22194: (Craig) NYT: The Price of Rice Soars, and Haiti's Hunger Deepens (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <hoosier@att.net>

The Price of Rice Soars, and Haiti's Hunger Deepens
June 1, 2004
By TIM WEINER

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, May 31 - One lesson of life in Haiti
is never to say things cannot get any worse. They can, and
they have.

People say they have had less money, less food and less
hope since the February revolt that toppled President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

For most Haitians, this has nothing to do with last week's
deadly floods, which left 1,000 dead and 1,600 missing in
Haiti, according to the official government estimate on
Monday.

It has to do with the price of rice.

The cost of living has soared in the past four months. And
as they say in Haiti, "Rice is life."

On the Rue de Miracles, one of the capital's biggest
sidewalk markets, where thousands buy and sell the
necessities of life, people talk of little else. Every
conversation that starts with politics ends with the price
of rice.

Many Haitians eat one meal a day. The main course is rice,
and the price of a 110-pound sack doubled, to $45 from
$22.50, between late January and early May. That price has
dropped to about $37 in the past few weeks but is still too
high, said Clermathe Baron, 29, who sells the big white
sacks across the street from the Haitian customs office
near the port. The price was driven up by global, national,
political and economic forces.

"Life for the people of Haiti was better under Aristide
because rice was less expensive," said Ms. Baron, not a big
fan of the former president, as an American military
helicopter hummed overhead.

"Even though it's more expensive now, I make the same as I
did before," she said. "These high prices are not to my
advantage. They're not to anyone's advantage, except maybe
a few big importers and a few people in the Customs House.
They always seem to have money."

People who buy rice by the pound say the price also
doubled, and it has stayed that high.

"We have less and less to eat," said Nadia Casmir, 21, who
sells crackers, cookies and powdered milk from a sidewalk
stall, and lives with her mother, aunt, and the aunt's
three children. "Things were better before. I'm not making
a living. I've had to raise my prices, but people have less
money, so they can't buy what we are selling."

Mr. Aristide, unsurprisingly, agrees that things have
gotten worse since he was overthrown Feb. 29.

"The level of suffering has dramatically increased in
Haiti," he said to reporters before leaving Jamaica and
arriving Monday in South Africa, which offered him refuge.
Mr. Aristide, who says he is still Haiti's elected leader,
received a head of state's welcome in Johannesburg from
President Thabo Mbeki.

But Haitian businessmen say Mr. Aristide's government kept
the price of rice down through corruption.

One leading importer said an Aristide crony received a near
exclusive concession on rice imports and evaded customs
duties. That evasion allowed the rice concessionaire to cut
about $3 a bag off the market price, pass some of the
savings on to the market and pocket the rest.

"It was kind of a monopoly" under Mr. Aristide, said
Danielle St.-Lot, the new minister of commerce.

Haiti used to grow its own rice. But its agriculture has
collapsed in the past two decades, crushed by poverty,
environmental destruction and foreign imports. While rice
production crashed, demand soared: Haiti's population has
grown to eight million from five million in 20 years. "The
deterioration of the economy, years of bad governance
without any policy for agriculture, and the day-to-day
problems of life we now see reflected in the price of
rice," Ms. St.-Lot said.

Eighty percent of the rice imported by Haiti comes from the
United States, chiefly Arkansas, Louisiana and California -
more than 300,000 tons in 2003. American rice is the most
expensive in the world, Ms. St.-Lot said. "The problem is
serious," she said. "The price on the international market
is growing every day."

American and global stocks of rice are down, driving prices
up, in some part because of American military and foreign
policies.

"The American government has been buying a lot of rice for
Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq," said Jean-Michel Cherubin,
a leading Haitian importer of rice, sugar and beans.

International aid agencies, like the United Nations World
Food Program and Catholic Relief Services, which receive
United States government support, do what they can to ease
Haiti's hunger. The United Nations sought $35 million in
emergency funds for Haiti from foreign governments in
March; it remains $26 million shy of the goal.

Things were bad before the flood, and now at least 75,000
survivors of the deluge face a food emergency that will
last for many months.

Haiti - its ports in particular - is a dangerous place to
do business. That remains true despite the soon-to-depart
American-led military force sent to provide security and
stability after Mr. Aristide fell, and despite the efforts
of the interim government, which has good intentions but
almost no money. Theft and crime raise the market price of
rice by cutting the supply lines.

"People have been stealing rice and selling it in the
market here in La Saline," said Capt. Sean Connally of the
Marines, part of a force sent to secure the harbor of
Port-au-Prince, which abuts La Saline, one of Haiti's
roughest neighborhoods. Four cargo containers were looted
Monday morning, Haitian officials said.

That has gone on since the day Mr. Aristide fell. "There
was lots of looting of commercial warehouses where rice was
stocked," said Jean-Claude Paulvin, president of the
Haitian Economists association. "Boats couldn't come into
the port to deliver the rice."

The damage done to businesses, warehouses and commercial
property during the anti-Aristide rebellion ran to tens of
millions of dollars.

Haiti's police force, whose cars and weapons were stolen
during the chaos after Mr. Aristide's departure, now has
roughly 2,500 officers. The government lacks money to
rebuild the force or secure the ports.

Starting June 1, security will be handed over from the
American-led force to a United Nations coalition whose
soldiers have barely started arriving. A formal transfer of
command is set for June 20; the last American soldier is to
leave June 30.

It all weighs heavily on Ms. Baron, the rice seller, and
her customers.

"Because of the political situation, I pay more for
everything, for all the necessities of life, including
rice," she said. "Life's not better for me. It's worse now.
It's not good for us poor people. The little money we have
is not enough to fight the forces of commerce."

Michael Wines contributed reporting from Johannesburg for
this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/01/international/americas/01hait.html?ex=1087067150&ei=1&en=50d5ce725cbc2cd6
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company