$5.3 billion over the next two years. A total of $9.9 billion for three years or more. The amounts pledged to support relief and reconstruction at the March 31 international donors' conference for Haiti were impressive. So was much of the accompanying rhetoric about recognizing Haitian leadership and empowering the Haitian people. Overall, March 31 was a very good day for Haiti, with one very big caveat: now these pledges and principles have to be translated into concrete, effective, and sustained action.
In the streets and resettlement camps of Port-au-Prince, the promises and rhetoric were greeted with a healthy dose of skepticism. Nearly three months after the January 12 quake, the scene remains grim. An impoverished city of three million people--long without adequate building codes, sanitation or waste management--has been reduced to a patchwork of ruins and fetid shanty settlements. As the first torrents of the rainy season pour down and the hurricane season looms, hundreds of thousands of people live in makeshift shelters with little or no access to sanitation, many on slopes where they could be swept away by mudslides, others on patches of low-lying ground that will inevitably become a toxic stew of mud, garbage, and human waste. Children remain out of school and the medical infrastructure of Port-au-Prince lies in ruins.
To understand the skepticism with which Haitians receive even the most generous pledges of support, take a few moments to reflect on the country's rich history and its people's hard-earned sense of pride and dignity. Haiti was born of a slave revolt that defeated the three major colonial powers of the day: France, England, and Spain. The idea of a nation of free blacks struck fear not only in the defeated colonial powers but also in the United States, fear that resulted in isolation and political manipulation from the time of Thomas Jefferson to George W. Bush. Control of Haiti's free populace has taken the form of military occupation, externally backed coups and dictatorships, and mountains of debt. Each method assured that the one thing that Haitians fought for--self-determination--would be limited.
What will it take for Haiti to win the struggle for dignity at last?
First, it will take recognition of what it truly means to say that the response to this tragedy must be led by Haitians and must include civil society. Haiti has a democratically elected but impoverished government. If we believe in democracy, if we understand that civil society refers to collective action around shared interests and values, there can be no greater actor in Haitian civil society than the democratic will of the Haitian people. Yet civil society is too commonly construed as anything that is "not government." The thousands of non-governmental organizations that are active in Haiti, with little or no local participation or presence, should not be equated with civil society. Let Haitian organizations and the Haitian democratic process be the arbiters of aid effectiveness. This could be accomplished by setting up a board to oversee relief that is largely Haitian and representative of the population.
Second, it will take significant, long-term investments. The $9.9 billion pledged on Wednesday was encouraging. But it falls short of the $11.5 billion UN target over the next decade and is dwarfed by the $150 billion that was committed for relief of New Orleans, a city of 200,000 people, after Hurricane Katrina. Moreover, Haitians know from painful experience that money pledged does not mean money delivered. Less than a third of the aid pledged to Haiti after the devastating 2008 hurricanes has ever been disbursed. It is important to develop a long-term relief plan that has, embedded within it, a monitoring and evaluation plan and advocacy strategy to hold the donor community to its promises.
Lastly, steps must be taken to ensure that assistance gets to the most vulnerable. While it is convenient to talk about developing markets as a rebuilding strategy, the trickle-down economics of the last decades have too often resulted in worsening inequality throughout the world, and particularly in Haiti. Former President Bill Clinton recently admitted as much. In an interview, he acknowledged that policies enacted during his administration to open up Haiti's markets to imports of cheap, subsidized rice from the United States had devastated Haiti's agricultural economy and domestic food production, contributing to increased hunger and malnutrition. Social protection must be made a top priority as Haiti rebuilds, particularly education and health. These priorities should be driven by the grass roots and supported to increase access to these basic rights.
The challenges are great. The key to surmounting them is the very sense of history and pride that leads the Haitian people to react with skepticism to promises of help and with determination and solidarity to disasters both natural and man-made. This spirit was summed up for me in an exchange with one of my cherished colleagues in Haiti, Dr. Fernet Leandre, during the first days after the earthquake. "This is an apocalypse," I said as we looked at the death and destruction around us. "Slavery was an apocalypse, too," he replied. "And we overcame that."
Dr. Joia Mukherjee is Medical Director of Partners In Health and an Associate Physician in the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PDuOxwAS3I
Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the rest of the Haitian people were ahead of their times when they sought to free themselves by themselves and for themselves. They did it in 1804 long before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN in 1948. A right that the UN has violated many times.
Neg Mawon blowing on his torch is a call to everyone who not only believe but also are ready to enforce the right of every human being to fairness, justice, human dignity, and freedom from economic exploitation.
Another step taken by the powers that be to crush the last attempt by the vast majority of the Haitian people to regain their rights to self determination is the criminalization, demonization and the banning of the largest political party in Haiti.
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/freeston250110.html :
QUOTE: So, what the UN's main job has been is to provide a massive overwhelming military and police presence to basically force the population into accepting it, and, particularly in 2005 and 2006, that's what the UN did. It patrolled Port-au-Prince, treated the population like a hostile force, and on a couple of notorious occasions went in and attacked groups of people who were some of Aristide and Lavalas' most ardent supporters and killed dozens of them. END QUOTE
In addition to the international force, groups of paramilitary attaches were unleashed on neigborhoods to haunt and killed the most prominent members of Fanmi Lavalas:
http://www.lakounewyork.com/rap%F2%20Miami%20law%20school%20human%20rights%20stotzky-griffin.pdf
After the quake I posted for awhile but found it time consuming and a bit frustrating (far too many know far too little about US/Haiti history). I needed to shift my focus on trying to help out. But every once in a while I'd check in to Huffpo and was glad to see you pointing out the elephants in the room no one else seemed to notice (mainstream media does not provide access to adequate context).
So I really, really appreciate that you take the time to provide links to back up what you're saying. Hopefully I'm not the only one taking note and following the links.
(trying again. My first one was not posted - If we are truly interested in helping the Haitian people we cannot suppress the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it might be)
http://english.sem40.ru/jewish_fortune/8501/ :
QUOTE: Bigio also is the honorary Israeli consul in Haiti, which explains the enormous Israeli flag in front of his house — as well as his bulletproof Mercedes SUV. END QUOTE
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/20/world/la-fg-haiti-elites21-2010jan21/3:
QUOTE: The license plates speak to another quirk of Haiti's elite: Most have finagled posts as honorary consuls of any number of countries. It's sort of a status symbol, like owning the latest iPod.
Mevs is the official consul of Finland. END QUOTE
Every attempt (1791, 1804, 1991, 2004) by the majority to break the chains of colonial and imperial domination has been met by the most repressive force. The latest one came in the form of 9,000 international troops, 2,000 internationally trained police force, an army of disjointed NGOs, evangelical churches, profusion of political parties, media outlets and private security forces, IMF structural adjustment programs.
Thank you very much for standing up with the majority of the Haitian people in their struggle for human rights and dignity.
http://standwithhaiti.org/haiti/news-entry/there-is-no-us-and-them/
The Haitian revolution of 1804 was the first one of its kind to enforce the undeniable right of every human being to fight for their freedom against economic exploitation.
The vast majority of the Haitian people live under an apartheid system worst than South Africa. It is worst because it is hidden and subtle.
Since the first slave revolt in the island led by Boukman, Haiti and the vast majority of its people has been single out for exceptionally harsh treatment by the powers that be. Economic block aid, extortion, foreign raids on its economy, military occupation, externally backed coup d'etats, political and economic disempowerment of the majority.
One percent of the population controls around 50% of the wealth. The most powerful of the privileged families, Bigio, Mevs, Acra, Boulos, Baker, Tippenhauer, Baussan, Acra, Apaid, Madsen, Nadal, Vidal, Vorbes, Kouri, Sada, Loukas, Brandt, Coles, Helmcke, Gardere, Braun, Baussan, Castera, Sassine...., maintain an oligopolistic grip on industrial production and international trade. They live barricaded in their villas and their utmost disdain for the vast majority of the Haitian people: QUOTE: "Her face was twisted with rage, her voice cracked with fury, her body cramped with hate. "They should be killed, all of them, killed. We will kill them. I will kill them." UNQUOTE http://articles.latimes.com/1994-10-03/news/mn-45919_1_rich-families. They are armed to the teeth, drive around in bullet proof vehicles, and are honorary consuls of foreign countries.
The one thing that has materialized so far is the official placement of Haiti under the trusteeship of International Financial Institutions and the countries that control them.
http://www.haiti-liberte.com/
Volume 3 No. 38
Haiti's only recourse may lie on collecting all the debts and interests that Western nations owe to the Haitian people.