Perhaps this is the way it is now
in the age of Obama, where
the words sound terrifi c, but reality
is something else entirely. Talk
of peace means more war. Talk of
reigning in medical insurance companies
means making mandatory
payments to them. Talk of dismantling
the Bush/Cheney security apparatus
means more arrests, more
surveillance and new prisons.
So in Haiti, people are trying
to decipher what is the difference
between words and reality coming
from President René Préval, his
prime minister, and a host of foreign
offi cials.
In recent weeks, Préval and
other Haitian offi cials have made
pointed statements complaining
about being sidelined, ignored or
bullied by foreign governments and
so-called “non-governmental” organizations
(NGOs) coming to “help”
Haiti.
“Leaders including Prime
Minister Jean-Max Bellerive are
not happy with the way the aid
money is being delivered,” reported
the AP’s Jonathon Katz on Mar. 5.
“‘The NGOs don’t tell us ... where
the money’s coming from or how
they’re spending it,’ he told The Associated
Press. ‘Too many people
are raising money without any
controls, and don’t explain what
they’re doing with it.’”
A few days earlier, Préval had
called on the U.S. to “stop sending
food aid so that our economy can
recover and create jobs,” alluding
to how Haitian farmers are ruined
when their produce is undercut
by free or low-cost surplus grains
dumped on Haiti as a “gift from
the people of the United States,” as
many USAID-packaged food sacks
read.
These comments came after
Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa,
as the acting president of the
South American alliance UNASUR,
declared on Jan. 30 in Port-au-
Prince: “There is a lot of imperialism
among the donors. They donate
fi rst, but most of it goes back to
them.” Préval stood smiling at his
side.
All of these remarks depart
from Washington’s script. Préval
may not be a threat like Venezuela’s
Chavez or Bolivia’s Morales, but he
appears to be acting up. The U.S.
response, to both bring Préval back
into line and to neutralize his timid
bid to “lead” Haiti’s reconstruction
efforts, has been to accuse Préval
government of being to corrupt
On Mar. 11, just one day after
Préval traveled to Washington
to meet with President Obama and
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
the State Department issued its
2009 Human Rights Report, where
Préval’s government received rather
poor marks, including “failure to
hold timely parliamentary elections,
alleged unlawful killings by
HNP offi cers, HNP participation
in kidnappings, overcrowding and
poor sanitation in prisons, arbitrary
threats and arrests, prolonged
pretrial detention, an ineffi cient judiciary
subject to signifi cant infl uence
by the executive and legislative
branches, severe corruption
in all branches of government,
violence and societal discrimination
against women, child abuse,
human traffi cking, and ineffective
enforcement of worker rights.”
Préval justly retorted that the
report was “arrogant,” but the part
that really bugged him was the
bit about “severe corruption in all
branches of government.”
“I don’t pretend that there
is no corruption in Haiti,” he responded peevishly, “but I don’t
accept that they say that it is the
government, that is the executive,
the chief of state, the prime ministers,
the ministers who are corrupt.”
To conclude, Préval pointed to
his good conduct in following foreign
economic dictates: “Either the
international community and the
fi nancial institutions don’t know
what their doing or else they are
complicit with the Haitian government
when they decide to reward
Haiti with debt relief” for its “responsible”
austerity measures of
cutting state jobs and privatizing
state enterprises.
Furthermore, Préval, a former
agronomist, said he wants to
see most reconstruction aid go to
rebuilding the infrastructure for reinvigorating
Haitian agriculture,
which has dramatically shriveled
over the past two decades of neoliberal
assault. However, people like
Guatemalan diplomat Edmund Mulet,
the acting head of the UN Mission
to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH),
has pooh-poohed such notions. Mulet
has insisted that emphasis must
be put on building assembly industry
sweatshops around Haiti where
U.S. manufacturers can take advantage
of Haiti’s $3 a day minimum
wage. (Once again, Préval may feel
betrayed because he took the political
hit for vetoing the $5 daily minimum
wage and ramming through
the $3 one.)
