Friday, April 30, 2010
Michael Deibert named Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation Studies at Coventry University
In a very positive development, I have been named a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation Studies at Coventry University in the United Kingdom. As the Centre's mission is to promote processes of reconciliation and forgiveness by non-violent means at all levels throughout the world, I hope that this role will help to draw attention to Haiti's reconstruction efforts and other issues near to my heart going forward.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Haiti’s peasantry key to reconstruction
Haiti’s peasantry key to reconstruction
By Michael Deibert
AlterNet
(Read the original article here)
When US First Lady Michelle Obama paid a surprise visit to Haiti this week to survey reconstruction efforts after that country’s devastating January earthquake, she set foot in a nation that has been transformed as profoundly as at any time since its 1804 revolution defeated Napoleon's army and abolished slavery.
In the tremor three months ago, Haiti’s Direction de la Protection Civile estimated that 222,517 people lost their lives, while at least 250,000 were injured. Of the nearly 1.2 million displaced persons, nearly 600,000 are thought to have migrated from the capital Port-au-Prince and its environs back to Haiti’s countryside. This reverse migration, after years of peasants flowing into the Haitian capital from desperately poor agricultural areas in search of jobs that did not await them, will likely have a significant affect on Haiti’s political and economic trajectory going forward.
Haiti’s peasantry, which makes up a majority of the country’s 9 million people, were suffering grievously even before the earthquake, the victims of both the short-sighted policies of the international community and the venality and brutality of Haiti’s homegrown political leaders. With a recent meeting on Haiti held at the United Nations concluding with nations and organizations pledging nearly $10 billion to Haiti, it is important that Haiti’s peasantry not be forgotten, and that the international community remember the ways in which it has failed them, and Haitians in general, in the past. It is a litany that would be written as farce had the results not been so tragic.
In the 1940s, the United States sponsored the Société Haitiano-Américaine de Dévelopment Agricole in an ill-fated, half-baked attempted to cultivate rubber in Haiti, an effort that ended up harming the very farmers it was designed to help.
Between 1980 and 1983, when tests showed nearly a quarter of Haiti’s pigs were infected with African Swine Fever, the U.S- Canadian funded Program for the Eradication of Porcine Swine Fever and Development of Pig-Raising destroyed 1.2 million Kreyol pigs, pigs that formed one of the backbones of the peasant economy. Of the replacement pigs that were delivered, many soon died, unable to adjust to the rough world the Kreyol swine had grown so accustomed to, and an already difficult rural economy suffered another blow.
Further undermining Haiti’s ability to feed itself, in typically duplicitous fashion then-Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, implementing an economic adjustment plan mandated by the International Monetary Fund and further turning the screws on a political bloc that he could never win over, cut tariffs on rice imports to the country from 35 percent to 3 percent in 1995. This further undermined the peasant economy despite the fact that Haiti for many years had produced low-cost, inexpensive rice for domestic consumption. After 1995, that is, after implementing the economic policies of the international community, it effectively lost the ability to do so.
Former President Bill Clinton, still deeply involved in Haiti, has since expressed regret for his role in this, of a piece with his regret for failing to lift a finger to stop Rwanda's 1994 genocide, a “regret” that led him - at best - to turn a blind eye to vicious ethnic cleansing by Rwandan soldiers and Congolese rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo throughout the 1990s. But this day late, dollar short approach to international affairs will do little good if not followed up with concrete action.
The Haitian government’s Preliminary Damage and Needs Assessment, a document said to have been largely drafted by Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, was put forth in March and advocated an ambitious re-envisioning and decentralizing of Haiti, looking to “decongest,” rather than rebuild as before, the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area while advocating a “refounding” of the Haitian state.
In a country with a long history of an often violently abusive imperial presidency (a tradition that, despite his other faults, current President René Préval has not adhered to), decentralization may be an important tool to break the hold a traditionally corrupt executive branch and dysfunctional political class based in the capital exercise over the rest of the country, active as they have been in filtering out any money that may come into the country while granting precious little in return.
With the mass migration from Port-au-Prince back to Haiti’s countryside, it is essential than any rebuilding effort take into account, along with programs for Haiti’s urban centres, a sustained effort to aid Haiti’s peasantry, who have been in an economic tailspin for decades now and whose migration to Port-au-Prince, where they lived on top of one another in woefully substandard housing, at least in part led to the death toll in January’s earthquake being as high as it was.
Over the past 50 years, 90 percent of Haiti's tree cover has been destroyed, with the resulting erosion destroying two-thirds of the country's arable farmland. With little left to hold the topsoil when the rains fall - often torrentially after prolonged spells with no precipitation at all - they rush in torrents down the mountains, carving gullies and carrying crops and seeds along with them, sweeping vital minerals into the country's rivers to be deposited, uselessly, in the sea. Storms that kill a handful of people in neighboring countries kill thousands when they reach Haiti because of this precise dynamic. I have stood many times with Haitian peasants under the unfurled Caribbean sky outside of villages with names like Fonds-Verettes, Papay and Maissade and listened to Haitian farmers, so powerless in the face of their own government and international interests, tell this sad tale.
But the Haitian peasantry do have their advocates. Grassroots peasant organizations such as the 200,000 member Mouvman Peyizan Nasyonal Kongrè Papay and Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan, the former led by 2005 Goldman Environmental Prize winner Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, have been advocating for decades for Haiti’s rural majority to be taken into account in the discussion of their fate by those politically powerful forces both inside and outside of Haiti.
The patience of Haitians - who have reacted to a terrible catastrophe with incredible dignity and restraint in the three months since the earthquake - is often remarked upon. But it is not, nor should it be be, perceived as endless. It was in Haiti’s countryside, among the peasantry, that leaders such as Charlemagne Péralte and Benoit Batraville led the strongest resistance to the 1915-1935 U.S. military occupation of Haiti and now, with the resources of rural families stretched to the breaking point by the influx of so many new mouths to feed, the international community must, at long last, take their needs into consideration among their glittering conferences and meetings.
Such an approach is not only the morally right thing to do, given the role the international community has had in helping to impoverish Haiti, but it is also the only way to guarantee long-term security and development, not only in Haiti but indeed across the island of Hispaniola as a whole.
Michael Deibert is the author of Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti (Seven Stories Press) and a Visiting Fellow at the the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation Studies at Coventry University. His blog can be read at www.michaeldeibert.blogspot.com.
By Michael Deibert
AlterNet
(Read the original article here)
When US First Lady Michelle Obama paid a surprise visit to Haiti this week to survey reconstruction efforts after that country’s devastating January earthquake, she set foot in a nation that has been transformed as profoundly as at any time since its 1804 revolution defeated Napoleon's army and abolished slavery.
In the tremor three months ago, Haiti’s Direction de la Protection Civile estimated that 222,517 people lost their lives, while at least 250,000 were injured. Of the nearly 1.2 million displaced persons, nearly 600,000 are thought to have migrated from the capital Port-au-Prince and its environs back to Haiti’s countryside. This reverse migration, after years of peasants flowing into the Haitian capital from desperately poor agricultural areas in search of jobs that did not await them, will likely have a significant affect on Haiti’s political and economic trajectory going forward.
Haiti’s peasantry, which makes up a majority of the country’s 9 million people, were suffering grievously even before the earthquake, the victims of both the short-sighted policies of the international community and the venality and brutality of Haiti’s homegrown political leaders. With a recent meeting on Haiti held at the United Nations concluding with nations and organizations pledging nearly $10 billion to Haiti, it is important that Haiti’s peasantry not be forgotten, and that the international community remember the ways in which it has failed them, and Haitians in general, in the past. It is a litany that would be written as farce had the results not been so tragic.
In the 1940s, the United States sponsored the Société Haitiano-Américaine de Dévelopment Agricole in an ill-fated, half-baked attempted to cultivate rubber in Haiti, an effort that ended up harming the very farmers it was designed to help.
Between 1980 and 1983, when tests showed nearly a quarter of Haiti’s pigs were infected with African Swine Fever, the U.S- Canadian funded Program for the Eradication of Porcine Swine Fever and Development of Pig-Raising destroyed 1.2 million Kreyol pigs, pigs that formed one of the backbones of the peasant economy. Of the replacement pigs that were delivered, many soon died, unable to adjust to the rough world the Kreyol swine had grown so accustomed to, and an already difficult rural economy suffered another blow.
Further undermining Haiti’s ability to feed itself, in typically duplicitous fashion then-Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, implementing an economic adjustment plan mandated by the International Monetary Fund and further turning the screws on a political bloc that he could never win over, cut tariffs on rice imports to the country from 35 percent to 3 percent in 1995. This further undermined the peasant economy despite the fact that Haiti for many years had produced low-cost, inexpensive rice for domestic consumption. After 1995, that is, after implementing the economic policies of the international community, it effectively lost the ability to do so.
Former President Bill Clinton, still deeply involved in Haiti, has since expressed regret for his role in this, of a piece with his regret for failing to lift a finger to stop Rwanda's 1994 genocide, a “regret” that led him - at best - to turn a blind eye to vicious ethnic cleansing by Rwandan soldiers and Congolese rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo throughout the 1990s. But this day late, dollar short approach to international affairs will do little good if not followed up with concrete action.
The Haitian government’s Preliminary Damage and Needs Assessment, a document said to have been largely drafted by Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, was put forth in March and advocated an ambitious re-envisioning and decentralizing of Haiti, looking to “decongest,” rather than rebuild as before, the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area while advocating a “refounding” of the Haitian state.
In a country with a long history of an often violently abusive imperial presidency (a tradition that, despite his other faults, current President René Préval has not adhered to), decentralization may be an important tool to break the hold a traditionally corrupt executive branch and dysfunctional political class based in the capital exercise over the rest of the country, active as they have been in filtering out any money that may come into the country while granting precious little in return.
With the mass migration from Port-au-Prince back to Haiti’s countryside, it is essential than any rebuilding effort take into account, along with programs for Haiti’s urban centres, a sustained effort to aid Haiti’s peasantry, who have been in an economic tailspin for decades now and whose migration to Port-au-Prince, where they lived on top of one another in woefully substandard housing, at least in part led to the death toll in January’s earthquake being as high as it was.
Over the past 50 years, 90 percent of Haiti's tree cover has been destroyed, with the resulting erosion destroying two-thirds of the country's arable farmland. With little left to hold the topsoil when the rains fall - often torrentially after prolonged spells with no precipitation at all - they rush in torrents down the mountains, carving gullies and carrying crops and seeds along with them, sweeping vital minerals into the country's rivers to be deposited, uselessly, in the sea. Storms that kill a handful of people in neighboring countries kill thousands when they reach Haiti because of this precise dynamic. I have stood many times with Haitian peasants under the unfurled Caribbean sky outside of villages with names like Fonds-Verettes, Papay and Maissade and listened to Haitian farmers, so powerless in the face of their own government and international interests, tell this sad tale.
But the Haitian peasantry do have their advocates. Grassroots peasant organizations such as the 200,000 member Mouvman Peyizan Nasyonal Kongrè Papay and Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan, the former led by 2005 Goldman Environmental Prize winner Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, have been advocating for decades for Haiti’s rural majority to be taken into account in the discussion of their fate by those politically powerful forces both inside and outside of Haiti.
The patience of Haitians - who have reacted to a terrible catastrophe with incredible dignity and restraint in the three months since the earthquake - is often remarked upon. But it is not, nor should it be be, perceived as endless. It was in Haiti’s countryside, among the peasantry, that leaders such as Charlemagne Péralte and Benoit Batraville led the strongest resistance to the 1915-1935 U.S. military occupation of Haiti and now, with the resources of rural families stretched to the breaking point by the influx of so many new mouths to feed, the international community must, at long last, take their needs into consideration among their glittering conferences and meetings.
Such an approach is not only the morally right thing to do, given the role the international community has had in helping to impoverish Haiti, but it is also the only way to guarantee long-term security and development, not only in Haiti but indeed across the island of Hispaniola as a whole.
Michael Deibert is the author of Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti (Seven Stories Press) and a Visiting Fellow at the the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation Studies at Coventry University. His blog can be read at www.michaeldeibert.blogspot.com.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Mort de Wilson Bigaud, l’un des derniers géants de la peinture haïtienne
(This man was one of Haiti's greatest painters, worth 100 of the so-called "artists" I see exhibited in most galleries here in the United States. MD)
Haïti-Peinture-DécèsMort de Wilson Bigaud, l’un des derniers géants de la peinture haïtienne
Le créateur, qui jouissait d’une cote internationale élevée, laisse derrière lui une oeuvre monumentale
mardi 23 mars 2010,
Radio Kiskeya
(Read the original article here)
Le célèbre artiste Wilson Bigaud, 85 ans, l’un des maîtres de la peinture haïtienne, est décédé des suites d’un malaise lundi aux premières heures dans sa résidence de Vialet, une section communale de Petit-Goâve (68 km au sud-ouest de Port-au-Prince), a appris Radio Kiskeya auprès de la famille du disparu.
Opéré des yeux et souffrant d’hémorroïdes, Bigaud avait du cesser de peindre depuis l’été dernier, a confié son fils Bichara dans les bras duquel il s’est éteint.
Auteur d’une œuvre colossale dispersée aux quatre coins de la planète, le créateur était dans la fleur de l’âge et à peine remis d’une maladie l’ayant mentalement affecté lorsqu’il avait définitivement abandonné son Port-au-Prince natal pour s’installer à Petit-Goâve.
Dans la tranquille localité de Vialet, il a passé les 55 dernières années de sa vie.
Wilson Bigaud était l’un des derniers survivants de l’exaltante expérience de création artistique du Centre d’Art, fondé en 1944 par l’américain Dewitt Peters, principal artisan de la formation et de l’émergence des premiers grands plasticiens haïtiens.
Coloriste et dessinateur de grand talent, Bigaud avait usé de sa touche unique et d’un vrai sens de l’observation pour devenir au fil du temps le peintre du quotidien de la vie provinciale prise dans ses divers contours et déclinaisons.
Porteurs d’une charge de psychologie sociale et d’une simplicité maintes fois renouvelée, les personnages des toiles du disparu sont, à travers leurs yeux globuleux, leurs costumes originaux et l’élégance des gestes, l’archétype d’une civilisation et l’expression d’une esthétique identitaire.
Un foisonnemment de mouvements et d’images qui donne sa densité à une forme de vie communautaire aujourd’hui en voie de disparition.
Le nom de Wilson Bigaud restera pour toujours intimement associé à la cathédrale de Sainte-Trinité, à Port-au-Prince. Avec d’illustres contemporains comme Castera Bazile et Rigaud Benoît, il réalisa, en effet, les célèbres fresques murales de l’église anglicane détruite par le séisme du 12 janvier dernier.
Avec le départ de l’artiste, la peinture haïtienne perd l’un de ses plus grands représentants alors qu’elle était déjà orpheline d’autres grosses pointures internationalement connues. André Pierre, Gesner Armand, Néhémy Jean, Louisiane St-Fleurant et Alix Roy (victime du tremblement de terre) sont notamment décédés ces dernières années.
La date des funérailles de Wilson Bigaud doit être annoncée ultérieurement. spp/Radio Kiskeya
Why Haiti’s Debt Should Be Forgiven
A friend of mine recently asked me why Haiti, among all countries, deserved to have its international debt forgiven, as the Inter-American Development Bank recently did to the tune of $479 million.
Aside from the reason that I personally find most compelling - that Haiti has suffered one of the worst natural disasters in history, we have the means to help them and it is simply the right thing to do - there are, in my view, other compelling reasons why Haiti’s debt should be forgiven. Haiti is in far worse shape than quite a few countries I have seen in Africa, with over half of it’s people living on less than US$1 a day, with only the people of Somalia and Afghanistan suffering from higher rates of hunger, and with 90 percent of its tree cover gone (these are statistics from BEFORE the earthquake). But there are also arguments for debt forgiveness that, in my view, go to explain how, though Haiti’s political class has done a handy job of wrecking the country over the last two hundred years, they have had plenty of help from the international community.
In 1825, only 21 years after on independence, a French fleet appeared in Port-au-Prince harbour and threatened to bomb and destroy the Haitian capital unless the country agreed to pay an indemnity for the “intemperance” of having seized its freedom and having outlawed slavery. Haiti was forced to accept a debt of 150 million francs in exchange for France accepting the nation’s independence, a debt that took decades to repay and economically ravaged the country.
One of the reasons that the death toll in the earthquake was so large was that, in recent decades especially, tens of thousands of people have been migrating from the countryside into Port-au-Prince, where they lived in shockingly substandard housing that made them especially vulnerable to natural disasters such as the one that occurred. But why, we must ask ourselves, did they come into the capital in the first place?
In 1980-83, when tests showed nearly a quarter of Haiti’s pigs were infected with African Swine Fever, the U.S- Canadian funded Program for the Eradication of Porcine Swine Fever and Development of Pig-Raising (PEPADEP) succeeded in destroying the 1.2 million Kreyol pigs (kochon kreyol) that formed one of the backbones of the peasant economy. PEPADEP officials paid for the pigs before they slaughtered them, or, in many cases, promised to pay for them or replace them and never did. Most of the replacement pigs that were delivered soon died, unable to adjust to the rough world the Kreyol swine had grown so accustomed to, and an already difficult peasant economy suffered another blow.
Further undermining Haiti’s ability to feed itself, in typically duplicitous fashion in 1995 then-Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, implementing an economic adjustment plan mandated by the IMF and further turning the screws on the peasantry that he could never win over, cut tariffs on rice imports to the country from 35 percent to 3 percent. This further undermined the peasant economy despite the fact that Haiti for many years had produced low-cost, inexpensive rice for domestic consumption. After 1995, that is, after implementing the economic policies of the international community, it effectively lost the ability to do so.
In my view, “we” in the international community have helped get Haiti into its current sorry state, and debt relief is one tool at our disposal to help try and get it out. Given our dubious history there, it would be downright immoral not to use it.
Aside from the reason that I personally find most compelling - that Haiti has suffered one of the worst natural disasters in history, we have the means to help them and it is simply the right thing to do - there are, in my view, other compelling reasons why Haiti’s debt should be forgiven. Haiti is in far worse shape than quite a few countries I have seen in Africa, with over half of it’s people living on less than US$1 a day, with only the people of Somalia and Afghanistan suffering from higher rates of hunger, and with 90 percent of its tree cover gone (these are statistics from BEFORE the earthquake). But there are also arguments for debt forgiveness that, in my view, go to explain how, though Haiti’s political class has done a handy job of wrecking the country over the last two hundred years, they have had plenty of help from the international community.
In 1825, only 21 years after on independence, a French fleet appeared in Port-au-Prince harbour and threatened to bomb and destroy the Haitian capital unless the country agreed to pay an indemnity for the “intemperance” of having seized its freedom and having outlawed slavery. Haiti was forced to accept a debt of 150 million francs in exchange for France accepting the nation’s independence, a debt that took decades to repay and economically ravaged the country.
One of the reasons that the death toll in the earthquake was so large was that, in recent decades especially, tens of thousands of people have been migrating from the countryside into Port-au-Prince, where they lived in shockingly substandard housing that made them especially vulnerable to natural disasters such as the one that occurred. But why, we must ask ourselves, did they come into the capital in the first place?
In 1980-83, when tests showed nearly a quarter of Haiti’s pigs were infected with African Swine Fever, the U.S- Canadian funded Program for the Eradication of Porcine Swine Fever and Development of Pig-Raising (PEPADEP) succeeded in destroying the 1.2 million Kreyol pigs (kochon kreyol) that formed one of the backbones of the peasant economy. PEPADEP officials paid for the pigs before they slaughtered them, or, in many cases, promised to pay for them or replace them and never did. Most of the replacement pigs that were delivered soon died, unable to adjust to the rough world the Kreyol swine had grown so accustomed to, and an already difficult peasant economy suffered another blow.
Further undermining Haiti’s ability to feed itself, in typically duplicitous fashion in 1995 then-Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, implementing an economic adjustment plan mandated by the IMF and further turning the screws on the peasantry that he could never win over, cut tariffs on rice imports to the country from 35 percent to 3 percent. This further undermined the peasant economy despite the fact that Haiti for many years had produced low-cost, inexpensive rice for domestic consumption. After 1995, that is, after implementing the economic policies of the international community, it effectively lost the ability to do so.
In my view, “we” in the international community have helped get Haiti into its current sorry state, and debt relief is one tool at our disposal to help try and get it out. Given our dubious history there, it would be downright immoral not to use it.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Development bank forgives $479 million Haiti debt
Development bank forgives $479 million Haiti debt
By Istra Pacheco, Associated Press Writer
Mon Mar 22 2010, 5:46 pm ET
CANCUN, Mexico – The Inter-American Development Bank said Monday it has agreed to forgive $479 million in debts owed by quake-ravaged Haiti.
Bank President Luis Alberto Moreno said the bank's board of governors voted to forgive the debt and will offer $2 billion in financing to the Caribbean nation over the next 10 years.
"This commitment is good news for all Haitians, and will help heal the wounds caused by the earthquake," Moreno said at the inauguration of the bank's annual meeting in the Caribbean coast resort of Cancun.
The IADB debt was the biggest single chunk of the $1.2 billion Haiti owed as of late January, according to figures of the International Monetary Fund.
The measures are meant to help Haiti recover from the magnitude-7 Jan. 12 earthquake, which killed an estimated 230,000 people. The new funds would be directed toward supporting long-term reconstruction and development efforts.
The 48-member regional development bank is Latin America's largest lender for projects such as roads and power plants.
The administration of President Barack Obama is pushing for the cancellation of other multilateral debt, as well as the $400 million Haiti owes individual countries.
Also Monday, European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said in Brussels that the EU foreign ministers agreed to donate euro1 billion ($1.36 billion) in development aid to Haiti in the years ahead.
Ashton said she will pledge that amount on the EU's behalf at a Haiti donors conference in New York next week.
She says what the Caribbean country needs after the devastating earthquake is "long-term development aid."
In addition to discussing debt relief for Haiti, Moreno said the board of governors had voted for a $70 billion increase in the bank's current capital of about $100 billion. Moreno called it the biggest capital increase in the bank's history, and said it would allow the bank to become the biggest multilateral lending agency for the region.
Colombian Economy Minister Oscar Ivan Zuluaga said the capital increase would allow the bank to continue financing economic and development projects.
"With this increase, we have established a basis for the bank into the future," Zuluaga said.
In 2009, the bank made loans worth a record $15.5 billion, and it had warned that, without a capital increase, it would have to cut its lending to about half that.
But Moreno said that after Monday's decision the bank could boost its lending to an average of about $12 billion per year, focusing especially on "the poorest and most vulnerable" economies. Poverty reduction, climate change programs and extending educational coverage would be among the priorities for new projects.
By Istra Pacheco, Associated Press Writer
Mon Mar 22 2010, 5:46 pm ET
CANCUN, Mexico – The Inter-American Development Bank said Monday it has agreed to forgive $479 million in debts owed by quake-ravaged Haiti.
Bank President Luis Alberto Moreno said the bank's board of governors voted to forgive the debt and will offer $2 billion in financing to the Caribbean nation over the next 10 years.
"This commitment is good news for all Haitians, and will help heal the wounds caused by the earthquake," Moreno said at the inauguration of the bank's annual meeting in the Caribbean coast resort of Cancun.
The IADB debt was the biggest single chunk of the $1.2 billion Haiti owed as of late January, according to figures of the International Monetary Fund.
The measures are meant to help Haiti recover from the magnitude-7 Jan. 12 earthquake, which killed an estimated 230,000 people. The new funds would be directed toward supporting long-term reconstruction and development efforts.
The 48-member regional development bank is Latin America's largest lender for projects such as roads and power plants.
The administration of President Barack Obama is pushing for the cancellation of other multilateral debt, as well as the $400 million Haiti owes individual countries.
Also Monday, European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said in Brussels that the EU foreign ministers agreed to donate euro1 billion ($1.36 billion) in development aid to Haiti in the years ahead.
Ashton said she will pledge that amount on the EU's behalf at a Haiti donors conference in New York next week.
She says what the Caribbean country needs after the devastating earthquake is "long-term development aid."
In addition to discussing debt relief for Haiti, Moreno said the board of governors had voted for a $70 billion increase in the bank's current capital of about $100 billion. Moreno called it the biggest capital increase in the bank's history, and said it would allow the bank to become the biggest multilateral lending agency for the region.
Colombian Economy Minister Oscar Ivan Zuluaga said the capital increase would allow the bank to continue financing economic and development projects.
"With this increase, we have established a basis for the bank into the future," Zuluaga said.
In 2009, the bank made loans worth a record $15.5 billion, and it had warned that, without a capital increase, it would have to cut its lending to about half that.
But Moreno said that after Monday's decision the bank could boost its lending to an average of about $12 billion per year, focusing especially on "the poorest and most vulnerable" economies. Poverty reduction, climate change programs and extending educational coverage would be among the priorities for new projects.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Interview with Haiti President Rene Preval: 'I don't think we could have done better'
Interview with Haiti President Rene Preval: 'I don't think we could have done better'
Haiti President Rene Preval popped out of a shiny SUV. Then, just like that, he took my arm and pulled me inside with him. 'Don’t you have some questions for me?' he asked. As a journalist, how could I say no?
By Kathie Klarreich, Correspondent
posted March 17, 2010 at 5:36 pm EDT
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
(Read the original article here)
Without an appointment, the easiest place to get an official quote from someone in the government – including Haiti President René Préval – is the DCPG, the old police headquarters. But the only police that are there now are the ones protecting the government, which moved in after the Jan. 12 earthquake.
In contrast to the once elegant but now collapsed National Palace of Haiti, the new offices are in an innocuous, one-story blue and white building so small that press conferences are held in the parking lot.
That’s where I was standing when several shiny four-wheel drive vehicles pulled up.
President Préval emerged from one.
He was instantly surrounded by flashing cameras. He flashed a smile back at them, and then at me. We’ve known each other for 20 years.
Just like that, he took my arm and pulled me inside with him.
“Don’t you have some questions for me?” he asked.
As a journalist, how could I say no?
A simple guy
His office was down two halls and in the interior of another room. There was a secretary’s desk, a round board-room type table, a mounted television that wasn’t plugged in, and a coffee maker. Maps of Port-au-Prince and an aerial photo of the city hung on a side wall.
Ti René, as he is called among friends, placed a blue folder and author Claude Moise’s book “The Constitution and Struggle for Power in Haiti" on the table and made sure I had a cup of coffee before asking me if I was ready to write down my answers.
President Préval is, at heart, a simple guy.
The last time I interviewed him was in 2008. I was with a television crew waiting in an ante-room inside the National Palace. Rather than send an aide to come get us, he came himself, grabbed the tripod, and carried it to his office, despite the cameraman’s protest.
“If what happened to Haiti on Jan. 12 had happened in the United States,” he started, “it’s comparable to 8 million people dying. When the Twin Towers fell, it took them two years to remove the debris. Between the international aid and resilience of the Haitian population, we did everything we could. I don’t think we could have done better.”
Elections not an option?
Préval reiterated his call to hold legislative elections – originally set for February and March, but postponed after the quake – as quickly as possible. “Democracy is the condition for development,” he said. “Development equals equality. We must reconstruct the entire country, not just Port-au-Prince.”
When asked about corruption, he bristled.
“Everyone is talking about it but no one has spoken about one specific act of corruption," he said. "International donors are increasing their budget support for us. Why is that?
“Is there corruption in the Haitian government? Yes," he said. "Are we doing something about it? Yes.”
He began to search his blackberry for the name of a man who was recently convicted of corruption charges in the United States due in part because of help from the Haitian government. Minutes passed and he was still looking.
“Not to worry,” I said, wanting to use my time efficiently. “I can find his name.”
“No, my name is well known, his should be too,” Préval insisted. Finally he found it. “Robert Antoine.”
Mr. Antoine is a former director of international relations for Teleco, the state-owned telecommunications company of Haiti and he was one of five people charged in Miami in December 2009 in connection with a bribery and money-laundering scheme involving the government company.
Antoine was one of three Haitians charged in the case, all of whom kept residences in Miami. Another of the Haitians, Jean Rene Duperval, also a former director of international relations for Teleco, was arrested in Haiti by a police unit that specializes in investigating financial corruption and sent to the US to stand trial, according to the US Justice Department.
Ties to Aristide
Préval spent the past five years shaking off the association of his name with that of Jean Bertrand Aristide, his predecessor. Now his name will be forever linked with that of the Jan. 12 earthquake, long after his term ends on Feb. 7, 2011.
Constitutionally he cannot run again, but he wants to hold democratic elections before he leaves office.
He also said he wants to work on decentralization, the reinforcement of the government, and the improvement of health and education services. But his immediate priorities are to open schools, provide adequate seeds and fertilizers to farmers, and secure housing for those left homeless after the quake.
When I asked how he responds to criticism that the international aid agencies have the supplies for housing but can’t do anything until they get land, which the government has yet to give, he just smiled, then said: “Interview over.”
Haiti President Rene Preval popped out of a shiny SUV. Then, just like that, he took my arm and pulled me inside with him. 'Don’t you have some questions for me?' he asked. As a journalist, how could I say no?
By Kathie Klarreich, Correspondent
posted March 17, 2010 at 5:36 pm EDT
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
(Read the original article here)
Without an appointment, the easiest place to get an official quote from someone in the government – including Haiti President René Préval – is the DCPG, the old police headquarters. But the only police that are there now are the ones protecting the government, which moved in after the Jan. 12 earthquake.
In contrast to the once elegant but now collapsed National Palace of Haiti, the new offices are in an innocuous, one-story blue and white building so small that press conferences are held in the parking lot.
That’s where I was standing when several shiny four-wheel drive vehicles pulled up.
President Préval emerged from one.
He was instantly surrounded by flashing cameras. He flashed a smile back at them, and then at me. We’ve known each other for 20 years.
Just like that, he took my arm and pulled me inside with him.
“Don’t you have some questions for me?” he asked.
As a journalist, how could I say no?
A simple guy
His office was down two halls and in the interior of another room. There was a secretary’s desk, a round board-room type table, a mounted television that wasn’t plugged in, and a coffee maker. Maps of Port-au-Prince and an aerial photo of the city hung on a side wall.
Ti René, as he is called among friends, placed a blue folder and author Claude Moise’s book “The Constitution and Struggle for Power in Haiti" on the table and made sure I had a cup of coffee before asking me if I was ready to write down my answers.
President Préval is, at heart, a simple guy.
The last time I interviewed him was in 2008. I was with a television crew waiting in an ante-room inside the National Palace. Rather than send an aide to come get us, he came himself, grabbed the tripod, and carried it to his office, despite the cameraman’s protest.
“If what happened to Haiti on Jan. 12 had happened in the United States,” he started, “it’s comparable to 8 million people dying. When the Twin Towers fell, it took them two years to remove the debris. Between the international aid and resilience of the Haitian population, we did everything we could. I don’t think we could have done better.”
Elections not an option?
Préval reiterated his call to hold legislative elections – originally set for February and March, but postponed after the quake – as quickly as possible. “Democracy is the condition for development,” he said. “Development equals equality. We must reconstruct the entire country, not just Port-au-Prince.”
When asked about corruption, he bristled.
“Everyone is talking about it but no one has spoken about one specific act of corruption," he said. "International donors are increasing their budget support for us. Why is that?
“Is there corruption in the Haitian government? Yes," he said. "Are we doing something about it? Yes.”
He began to search his blackberry for the name of a man who was recently convicted of corruption charges in the United States due in part because of help from the Haitian government. Minutes passed and he was still looking.
“Not to worry,” I said, wanting to use my time efficiently. “I can find his name.”
“No, my name is well known, his should be too,” Préval insisted. Finally he found it. “Robert Antoine.”
Mr. Antoine is a former director of international relations for Teleco, the state-owned telecommunications company of Haiti and he was one of five people charged in Miami in December 2009 in connection with a bribery and money-laundering scheme involving the government company.
Antoine was one of three Haitians charged in the case, all of whom kept residences in Miami. Another of the Haitians, Jean Rene Duperval, also a former director of international relations for Teleco, was arrested in Haiti by a police unit that specializes in investigating financial corruption and sent to the US to stand trial, according to the US Justice Department.
Ties to Aristide
Préval spent the past five years shaking off the association of his name with that of Jean Bertrand Aristide, his predecessor. Now his name will be forever linked with that of the Jan. 12 earthquake, long after his term ends on Feb. 7, 2011.
Constitutionally he cannot run again, but he wants to hold democratic elections before he leaves office.
He also said he wants to work on decentralization, the reinforcement of the government, and the improvement of health and education services. But his immediate priorities are to open schools, provide adequate seeds and fertilizers to farmers, and secure housing for those left homeless after the quake.
When I asked how he responds to criticism that the international aid agencies have the supplies for housing but can’t do anything until they get land, which the government has yet to give, he just smiled, then said: “Interview over.”
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