a1809: Wall Street Journal, No Hero to Haitians (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Stanley  Lucas <slucas@iri.org>

Wall Street Journal, No Hero to Haitians
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Updated April 29, 2002


Upon hearing that Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide has won the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's World Food Day Agricola Medal, we're left wondering what's next -- a U.N. Medal of Freedom for Fidel Castro?

There's no question Mr. Aristide deserves credit for results in Haiti; he's been running the place with an iron fist since 1994. But with 80% of Haitians living below the poverty line and a per-capita GDP of $460, the award seems like a spoof. The tide of Haitian refugees washing onto Bahamian and Florida beaches testifies to the hardships under Mr. Aristide's rule.

The World Bank offers its own critical view of that rule in its current country report on Haiti: "Recurrent political instability has slowed down Haiti's democratization efforts and prevented the country from taking full advantage of its development potential."

And it says that "The deplorable state of Haiti's infrastructure is due to poor state management of public utilities such as electricity, water, and telephones; ports; and road networks. Inefficiencies... discourage new private investment, raise transaction costs, and limit employment opportunities." There's not much here that's hard to understand: No accountability in government, no economic development.

What's harder to see is why the FAO would congratulate such a tyrant. We suspect it has to do with Mr. Aristide's 24-7 lobbying to get international aid flowing back to Haiti. Enter the U.N., sympathetic to his left-wing politics and eager to give him the PR makeover he needs.

We wanted to ask the FAO about this but its leaders are off to Havana for its 27th regional conference on poverty. And they wonder why the U.S. doesn't want to pay its U.N. dues.

Updated April 29, 2002