12567: ALA TRAKA (Cooperatives) and review of Jennie Smith's new book

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: jacqueline murray <jlataillade@yahoo.com>


> 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.
>
>                                -30-
>
>
>


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