[Radix] Let us all try to 'do no harm'

[Marla Petal]

> From: Wfisher206 at aol.com
> Date: February 9, 2010 5:50:31 PM GMT+01:00
> Subject: TIME TO THINK OUTSIDE THE WRECKAGE
>
> Haiti Beyond the Cleanup
>
> By William Fisher | News Analysis
>
>
> (Photo: United Nations Development Programme)
>
> Haiti experts are warning that unless the international community  
> comes up with new, more imaginative and more inclusive approaches to  
> reconstruction and development in the earthquake-ravaged nation, the  
> Western Hemisphere's poorest country can look forward to more of the  
> same.
>
> They see the suffering and deprivation caused by the earthquake as a  
> human and physical disaster. But they also see it as an opportunity  
> to change the way aid is allocated, managed and distributed so that  
> it results in progress that works for all the people, not simply the  
> country's elites. The goal, they say, is better-built roads and  
> buildings, sound education, infrastructure and public health and  
> justice systems. They believe that this goal demands an approach to  
> development planning that calls for the active participation of the  
> Haitian people.
>
> "Without it," says Robert Maguire, a professor at Trinity College in  
> Washington, DC, and head of the Haiti working group at the US  
> Institute of Peace, "We will simply see another lost generation -  
> with hundreds of millions of donor dollars being directed to  
> projects that perpetuate the status quo and enrich those business,  
> government and military elites who have been personally profiting  
> from international donor generosity for many generations."
>
> One of the more experienced Haiti experts, Maguire added, "Haiti is  
> a lot more than a free-enterprise-zone filled with low-wage textile  
> workers."
>
> And Bill Quigley, legal director at the Center for Constitutional  
> Rights, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans and a  
> Katrina survivor who has been active in human rights in Haiti for  
> years with the Institute for Justice, puts the challenge this way:  
> "The current crisis is an opportunity for people in the US to own up  
> to our country's history of dominating Haiti and to make a truly  
> just response."
>
> The story of Haiti and international efforts to influence it is  
> complicated by history, politics, greed, corruption, waste and race.
>
> Here's how that history is seen by Quigley: He contends that the US  
> owes Haiti billions of dollars. He bases this assessment on Colin  
> Powell's "Pottery Barn rule" - "If you break it, you own it."
>
> Quigley said, "The US has worked to break Haiti for over 200 years.  
> The US has used Haiti like a plantation. The US helped bleed the  
> country economically since it freed itself, repeatedly invaded the  
> country militarily, supported dictators who abused the people, used  
> the country as a dumping ground for our own economic advantage,  
> ruined their roads and agriculture, and toppled popularly elected  
> officials. The US has even used Haiti like the old plantation owner  
> and slipped over there repeatedly for sexual recreation."
>
> Quigley recalled that, in 1804, when Haiti achieved its freedom from  
> France in the world's first successful slave revolution, the United  
> States refused to recognize the country.
>
> He wrote, "The US continued to refuse recognition to Haiti for 60  
> more years. Why? Because the US continued to enslave millions of its  
> own citizens and feared recognizing Haiti would encourage slave  
> revolution in the US."
>
> Following the slave revolution in 1804, "Haiti was the subject of a  
> crippling economic embargo by France and the US. US sanctions lasted  
> until 1863. France ultimately used its military power to force Haiti  
> to pay reparations for the slaves who were freed," Quigley said.
>
> "The reparations were 150 million francs. (France sold the entire  
> Louisiana territory to the US for 80 million francs!) Haiti was  
> forced to borrow money from banks in France and the US to pay  
> reparations to France. A major loan from the US to pay off the  
> French was finally paid off in 1947. The current value of the money  
> Haiti was forced to pay to French and US banks? Over $20 Billion -  
> with a big B.
>
> Racial politics have always played a significant role in Haiti.  
> Generally, largess from the international community has gone to the  
> light-skinned, French-speaking, Haitian elites in government,  
> business and the military. Corruption among these elites was legend.
>
> Little aid actually got to the darker-skinned, Creole-speaking  
> "common people" of the country - and the elites built no school  
> systems, no public health systems, no infrastructure for these  
> common people.
>
> In fact, at one point in its storied history, Haiti was divided into  
> separate sections for lighter and darker-skin citizens. In 1806,  
> Haiti consisted of a black-controlled north and a mulatto-ruled  
> south. That was a mere five years after a former black slave,  
> Toussaint Louverture, became a guerrilla leader and overthrew French  
> rule, abolished slavery and proclaimed himself governor-general of  
> an autonomous government. For decades afterward, Haiti was crippled  
> by reparations it was forced to pay to former slave owners.
>
> Quigley recalled, "The US occupied and ruled Haiti by force from  
> 1915 to 1934. President Woodrow Wilson sent troops to invade in  
> 1915. Revolts by Haitians were put down by US military - killing  
> over 2000 in one skirmish alone. For the next nineteen years, the US  
> controlled customs in Haiti, collected taxes, and ran many  
> governmental institutions. How many billions were siphoned off by  
> the US during these 19 years?"
>
> Then, he said, from 1957 to 1986, "Haiti was forced to live under US  
> backed dictators 'Papa Doc' and 'Baby Doc' Duvalier. The US  
> supported these dictators economically and militarily because they  
> did what the US wanted and were politically "anti-communist" - now  
> translatable as against human rights for their people."
>
> Quigley charged that Duvalier "stole millions from Haiti and ran up  
> hundreds of millions in debt that Haiti still owes. Ten thousand  
> Haitians lost their lives. Estimates say that Haiti owes $1.3  
> billion in external debt and that 40 percent of that debt was run up  
> by the US-backed Duvaliers."
>
> He said, "Thirty years ago Haiti imported no rice. Today Haiti  
> imports nearly all its rice. Though Haiti was the sugar growing  
> capital of the Caribbean, it now imports sugar as well. Why? The US  
> and the US dominated world financial institutions - the  
> International Monetary Fund and the World Bank - forced Haiti to  
> open its markets to the world. Then the US dumped millions of tons  
> of US subsidized rice and sugar into Haiti - undercutting their  
> farmers and ruining Haitian agriculture. By ruining Haitian  
> agriculture, the US has forced Haiti into becoming the third largest  
> world market for US rice. Good for US farmers, bad for Haiti."
>
> Quigley noted that, in 2002, during the George W. Bush  
> administration, "the US stopped hundreds of millions of dollars in  
> loans to Haiti which were to be used for, among other public  
> projects like education, roads. These are the same roads that relief  
> teams are having so much trouble navigating now!"
>
> And, two years later, he said, "the US again destroyed democracy in  
> Haiti when they supported the coup against Haiti's elected President  
> Aristide."
>
> In the area of economic development, Quigley noted, "US based  
> corporations have for years been teaming up with Haitian elite to  
> run sweatshops teeming with tens of thousands of Haitians who earn  
> less than $2 a day.
>
> "The Haitian people have resisted the economic and military power of  
> the US and others ever since their independence. Like all of us,  
> Haitians made their own mistakes as well. But US power has forced  
> Haitians to pay great prices - deaths, debt and abuse.
>
> "It is time for the people of the US to join with Haitians and  
> reverse the course of US-Haitian relations."
>
> Robert Maguire of the US Institute of Peace said, "At times,  
> American policy makers have watched Haiti with deep concern over the  
> impact of developments there on the US. Certainly this was the case  
> in the aftermath of Haiti's independence in 1804, when American  
> leaders, particularly in its plantation South, feared that the  
> Caribbean country's 'virus of freedom' would spread to the slave  
> plantations in the Carolinas, Georgia, Maryland and Virginia. Other  
> times, American engagement in Haiti has evolved far beyond  
> observation to direct intervention, most notably during the 19-year  
> US military occupation of 1915 to 1934."
>
> Veteran journalist Greg Palast also takes a dark look at Haiti's  
> history - including the performance of the international aid  
> community in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. "Send in the  
> Marines," he wrote. "That's America's response. That's what we're  
> good at. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson finally showed up  
> after three days. With what? It was dramatically deployed - without  
> any emergency relief supplies. It has sidewinder missiles and 19  
> helicopters."
>
> But, he said, "don't worry, the International Search and Rescue  
> Team, fully equipped and self-sufficient for up to seven days in the  
> field, deployed immediately with ten metric tons of tools and  
> equipment, three tons of water, tents, advanced communication  
> equipment and water purifying capability. They're from Iceland."
>
> Gates wouldn't send in food and water because, he said, there was no  
> "structure ... to provide security." For Gates, appointed by Bush  
> and allowed to hang around by Obama, it's security first. That was  
> his lesson from Hurricane Katrina. Blackwater before drinking  
> water," he said.
>
> Palast asked, "How did Haiti end up so economically weakened, with  
> infrastructure, from hospitals to water systems, busted or non- 
> existent - there are two fire stations in the entire nation - and  
> infrastructure so frail that the nation was simply waiting for  
> 'nature' to finish it off? "
>
> For Palast, the blame lies as much with Haiti's corruption and the  
> donor community's acquiescence as with the earthquake.
>
> "Don't blame Mother Nature for all this death and destruction. That  
> dishonor goes to Papa Doc and Baby Doc, the Duvalier dictatorship,  
> which looted the nation for 28 years. Papa and his Baby put an  
> estimated 80 percent of world aid into their own pockets - with the  
> complicity of the US government happy to have the Duvaliers and  
> their voodoo militia, Tonton Macoutes, as allies in the Cold War.  
> (The war was easily won: the Duvaliers' death squads murdered as  
> many as 60,000 opponents of the regime)," he said.
>
> "What Papa and Baby didn't run off with, the IMF finished off  
> through its 'austerity' plans. An austerity plan is a form of voodoo  
> orchestrated by economists zomby-fied by an irrational belief that  
> cutting government services will somehow help a nation prosper," he  
> said.
>
> In 1991, he recalled, "five years after the murderous Baby fled,  
> Haitians elected a priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who resisted the  
> IMF's austerity diktats. Within months, the military, to the  
> applause of Papa George HW Bush, deposed him."
>
> History repeats itself, "first as tragedy, then as farce," he said.  
> "The farce was George W. Bush. In 2004, after the priest Aristide  
> was re-elected President, he was kidnapped and removed again, to the  
> applause of Baby Bush."
>
> Against that background, what is being proposed and who is proposing  
> it?
>
> Ideas are arising from many quarters.
>
> In an editorial (Monday, February 01), The New York Times proposed  
> four principles to guide the reconstruction phase of international  
> aid. Aid programs, it said, should promote self-sufficiency, open up  
> the countryside, rebuild and maintain infrastructure, and tap the  
> Diaspora.
> It noted that Haiti has considerable economic advantages, like low  
> labor costs and a law that grants its goods preferential access to  
> the United States market. Extending that law and encouraging  
> investments in industries like garment making and tourism could  
> swiftly create tens of thousands of jobs. Rebuilding and modernizing  
> agriculture to grow staples and export products like coffee and  
> mangoes would mean food, cash and employment. Dispersing the  
> population beyond overbuilt, overburdened cities, like the now- 
> shattered capital, is a good idea now cloaked in urgency.
>
> It concluded, "It will take a lot of money, creativity, and  
> vigilance and sustained commitment to rebuild Haiti - from Haitians  
> and from the world. There are smart people thinking about how to do  
> it. And that is a start."
>
> Haiti may be suffering from shortages of many things, but  
> recommendations are not one of them. Among them is the suggestion  
> that Haiti should be temporarily taken over by an international  
> organization, which would govern it and oversee its rebuilding.  
> Countered by the belief that years of failed, foreign-imposed aid  
> projects underscore that this time Haitians need to develop and  
> implement their own plans. Followed by calls for a joint Haitian- 
> international reconstruction agency to administer a kind of Haitian  
> Marshall Plan.
>
> UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is expected to announce shortly  
> that former President Bill Clinton will take on an expanded role in  
> coordinating United Nations efforts to resurrect Haiti.
>
> Another idea has come from former National Security Adviser Zbigniew  
> Brzezinski. Appearing on MSNBC last week, he suggested that the  
> United Nations should establish a temporary "protectorate" over  
> Haiti during the reconstruction period. During that time, the UN  
> would be in complete charge and Haiti 's government would, in  
> effect, have little influence over events. The former Jimmy Carter  
> lieutenant acknowledged that such an effort would need to be crafted  
> and explained very carefully so that no one confuses it with  
> colonialism.
>
> It is unclear how Brzezinski's idea would square with an objective  
> hailed by almost everyone - making the aid effort more inclusive.
>
> But for any of these ideas to come to fruition, most experts agree  
> that a sea change will be necessary among all the stakeholders -  
> Haitian, US and international.
>
> For example, Haiti must avoid the debacle of 2008 when lack of  
> access to clean water posed devastating health consequences and  
> constituted a clear violation of Haitians' right to water according  
> to both domestic and international legal obligations.
>
> That revelation was contained in a report from the Center for Human  
> Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ), Partners In Health (PIH), the  
> Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center (RFK Center) and Zanmi Lasante.  
> The release of the report, "Wòch nan Soley: The Denial of the Right  
> to Water in Haiti," came just months after public outrage over  
> rising food prices led to a full-blown political crisis in Haiti.
>
> One of the report's main findings was of an undeniable link between  
> the international community's political interference and the  
> intolerably poor state of potable water in Haiti. Using documents  
> obtained by the RFK Center through a Freedom of Information Act  
> lawsuit against the US Treasury Department, the report exposes the  
> US government's role in blocking the disbursal of millions of  
> dollars in loans that would have had life-saving consequences for  
> the Haitian people. The loans, which the Inter-American Development  
> Bank (IDB) approved in 1998 for urgently needed water and sanitation  
> projects in Haiti, were derailed in 2001 by politically-motivated,  
> behind-the-scenes interventions on behalf of the United States and  
> other members of the international community.
>
> The director of one of the groups, Monika Kalra Varma, director of  
> the RFK Center for Human Rights, told Truthout, "Over the years,  
> help for Haiti has been shaped by ideological politics and broken  
> promises."
>
> She charged, "Generally the international community has made pledges  
> to Haiti and not fulfilled them. Donor states have human rights  
> obligations in Haiti as well - they must do no harm. When states  
> pledge funds to Haiti which the Haitian people and government rely  
> on in figuring out how to meet the needs of its people, particularly  
> when you're talking about monetary pledges to strengthen water,  
> education, and health systems and that money doesn't come in, the  
> donors have violated their human rights obligations."
>
> Journalist and historian Eric Michael Johnson, writing in The  
> Huffington Post, noted, "Haiti has a historically unhealthy  
> dependence on foreign commerce and finance, from the colonial days  
> of the sugar trade to the current assistance provided by developed  
> countries."
>
> "Now the same politicians and financial elites that helped create  
> this mess are proposing an even larger program following the same  
> mode," he said.
>
> Johnson wrote that, "since 2004 Haitian exports to the United States  
> increased by 32 percent while, during the same period, the Haitian  
> minimum wage declined by 36 percent. "
>
> Yet another approach is being suggested by two old Haiti hands,  
> Robert Muggah and Maguire. Muggah, based at the Graduate Institute  
> of International and Development Studies in Geneva, is a principal  
> of the SecDev Group and is currently advising multilateral and  
> bilateral organizations on Haiti's recovery. As noted earlier,  
> Maguire is on the faculty of Trinity Washington University and  
> chairs the Haiti Working Group at the US Institute of Peace. Writing  
> in The Los Angeles Times on January 31, Maguire and Muggah suggested  
> that a 700,000-strong Haitian national civic service corps "would  
> harness untapped labor rapidly and instill national pride and  
> confidence."
>
> "Haiti will need big ideas to recover and rebuild in the aftermath  
> of the devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake this month. The reported  
> death toll has topped 150,000, and the reconstruction needs are  
> incalculable. How about starting with a 700,000-strong national  
> civic service corps made up of Haitian youth? There are many reasons  
> why such an entity makes a lot of sense," they wrote.
>
> They added, "Haiti is a young country. An estimated 70 percent of  
> the population is under 30; the 15-to-29 segment alone makes up 50  
> percent of the population. Demographers have long cautioned how  
> excessively youthful populations can potentially exacerbate  
> underdevelopment and accentuate political instability. Although  
> Haiti registers among the lowest levels of education in the Western  
> Hemisphere, Haitian youth are a wellspring of creativity, talent and  
> potential. You don't need to be a community-development specialist  
> to know that they are stifled by a lack of meaningful opportunities."
>
> Fortunately, they said, "Haiti has an enabling environment to set up  
> a civic service corps. Article 52 of the Haitian Constitution  
> commits citizens to national service, though it has never been  
> activated. What is more, there are many Haitian and international  
> organizations mobilized and ready to help the government get this  
> going."
>
> They believe a civic service corps "would get the young and able out  
> of the tent cities in and around Port-au-Prince and into work. They  
> could start with the once-iconic center of the capital, but also  
> could begin planting trees, working the fields and providing  
> services in Haiti's countryside. At a minimum, this would reverse  
> generations of unfair stigmatizing of the youth there."
>
> This plan, they said, "would also harness untapped labor rapidly.  
> Before the January 12 earthquake, 50 percent of youth in their 20s  
> were out of work. Putting them in service toward rebuilding the  
> capital and outlying areas would be a first step to restoring their  
> and their country's pride and dignity."
>
> The Kennedy Center's Kalra Varma noted that multilateral aid has  
> frequently been marked by stop-start-stop politics, with aid  
> stopping when Haiti elects a leader not favored by donors. She cited  
> the refusal of the IDB to release funds earmarked for water  
> projects, which would have benefited the poor. "The IDB is  
> controlled by its largest donor, the US and the US did not like  
> Haiti's government of the day," she said.
>
> She added, "All too often, aid has been slow to arrive,  
> uncoordinated, and planned with no input from the people most  
> affected - that legacy must and can end today. We have an  
> opportunity to break with the past and ensure that assistance is  
> given in a way that strengthens Haitians' fundamental rights to  
> food, water, and health. The Haitian people deserve no less."
>
> The other groups include the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR),  
> the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ), the  
> Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), Partners In  
> Health/Zanmi Lasante and TransAfrica Forum.
>
> Loune Viaud, director of strategic planning and operations at Zanmi  
> Lasante, a health organization, cautioned, "The only way to avoid  
> escalation of this crisis is for international aid to take a long- 
> term view and strive to rebuild a stronger Haiti-one that includes a  
> government that can ensure the basic human rights of all Haitians  
> and a nation that is empowered to demand those rights."
>
> The groups cited past relief efforts in Haiti that were  
> uncoordinated, unpredictable and lacked community participation,  
> often leading to increased suffering. They called on the  
> international community to seize on this opportunity to advance  
> human rights and sustainability in the ravaged country.
>
> "The magnitude of the catastrophe is not entirely a result of  
> natural disaster but rather, a history of deliberate impoverishment  
> and disempowerment of the Haitian people through a series of  
> misguided polices," said Brian Concannon Jr., director of IJDH.  
> "Lack of donor accountability and continued aid volatility will only  
> guarantee even greater suffering."
>
> In an editorial prepared for distribution, Varma and Kerry Kennedy,  
> wrote, " As international aid begins to pour into Haiti, we have a  
> brief moment to break with past mistakes and bring real change to  
> Haiti." US and international aid efforts "could be characterized, at  
> best, as unsustainable and, at worst, deliberately harmful," they  
> wrote. Kerry Kennedy is the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy.
>
> The editorial continued, "In 2000, the US and the Inter-American  
> Development Bank approved millions of dollars of what would have  
> been lifesaving loans for improvements to water, health, education,  
> and road infrastructure, only to later withhold these funds because  
> they opposed then President Aristide. While the loans were  
> eventually released, the communities where the very first water  
> projects were to be financed still lack access, ten years later, to  
> reliably clean drinking water, contributing to countless deaths due  
> to waterborne illness."
>
> It added, "In 2004, the international community pledged $1 billion  
> to support Haiti. The RFK Center, along with the health organization  
> Zanmi Lasante and the NYU Center for Human Rights and Global  
> Justice, tried to track the fulfillment of those pledges, but never  
> received clear and consistent answers from donor states on the  
> status of the aid. With no transparency or coordinating body to turn  
> to, the Haitian people had no hope of knowing if that money ever got  
> to Haiti, much less where it was directed and how it could be used  
> to improve their communities. Haitian government sources later  
> confirmed that most of the pledges had never been fulfilled."
>
> The future of Haiti is a huge question mark. An even larger question  
> is whether the US and the international community will set aside  
> ancient prejudices that historically have stood in the way of  
> imaginative and inclusive approaches to Haitian reconstruction and  
> development - and will do so again unless there is a dramatic change  
> of mindset, strategy and tactics.
>
>
> This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons  
> Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
>

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