20268: Rizowy: Heinl Haiti Testimony (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Brian I. Rizowy <brian.rizowy@columbia.edu>

Testimony for the Senate Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western
Hemisphere to be presented on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 by Michael
Heinl, co-author of Written in Blood, The Story of the Haitian People,
1492-1995.


   Just what our relationship with Haiti should be has bedeviled the
United States since its own infancy in the family of nations. John Adams
aided Toussaint Louverture in his fight for Haiti’s independence by
using the U.S. Navy to sink French shipping or to blockade ports in
Haiti. Even two centuries ago, Adams’ motivation was not entirely
altruistic; New England merchants coveted the voluminous commerce of
France’s richest colony and saw in the disturbances in Haiti a chance
for profit. A change of administration from the Massachusetts Adams to
Virginian (and slave-owner) Thomas Jefferson brought a radical change in
U.S. policy, informed by the perceptions of our own interest of the U.S.
administration then in power.

   Haiti did not receive U.S. diplomatic recognition until our own Civil
War, when the absence of Southern slave-owners from Congress permitted
Abraham Lincoln to officially acknowledge Haiti’s independence. Our
efforts to isolate Haiti during the first half century of its existence,
coupled with the ruinous indemnity extracted by France from its former
colony, threatened to strangle Haiti in the cradle.

    Woodrow Wilson ordered in Marines in 1915, only to see America’s
actions in Haiti become an issue in the 1920 Presidential campaign.
Haiti, and our relationship with it featured in our Presidential
elections of 1992, 1996 and 2000 and bids fair to do so again in 2004.

   Haiti comes to the forefront of our national consciousness only when
it erupts in one of the paroxysms of violence which have marked its
history, or when our own needs have somehow involved Haiti. U.S.
warships and troops intervened to protect American lives and interests
dozens of times in Haiti in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

   The advent of World War I in Europe and our desire to secure the
approaches to the Panama Canal against German influence finally
persuaded us to begin what turned out to be a nineteen-year occupation.
World War II saw us appropriate 5% of Haiti’s arable crop land in what
became a failed effort to cultivate rubber substitutes to replace
sources being lost as the Japanese advanced throughout Southeast Asia.

   In efforts to protect our domestic agricultural base against swine
fever, the United States in the nineteen-seventies presided, like Herod,
over the slaughter of all the pigs it could catch in the country, thus
destroying one of the principal means of saving in the largely non-cash
rural economy. The appearance of HIV in Haiti in the early
nineteen-eighties and the beginning of a tide of economic and political
refugees across the Florida straits has since then forced us to engage
with Haiti’s government(s) on an ongoing basis whether we wished to or
not.

   Our decision to intervene in nineteen-ninety four, in concert with a
number of other countries, was as much a domestic political calculus as
it was a reaction to events taking place in Haiti.

   Now, nearly ten years after our last time on the ground, American
troops have again landed. Haiti, entering its third century of
nationhood, is once more faced with the dispiriting facts of its seeming
inability to get its house in order without outside help and that
geography is destiny: it and the United States are, by their proximity,
fated to ongoing cohabitation.

   This committee, in its invitation to me, asked me to ponder three
questions:
I.	Is this moment an opportunity for a paradigm shift in
Haitian-American relations?
II.	Can Haiti be “turned around?”
III.	What kind of help does Haiti need?

I. The answer to the first question is a cautious “yes.” The current
situation is an opportunity to change the nature of our engagement with
Haiti, but whether all the parties will, or can, avail themselves of it
is very much an open question. For the good of both countries, the cycle
of paying attention to Haiti only when a crisis is brewing, or when
American economic or geopolitical interests are perceived as being at
stake, can and must be broken. Haiti and its problems are problems for
the hemisphere. Failure on the part of those interested in Haiti (with
the U.S., France and Canada in the lead) to frame and implement short,
medium and long-term policies to Haiti will lead to growing dangers in
the Western hemisphere from disease (AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria,
polio), ever worsening environmental degradation, violence, unchecked
drug trafficking and overwhelming refugee outflows. The United States,
for its part, has to evolve towards Haiti a consistent long-term policy
which will bring to bear our treasure and influence in ways which will
benefit both Haiti and the United States. Our relationships need not be
a zero sum game. We can advocate policies that protect the interests of
the United States and its citizens without acting to the detriment of
Haiti and its people.

   However, to frame and implement such policies, bi-partisanship is
required, beginning in a Presidential election year. Even within the
current administration, the Defense Department’s view of what the role
of troops on the ground should be (“We’re not cops.”) is at variance
with the wishes of some in the State Department. As previously noted,
Haiti policy has often become a political football in the U.S. Indeed,
given the rancorous nature of today’s debate in the U.S. over the
circumstances surrounding President Aristide’s departure, one wonders
whether it will be easier for Haitians to agree on Haiti’s policy to the
U.S., than it will be for the U.S. to agree on policy for Haiti.

   It will also be difficult for sharply disagreeing parties in Haiti to
evolve some sort of consensus position vis-à-vis the U.S. This in a
country where there is little tradition of consensus building. Without
credible partners in Haiti to engage with – partners who can
legitimately claim to represent a broad cross-section of Haitian society
– all of our good intentions (and many Haitians will be a long time
wondering whether or not the intentions of the United States to Haiti
this time are good) will be for naught. Fortunately, there has emerged
over the last eighteen years a robust broadcast media as well as
numerous Civil Society organizations, such as members of the group of
184, which can facilitate dialogue on rebuilding Haiti both within the
country, and with its international partners.

   The good will that characterized Haitian reception of foreign troops
in 1994 is more muted and less widespread in 2004. The foreign community
has a narrow window of opportunity to convince many in Haiti’s urban
masses (now 40% of the country’s 8 million people) that its intentions
are benign. If tangible benefits can be delivered quickly across a broad
spectrum of society, those sitting on the sidelines may be won over.

   Concurrently, the United States must dodge at all costs the trap of
being seen to support those with records of human rights violations and
corruption. If it does not, those predisposed to doubt the intentions of
the international community will be given the perfect rationale for
placing blame for Haiti’s current situation (of which there is more than
enough to go around) exclusively on foreign shoulders.

   II. Woodrow Wilson said of Mexico: “I will teach the Latin Americans
to elect good men.” Much of this governessy attitude towards Haiti still
prevails in the international community. Indeed, even the framing of the
question, “Can Haiti be turned around,” suggests that Haiti is some sort
of barge that can be towed hither or yon with little reference to those
most affected – the Haitians.

   Haitians of all classes must have a sense of ownership of the process
of rebuilding their country and its institutions. It does no good to
build roads (or more accurately to rebuild the same roads every twenty
years) without a functioning, paid, honest road and bridge maintenance
program. Training judges overseas is useless if their salaries are not
timely paid, they have no equipment, and the Minister of Justice is
partisan. Producing elaborate state budgets is of little use if the
business class spends all its time dodging taxes.

   Haiti represents poverty on a scale hard for Americans to grasp.
Average life expectancy is 52. Infant mortality is nearly 80 for every
thousand births. Haiti needs massive, long-term aid delivered on all
fronts at the same time. The economy needs to grow and transform, but
that will not happen without political stability. For that, a government
accepted by all the society as legitimate and fairly elected is
required. Elections that are transparent, free of violence and fair must
be held sooner rather than later. To accomplish this, a professional,
honest and effective police force as well as a judiciary free of
political influence must be established. These urgent needs are all
inter-related and need to be addressed simultaneously.

   A serious evaluation of foreign and Haitian aid organizations must be
undertaken promptly to see which programs work and which do not. NGO’s
have been well-established in different parts of the country for some
years (before the current disruptions some 600,000 people were already
receiving what food they get from these organizations) and will be the
most effective means of injecting sustenance into a country whose
government structures are for the most part nonexistent or incompetent.
For these same reasons, micro credit programs should be expanded. The
new Haitian government and the international community should keep or
revive those programs of the Aristide government which have worked.
Efforts to increase literacy in Creole by radio programs seem to have
borne fruit, though an accurate survey of their effectiveness is needed.
A program which increased the number of physicians in the country by 25%
by allowing Cuban doctors to fan out to remote parts of the country that
had rarely seen physicians is another example of a successful Aristide
initiative.

   Key to everything will be security, and funds must be (perhaps kept
in a specially earmarked account) ensured for prompt payment of salaries
to judges, teachers, and police. Foreign troops will be required in
Haiti long enough to train and mentor (as has been done with the Haitian
Coast Guard for nearly ten years) police and to instill an ethos of
independence, honesty and professionalism. Ten years (if not more) will
be required for this. Also, the question of how to disarm a heavily
armed society is of crucial importance. Emergency job creation for the
unemployed urban masses will go far to lower the temperature while
longer term solutions are implemented.

   In this process the Haitian government will have to be held to far
stricter standards of accountability than heretofore. One of the major
reasons for the failure of aid provided after 1994 was the failure of
the Aristide and Preval governments to comply with their agreements with
the international community in areas such as privatization of
inefficient state monopolies, or the construction of a strong and
unpoliticized police force and judiciary.

III. Aid to Haiti must perforce fall into three categories: short,
medium and long term. All programs undertaken by the foreign communities
should be coordinated to avoid the reoccurrence of competition among
donor countries that characterized the period following the death of
François Duvalier.

   Also, while Haiti’s needs are great, its absorptive capacity is
limited. Donor nations need not equate quality or efficacy of aid
programs with amounts funded, particularly at the outset of this
process. What follows is a short (and by no means exhaustive) list of
things that need to be addressed:
A.	Short term:
1.	Secure the country so interrupted feeding programs can be
resumed. Reducing the weapons in circulation will also reassure the man
on the street.
2.	Get emergency generating capacity in to assure stable
electricity supply in the major cities, particularly Port-au-Prince.
Several barges from Hydro Quebec anchored in Port-au-Prince harbor
supplying current to Port-au-Prince’s poor would buy time for other
reforms.
3.	Reopen the airport at Cap Haitien. The terminal was badly
damaged in the recent fighting and the control tower stripped of
communications gear.
4.	Public works programs that get cash into the economy.
Substantial leeway should be given to local commanders on the spot to
fund small projects with minimal paperwork, as has been the case in some
parts of Iraq. Road building can put tens of thousands to work. In many
cases the plans used in the nineteen-seventies to rebuild roads such as
Cap-Port-au-Prince then are still available. RN3 from Port-au-Prince to
Hinche and then to the Cap is another candidate for immediate attention.
Asphalting the Cap-Ouanaminthe highway would begin to bring in badly
needed tourist dollars from the Dominican Republic to the North of
Haiti.
5.	Back salary payments should be made immediately to police,
judges, teachers and other public sector employees.
6.	Freeze payments on all of Haiti’s international debt. Nearly all
of it is unrecoverable and the projects on which it was spent are
largely gone. Ultimate forgiveness of this debt should depend on Haiti
meeting its obligations negotiated with the foreign community in return
for aid.
7.	Most new aid should be structured as grants rather than loans.
8.	Return the 60 Peace Corps volunteers evacuated and double or
triple their number if uses can be found.
B.	Medium Term:
“Nation building” is not a popular term in the current administration,
but this is what needs to be undertaken in Haiti. The medium term needs
have long been apparent:
1. Potable water programs, (this is key to health – without it, many
health dollars are wasted).
2. Harbor dredging and rebuilding in provincial ports. Only by reviving
the moribund economies of the provinces will the flight to major urban
centers diminish. Port projects at St. Louis du Sud (started and then
abandoned) and Dame Marie bear examination. Haiti’s functioning ports
have some of the highest costs per ton in the hemisphere.
3. Funding of AIDS treatment and prevention on the lines developed by
Paul Farmer in the Plateau Central (a model which has won international
recognition). Nationwide campaigns against malaria and tuberculosis
4. Preferential U.S. tariffs for products made in Haitian assembly
plants. Haitians are hard workers, and the estimates have been that each
such job created in Port-au-Prince (and elsewhere in the country)
directly or indirectly feeds ten others.
5. Reforestation. Only 5% of Haiti’s original forest cover is left. This
has severely aggravated water shortages and contributed to the erosion
of what little topsoil is left. Any aggressive campaign in this regard
will have to look at ways of weaning Haitians from charcoal as their
primary cooking medium. Tree planting efforts in the nineteen seventies
suffered when trees were planted with great fanfare, but little
follow-up care was given. A good example of efforts at reforestation can
be found between Dondon and Marmelade.
6. Rural electrification and irrigation. Given Haiti’s dependence on
imported fossil fuels, it would seem a good candidate for solar power.
This would help with irrigation, which would begin the long trek towards
reversing Haiti’s dependence on the outside world (it is now the third
most dependent country in the world for food imports) to feed itself.
7. Regularization of land titles. This, together with the fostering of a
strong judiciary will empower the 60% of Haitians who are farmers.
8. Decentralize from Port-au-Prince as much as possible.
9 Look at ways to encourage Haiti’s diaspora (on whose remittances it
depends for much of its foreign exchange) to invest their talents and
money in the motherland. Haitians have often looked on their compatriots
returning from abroad as so many chickens to be plucked.
C.	Long term:
Addressing all of the above issues will be so much writing on water if
the foreign community does not enable Haitians to effect a sea change in
the culture that has brought them to this point. Writing in 1929, after
fourteen years of American occupation, the British Minister observed the
failure of American aid programs “with their batteries of experts in
Buicks and promises of prosperity on the Illinois model…” This has been
the fate of most foreign aid to Haiti. This may be one of the last
opportunities for Haiti and the international community to get it right.






Brian I. Rizowy
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