20951: Marina: Why Haiti Should Get Out of CARICOM by Roger Milcius (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Marina <marinawus@yahoo.com>


From: roger milcius

======================================================

Why Haiti Should Get Out of CARICOM
by Roger Milcius

The diplomatic row between Haiti and Caricom has
reminded us Haitians that there is an obscure entity
called "Caricom" to which we belong. Since the Preval
administration and the subsequent Aristide
administration kept the country in the dark about our
adhesion, it is perhaps a good idea to review what
Caricom is, and why we should pull out of  that
organization.

What is Caricom?
=============
The Caribbean Community - Caricom for short - regroups
15 member states: 13 English-speaking countries
(Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize,
Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat,
Saint-Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the
Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago), Suriname (Dutch),
and Haiti. If many of these island nations sound
unfamiliar to you, do not fret. Very few people care
about them as they are quite insignificant, although
the people in these places are no doubt wonderful
human beings. Caricom also boasts 5 associate member
states: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands,
Cayman Islands, and Turks and Caicos Islands.

Our country was the last one to join the community: it
was granted provisional membership in 1998 and became
a full member in 2002. Caricom's total population is
about 14 million, 60% of which are Haitian. As you can
imagine, without the inclusion of our country, that
monstrous-sounding regional bloc would have had a
grand total of 6 million people, not enough to give it
any type of significance on the world stage.

Caricom's political structure is somewhat similar to
that of other regional blocs. It consists of:

+ the Conference of Heads of Governments, which sets
the strategic plan of the body
+ the Community Council of Ministers - which is
responsible for the development of the objectives set
by the Conference

Caricom has developed several programs to create a
community that makes perfect sense for the
English-speaking countries (almost all former colonies
of England which gained their indepence starting in
the 1960's or are still under British rule in one form
or another.) It is also in the process of setting up a
Caribbean Court of Justice, which will become quite
problematic for us Haitians as our legal code is quite
different from the one practiced in the other member
states.

Finally, Caricom has spawned a Common Market which
requires further study as it could be quite
detrimental to the economic development of Haiti.

What's Wrong With Our Membership in Caricom?
====================================
Just about everything pertaining to Haiti's membership
in Caricom is wrong, starting with the fact that Haiti
has been slighted by Caricom at every turn ... but I
digress already. Here is, in no particular order, my
list of complaints:

1. How We Joined Caricom
--------------------------------------
There was very little preparation work and
consultation done by the Preval administration for
Haiti to join Caricom. The notice of our provisional
membership came as a surprise to the vast majority of
the Haitian private sector, for example, which was not
consulted on the matter. Needless to say, the average
Haitian to this day has no clue about this nebulous
entity that is mentioned only in passing on the radio.
While other Caricom countries take seriously the
different programs of the community, it is
increasingly evident that the Preval/Aristide duo only
wanted to join Caricom for the "political support"
they might obtain and never really thought about the
responsibilities Haiti would have to bear for such
membership.

In that respect, although Caricom had outlined for a
long time the list of reforms that all countries had
to undertake in order to comply with the objectives of
the community, it is fair to say that nothing has been
done by either Mr. Preval or Aristide, to move Haiti
on the path of integration:

+ no serious prep work of any type was initiated for
our joining the Caricom Single Market and Economy
(CSME for short). When we study the progress of other
members states (as slow and disappointing as they are,
by Caricom's own admission), it is frightening to see
that the Preval/Aristide administrations never even
set a committee to start addressing these reforms.

+ there has been no effort on the Haitian side to
examine the implications of the establishment of the
Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ.) Except for Haiti and
maybe Suriname, all Caricom member states practice and
are intimately familiar with English Common Law, a
legal code handed down to them by the British. In the
case of Haiti, we are using a completely different
system inherited from the French. If Haiti is to
accept and use the CCJ, what adjustments will we have
to make? Will the CCJ accept French and/or Creole as
official languages? If not, what will that mean for
Haitian lawyers and judges who do not speak English?
It is worth remembering that the most spoken language
in Caricom is not English, but Haitian Creole as Haiti
by itself represents 60% of the Caricom population and
Creole is spoken by 100% of Haitians. It is also worth
noting that nowhere in Caricom literature is this fact
mentioned.

2. The Common Market
----------------------------------
Recent history has shown that a regional economic
integration program such as the CSME stands a better
chance of succeeding if the members states are on a
level playing field or agree to make their economies
converge around agreed-upon macroeconomic objectives
buttressed by similar legal and fiscal regimes. In the
case of Caricom, the latter issue seems to be adressed
but not the former. That in intself is quite
problematic and does not bode well for the future of
the CSME. If we are to think about the varied economic
conditions of Caricom, there are too many imbalances
that will not be corrected any time soon and which
will work probably to the detriment of Haiti. For
example:

+ Haiti has the lowest tariffs of any country in the
region. Caricom right off the bat will then be
confronted with a tariff harmonization quandary with
regards to Haiti: will we set the standard, thereby
forcing some of these countries to bring certain
tariffs to zero as we have done, or will we have to
raise our tariffs again to match our neighbors, and
run afoul of IMF dictates in the process?

+ The free movement of University Graduates within the
community doesn't seem to have been extended to Haiti
yet. Caricom cannot claim to set a single set of rules
and yet discriminate against Haiti on what is
undoubtedly one of the most important aspects of any
regional community: free movement of people and labor.
The Bahamas has decided not to join the CSME in part
because it fears an unchecked immigration of Haitians.
Never mind the fact that the illegal immigration of
Haitians to the Bahamas has been by non-University
graduates, yet the Bahamas today would not survive if
the Haitians left. Who would undertake all the menial
jobs and the back-breaking labor that the Bahamians
just will not do? Ditto for the Turks and Caicos
islands where Haitian labor practically built all the
tourism facilities and the roads.

+ Free movement of capital is a wonderful sounding
concept. In practice, given the economic disparities
and the many illicit activities (mainly drug
trafficking) that are occurring throughout the region,
it is more than likely that specific jurisdictions
will become the overwhelming favorites with regards to
deposits and that a number of entrpreneurs and
corporate executives will play a shell game with the
tax man, taking advantage of looser capital flow
regulations. Unless the financial services industry
transforms itself in the region and alliances or
mergers quickly occur, some countries' financial
institutions will shrivel while others will thrive.
There is nothing I see in the plan put forward by
Caricom in that regard that will allow for an orderly
transition.

+ If Haiti takes more time than the other countries in
structuring its legal and fiscal codes, and if the
country cannot offer the same infrastructure amenities
that other member states have, then it is likely that
foreign direct investment will not come from Caricom
companies looking to do business in Haiti. Instead,
they will produce elsewhere and export their products
to Haiti, much like the Dominican Republic is now
doing. Haiti is already suffering from the dumping of
products by American and Dominican companies, and that
will be simply extended to other Caribbean countries.
We therefore will not see the level of job creation
that will allow us to increase the standard of living
of our citizens. So what economic benefit will we
derive from our membership in Caricom? Zero. Zilch.
Zip. Nada. Anyen. Keep in mind, also, that Caricom
represents less than 4% of our overall trade.

3. Political Advantages of Belonging to a Regional
Bloc
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apart from economic issues, belonging to a regional
bloc is supposed to bring with it some political
benefits, e.g. the ability to negotiate as one entity
with developed countries like the United States or
addressing region-wide issues regarding culture or
society. Yet, when analyzing the list of agreements
that are currently being negotiated for example,
Caricom doesn't seem to have done very well for
itself. Weren't it for the strong stance that Brazil
took during the FTAA negotiations, Caricom would have
been swallowed whole by the US. When it comes to more
technical agreements, the track record of the
Community is not exactly stellar. This immediately
raises a couple of issues for Haiti:

+ Has Caricom really defined the common interests of
the region (including Haiti) when faced with such
sweeping agreements as the Free Trade of the Americas
Agreement (FTAA) for example? And how did Haiti
contribute in the elaboration of the Caricom agenda?
Since our own officials did not report back to the
Haitian people on the issue, it is hard to imagine
that we actually worked through the issues and that we
discussed them with the other Caricom member states.
In fact, I cannot think of a single occasion when the
Preval or Aristide administration actually organized
broad public forums to educate the Haitian people on
that process.

+ Do we believe that we can have converging interests
with the rest of Caricom? Our economic structure, our
trading patterns, our sheer population  size compared
to the rest of them puts Haiti in a different
position. It is hard to imagine that the Caricom bloc
can effectively help us in defending our interests.

+ On a lighter note, I could not help but laugh as the
issue of the Cricket World Cup 2007 was on the
original agenda of the Basse Terre summit. Assuming
for a moment that the Haitian Government had been
allowed to participate, what could the Haitian
representative have added to the discussion of
cricket? That sport is the national pasttime in many
of the member states and a point of pride, especially
in international competition for the likes of Jamaica,
Barbados, Trinidad et al which field a common team.
But we in Haiti don't know a thing about this most
British of sports (even more so than football.) And
cricket is a but a tiny example of the culture gap
between ourselves and the rest of Caricom that can
never be bridged.

4. Political Treason or How Caricom Abandoned the
Haitian People
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moving beyond very serious integration problems which
simply make many of us skeptical about the ability of
Caricom to reach its objectives, we have to take a
long, hard look at the duplicitous attitude of Caricom
in this most recent diplomatic crisis . The argument
boils down to this: why is Caricom applying a
double-standard with respect to human rights
violations in Haiti?

+ Caricom countries based their hard-line attitude
against the Latortue government on (1) their opinion
that Aristide was illegally removed from office and
(2) their objection to Latortue's embrace of the
rebels during his visit to Gonaives.

+ We can understand the former point, that the
ambiguity of Aristide's departure is unsettling to
some Caribbean government members. To us Haitians,
however, it is not ambiguous at all. Aristide has been
claiming that he was "kidnapped" and that his security
forces (the Steele Foundation) were pulled from him.
Yet, a few facts quickly show that Aristide is trying
to pull the wool over the eyes of his unsuspecting
supporters: (1) Aristide and his wife had sent their
two daughters away to the United States using ONE-WAY
tickets days before their departure, so did members of
Aristide's entourage like his communications czar
Mario Dupuy - this can easily be verified through
American Airlines. If they had no intention of
leaving, why bother sending the kids away? Clearly,
they knew that their days in power were numbered and
they had started taking the necessary steps to get out
of the country; (2) the Aristides had packed their
bags in the afternoon preceding their departure and
had cleaned their apartment at the National Palace of
everything they possessed. If they had no plans to
leave, why did they take everything from the Palace to
their private residence and pack them?; (3) the Steele
Foundation had 5 of its security personnel accompany
Aristide all the way to Bangui, directly contradicting
the claims made by Aristide that he had no personal
security except for Frantz Gabriel. Indeed, we have
always known that Aristide was quite a liar. That the
Caricom leadership decided not to investigate his
claims, and accepted them at face value, shows that
they are either naive or have been very well paid to
defend his interest. We cannot see any other
explanation. Dawn Rich of the Jamaica Gleaner had it
exactly right about Prime Minister Patterson's
ill-advised move and his blind trust of Aristide.

+ The latter point however, concerning Latortue's
embrace of the rebels, shows the Caricom leadership
for the two-faced, sleazy political operators that
they really are. Spewing forth all the appropriate
rhetoric about democratic principles and respect for
human rights, the Caricom leaders were quick to
condemn Latortue - AND RIGHTLY SO! - for his
statements and stance in Gonaives regarding the
"freedom fighters." But we must then ask ourselves:

+ Where were these same Caricom leaders when Aristide
was entertaining notorious GANG LEADERS at the
National Palace on February 27, 2002 and appearing
with them in public and on television (Tilivision
Nationale) ? These gang leaders had just engaged in a
brutal turf war that had led to the burning and
destruction of tens of houses and the death of scores
of people in the notorious Cite Soleil slum of
Port-au-Prince. And they got to be hosted by the
President as a reward.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>From haiticulture.com:
Manifestation dindignation des habitants de Citi
Soleil devant le Palais national (13 mars 2002 22:28),
hc
Des dizaines de partisans du pouvoir Lavalas de Citi
Soleil, victimes des atrocitis des chefs de gang, ont
exprimi dans la presse leur indignation, face au
mipris du prisident Jean Bertrand Aristide, le lundi
11 mars, devant les grilles du Palais national.
Ces phres et mhres de famille, dimunis et sans logis,
ont adressi publiquement des reproches au Chef de
lEtat quils avaient voti, disent-ils, le 26 novembre
2000.
Ils souhaitent la reconstruction de leurs maisons
incendiies par les chefs de gang qui ont iti regus, au
Palais national, le 27 fivrier dernier par M. Aristide
lui-mjme.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

+ Have the Caricom leaders read the report published
on February 4, 2003, by Merrill Smith, coordinator of
the US Committee on Refugees, entitled "DEMOCRACY
UNRAVELING - Political Violence in Haiti 2002"? Can
they really claim that Aristide was a democrat? THIS
IS PROBABLY THE MOST ENLIGTENING REPORT ON OUR FALL
INTO TOTALITARIANISM AND IS A MUST-READ FOR THOSE OF
YOU WHO DON'T KNOW WHAT THE ARISTIDE ADMINISTRATION
REALLY DID. This report can be found in Adobe Acrobat
(PDF) format at the following address:

http://www.refugees.org/downloads/haiti_0203.pdf

It is ironic that we were "granted" full Caricom
membership the very year when Aristide and his gangs
started to violate our Constitution in untold ways and
achieved their objective of destroying democracy.

+ Where were these leaders when Aristide ordered and
supervised the politicization of the Haitian National
Police? Are they aware that Aristide personally
endorsed the application of the "zero tolerance"
policy which allowed the police to kill suspects
without so much as a shred of due process? Read the
following communique from the National Coalition on
Haitian Rights, a well-respected Haitian human rights
organization:

http://www.nchr.org/hrp/safety_communique.htm

+ Did these leaders press Aristide to investigate the
murders of journalists, in particular Jean Dominique
and Brignol Lindor? The following links provide more
information:

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=3754
http://www.cpj.org/attacks01/americas01/haiti.html

+ Where were these leaders when the police and
pro-Aristide armed gangs went on a witch hunt against
our youth and our valiant university students,
culminating in the horrible events of December 5, 2003
when the Dean of the State University of Haiti had his
two legs broken by Aristide thugs in the presence of
the police? Mr. Pierre-Marie Paquiot is now confined
to a wheelchair.

http://www.kwabs.com/hotnews27.html

+ Where was CARICOM when on February 29, 2004, a
plane-load of guns landed in Jamaica from South
Africa, to shore up Aristide? This plane stayed on the
tarmac in Jamaica for a week without the knowledge of
the Jamaican people and the South African parliament.
These lethal weapons were ordered by PM JP Patterson,
chairman of CARICOM, for his friend Aristide to spread
more deaths in Haiti. The Haitian people will never
forgive PM JP Patterson who must have received a
monetary compensation from Aristide, we surmise, to
enter into such a bizarre and out-of-character
transaction.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3513006.stm

+ What did Caricom have to say when the Haitian
government encouraged the now-infamous Ponzi scheme
(the so-called cooperatives scandal) that robbed
Haitians out of 600 million gourdes (about US$30
million at the time) and wiped out the savings of the
working poor and the lower middle class, the two
tranches of our society that had the most to lose and
the least protection in our society? How could they
stay silent when this scheme, actively promoted by the
government in 2001 in a bid to undermine the influence
of the formal banking sector, collapsed dramatically
by the end of 2002 with no effort by the financial
authorities, the National Cooperative Council, or the
Executive to prevent the collapse? Where were the
Caricom leaders when government offficials accepted
huge bribes from the cooperatives promoters to grant
them safe passage to other countries so that they
would not be prosecuted and could abscond with the
millions they stole? And is it true that Aristide
asked some of the same cooperative promoters to pay
the salaries of the police and high ranking officials
in exchange for immunity from prosecution? Why
couldn't the Aristide government promote a policy of
inclusion of the less fortunate in the established
banking sector instead, which is one of the better
regulated and supervised industries in Haiti? And why
did Aristide promise to reimburse defrauded investors
- which sent the wrong signal by having the government
bailout the promoters - and then RENEGED on the
promise? If this is not an economic crime, then what
is?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Extract from the NCHR 2002 Annual Report at
http://www.nchrhaiti.org/article.php3?id_article=21:
As the summer drew to a close, a cooperative scandal
rocked the country further exacerbating the poverty of
Haiti's most vulnerable. In September 2001, President
Aristide began a campaign to strongly encourage
peasants to invest their money in government organised
cooperatives. As incentives, many cooperatives offered
outrageously high rates of return, as high as twelve
percent (12%) per month and many Haitians across the
country invested. By the end of August 2002, almost
all of the government co-ops had declared bankruptcy.
Allegations circulated accusing the Lavalas government
of using the money to pay-off party supporters.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>From Haiti-Progres (English Version published in July
2002) at
http://www.haitiprogres.com/2002/sm020724/eng07-24.html:

Cooperative Crisis Continues to Escalate in Haiti
Last year [2001], 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
bourgeoisies 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 Gonaoves, 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 wont 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. "Im just trying to
survive this life theyve destroyed. Since Ive been
standing on line, a bunch of people have gone ahead of
me. If you are not a policeman, you dont 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.

[NOTE FROM MILCEUS: THIS EFFORT WENT NOWHERE AS THE
GOVERNMENT DID NOT KEEP ITS PROMISE. AND MOST
CERTAINLY DID NOT PROTECT THE ASSETS OF THE
COOPERATIVES. INICOOP NEVER DID ANY OF WHAT IT CLAIMED
IT WOULD DO, INCLUDING WHAT IS IN THE PARAGRAPH
BELOW.]

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 dont 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 doesnt 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 cant even
afford to fill the holes. And now the government says
it is going to compensate people right and left. Its
pure demagogy."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

AND FINALLY, DOES CARICOM REALLY WANT TO ASSOCIATE
WITH AND DEFEND A MAN WHOSE RECORD OF MISDEEDS IS MANY
TIMES LONGER THAN WHAT HAS BEEN DOCUMENTED ABOVE AND
WHOSE TOTAL DISREGARD OF THE PROPER ROLE OF DEMOCRATIC
INSTITUTIONS, STARTING WITH HIS FRAUDULENT ELECTION IN
NOVEMBER 2000, MADE A MOCKERY OF DEMOCRACY ITSELF
???????

4. My Conclusions
---------------------------
I trust that the Latortue government - or the one
after that - will promptly take the necessary measures
to withdraw Haiti from a community that is clearly not
our community, which does not share our culture, and
which has shown nothing but contempt for the Haitian
people. Not only did the Preval/Aristide
administrations not handle our regrettable entry into
Caricom properly, but the economic, political and
social benefits that Caricom claims to offer simply do
not make sense for Haiti and will not improve at all
the conditions of the majority of Haitians. Finally,
had the leaders of Caricom sounded the alarm at
Aristide's undemocratic practices which led Haiti down
the path of totalitarianism, we might have understood
their position of principle in this latest diplomatic
row. However, nothing of the sort happened, and they
are all of a sudden protecting a despot who lied to
everyone, including himself;  had set up an organized
crime syndicate disguised as a political party which
was involved in murder, kidnapping, extortion and
embezzlement of funds; shattered the hopes of the poor
who so believed in him; and managed to run his
country's economy into the ground. Caricom, I hope to
bid you goodbye very soon. I cannot say I will miss
you.

Oh, and one last comment: I have shown my
Anglo-Caribbean brothers and sisters respect by
writing this article in English, which is most
definitely NOT my mother tongue. Kreyol (as we know
it) and French are. By the same token, the Caricom
Secretariat should have issued all of its official
pronouncement in Haitian Creole as well as English,
since 60% of Caricom members speak Haitian Creole. It
should also have translated its website into French
and Kreyol because right now it is inaccessible to the
majority of the Caricom membership (the Haitians who
do not speak English.) By not doing so, they have
shown once again how much contempt Caricom has for the
Haitian people. Or is it that we Haitians are as
invisible and insignificant to the Caricom leadership
as we were to the kleptocratic criminals of the
Aristide government who humiliated us and violated our
human rights throughout their turn in power? With
friends like these ...

Roger Milcius
"Ayiti has lived; Ayiti lives; and Ayiti most
definitely will live ... with or without Caricom"


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