting global businesses.
Beyond the manufacturing sector, new avenues in Haiti’s potential for investors are also opening up. The garment industry, once a lynchpin of Haiti’s economy, could help the country’s economic revival, if given the right incentives and support. In the US, the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act of 2008 (HOPE II) built on a 2007 measure that provided certain Haitian textiles with duty-free status when entering the US. Mining is another area of interest (see In Focus, below).
Tourism targets
Also on Haiti’s business landscape is the OTF Group, a competitiveness consulting firm credited with breathing new life into Rwanda’s tourism, coffee and agro-industry sectors following the genocide in the country in 1994. OTF has found encouraging evidence that Haiti might be ripe for a similar renaissance.
“In terms of the business opportunities, I am amazed by what I think is possible,” says OTF director Rob Henning. “And our role is to facilitate a process by which the Haitians, both the public and private sector, take ownership over industries and try to create a prosperous Haiti where poverty is reduced through wealth creation and the creation of businesses.”
Though Haiti currently ranks 154 out of the 180 countries covered by the World Bank’s Doing Business Index, substantial improvement has been made in cutting down the red tape that once made investing in the country an inexplicable maze for foreign capital.
It generally now takes a maximum of 40 days to incorporate a company in Haiti, as opposed to the 202 days that it took as recently as 2003.
However, the challenges the country faces remain substantial. Weak infrastructure, environmental degradation and deforestation contributed to conditions which saw a trio of hurricanes kill at least 600 people in 2008. After Haiti’s Senate passed a measure in May raising the country’s minimum wage to a rate of about $4.90 a day, a 300% increase from its current level, President Préval balked at signing the measure, fearing that it would jeopardise Haiti’s already fragile employment sector.
In unison
Despite this, however, Haiti’s business class and its poor majority have learned some hard lessons about working together.
In the once-violent Port-au-Prince neighbourhood of Saint Martin, member’s of Haiti’s private sector and local community leaders have been meeting with the support of the Irish charity Concern Worldwide since 2007. A ‘peace and prosperity’ committee in the district boasts three members from Haiti’s private sector and 12 representatives from the community of Saint Martin. A recent general assembly to address community concerns attracted nearly 150 people.
“You can no longer put a business in a community where it is built against the community,” says Ralph Edmond, the president of Farmatrix, which has manufactured pharmaceutical products in the district since 1994, and who is active in the debate. “If we are to live in this country, then we have to live differently than our fathers did before.”
COUNTRY PROFILE
HAITI
Population: 9.03 million
Pop. growth rate: 1.84%
Area: 27,560 sq km
Real GDP growth: 1.3%
GDP per capita: $1300
Current account: -$611m
Largest sector (% of GDP): Agriculture 66%
Labour force: 3.64 million
Unemployment rate: na
Source: CIA World Factbook, 2009
IN FOCUS
MINING INDUSTRY TO STRIKE GOLD?
Eurasian Minerals, a Colorado-based mining company, in association with Newmont Mining Corporation, has initiated exploratory prospecting procedures at several sites in the north of Haiti, where there could be substantial gold and copper deposits.
In the neighbouring Dominican Republic, the Pueblo Viejo gold deposit has proven to be one of the largest in the Western Hemisphere, with proven and probable reserves of 570,000 kilograms of gold, 3.3 million kg of silver and 192 million kg of copper.
“Mining could represent a substantial investment in the country, its economy and its infrastructure,” says Eurasian Minerals CEO David Cole, noting the potential for “very large” gold deposits in Haiti that have never been properly explored.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Challenges to Haiti’s Security Gains
Challenges to Haiti’s Security Gains Saturday 10 October 2009
By Michael Deibert
Presented to the Applied Research Center and the Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University in Miami, Florida, August 2009
At present, Haiti is passing through a delicate and significant period, one which, while giving hints of hope, also provides ample grounds for caution.
Though there have been significant and laudable improvements in the country’s security situation under the mandate of Haitian President René Préval, inaugurated in May 2006, these gains remain fragile and Haiti’s political situation relatively tenuous, and two stubbornly recurring factors of Haiti’s political life will have to be addressed in order to concretize them.
Though he has been criticized in some quarters for ineffectiveness, I believe that it is hard to overstate the impact the restoration of relative peace around the country since Mr. Préval took office has had on the life or ordinary Haitians. Whereas only a few years ago the authority of the state extended little even in the capital, Port-au-Prince, where entire neighborhoods were held in the sway of various politically-affiliated armed gangs, citizens of the capital, including those in poorer quarters, can now largely go about their business without the ever-present fear of being kidnapped or being caught in an exchange of fire between the gangs, Haitian police and forces of the 9,000 member Mission des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en Haïti, known by its acronym MINUSTAH. Haiti’s long-crumbling road system is being gradually rehabilitated, especially in the country’s south, and its ever-erratic electricity situation has also improved somewhat. The appointment of Michèle Pierre-Louis, a respected and independent-minded civil society leader who formerly directed the Fondasyon Konesans Ak Libète (Knowledge and Freedom Foundation or FOKAL), as Prime Minister in September 2008, should also be viewed as a positive sign in a country where the Prime Minister’s office, technically the head of government according to Haiti’s 1987 constitution, has often meant little more than a rubber stamp for the presidency.
On the economic front, there has also been some good news, with the June announcement by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the the Inter-American Development Bank collectively canceling $1.2 billion of Haiti’s debt, in one broad stroke erasing almost two-thirds of the country’s outstanding debt. The latter institution went even further, approving an additional $120 million in grants to aid Haiti in improving sectors such as infrastructure, basic services and disaster prevention.
Also, in the United States, the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act of 2008 (HOPE II), with strong support in the U.S. congress, built yet further on a 2007 measure that provided certain Haitian textiles with duty-free status when entering the United States, perhaps a boon for Haiti’s long near-moribund textile industry.
The amelioration of Haiti’s security situation is, in my view, due to several factors, not the least of which has been the steady and principled leadership of Mario Andresol at the head of the Police Nationale d’Haiti (PNH), bringing back competence and accountability to an institution that, during the 2001 to 2004 rule of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and to a lesser extent the 2004 to 2006 interim government that ruled Haiti before Mr. Préval’s election, was viewed chiefly as a highly politicized bludgeon used by Haiti’s executive branch against its enemies, real or perceived.
A projected five year UN-supported police reform program is now in its third year of implementation, currently providing Haiti with 9,200 police officers, with that number projected to grow to 10,000 by year’s end. For a police force that numbered only 3,500 at the start of the UN mission (of whom over 1,500 had to be dismissed), the target of 14,000 police officers by the end of 2011 would not seem overly optimistic. This surge in police recruits is a far cry from the situation between September 2004 and June 2005, during which a PNH officer was being murdered every five days in Haiti. On the judicial side of law enforcement, Haiti has recently re-opened its school for magistrates after being shuttered for many years.
However, there are some structural problems to Haiti’s political culture that need to be addressed if the calm that we have seen in Haiti over the least few years is to be anything but cosmetic, and if a longer process of both political and economic development can occur.
By now everyone is no doubt familiar with the litany of woeful statistics that so often get repeated about Haiti in gatherings like this: The fact that over 4 million of Haiti’s nearly 9 million people live on less than US$1 a day, that only the people of Somalia and Afghanistan suffer from higher rates of hunger, that 90 percent of Haiti’s tree cover has been destroyed for charcoal and to make room for farming, resulting in erosion that has destroyed two-thirds of the country’s arable farmland and leaves it vulnerable to torrential floods such as those caused by a trio of hurricanes that killed at least 600 people last year.
As already noted, some steps are being taken at an international level to address Haiti’s economic woes and, though far from adequate, small steps to try and address Haiti’s environmental disaster are being taken by such indigenous groups as Tèt kole ti peyizan Ayisyen and the Mouvman Peyizan Nasyonal Kongre Papay.
Despite this, though, I believe that the two hard grains in Haiti’s political culture that must be addressed, both by the Haitian government and by the international community, if the changes I have outlined are to be anything more than temporary. These grains are those of impunity and corruption, the continuing presence of which have the ability to undermine all of the progress that we have so far seen.
The guilty pleas this past May of two Miami telecommunications executives, Juan Diaz and Antonio Perez. in connection with their roles in a conspiracy to pay and conceal more than $1 million in bribes to former Haitian officials during the Aristide’s government’s tenure is a step in the right direction, but it unfortunately has yet to be see reciprocal prosecutions on the Haitian side for those who accepted the bribes.
Despite the ratification of the UN Convention against corruption by Haiti’s parliament in 2007 and a vigorous speech about the problem of corruption in Haiti by Préval in May of that year, as a Haitian friend of mine recently told me, corruption is a low-risk, high-return initiative in Haiti, one has every chance of becoming very rich, and very little chance of being punished.
Going hand-in-hand with a culture of corruption and impunity, historically in Haiti, armed government loyalists with no formal law enforcement role have essentially became contractors of the state, a phenomenon that held true with the Tontons Macoutes of the 1957-1986 Duvalier family dictatorship, the attaché of the 1991-1994 defacto era and the chimere of Aristide’s 2001-2004 mandate. Under the aegis of the state, such affiliated members, rewarded irregularly through various forms of government largess, were allowed to exist as a competing armed group to the official security forces, and given free reign to commit some sickening crimes, such as the April 1994 killing of Aristide supporters in the northern city of Gonaives and the February 2004 massacre of Aristide opponents and civilians in the central Haitian town of St. Marc, the latter a crime for which no one has as yet been tried.
Though this phenomenon, as far I can tell, is no longer present at the heart of Haiti’s government today as it has been in the past, the aba/a-vie option of mob politics remains an attractive one to many of Haiti’s political and extra-political actors, as we saw with the riots of May 2008 and recent chaotic protests in favour of raising the country’s minimum wage. Legitimate grievances can quickly be manipulated by those seeking instability in Haiti for criminal or political gain.
Though there is a palpable difference now from the years of the second Aristide government and the interim government, when police and security services were objects of fear and distrust in the country and brazen corruption existed at the very pinnacles of power, the Haitian public now needs to feel that the police and judiciary are responsive institutions, not simply commodities that, like so much in Haiti, are for sale to the highest bidder and out of reach of the ordinary citizens.
By my count, there have been 7 UN missions in Haiti over the last 17 years, all of which had been requested by the Haitian government in power at the time. There can be 7 more over the next 17 years, but I believe if these two core issues are not aggressively and substantively addressed, the international community risks only solidifying the already deep and decidedly deserved skepticism that many Haitians have for the political process as it currently exists in the country, as evidenced by recent feeble electoral participation, and the institutions propped up by it, both local and foreign.
The people of Haiti, and by this I mean the poor majority, need to feel that they have some sort of stake in the kind of society that Haiti’s politicians, business elite and the international community are trying to create, because without the reality of a power structure that is responsive to the needs of its citizens and transparent in its governance, the window of opportunity that we are currently provided with will shut rapidly, and those hoping for its closure, and along with that continued drift and anarchy in Haiti’s political system, will once again step into the void, to the detriment of Haiti and its people.
Michael Deibert is the author of Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti. His blog can be read at www.michaeldeibert.blogspot.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Tentative calm brings optimism to a 'failed' Haiti
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Tentative calm brings optimism to a 'failed' Haiti
Michael Deibert
The Washington Times
(Read the original article here)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti | The dark afternoon clouds that gradually roll over Haiti's capital herald the beginning of the rainy season, but the early-morning bursts of sunshine might more accurately capture the national mood these days.
While the country remains desperately poor, it is more peaceful than it has been in years - no small feat in a place with a volatile political history. Some of the credit goes to the United Nations and President Rene Preval.
A few years ago, the authority of the state did not extend much beyond Port-au-Prince, where armed gangs controlled neighborhoods. Since the inauguration of Mr. Preval in May 2006, however, a fragile calm has prevailed.
The capital's boisterous population again feels safe enough to patronize downtown bars and kerosine-lit roadside stands late into the evening. Billboards that once extolled the infallibility of a succession of "maximum leaders" now carry messages about the importance of respect between the population and the police as well as decry discrimination against the disabled.
Ruled by priest-turned-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide twice in the 1990s and from 2001 until his ouster in February 2004, Haiti saw violent urban warfare between heavily armed Aristide partisans and security forces, who inflicted collective punishment under an interim government in power from 2004 until Mr. Preval's inauguration.
Working with a 9,000-member U.N. peacekeeping mission, known by the acronym MINUSTAH, Haiti's government has made great strides in recent months in professionalizing security forces that were historically brutal and corrupt.
"The capacity of the police has improved quite significantly ... and the image of the police has begun to change within the society," says Hedi Annabi, a Tunisian diplomat who heads MINUSTAH.
"The level of respect for basic freedoms, such as freedom of the press, is at a historically remarkable level," he said.
In addition, according to MINUSTAH, the number of kidnappings has fallen dramatically, from more than 500 in 2006 to about 50 during the first six months of this year.
A projected five-year U.N.-supported police-reform program is in its third year of implementation, providing Haiti with 9,200 police officers - a number projected to grow to 10,000 by the end of this year and to 14,000 by the end of 2011.
The force began with only 3,500, of whom more than 1,500 had to be dismissed for poor conduct.
The surge in police recruits is a far cry from the situation that existed between September 2004 and June 2005, during which a police officer was killed every five days, according to U.N. statistics.
Some observers here credit the leadership of Michele Duvivier Pierre-Louis, a respected civil society activist, who was appointed prime minister in September 2008.
Ms. Pierre-Louis lauds the U.N. mission, which is heavily Latin American, for helping to stabilize the country.
"It's a new paradigm for regional cooperation," she told The Washington Times. "They have their own interests, of course, but let's make the best of the opportunities that are offered to us."
In a country where voting has sometimes boded ill for civil order, midterm elections in April, with a runoff in June, for Haiti's Senate were poorly attended but largely peaceful, with poll workers and observers directing voters and tabulating votes in a professional fashion. The desultory participation, however, led Mr. Preval to warn that Haiti's "political class should wonder about this abstention" as he cast his own ballot at a Port-au-Prince school.
Haiti still faces massive challenges. Largely deforested, the country was battered by Hurricanes Hanna and Ike in 2008, which collectively killed at least 600 people.
Beyond the capital, after the shabby-chic resorts on the Cote des Arcadins, Haiti's Route Nationale 1 is a pot-holed, crumbling wreck long before it reaches the northern cities of Gonaives and Cap-Haitien.
Poverty and the scramble to find basic necessities remain a constant fact of life for the majority of the 8.5 million population. The social peace that has been restored is fragile and could easily fray if tangible gains are not seen in the day-to-day lives of Haitians.
One exception to the national calm are noisy and occasionally violent demonstrations by university students and other political pressure groups in the capital.
Haiti's Senate voted in May to support a law raising the minimum wage to about $4.90 per day, a 300 percent increase. Mr. Preval has not signed the measure, citing his fear that it would jeopardize Haiti's already fragile employment sector. In response, students have held regular protests, during which dozens of cars have been burned and protesters have squared off against U.N. troops and Haitian security forces. Two demonstrators have been killed.
"They chose not to listen to us, and we were obligated to peacefully mobilize about our concerns and the question about the minimum salary," said Beneche Martial, a student at the state university's medical school.
Nevertheless, there is a tenuous hopefulness here for the first time in many years.
In June, the Inter-American Development Bank approved $120 million in grants for 2010 to help Haiti improve infrastructure, basic services and disaster prevention.
Also last month, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank collectively canceled $1.2 billion owed to them by Haiti, erasing almost two-thirds of the country's outstanding debt.
The scourge of HIV/AIDS is also diminishing, with the rate of infection among pregnant women halved from 6.2 percent in 1993 to 3.1 percent, according to the U.N.
A U.N. report in December suggested that revived garment production might point the way for economic revival, saying that "it is striking how modest are the impediments to competitiveness, relative to the huge opportunities offered by the fundamentals" in the country.
For a nation viewed as a potential "failed state" not long ago, such news cannot help but be encouraging.
Tentative calm brings optimism to a 'failed' Haiti
Michael Deibert
The Washington Times
(Read the original article here)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti | The dark afternoon clouds that gradually roll over Haiti's capital herald the beginning of the rainy season, but the early-morning bursts of sunshine might more accurately capture the national mood these days.
While the country remains desperately poor, it is more peaceful than it has been in years - no small feat in a place with a volatile political history. Some of the credit goes to the United Nations and President Rene Preval.
A few years ago, the authority of the state did not extend much beyond Port-au-Prince, where armed gangs controlled neighborhoods. Since the inauguration of Mr. Preval in May 2006, however, a fragile calm has prevailed.
The capital's boisterous population again feels safe enough to patronize downtown bars and kerosine-lit roadside stands late into the evening. Billboards that once extolled the infallibility of a succession of "maximum leaders" now carry messages about the importance of respect between the population and the police as well as decry discrimination against the disabled.
Ruled by priest-turned-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide twice in the 1990s and from 2001 until his ouster in February 2004, Haiti saw violent urban warfare between heavily armed Aristide partisans and security forces, who inflicted collective punishment under an interim government in power from 2004 until Mr. Preval's inauguration.
Working with a 9,000-member U.N. peacekeeping mission, known by the acronym MINUSTAH, Haiti's government has made great strides in recent months in professionalizing security forces that were historically brutal and corrupt.
"The capacity of the police has improved quite significantly ... and the image of the police has begun to change within the society," says Hedi Annabi, a Tunisian diplomat who heads MINUSTAH.
"The level of respect for basic freedoms, such as freedom of the press, is at a historically remarkable level," he said.
In addition, according to MINUSTAH, the number of kidnappings has fallen dramatically, from more than 500 in 2006 to about 50 during the first six months of this year.
A projected five-year U.N.-supported police-reform program is in its third year of implementation, providing Haiti with 9,200 police officers - a number projected to grow to 10,000 by the end of this year and to 14,000 by the end of 2011.
The force began with only 3,500, of whom more than 1,500 had to be dismissed for poor conduct.
The surge in police recruits is a far cry from the situation that existed between September 2004 and June 2005, during which a police officer was killed every five days, according to U.N. statistics.
Some observers here credit the leadership of Michele Duvivier Pierre-Louis, a respected civil society activist, who was appointed prime minister in September 2008.
Ms. Pierre-Louis lauds the U.N. mission, which is heavily Latin American, for helping to stabilize the country.
"It's a new paradigm for regional cooperation," she told The Washington Times. "They have their own interests, of course, but let's make the best of the opportunities that are offered to us."
In a country where voting has sometimes boded ill for civil order, midterm elections in April, with a runoff in June, for Haiti's Senate were poorly attended but largely peaceful, with poll workers and observers directing voters and tabulating votes in a professional fashion. The desultory participation, however, led Mr. Preval to warn that Haiti's "political class should wonder about this abstention" as he cast his own ballot at a Port-au-Prince school.
Haiti still faces massive challenges. Largely deforested, the country was battered by Hurricanes Hanna and Ike in 2008, which collectively killed at least 600 people.
Beyond the capital, after the shabby-chic resorts on the Cote des Arcadins, Haiti's Route Nationale 1 is a pot-holed, crumbling wreck long before it reaches the northern cities of Gonaives and Cap-Haitien.
Poverty and the scramble to find basic necessities remain a constant fact of life for the majority of the 8.5 million population. The social peace that has been restored is fragile and could easily fray if tangible gains are not seen in the day-to-day lives of Haitians.
One exception to the national calm are noisy and occasionally violent demonstrations by university students and other political pressure groups in the capital.
Haiti's Senate voted in May to support a law raising the minimum wage to about $4.90 per day, a 300 percent increase. Mr. Preval has not signed the measure, citing his fear that it would jeopardize Haiti's already fragile employment sector. In response, students have held regular protests, during which dozens of cars have been burned and protesters have squared off against U.N. troops and Haitian security forces. Two demonstrators have been killed.
"They chose not to listen to us, and we were obligated to peacefully mobilize about our concerns and the question about the minimum salary," said Beneche Martial, a student at the state university's medical school.
Nevertheless, there is a tenuous hopefulness here for the first time in many years.
In June, the Inter-American Development Bank approved $120 million in grants for 2010 to help Haiti improve infrastructure, basic services and disaster prevention.
Also last month, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank collectively canceled $1.2 billion owed to them by Haiti, erasing almost two-thirds of the country's outstanding debt.
The scourge of HIV/AIDS is also diminishing, with the rate of infection among pregnant women halved from 6.2 percent in 1993 to 3.1 percent, according to the U.N.
A U.N. report in December suggested that revived garment production might point the way for economic revival, saying that "it is striking how modest are the impediments to competitiveness, relative to the huge opportunities offered by the fundamentals" in the country.
For a nation viewed as a potential "failed state" not long ago, such news cannot help but be encouraging.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Q&A: "The Elites Are Like a Huge Elephant Sitting on Haiti"
Q&A: "The Elites Are Like a Huge Elephant Sitting on Haiti"
Michael Deibert interviews Haitian Prime Minister MICHÈLE PIERRE-LOUIS
Inter Press Service
(Read the original article here)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jul 3, 2009 (IPS) - Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis assumed office in September 2008. Born in the southern city of Jérémie in 1947, she left Haiti with her family in 1964 following a pogrom by dictator François Duvalier against his perceived enemies in her town.
Studying in the United States and France before returning to Haiti in 1977, she has been a close confidante of Haitian President René Préval for over 40 years. After having worked in a variety of private and public sector jobs in Haiti, she and Préval opened a bakery which catered to the poor in Haiti’s capital in 1982.
Active in the first government of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Pierre-Louis was among the first to denounce the 1991 military coup against Aristide during an interview with Radio France Internationale.
After Aristide’s return by a U.S.-led multinational force in 1994, Pierre-Louis opened the Fondasyon Konesans Ak Libète (Knowledge and Freedom Foundation or FOKAL) in 1995 with support from businessman and philanthropist George Soros’ Open Society Institute.
An organisation conceived to support sectors in Haitian society most likely to bring about social change, FOKAL has been responsible for the creation of a network of over 50 community libraries throughout Haiti, a cultural centre and library for economically disadvantaged children and youths in Haiti’s capital, a debate programme for young people, and an initiative to supply running water to the nearly 80 percent of Haitians who don’t have regular access to it.
Since her installation as Prime Minister, Pierre-Louis has presided over a stabilising of the security situation in this often politically unstable country, weathered the fallout and relief efforts after a trio of hurricanes killed at least 600 people last year and traveled both within Haiti and internationally to plead her government’s case.
IPS contributor Michael Deibert sat down with Prime Minster Pierre-Louis in Port-au-Prince on Jun. 21 to hear her thoughts about where the country is heading.
IPS: Could you speak a little bit about your background?
MPL: I was born in Jérémie, and my parents were people extremely dedicated to the country. My father and my mother were raised during the U.S. occupation, and that whole generation was very nationalistic, it was very important to be proud of your country, to love your country, to know your country.
My involvement started very early because I was involved in youth groups against Duvalier, which at the time was very dangerous. There were lots of groups that were fighting clandestinely against the dictatorship, and I lost a lot of friends who disappeared.
One day you would hear that [the government] got them and put them in jail and you would never hear from them again. So I was marked by this situation, and even when I went to study abroad, Haiti was always in my mind.
IPS: How did you find your involvement in the first Aristide government?
MPL: It was very exhilarating, at the beginning. Everybody in the world was saying finally Haiti is going to come out, finally democracy is going to be built...When the 1991 coup occurred, I was probably the first person to give an interview and say, no matter what, the coup was unjustified. Aristide was our president and he was elected democratically and we’re going to fight for him to stay in power.
Those were very long years, and something happened to the country and to the president. When he came back, I think things got really rough, we really started going down the drain. Somehow, something very deep happened in the mind of this country, and we have not really put our finger specifically on it.
IPS: What did you feel was different after the return of Aristide in 1994?
MPL: The man himself had changed. He was married, he was into money, he was into corruption. He invented the Petits Projets de la Presidence [a corruption-riddled system of presidential largesse]. I don’t think he had escaped from the Haitian president’s syndrome, which is stay in power by all means.
There are many Haitian presidents who have fallen into that trap. Once that is your perspective and that is your project, all means are used...I don’t think we know our history very well, and we fall into the same trap over and over again. It’s unfortunate that we keep making the same mistakes
IPS: What political lessons should Haiti and the international community draw from the collapse of the second Aristide government in 2004 and the international intervention that followed?
MPL: For a long time, a lot of the elite would say that Haiti was not ready for democracy, and I was totally against that. It’s not because people are poor and they are illiterate that they are not ready for democracy. When you go to the people at the bottom, I have a deep feeling that these people really want things to change, and they are waiting for the leadership that will not bring miracles but will show them the way and not lie to them.
All the elites - the mulatto elites, the university elites, the union elites, the peasant elites - are like a huge elephant sitting on this country and you cannot move it, because there is no political class, because there are no political parties, and everyone becomes corrupted and perverted. If you can’t go into that system, the system rejects you. And so far we have not found the wrench that will move this thing.
IPS: Do you think the presence of the United Nations mission is important, and how are relations between your government and the mission?
MPL: From 1991 to 2008, there have been seven U.N. missions here, and they have all been asked for by the Haitian government. That means there is a problem.
When people say it’s a matter of sovereignty, I say that Haiti is a sovereign country and nobody change that. But in two areas, we have lost the exercise of our sovereignty: Control of the territory and food security.
We are dependent on outside forces, outside markets, for both. If we really want to do something, let’s work to recover the full capacity of our sovereignty now. That would mean really building a national public security force, and making sure we could massively invest in agriculture, which would be justice to the Haitian peasant.
When Aristide left and the interim government came in, the police were corrupt, politicized and inefficient. It takes a while before you can reverse that trend, but I think if there is one area today where we can feel the progress, it’s the police.
As Prime Minister you are also are chief of the Conseil Superieur de la Police Nationale d'Haiti, and I take that very seriously, because security is a major issue. We lack training, munitions and arms, but I think we have done a great job. It’s embarrassing to have foreign forces in your country, I am not happy about that. But if we don’t make the effort to regain our capacity to control our territory, they will stay forever.
IPS: What are your thoughts on the recent mid-term elections in Haiti?
MPL: In 2006, the population responded with dignity and order, and were proud to be part of [the elections]. And I have told those in parliament: "You are young. You want to have a career? Remember that in the past elections 95 percent of you were not returned to office. You think the people are not watching, that they are not judging? They are watching. They are not stupid."
There are hands that didn’t want these elections to take place, because it changes the configuration of the senate, which is now very powerful. Chaos is good for a few sectors, and the most destabilising factor here today is drug trafficking, whether by plane or by ship. And it’s polluting politics
The recovery of Haiti - justice system, health, education - should be planned over 10, 15, 20 years. We now have a good relationship within the region, with Argentina, Brazil and Chile, and it’s a new paradigm for regional cooperation. They have their own interests, of course, but let’s make the best of the opportunities that are offered to us.
Michael Deibert is a Senior Fellow at New York’s World Policy Institute and the author of "Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti" (Seven Stories Press).
Michael Deibert interviews Haitian Prime Minister MICHÈLE PIERRE-LOUIS
Inter Press Service
(Read the original article here)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jul 3, 2009 (IPS) - Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis assumed office in September 2008. Born in the southern city of Jérémie in 1947, she left Haiti with her family in 1964 following a pogrom by dictator François Duvalier against his perceived enemies in her town.
Studying in the United States and France before returning to Haiti in 1977, she has been a close confidante of Haitian President René Préval for over 40 years. After having worked in a variety of private and public sector jobs in Haiti, she and Préval opened a bakery which catered to the poor in Haiti’s capital in 1982.
Active in the first government of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Pierre-Louis was among the first to denounce the 1991 military coup against Aristide during an interview with Radio France Internationale.
After Aristide’s return by a U.S.-led multinational force in 1994, Pierre-Louis opened the Fondasyon Konesans Ak Libète (Knowledge and Freedom Foundation or FOKAL) in 1995 with support from businessman and philanthropist George Soros’ Open Society Institute.
An organisation conceived to support sectors in Haitian society most likely to bring about social change, FOKAL has been responsible for the creation of a network of over 50 community libraries throughout Haiti, a cultural centre and library for economically disadvantaged children and youths in Haiti’s capital, a debate programme for young people, and an initiative to supply running water to the nearly 80 percent of Haitians who don’t have regular access to it.
Since her installation as Prime Minister, Pierre-Louis has presided over a stabilising of the security situation in this often politically unstable country, weathered the fallout and relief efforts after a trio of hurricanes killed at least 600 people last year and traveled both within Haiti and internationally to plead her government’s case.
IPS contributor Michael Deibert sat down with Prime Minster Pierre-Louis in Port-au-Prince on Jun. 21 to hear her thoughts about where the country is heading.
IPS: Could you speak a little bit about your background?
MPL: I was born in Jérémie, and my parents were people extremely dedicated to the country. My father and my mother were raised during the U.S. occupation, and that whole generation was very nationalistic, it was very important to be proud of your country, to love your country, to know your country.
My involvement started very early because I was involved in youth groups against Duvalier, which at the time was very dangerous. There were lots of groups that were fighting clandestinely against the dictatorship, and I lost a lot of friends who disappeared.
One day you would hear that [the government] got them and put them in jail and you would never hear from them again. So I was marked by this situation, and even when I went to study abroad, Haiti was always in my mind.
IPS: How did you find your involvement in the first Aristide government?
MPL: It was very exhilarating, at the beginning. Everybody in the world was saying finally Haiti is going to come out, finally democracy is going to be built...When the 1991 coup occurred, I was probably the first person to give an interview and say, no matter what, the coup was unjustified. Aristide was our president and he was elected democratically and we’re going to fight for him to stay in power.
Those were very long years, and something happened to the country and to the president. When he came back, I think things got really rough, we really started going down the drain. Somehow, something very deep happened in the mind of this country, and we have not really put our finger specifically on it.
IPS: What did you feel was different after the return of Aristide in 1994?
MPL: The man himself had changed. He was married, he was into money, he was into corruption. He invented the Petits Projets de la Presidence [a corruption-riddled system of presidential largesse]. I don’t think he had escaped from the Haitian president’s syndrome, which is stay in power by all means.
There are many Haitian presidents who have fallen into that trap. Once that is your perspective and that is your project, all means are used...I don’t think we know our history very well, and we fall into the same trap over and over again. It’s unfortunate that we keep making the same mistakes
IPS: What political lessons should Haiti and the international community draw from the collapse of the second Aristide government in 2004 and the international intervention that followed?
MPL: For a long time, a lot of the elite would say that Haiti was not ready for democracy, and I was totally against that. It’s not because people are poor and they are illiterate that they are not ready for democracy. When you go to the people at the bottom, I have a deep feeling that these people really want things to change, and they are waiting for the leadership that will not bring miracles but will show them the way and not lie to them.
All the elites - the mulatto elites, the university elites, the union elites, the peasant elites - are like a huge elephant sitting on this country and you cannot move it, because there is no political class, because there are no political parties, and everyone becomes corrupted and perverted. If you can’t go into that system, the system rejects you. And so far we have not found the wrench that will move this thing.
IPS: Do you think the presence of the United Nations mission is important, and how are relations between your government and the mission?
MPL: From 1991 to 2008, there have been seven U.N. missions here, and they have all been asked for by the Haitian government. That means there is a problem.
When people say it’s a matter of sovereignty, I say that Haiti is a sovereign country and nobody change that. But in two areas, we have lost the exercise of our sovereignty: Control of the territory and food security.
We are dependent on outside forces, outside markets, for both. If we really want to do something, let’s work to recover the full capacity of our sovereignty now. That would mean really building a national public security force, and making sure we could massively invest in agriculture, which would be justice to the Haitian peasant.
When Aristide left and the interim government came in, the police were corrupt, politicized and inefficient. It takes a while before you can reverse that trend, but I think if there is one area today where we can feel the progress, it’s the police.
As Prime Minister you are also are chief of the Conseil Superieur de la Police Nationale d'Haiti, and I take that very seriously, because security is a major issue. We lack training, munitions and arms, but I think we have done a great job. It’s embarrassing to have foreign forces in your country, I am not happy about that. But if we don’t make the effort to regain our capacity to control our territory, they will stay forever.
IPS: What are your thoughts on the recent mid-term elections in Haiti?
MPL: In 2006, the population responded with dignity and order, and were proud to be part of [the elections]. And I have told those in parliament: "You are young. You want to have a career? Remember that in the past elections 95 percent of you were not returned to office. You think the people are not watching, that they are not judging? They are watching. They are not stupid."
There are hands that didn’t want these elections to take place, because it changes the configuration of the senate, which is now very powerful. Chaos is good for a few sectors, and the most destabilising factor here today is drug trafficking, whether by plane or by ship. And it’s polluting politics
The recovery of Haiti - justice system, health, education - should be planned over 10, 15, 20 years. We now have a good relationship within the region, with Argentina, Brazil and Chile, and it’s a new paradigm for regional cooperation. They have their own interests, of course, but let’s make the best of the opportunities that are offered to us.
Michael Deibert is a Senior Fellow at New York’s World Policy Institute and the author of "Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti" (Seven Stories Press).
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Michèle Pierre-Louis demande de mettre fin aux abus contre les Haitiens en territoire voisin
Haiti-R.Dominicaine : Michèle Pierre-Louis demande de mettre fin aux abus contre les Haitiens en territoire voisin
lundi 25 mai 2009
Propos de la première ministre Michèle Pierre-Louis, le 21 mai 2009, à l’occasion de l’investiture au ministère des affaires étrangères de la partie nationale de la Commission mixte haitiano-dominicaine
Document soumis à AlterPresse le 23 mai 2009
(Read the original article here)
Je ne saurais procéder ce matin à l’ouverture des travaux de la première réunion de la Partie Haïtienne de la Commission Mixte Haitiano-Dominicaine sans évoquer d’entrée de jeu les problèmes qui se posent depuis quelques semaines de part et d’autre de la frontière et qui méritent une attention particulière.
S’il est vrai que le rôle de la Commission Mixte est de prendre en compte les questions d’Etat entre les deux pays qui se partagent l’île et de les porter à un niveau de dialogue et de compréhension réciproque, les évènements récents demeurent encore l’expression de sentiments complexes et des comportements qui en découlent, qui ont marqué et marquent encore les relations entre les 2 pays.
Les agressions répétées, les assassinats gratuits, les harcèlements, les rapatriements intempestifs, les incidents frontaliers dont sont victimes nos concitoyens et concitoyennes interpellent notre conscience et questionnent notre humanité. Cela n’a que trop duré. C’est pourquoi j’ai le ferme espoir qu’en abordant avec sérénité les multiples aspects de nos relations avec nos voisins qui seront traités au sein de la partie haïtienne de la Commission Mixte, et en souhaitant que la partie dominicaine en fasse autant, nous pourrons ensemble assainir le climat et nous engager dans un nouveau paradigme de coopération.
Sachant que je devais procéder au lancement des travaux de la Partie Haïtienne, mon intérêt pour l’histoire m’a portée à revisiter le Dr. Jean Price-Mars qui dans son importante étude « La République d’Haïti et la République Dominicaine – Les aspects divers d’un problème d’histoire, de géographie et d’ethnologie », avait fait le constat suivant : « Dans la différence des origines démographiques de l’une et l’autre colonie – différence de degrés et non d’espèces – est incluse l’une des données essentielles du problème dont se coloreront les relations haitiano-dominicaines quand dans la genèse des siècles naîtront plus tard les deux entités nationales qui se partageront la domination des terres dont jadis s’enorgueillirent les Couronnes d’Espagne et de France. »
Et plus loin :
« L’Histoire dira la cruauté des éléments humains dans le brassage des contacts multiséculaires – malgré les reniements de style que démentent le miroir brisé des amalgames somatiques, la bigarrure indéfinie des nuances et l’instabilité déconcertante des formes.
… Dans le processus des événements apparaîtra en dernière analyse, le spectre grimaçant d’une perspective de destruction de l’une ou l’autre nationalité par l’une ou l’autre communauté dans la fascination des doctrines de supériorité de races, de classes ou de culture. »
C’était en 1953. Le Dr. Price-Mars avait laissé son poste à la Direction du Ministère des Relations Extérieures de l’époque en 1946, pour aller inaugurer la nouvelle Mission haïtienne transformée en Ambassade Extraordinaire à Ciudad Trujillo. Il resta deux ans à la tête de cette Mission et c’est au cours de ce séjour qu’il commença à amasser les documents qui lui serviront plus tard à écrire son livre. Ses constats sont sans appel, mais ils restent liés à un moment historique précis. Aujourd’hui, 56 plus tard où en sommes-nous ?
Faut-il rappeler que les relations avec la République Dominicaine sont parmi les plus anciennes de l’histoire diplomatique d’Haïti ? Et malgré les soubresauts qui la caractérisent et les traces douloureuses laissées par l’histoire dont Price-Mars nous rappelle l’origine, un certain nombre d’accords récents ont été des tentatives de rapprochement et de coopération.
Rappelons en passant l’Accord de coopération signé entre les 2 Etats en mai 1979 et plus récemment encore la décision prise par les Présidents Préval et Balaguer de créer en 1996 la Commission Mixte Haitiano-Dominicaine comme instrument susceptible d’instituer le dialogue et le respect mutuel dans les relations de coopération. Cette commission a tenu 4 réunions alternativement à Santo Domingo et à Port-au-Prince et 10 thèmes d’intérêt réciproque ont été abordés parmi lesquels le commerce et l’investissement, la sécurité, le tourisme et bien sûr les questions migratoires et frontalières.
La dernière session s’est tenue en octobre 1999 à Santo Domingo, et depuis les consultations intergouvernementales ont été suspendues. Je salue donc l’initiative du Président Préval de relancer les travaux de la Commission Mixte que nous inaugurons aujourd’hui, et je me réjouis de la composition de la partie haïtienne qui rassemble, aux côtés des Ministres et hauts fonctionnaires de l’Etat, des représentants du secteur privé, de la société civile et du secteur syndical.
Je proposerais, en accord avec le Ministre des Affaires Etrangères et tous les membres de la Partie Haïtienne, que nos travaux commencent par faire le bilan de la coopération haitiano-dominicaine dans ses aspects protéiformes, et de définir par la suite un plan, un calendrier et des modalités de travail pour les mois à venir que nous proposerons à la Partie Dominicaine, en tenant compte des préoccupations de l’heure. Je souhaite que nous parvenions à dépasser les pronostics pessimistes du Dr. Price-Mars et que les deux Etats, au plus haut niveau, montrent que l’entente qui existe actuellement entre les deux chefs d’Etat se répande dans les deux sociétés, effaçant les scories qui habitent encore un certain imaginaire imprégné de barbaries coloniales.
Je cite souvent le Président Mandela que j’ai écouté dire un jour alors que je visitais l’Afrique du Sud en 1996, « nous n’avons pas le droit d’oublier le passé, mais nous avons le devoir de le transcender. »
Il nous faut élever le débat et aborder avec sérieux, dans le respect mutuel, les problèmes auxquels font face les deux Etats dans leurs relations de part et d’autre de l’île, de manière à relever les défis et à définir un avenir meilleur et harmonieux pour les deux peuples.
lundi 25 mai 2009
Propos de la première ministre Michèle Pierre-Louis, le 21 mai 2009, à l’occasion de l’investiture au ministère des affaires étrangères de la partie nationale de la Commission mixte haitiano-dominicaine
Document soumis à AlterPresse le 23 mai 2009
(Read the original article here)
Je ne saurais procéder ce matin à l’ouverture des travaux de la première réunion de la Partie Haïtienne de la Commission Mixte Haitiano-Dominicaine sans évoquer d’entrée de jeu les problèmes qui se posent depuis quelques semaines de part et d’autre de la frontière et qui méritent une attention particulière.
S’il est vrai que le rôle de la Commission Mixte est de prendre en compte les questions d’Etat entre les deux pays qui se partagent l’île et de les porter à un niveau de dialogue et de compréhension réciproque, les évènements récents demeurent encore l’expression de sentiments complexes et des comportements qui en découlent, qui ont marqué et marquent encore les relations entre les 2 pays.
Les agressions répétées, les assassinats gratuits, les harcèlements, les rapatriements intempestifs, les incidents frontaliers dont sont victimes nos concitoyens et concitoyennes interpellent notre conscience et questionnent notre humanité. Cela n’a que trop duré. C’est pourquoi j’ai le ferme espoir qu’en abordant avec sérénité les multiples aspects de nos relations avec nos voisins qui seront traités au sein de la partie haïtienne de la Commission Mixte, et en souhaitant que la partie dominicaine en fasse autant, nous pourrons ensemble assainir le climat et nous engager dans un nouveau paradigme de coopération.
Sachant que je devais procéder au lancement des travaux de la Partie Haïtienne, mon intérêt pour l’histoire m’a portée à revisiter le Dr. Jean Price-Mars qui dans son importante étude « La République d’Haïti et la République Dominicaine – Les aspects divers d’un problème d’histoire, de géographie et d’ethnologie », avait fait le constat suivant : « Dans la différence des origines démographiques de l’une et l’autre colonie – différence de degrés et non d’espèces – est incluse l’une des données essentielles du problème dont se coloreront les relations haitiano-dominicaines quand dans la genèse des siècles naîtront plus tard les deux entités nationales qui se partageront la domination des terres dont jadis s’enorgueillirent les Couronnes d’Espagne et de France. »
Et plus loin :
« L’Histoire dira la cruauté des éléments humains dans le brassage des contacts multiséculaires – malgré les reniements de style que démentent le miroir brisé des amalgames somatiques, la bigarrure indéfinie des nuances et l’instabilité déconcertante des formes.
… Dans le processus des événements apparaîtra en dernière analyse, le spectre grimaçant d’une perspective de destruction de l’une ou l’autre nationalité par l’une ou l’autre communauté dans la fascination des doctrines de supériorité de races, de classes ou de culture. »
C’était en 1953. Le Dr. Price-Mars avait laissé son poste à la Direction du Ministère des Relations Extérieures de l’époque en 1946, pour aller inaugurer la nouvelle Mission haïtienne transformée en Ambassade Extraordinaire à Ciudad Trujillo. Il resta deux ans à la tête de cette Mission et c’est au cours de ce séjour qu’il commença à amasser les documents qui lui serviront plus tard à écrire son livre. Ses constats sont sans appel, mais ils restent liés à un moment historique précis. Aujourd’hui, 56 plus tard où en sommes-nous ?
Faut-il rappeler que les relations avec la République Dominicaine sont parmi les plus anciennes de l’histoire diplomatique d’Haïti ? Et malgré les soubresauts qui la caractérisent et les traces douloureuses laissées par l’histoire dont Price-Mars nous rappelle l’origine, un certain nombre d’accords récents ont été des tentatives de rapprochement et de coopération.
Rappelons en passant l’Accord de coopération signé entre les 2 Etats en mai 1979 et plus récemment encore la décision prise par les Présidents Préval et Balaguer de créer en 1996 la Commission Mixte Haitiano-Dominicaine comme instrument susceptible d’instituer le dialogue et le respect mutuel dans les relations de coopération. Cette commission a tenu 4 réunions alternativement à Santo Domingo et à Port-au-Prince et 10 thèmes d’intérêt réciproque ont été abordés parmi lesquels le commerce et l’investissement, la sécurité, le tourisme et bien sûr les questions migratoires et frontalières.
La dernière session s’est tenue en octobre 1999 à Santo Domingo, et depuis les consultations intergouvernementales ont été suspendues. Je salue donc l’initiative du Président Préval de relancer les travaux de la Commission Mixte que nous inaugurons aujourd’hui, et je me réjouis de la composition de la partie haïtienne qui rassemble, aux côtés des Ministres et hauts fonctionnaires de l’Etat, des représentants du secteur privé, de la société civile et du secteur syndical.
Je proposerais, en accord avec le Ministre des Affaires Etrangères et tous les membres de la Partie Haïtienne, que nos travaux commencent par faire le bilan de la coopération haitiano-dominicaine dans ses aspects protéiformes, et de définir par la suite un plan, un calendrier et des modalités de travail pour les mois à venir que nous proposerons à la Partie Dominicaine, en tenant compte des préoccupations de l’heure. Je souhaite que nous parvenions à dépasser les pronostics pessimistes du Dr. Price-Mars et que les deux Etats, au plus haut niveau, montrent que l’entente qui existe actuellement entre les deux chefs d’Etat se répande dans les deux sociétés, effaçant les scories qui habitent encore un certain imaginaire imprégné de barbaries coloniales.
Je cite souvent le Président Mandela que j’ai écouté dire un jour alors que je visitais l’Afrique du Sud en 1996, « nous n’avons pas le droit d’oublier le passé, mais nous avons le devoir de le transcender. »
Il nous faut élever le débat et aborder avec sérieux, dans le respect mutuel, les problèmes auxquels font face les deux Etats dans leurs relations de part et d’autre de l’île, de manière à relever les défis et à définir un avenir meilleur et harmonieux pour les deux peuples.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Michèle Pierre-Louis visite Gonaïves, plongée dans la douleur et la désolation
Haiti/ Cyclones : Michèle Pierre-Louis visite Gonaïves, plongée dans la douleur et la désolation
Par Gotson Pierre
15 septembre 2008
(Read the original article here)
P-au-P., 15 sept. 08 [AlterPresse] --- La ville des Gonaives (Nord), ravagée par les derniers cyclones qui ont frappé Haiti, est plongée dans la désolation, observe sur place AlterPresse.
La « cité de l’indépendance » d’Haiti est devenue la « cité de la mort », se lamente le maire des Gonaives, Stephen Moise qui ne cache pas sa « honte » de recevoir la première ministre Michèle Pierre-Louis, dans les conditions d’une ville totalement inondée.
C’est le 13 septembre dernier que le chef du gouvernement a dirigé une délégation aux Gonaives où elle a effectué une « visite de solidarité », à bord d’un hélicoptère des Nations Unies, en compagnie de plusieurs de ses ministres, du sénateur Youri Latortue et du député Arsène Dieujuste, deux parlementaires de la région.
Une ville ravagée dans ses entrailles
Inondée à 90%, Gonaives présente l’image d’une ville qui aurait subi les affres d’une guerre, relève le maire, incapable de contenir son émotion.
La ville est ravagée dans ses entrailles, souligne-t-il.
Prisonnière des eaux et des flots de boue qui se sont déversés sur elle entre le premier et le 7 septembre 2008, Gonaives peine à se relever. Le va et vient incessant des habitants de divers quartiers, circulant dans l’eau boueuse qui leur arrive jusqu’aux genoux, donne l’impression d’un grand mouvement d’exode.
Où vont-ils ?, se demande-t-on, lorsqu’on voit femmes et hommes avançant dans cette eau infecte qui dégage, par endroit, une odeur de cadavres en putréfaction.
Transportant leurs effets personnels et parfois des enfants sur les bras, ils déambulent au milieu des carcasses de véhicules et de toutes sortes de débris abandonnés par les eaux en furie.
« Jai honte. J’ai demandé de désinfecter la ville pour pouvoir vous recevoir », laisse tomber le chef de la municipalité, qui salue la présence de la première ministre aux Gonaives, dans le cadre d’une démarche d’évaluation des dégâts en vue « d’apporter des réponses aux souffrances de la population » et de prendre des dispositions pour la « reconstruction » .
Stephen Moise dit croire en la bonne foi du gouvernement et de la communauté internationale, grâce auxquels le manque d’eau potable a été atténué, tandis que la question alimentaire demeure encore un casse-tête.
Ne pas sombrer dans la résignation
« Il ne faut pas sombrer dans la résignation », préconise Michèle Pierre-Louis, en présence d’une assistance composée d’élus locaux, de notables, de journalistes et des membres de la délégation venue de Port-au-Prince.
« Il nous faut prendre notre courage à deux mains pour reconstruire » la ville, ajoute-t-elle.
Elle assure que le gouvernement va faire tout ce qui est en son pouvoir pour apporter des secours aux populations sinistrées et pour qu’un tel « malheur ne se reproduise pas ».
Mais, la première ministre n’entend pas verser dans les promesses.
Elle le dit tout haut lorsque, juchée sur un camion de la Mission des Nations Unies pour la Stabilisation d’Haiti (MINUSTAH), elle s’adresse à quelques centaines de personnes réunies en face de la mairie.
« Vous devez vous mobiliser et être solidaires, parce qu’il nous faut reconstruire cette ville », lance Michèle Pierre-Louis, à travers un mégaphone que lui tend un agent de la police nationale.
« Même quand vous êtes en train de souffrir, chacun doit se sentir responsable et doit mettre la main à la pate pour sortir la ville de ce malheur », poursuit-elle.
Selon Michèle Pierre-Louis, le gouvernement va tenter de créer des emplois et prendre des dispositions urgentes pour libérer la ville des eaux assassines dont elle est encore l’otage.
Remettre la rivière La Quinte dans son lit
Plus tôt, prenant la parole à la mairie des Gonaives, le sénateur Youri Latortue, originaire de cette ville, explique comment la rivière La Quinte a abandonné son lit pour s’emparer de la cité. Pour lui, il est urgent que des travaux soient entrepris pour remettre cette rivière dans « son lit normal ».
D’autre part, Latortue constate que l’ensemble de la population est décapitalisée et que l’État doit prendre en main les besoins de cette dernière en matière de nourriture. Il suggère, en ce sens, que l’assistance humanitaire soit plus massive et que les rations alimentaires couvrent une durée de huit jours au lieu d’être quotidiennes.
Parallèlement, selon le sénateur, il faut prévoir les interventions nécessaires pour réaménager les bassins versants et curer les rivières.
En fait, selon l’ingénieur Gary Dupiton, un spécialiste qui a assisté aux échanges, les travaux à entreprendre sont immenses. Il faudrait, dit-il, reprofiler 800 km2 de montagne et entreprendre une opération intense de reboisement.
« Il n’y a pas deux solutions », prévient-il. Sinon, il va falloir évacuer la ville.
Faire face à ses responsabilités
Lourdes responsabilités, s’il en est !
Pourtant les acteurs politiques n’ont pas le choix. Il faudra éviter, à tout prix, qu’une troisième catastrophe de ce genre se répète, approuve le député Arsène Dieujuste, rappelant que le cyclone Jeanne avait fait, en 2004, plus de 3000 morts et disparus aux Gonaives.
« Il est venu le temps de l’action », souligne le député, qui invite le gouvernement à faire bon usage d’une récente loi sur l’État d’urgence votée par les deux chambres.
C’est dans ce cadre que le gouvernement projette de débloquer 600 millions de gourdes dans les prochains jours après les 51 millions, alloués à l’assistance aux communautés en difficulté.
Selon un dernier bilan provisoire, 326 personnes ont été tuées, 50 portées disparues, 186 blessées, tandis que 1 million de personnes sont sinistrées.
Haiti se relèvera difficilement de cette épreuve et les perspectives économiques sont sombres. On s’attend à une flambée des prix des produits de consommation courante, qui aggravera la crise alimentaire éclatée en avril 2008.
De vastes régions de culture vivrière sont rendues momentanément inutilisables, à cause des inondations qui les ont inondées et emporté des récoltes entières, alors que les infrastructures routières ont été fortement endommagées, laissant de nombreuses zones dans l’isolement.
Dans l’Artibonite, ou 10,000 hectares de terres cultivables sont sous les eaux, le constat est impressionnant. Les rivières sont partout dans le désordre le plus complet.
A perte de vue : des traces de plantations ravagées par la violence des vents et des eaux, des arbres géants mis par terre, de grands cocotiers gisant dans des cours d’eau et ce qui reste de quelques villages sèche au soleil après avoir été pris au piège des bourrasques.
Dix jours après les premières inondations, les riverains, qui contemplent encore avec étonnement la destruction de pans importants de la route du Nord (entre Ennery et Gonaives), ne peuvent pas croire qu’en l’espace d’une nuit, la chaussée soit devenue un énorme précipice et le pont jeté à la dérive dans le lit de La Quinte.
Faire renaitre l’espoir
Le premier défi est simplement, parait-il, de faire renaitre l’espoir, quand toute une population se retrouve brusquement sinistrée.
« Même l’archevêque est dans le besoin », déclare le docteur Yolène Suréna qui coordonne les activités de la Protection Civile aux Gonaives.
« Nous avons faim, nous avons soif, nous n’en pouvons plus », crient les riverains que croise ou que dépasse le cortège de Michèle Pierre-Louis.
« On a pu distribuer de la nourriture à 20 000 personnes », informe Joel Boutroue, représentant résident du Programme des Nations Unies pour le Développement (PNUD), qui salue l’effort de la communauté internationale. Mais, les sinistrés ne sont pas moins de 200,000 à 250,000 aux Gonaives, selon le sénateur Latortue.
« Ce qu’il faut, c’est remettre la population debout », admet le fonctionnaire onusien, coordonnateur de l’aide humanitaire en Haiti, dont les besoins immédiats sont estimés à 108 millions de dollars, suivant un appel a l’aide lancé par l’ONU.
Par Gotson Pierre
15 septembre 2008
(Read the original article here)
P-au-P., 15 sept. 08 [AlterPresse] --- La ville des Gonaives (Nord), ravagée par les derniers cyclones qui ont frappé Haiti, est plongée dans la désolation, observe sur place AlterPresse.
La « cité de l’indépendance » d’Haiti est devenue la « cité de la mort », se lamente le maire des Gonaives, Stephen Moise qui ne cache pas sa « honte » de recevoir la première ministre Michèle Pierre-Louis, dans les conditions d’une ville totalement inondée.
C’est le 13 septembre dernier que le chef du gouvernement a dirigé une délégation aux Gonaives où elle a effectué une « visite de solidarité », à bord d’un hélicoptère des Nations Unies, en compagnie de plusieurs de ses ministres, du sénateur Youri Latortue et du député Arsène Dieujuste, deux parlementaires de la région.
Une ville ravagée dans ses entrailles
Inondée à 90%, Gonaives présente l’image d’une ville qui aurait subi les affres d’une guerre, relève le maire, incapable de contenir son émotion.
La ville est ravagée dans ses entrailles, souligne-t-il.
Prisonnière des eaux et des flots de boue qui se sont déversés sur elle entre le premier et le 7 septembre 2008, Gonaives peine à se relever. Le va et vient incessant des habitants de divers quartiers, circulant dans l’eau boueuse qui leur arrive jusqu’aux genoux, donne l’impression d’un grand mouvement d’exode.
Où vont-ils ?, se demande-t-on, lorsqu’on voit femmes et hommes avançant dans cette eau infecte qui dégage, par endroit, une odeur de cadavres en putréfaction.
Transportant leurs effets personnels et parfois des enfants sur les bras, ils déambulent au milieu des carcasses de véhicules et de toutes sortes de débris abandonnés par les eaux en furie.
« Jai honte. J’ai demandé de désinfecter la ville pour pouvoir vous recevoir », laisse tomber le chef de la municipalité, qui salue la présence de la première ministre aux Gonaives, dans le cadre d’une démarche d’évaluation des dégâts en vue « d’apporter des réponses aux souffrances de la population » et de prendre des dispositions pour la « reconstruction » .
Stephen Moise dit croire en la bonne foi du gouvernement et de la communauté internationale, grâce auxquels le manque d’eau potable a été atténué, tandis que la question alimentaire demeure encore un casse-tête.
Ne pas sombrer dans la résignation
« Il ne faut pas sombrer dans la résignation », préconise Michèle Pierre-Louis, en présence d’une assistance composée d’élus locaux, de notables, de journalistes et des membres de la délégation venue de Port-au-Prince.
« Il nous faut prendre notre courage à deux mains pour reconstruire » la ville, ajoute-t-elle.
Elle assure que le gouvernement va faire tout ce qui est en son pouvoir pour apporter des secours aux populations sinistrées et pour qu’un tel « malheur ne se reproduise pas ».
Mais, la première ministre n’entend pas verser dans les promesses.
Elle le dit tout haut lorsque, juchée sur un camion de la Mission des Nations Unies pour la Stabilisation d’Haiti (MINUSTAH), elle s’adresse à quelques centaines de personnes réunies en face de la mairie.
« Vous devez vous mobiliser et être solidaires, parce qu’il nous faut reconstruire cette ville », lance Michèle Pierre-Louis, à travers un mégaphone que lui tend un agent de la police nationale.
« Même quand vous êtes en train de souffrir, chacun doit se sentir responsable et doit mettre la main à la pate pour sortir la ville de ce malheur », poursuit-elle.
Selon Michèle Pierre-Louis, le gouvernement va tenter de créer des emplois et prendre des dispositions urgentes pour libérer la ville des eaux assassines dont elle est encore l’otage.
Remettre la rivière La Quinte dans son lit
Plus tôt, prenant la parole à la mairie des Gonaives, le sénateur Youri Latortue, originaire de cette ville, explique comment la rivière La Quinte a abandonné son lit pour s’emparer de la cité. Pour lui, il est urgent que des travaux soient entrepris pour remettre cette rivière dans « son lit normal ».
D’autre part, Latortue constate que l’ensemble de la population est décapitalisée et que l’État doit prendre en main les besoins de cette dernière en matière de nourriture. Il suggère, en ce sens, que l’assistance humanitaire soit plus massive et que les rations alimentaires couvrent une durée de huit jours au lieu d’être quotidiennes.
Parallèlement, selon le sénateur, il faut prévoir les interventions nécessaires pour réaménager les bassins versants et curer les rivières.
En fait, selon l’ingénieur Gary Dupiton, un spécialiste qui a assisté aux échanges, les travaux à entreprendre sont immenses. Il faudrait, dit-il, reprofiler 800 km2 de montagne et entreprendre une opération intense de reboisement.
« Il n’y a pas deux solutions », prévient-il. Sinon, il va falloir évacuer la ville.
Faire face à ses responsabilités
Lourdes responsabilités, s’il en est !
Pourtant les acteurs politiques n’ont pas le choix. Il faudra éviter, à tout prix, qu’une troisième catastrophe de ce genre se répète, approuve le député Arsène Dieujuste, rappelant que le cyclone Jeanne avait fait, en 2004, plus de 3000 morts et disparus aux Gonaives.
« Il est venu le temps de l’action », souligne le député, qui invite le gouvernement à faire bon usage d’une récente loi sur l’État d’urgence votée par les deux chambres.
C’est dans ce cadre que le gouvernement projette de débloquer 600 millions de gourdes dans les prochains jours après les 51 millions, alloués à l’assistance aux communautés en difficulté.
Selon un dernier bilan provisoire, 326 personnes ont été tuées, 50 portées disparues, 186 blessées, tandis que 1 million de personnes sont sinistrées.
Haiti se relèvera difficilement de cette épreuve et les perspectives économiques sont sombres. On s’attend à une flambée des prix des produits de consommation courante, qui aggravera la crise alimentaire éclatée en avril 2008.
De vastes régions de culture vivrière sont rendues momentanément inutilisables, à cause des inondations qui les ont inondées et emporté des récoltes entières, alors que les infrastructures routières ont été fortement endommagées, laissant de nombreuses zones dans l’isolement.
Dans l’Artibonite, ou 10,000 hectares de terres cultivables sont sous les eaux, le constat est impressionnant. Les rivières sont partout dans le désordre le plus complet.
A perte de vue : des traces de plantations ravagées par la violence des vents et des eaux, des arbres géants mis par terre, de grands cocotiers gisant dans des cours d’eau et ce qui reste de quelques villages sèche au soleil après avoir été pris au piège des bourrasques.
Dix jours après les premières inondations, les riverains, qui contemplent encore avec étonnement la destruction de pans importants de la route du Nord (entre Ennery et Gonaives), ne peuvent pas croire qu’en l’espace d’une nuit, la chaussée soit devenue un énorme précipice et le pont jeté à la dérive dans le lit de La Quinte.
Faire renaitre l’espoir
Le premier défi est simplement, parait-il, de faire renaitre l’espoir, quand toute une population se retrouve brusquement sinistrée.
« Même l’archevêque est dans le besoin », déclare le docteur Yolène Suréna qui coordonne les activités de la Protection Civile aux Gonaives.
« Nous avons faim, nous avons soif, nous n’en pouvons plus », crient les riverains que croise ou que dépasse le cortège de Michèle Pierre-Louis.
« On a pu distribuer de la nourriture à 20 000 personnes », informe Joel Boutroue, représentant résident du Programme des Nations Unies pour le Développement (PNUD), qui salue l’effort de la communauté internationale. Mais, les sinistrés ne sont pas moins de 200,000 à 250,000 aux Gonaives, selon le sénateur Latortue.
« Ce qu’il faut, c’est remettre la population debout », admet le fonctionnaire onusien, coordonnateur de l’aide humanitaire en Haiti, dont les besoins immédiats sont estimés à 108 millions de dollars, suivant un appel a l’aide lancé par l’ONU.
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