12288: Haiti: Devastation, destitution, desperation (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sun, Mar. 17, 2002

Haiti: Devastation, destitution, desperation
By SEN. MIKE DEWINE

Cushioned amid the white-sand, palm-fringed beaches and warm, sapphire-hued
waters of the Caribbean lies the island nation of Haiti -- once a lush,
tropical sanctuary, now a paradise lost. Wracked by near constant struggle
and strife, Haiti is a nation wrought with government mismanagement and
corruption, violence, poverty and disease. It is a nation on the brink of
collapse.

This is a critical time for Haiti. It is also a critical time for the United
States. Unless the Haitian government initiates significant political and
economic changes, we once again will see boats swollen with Haitians risking
their lives to get to Miami and the chance for a better life.

Internally, Haiti is a tinderbox of violence waiting to ignite. The
Organization of American States continues to struggle to devise a strategy
to halt Haiti's downward spiral, despite the recent establishment of a new
permanent OAS mission in Haiti to help resolve the continuing electoral
stalemate.

I returned from my ninth trip to Haiti in January, where I again witnessed
devastation, destitution and desperation. Today, less than one-half of
Haiti's 8.2 million people can read or write. The country's infant mortality
rate is the highest in our hemisphere. At least 23 percent of children ages
zero to 5 are malnourished, and only 39 percent of Haitians have access to
clean water. Diseases like measles, malaria and tuberculosis are epidemic.

Roughly one out of every 12 Haitians has HIV/AIDS. According to Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention projections, Haiti will experience up to
44,000 new HIV/AIDS cases this year -- that's at least 4,000 more than the
number expected here in the United States, a nation with a population nearly
35 times larger. Already, AIDS has orphaned 163,000 children, a number
expected to skyrocket to between 323,000 and 393,000 over the next 10 years.

Haiti's economy is in shambles. It grows worse by the day. Haiti remains the
poorest nation in our hemisphere, with 70 percent of the people either
under-employed or unemployed. With such woeful economic conditions, coupled
with hollow, ineffective and often corrupt law-enforcement institutions,
drug traffickers operate with impunity. As a result, 15 percent of all
cocaine entering the United States passes through Haiti, the Dominican
Republic or both.

Democracy and political stability continue to elude Haiti even now, over
seven years after we sent more than 20,000 U.S. troops to oversee the end of
military rule and the restoration of a constitutional government, with
Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president. Though no one expected miracles or
immediate recovery when Aristide first returned to power in 1994, we did
expect his government to establish a foundation for change and progress that
would help move the country away from its failed past toward a hopeful and
productive future.

Regrettably, President Aristide and his predecessor, René Préval, have and
are shirking the hard work of democracy-building -- the labor and sweat
necessary to build and stabilize a nation.

Today, violence remains rampant. Journalists and opposition members fear for
their lives and the safety of their families. Guyler Delva, head of Haiti's
leading journalist group, believes that he has been targeted with death
threats that are part of a wider government-tolerated campaign to intimidate
reporters. The Dec. 17 coup attempt and the pro-Aristide mob violence that
followed further typify the lawlessness and tumult that continue to plague
Haiti absent a solid democratic framework and system of justice.

In a recent meeting with President Aristide, I raised these concerns. I
argued that now, more than ever, it is essential that he call for peace and
push for domestic order. Continued violence and retribution only will
perpetuate instability and upheaval. Aristide has an obligation to use his
immense popularity to make it unequivocally clear to his supporters that
taking revenge on people who were involved in the attempted coup or taking
revenge on parties that oppose him is not in the best interests of the
nation.

He needs to say: Stop the violence.

Furthermore, Aristide should lay a bold plan upon the table to end the
political impasse -- a proposal that the opposition parties cannot refuse.

In the spirit of the Inter-American Democratic Charter -- a new tool created
on the heels of the Sept. 11 attacks -- Aristide needs to work with the OAS
to allow an independent investigation into allegations of violence and
corruption, mediate a truce between the government and the opposition and
strengthen government institutions to allow democracy to flourish.

To borrow the words of Haiti's ambassador to the OAS, Aristide's government
needs to build bridges rather than walls.

But that is just the start. Ending the current political stalemate and
resolving questions surrounding the recent attempted coup alone will not
create a viable democracy in Haiti. In the long-term, Haiti can succeed if
-- and only if -- the government takes responsibility for the situation and
resolves to end violence, eliminate corruption, create free markets, allow
for the privatization of industries, improve the judicial system, respect
human rights and develop a sustainable system of agriculture.

In the meantime, the United States also must take responsibility by
continuing and sizeably increasing our humanitarian efforts in Haiti. We
have a moral obligation to stay committed to the people -- irrespective of
what the Haitian government does or does not do.

Already, we have cut too much of the aid that goes to the non-governmental
organizations dedicated to feeding starving Haitian children; teaching the
men and women better, more-effective methods of farming; and instituting
much-needed health care programs. Last year, we provided $77 million in
humanitarian aid. This year, that figure has dropped to $55 million. This is
simply not acceptable.

We are at a crossroads. Aristide and the political rulers have a simple
choice -- break with history and create a stable political system and a
free, democratic market economy; or perpetuate the needless, bloody tragedy
that confines future generations of Haitians to lives of disillusionment and
despair.

The choice is theirs -- the consequences belong to us all.

Mike DeWine, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Ohio.



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