12566: This Week in Haiti 20:19 7/24/2002 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
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                           HAITI PROGRES
              "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                      * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                        July 24 - 30, 2002
                          Vol. 20, No. 19

COOPERATIVE CRISIS CONTINUES TO ESCALATE IN HAITI

Last year, dozens of "cooperatives" mushroomed all over Haiti as
part of a "cooperative movement" encouraged by President Jean-
Bertrand Aristide. In theory, the movement was supposed to
"democratize" the economy by offering alternatives to the Haitian
bourgeoisie's monopoly control of key economic sectors, like
banks and import/export companies. Most of the cooperatives
spawned were unregulated banks and credit unions offering mind-
boggling interest-rates of up to 15%, enticing inflation-whipped
Haitians to deposit their meager life savings into accounts that
seemed too good to be true.

They were. This year, the cooperatives, most of which appear to
have been concocted by pyramid schemers, have begun to fall like
dominos, throwing thousands of Haitian depositors into even
deeper poverty and despair. Many of the cooperative directors
have gone into hiding or fled to the US.

Meanwhile, an angry movement of fleeced depositors has emerged in
Haiti. They are demanding why the government made no effort to
warn the public, to apprehend fugitive directors, or to monitor
the cooperatives despite the existence of a regulatory agency,
the National Council of Cooperatives (CNC). In an effort to calm
spirits, Aristide has promised to refund the millions of dollars
which evaporated from cooperative accounts, although the Haitian
treasury is penniless. He has pledged to do this by September,
when families need money for the start of the school year.

On Jul. 18, demonstrators took to the streets of St. Marc to
demand that the government act to arrest the directors of
collapsed cooperatives and  to prevent their flight from the
country. "There is only one thing we can do if the government
refuses to take hold of this matter," said one angry
demonstrator. "Next week, we will shut down all of St. Marc, from
top to bottom." Many cooperatives in that town have closed their
doors, including BCI, BCCH, CADEC, SOFADEC, BEFEC, and CODESO.

In Gonaïves, similar demonstrations took place last week to
demand that Aristide reimburse depositors as promised. "Aristide
has to give us our money immediately," one demonstrator said. "We
won't wait until September. We are going to block all the roads
this month."

Every day in Port-au-Prince, crowds form in front of the CNC
offices where people file claims against cooperative directors to
recoup their losses. "I have been standing here since this
morning," said one forlorn man waiting on line. "I'm just trying
to survive this life they've destroyed. Since I've been standing
on line, a bunch of people have gone ahead of me. If you are not
a policeman, you don't get anywhere." Some cops have taken to
reclaiming their money at gunpoint from folding cooperatives.

Meanwhile, Justice Minister Jean-Baptiste Brown and Finance
Minister Faubert Gustave
held a Jul. 19 press conference with the heads of the Cooperative
Initiative (INICOOP), an association of cooperatives formed in an
effort to save the movement. They announced an agreement with the
directors of failed cooperatives, but only those who had not fled
or gone into hiding. They encouraged people to continue to file
claims against fugitive directors and to be "patient." So far
over 9000 claims for money lost in failed cooperatives have been
lodged. Claims can be filed at the CNC offices, at the
courthouse, or even at the Ministry of Justice, the officials
said. The Ministers said they had taken various measures to
protect the assets of the cooperatives, and they invited fugitive
cooperative directors to return and make an arrangement with the
government.

The INICOOP directors said that they had made a deal with the
government and foreign firms to buy up the assets of failed
cooperatives. INICOOP estimates that the Haitian state will have
to reimburse about $240 million to swindled depositors, which is
more than 60% of the national budget.

"We don't think that the state, that is the Haitian people,
should have to foot the bill," said Ben Dupuy of the National
Popular Party (PPN) in a Jul. 9 press conference. "Those who are
responsible, those who stole the money, should pay the depositors
back. The state should pursue them. The state doesn't even have
the funds. People are dying in the General Hospital because there
is not enough serum or medicine. All the roads in the country are
disastrous; they can't even afford to fill the holes. And now the
government says it is going to compensate people right and left.
It's pure demagogy."


"ZEPÒL SOU ZEPÒL" ETHNOGRAPHY
A REVIEW OF JENNIE SMITH'S "WHEN THE HANDS ARE MANY"
by Danyel Peña-Shaw

When the Hands are Many is an effort to uproot the stereotypes
cast upon the Haitian peasantry by outsiders seeking to
rationalize its poverty. Jennie Smith tells us how the most
marginalized in Haiti have organized themselves into work
collectives and local associations -- such as atribisyon,
sosyete, kominotè, and gwoupman tèt ansanm --  in order to
empower themselves collectively and transform a world of
exclusion.

Although more than 700 non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
operate in Haiti, far too few Haitians benefit from their
so-called aid. According to different studies, between 79 and 90
cents of every USAID dollar bound for Haiti is actually spent in
the United States, the author notes. So-called experts cannot
help anybody in Haiti if they aren't equipped with the humility
and spirit necessary to gain the confidence of the people they
are there to assist. Because the "aid-intervention world is a
site of tension-filled encounters between discontinuous and
contradictory knowledges," we should invest in the Haitian people
and the grassroots organizations they themselves have created,
Smith argues.

One rural leader calls the notion of Western democracy
Demo-krashe (literally "Democra-spit"). He  points to the
exclusionary and humiliating results that global economic
development has brought to Haiti. "If I can eat and another
person can't eat, how are we supposed to build a democracy on
that?" he asks.

The only effective way to critique other models is to provide an
alternative with one's own actions. Smith lives among the
peasants she is studying in the mountains of Haiti's southwestern
Grand'Anse region, learning their language, forming a part of
their everyday lives, and listening to their testimonies. The
descriptions of the rural organizations provide the reader with
images of the strength and beauty of an impoverished people
surviving and battling forward.

Smith's mission is to "re-present the Haitian peasantry" through
their own songs, triumphs, tears, and aspirations. She provides
fascinating case studies of different peasant organizations and
work collectives that provide valuable insight into peasant life
and the struggle for democracy.  Refusing to glorify peasant
social relations, Smith examines the root causes of the envy,
competition and divisions that also form part of their everyday
reality. She describes with sincerity her dilemma as she
deliberates whether or not to buy more rum in appreciation for a
kòve (cooperative work group) that her neighbors organized for
her. Smith's practices Zepòl Sou Zepòl (shoulder to shoulder)
ethnography. Grounded in solidarity, the scholar walks and grows
alongside the people. The peasants recognize her humility and
told her "that it was about time a foreigner had come to listen
instead of lecture and to 'discover the reality we're living
in.'"

Smith brings hundreds of kreyòl voices and visions to the surface
so that we too can listen to these messages from one of the most
marginalized sectors of our global society. Her translation of a
collection of hymns, songs, and proverbs is an invaluable
contribution to the uplifting of Haitian kreyòl, a tongue that
has been neglected and silenced. The ideas and proverbs that
underlie the "yonn ede lòt" (one helps another) philosophy force
us to reconsider how we look at one another and our own
priorities within a world dominated by inequalities.  When the
Hands are Many will serve readers as an entry into this
"underground spring" of hope and resistance that all of us must
explore in order to begin to rebuild Haiti.

(When the Hands are Many by Jennie M. Smith, Cornell University
Press, 2001).

Mr. Peña-Shaw is a union organizer and an activist in the Haitian
and Dominican communities.

All articles copyrighted Haiti Progres, Inc. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED.
Please credit Haiti Progres.

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