Let Haitians Rebuild Haiti

[TotallyOz]

One of my professors wrote this article on Haiti. He has spent a vast amount of time there researching for his books.

From Madison Smartt Bell

For too long before this last natural disaster, Haiti has been full of hands with nothing to do, and a lot of those hands have picked up guns. In the pressing need to rebuild the capital and other regions leveled by the earthquake, those hands could be put to more constructive use. It will make a great positive difference for the country if they are.

By nothing to do I mean no employment; it's not like Haitians just sit around. Most of them, the vast majority, spend every day figuring out food for themselves and their families for that single day. Better than most, they understand the line from Scripture, We are not promised tomorrow. That urgent struggle for day to day survival makes for mental as well as physical stress. As a friend of mine told me a couple of years back, It takes a lot of transactions in your head to make twenty dollars.

I have known this man, now pushing thirty, since he was in his middle teens. He is trained and capable as a guide, driver, plumber, electrician, mechanic, small-engine and air-conditioning repairmen. Like most of the young men of Haiti, he can almost never find any work in any of his numerous trades, though not for want of trying.

It's not to be denied that Haiti has internal problems. True, as David Brooks put it in a recent New York Times op-ed, there are some "progress-resistant cultural influences" (though I think it is gratuitously insulting for him to count the religion of the Haitian majority as one of them) as well as "high levels of social mistrust." But the straight-up paternalism Brooks recommends as a solution is likely to lose the whole opportunity. And yes, there is an opportunity here.

There's money to be made in rebuilding a destroyed infrastructure, although, since Haiti has no oil, it's not the same kind of money some thought we were going to make in Iraq. However, we do have a chance to repeat the same mistake. Those who followed the military into Iraq wanted all the goodies for themselves, and so they imported all the labor. Iraqi young men, recently mustered out of Saddam's army, were tacitly advised to sit on their hands and starve. They started kidnapping and killing civilian contractors because they had, reasonably enough under suchcumstances, identified them as the real enemy.

Before the earthquake, Haiti's persistent insecurity problem had come very close to being solved by intelligent, tightly focused cooperation between Préval's government, the Haitian National Police, and the military forces of the U.N. mission, MINUSTAH. This progress is real, so real that the U.S. State Department recently reduced its cautions against travel to Haiti to the lowest level since 1995. There is no absolute reason for that gain to be lost now, although it might be. Two factors have persistently driven the Haitian insecurity problem. The turmoil of the past ten years put more guns into the country than ever before, and a great many of these guns are in the hands of young men who have no other meal ticket.

Rebuilding Haitian infrastructure could also rebuild the Haitian economy if the builders do one simple thing, hire Haitians. They are strong, quick-witted, adept at making something out of nothing, willing -- I mean desperate -- to work, and who could possibly be better motivated than they are right now.

Hire Haitians.

Hire Haitians. I feel the need to say it many times because insofar as the rebuilders come from the United States, where there is a considerable unemployment problem right now, there will be a temptation to grab all the goodies for ourselves. It will be a disaster if we do. Haiti is not considered an "existential threat" to the United States, but it's a whole lot closer than the countries that are.

One day a couple of years ago a friend and I accepted the help of a couple of young men to cut brush in aid of a survey. They slashed into the job, like demons. I will never forget the single-minded ferocity in their faces. It was so inspirational that I picked up a machete and tried it myself, but in the broiling summer heat I lasted about ten minutes. The young men who accomplished the real job were not expecting to be paid, but had volunteered, as my friend explained, so as not to pass a regrettable day. Yes, I did pay them fairly for their work, but within a week I was gone from Haiti, leaving them with their machetes, and no other prospects.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/madison-smartt-bell/let-haitians-rebuild-hait_b_431219.html

[TampaYankee]

IMO Haiti needs a 5 to 7 year Gov't/Private funded Marshall Plan, possible as long as ten years. It needs to be rebuilt from the ground up -- infrastructure, housing, business facilities, government facilities. There is no reason that Haitian Labor should not particpate in the forefront of that rebuilding effort,

This can result in rebuilding not only the physical facilities but the workplace social culture as well. Such a sustained rebuilding effort will contribute to a working economy which itself can foster an improvement in educational standards over that decade. The totality of this activity will lead to more businesses locating there to take advantage of an affordable reliable labor pool waiting to be tapped which in turn contributes to sustaing the economy over the long term. At least it sounds like a plan.

According to others who have looked at the numbers it is actually cheaper than dealing with the long term costs of illegal immigration from the island and benefits the entire community as well

Sounds like a win-win. .

[MsGuy]

Where is the government, TY, where is the government? A week after the catastrophe the feckless president is still hiding in a police station. I realize a few ministers and some bureaucrats are dead but where are the rest? Is there not a single element of the Hatian government capable of acting responsibly?

The most likely result of all this is the US (& others) will send massive amounts of emergency relief to get the situation stabilized. Say that's 6 months to a year. After that the Army will flip control to the Hatian government and UN relief agencies, who will proceed to squander & embezzle whatever long term aid is made available. The Hatians outside the government will see precious little benefit.

OZ, ask your professor friend how he thinks the Haitian governing elite will respond to the presence of large sums of reconstruction money. Judging by the success of the Haitians who have settled in the US, I expect he is right about the spirit and ability of the Hatian people, but I suspect there are also very good reasons for those "high levels of social distrust" not least of which is the "progress-resistant culture" of the elite. Lordy, what a PC way of describing the enormous corruption and contempt for ordinary people embedded in upper class families there.

Maybe my information is out of date. I truly hope so. But I suspect likelihood of Haiti's rulers seeing the light is about the same as OZ knee walking down to the altar rail of the First Holiness Church of Reform, Alabama.

[TampaYankee]

Where is the government, TY, where is the government? A week after the catastrophe the feckless president is still hiding in a police station. I realize a few ministers and some bureaucrats are dead but where are the rest? Is there not a single element of the Hatian government capable of acting responsibly?

The most likely result of all this is the US (& others) will send massive amounts of emergency relief to get the situation stabilized. Say that's 6 months to a year. After that the Army will flip control to the Hatian government and UN relief agencies, who will proceed to squander & embezzle whatever long term aid is made available. The Hatians outside the government will see precious little benefit.

OZ, ask your professor friend how he thinks the Haitian governing elite will respond to the presence of large sums of reconstruction money. Judging by the success of the Haitians who have settled in the US, I expect he is right about the spirit and ability of the Hatian people, but I suspect there are also very good reasons for those "high levels of social distrust" not least of which is the "progress-resistant culture" of the elite. Lordy, what a PC way of describing the enormous corruption and contempt for ordinary people embedded in upper class families there.

Maybe my information is out of date. I truly hope so. But I suspect likelihood of Haiti's rulers seeing the light is about the same as OZ knee walking down to the altar rail of the First Holiness Church of Reform, Alabama.

We have dealt with this before. It just takes resolve and determination. I think it not a stretch to label the Nazi and Japanese governments at the end of WWII as broken and corrupt at the time, with the countries as disaster areas, if man made.

Clearly, Haiti is an disaster zone without effective self-government and without any need as far as I can see to pretend otherwise. Ideally, Haiti should be declared a Human Disaster and Emergency Protectorate by the UN, desingated as a temporary protectorate with a charter not to exceed ten years. (If not the UN then maybe the OAS although that is more problematic politically I suspect.)

A Protectorate Governor needs to appointed with the power of Marshall Law, secured by UN forces, to oversee the appointment of local governing authority, police, and schools along with the reconstruction effort and coordination of NGO efforts. Over the reconstruction period, power would be ceded in phases to local governments and a National Congress. Eventually, a presidential election would be held. His role would be to act as Chief Administrator subject to the Protectorate Governor, ultimately leading to a transition to full self-government after ten years. That's the general idea anyway. Did I mention, we have done this before?

The idea is expressly not to rely on, participate with, or provide support to past corrupt institutions, community segments, and individuals. Rather, to the contrary, these segments are to be cut out of the reconstruction effort. This won't succeed otherwise. As reconstruction would just strengthen and empower them to maintain their corrupt stranglehold on the country.

[RA1]

The US has tried this approach (invading Haiti and "controlling" the government) at least twice in the last several years as well as donated billions of dollars. Every time we leave, and sometimes before we leave, a or the corrupt government takes over the "game" and starts siphoning off the money. Unless we want to be conquerors instead of liberators, like MsGuy, I see little chance of really "helping" Haiti. Please don't suggest the UN. What a joke they are.

Best regards,

RA1

[Guest JamesWilson]

The US has tried this approach (invading Haiti and "controlling" the government) at least twice in the last several years as well as donated billions of dollars. Every time we leave, and sometimes before we leave, a or the corrupt government takes over the "game" and starts siphoning off the money. Unless we want to be conquerors instead of liberators, like MsGuy, I see little chance of really "helping" Haiti. Please don't suggest the UN. What a joke they are.

Best regards,

RA1

TY, MsGuy, folks, there is no doubt that Haiti needs immediate support from the international community to stabilize the country, and everyone seems to agree on that.

My concern is not on the short-term stabilization efforts, but on the longer-term rebuilding/transformational efforts that need to take place.

What most aren't aware of is the fact that western capitalists/corporatists/neoliberals have been responsible for undermining Haiti's efforts to build their own country almost from the day they first declared independance from France.

Whether it was the backbreaking debt that Haiti was forced to take on to pay off France for letting them go (which took them decades to pay off) to the disaster capitalistic policies forced on Haiti by the IMF and the US in more recent decades, Haiti's sorry state has more to do with our "help" then any deficiencies in Haiti's culture or people.

It is critical that we have a better understanding of how we "helped" Haiti in the past, because if we don't there is a real danger that our "help" will not make things better, but instead continue the forced enslavement of this tiny country.

I encourage those interested in the backstory to dig a bit deeper into the shameful way western governments have treated Haiti. Here are a few links that you could start with:

http://www.alternet.org/world/145183/haiti_didn't_become_a_poor_nation_all_on_its_own_--_the_u.s's_hidden_role_in_the_disaster

http://www.alternet.org/world/145142/haiti's_tragic_history_is_entwined_with_the_story_of_america

http://www.truthout.org/profiting-from-haiti%E2%80%99s-crisis-disaster-capitalism-washington%E2%80%99s-backyard56205

http://www.truthout.org/an-open-letter-david-brooks-haiti56199

http://www.alternet.org/world/145305/how_western_domination_has_undermined_haiti%E2%80%99s_ability_to_recover_from_natural_devastation/

[TampaYankee]

Please don't suggest the UN. What a joke they are.

I appreciate and share your skepticism about the UN. For the most part it is a feckless institution suffering from paralysis as a rule and from its own corruption.

However, on certain occasions it has been effective. Those instances are when there has been an overwhelming since of need, when international politics did not override the issue at hand, and when it was clear that nothing more than authorization of action would be asked of the UN members. Three cases come to mind: The Korean Conflict, The First Gulf War and The Second Gulf War. There may be others but if so then I don't recall them at the moment. Nevertheless, those three incidents offer a pretty good precedent for this action.

[RA1]

I am not sure what you mean by those 3 situations. The Korean "police action" is still going on some 50+ years later with no resolution in sight. It isn't helpful when the head of the UN states that weather and bad luck are the cause of wide spread famine, etc. in N. Korea. I seems obvious that the first and second Gulf Wars did not come to complete conclusions, good or bad. I realize that world politics are always going to be in a state of flux but the UN and many of its' members are part of the problem, rather than part of the solution.

Best regards,

RA1

[TampaYankee]

I am not sure what you mean by those 3 situations. The Korean "police action" is still going on some 50+ years later with no resolution in sight. It isn't helpful when the head of the UN states that weather and bad luck are the cause of wide spread famine, etc. in N. Korea. I seems obvious that the first and second Gulf Wars did not come to complete conclusions, good or bad. I realize that world politics are always going to be in a state of flux but the UN and many of its' members are part of the problem, rather than part of the solution.

Best regards,

RA1

I'm not quite sure what your point is other than there are several reasons one can choose to slime the UN. I'm certainly not going to argue the contrary, in general. For the most part it is an ineffectual organiization. On rare occsasions it causes trouble or allows itself to be used for the same by some. That is part of the fabric of the UN. We cannot expect a collection of banana republics, tin pot dictatorships, totalitarian regimes and some countries who view us in a adversarial relationship to really see things our way all the time. Even our allies don't always share our views and goals.

My argument is not that the UN is an efficient effective organization day in and day out. Only that it can be useful in certain circumstances and that it is beneficial to use it in those circumstances.

If you find fault with the outcomes of my three examples of successful utilization of the UN, then the fault lies not with the UN but with the USA. We, the USA, shaped the outcomes of all three of those episodes. Whatever credit or blame for the outcome of those episodes is not the doing of the UN mettling. The UN acted effectively in all three of those instances in terms of what the US wanted. In each case the UN authorized action and then got out of the way.

The UN is not an international goverment with an armed force. It is an international NGO with primary purpose to provide a platform for discussion of international problems and hopefully to achieve a consensus of action or resolution that might be undertaken by parties involved or barrng that by member states, if there is consensus. Unfortunately, such consensus is rarely achieved. Haiti is one case where it is.

For Haiti we need the UN to codify the international consensus that action needs to be taken to aid Haiti. and more importantly, an international authorization for member states to volunteer their efforts in reconstruction. Importantly, this authorization provides a limitation of authority by any member state to guard against potential abuse. Will it insure success or that no abuse will take place? No, it cannot do that. However, it can deny 'legitamacy' to any such abuse.

For this to be done right we need the legitmacy of the UN to put an international face on this, to bless all help that is given, and to put limits on that help so that any overreaching is clearly demarcated. Sure we could do it unilaterally but as we all know, we would be pillaried for usurping Haiti for our own purposes. We have been down that road before and the charges then were not without merit.

Beyond that the UN should step out of the way unless abuses are uncovered.

[RA1]

Not picking on you, but merely suggesting that not much that I know of the UN has done has been successful. They spend a lot of money and they have none of their own. They spend a lot of political largess and have none of their own, according to me. The League of Nations was a complete flop and the UN is also. It would be a good idea to start over, wouldn't it? Every contributing nation could certainly get a lot more bang for their bucks, don't you think?

Best regards,

RA 1

[TampaYankee]

The League of Nations was a complete flop and the UN is also. It would be a good idea to start over, wouldn't it? Every contributing nation could certainly get a lot more bang for their bucks, don't you think?

I think we are in basic agreement about the overall effectiveness of the UN. As for the failure of the League or Nations, much of that failure is attributed to the failure of the US to support it. That is not to say it would have been any more successful than the UN has been.

As for starting over with the UN? You are much more the optimist than I. What would change? Same countries, same politics, same crap. Reduce countries defeats purpose of international forum. Also, doesnt get rid of biggest obstacles -- Russia, China. Get rid of them and we have NATO, more or less. I have only one improvement for the UN from the US perspective -- reduce our financial commitment and let other countries carry more of the cost. No reason we should support some of the bullshit the UN dishes out. It wouldn't hurt my feelings either if it relocated to some other country. Other than those items I cannot imagine any other real improvements to be achieved.

[RA1]

We are in agreement. Thanks for the replies.

Best regards,

RA1

[MsGuy]

So here we are 9 months later and what has changed except the camera crews have moved on and a cholera epidemic has been added to the mix?

The vast majority of the homeless are still living under makeshift plastic sheets. The UN buracracy has managed to build all of 150 [no, not a typo] permanant structures and erect 18,000 tents since the disaster. The majority of the people are not even being fed. In a country with at least 2 million able bodied adults unemployed there's no public works program even to clean the rubble from the streets or dig sanitary toilets.

And why not? And where is all that aid money going? The off shore bank accounts of the Haitian governing elite and the UN bureaucrats might be a good place to start looking.

"Why so little progress? Off the record, international aid workers blame Haiti's red tape ... and corruption. It takes an act of God, or a sizeable bribe to get aid and supplies out of the port."

You want to know how you die from cholera? You shit yourself to death. You shit out so much watery gruel that you die from dehydration and profound imbalance of your blood electrolytes. Untreated the death rate is up to 40% in a matter of days.

You want to know how to treat cholera? Take a bucket of clean water, stir in a couple of cups of sugar, a couple of tablespoons of sodium cloride (table salt) and a teaspoon or so of potassium cloride (the salt substitute available at your neighborhood grocery). Let the cholera patient drink as much as he can hold. Not exactly high tech medicine and it works like a charm.

That's it. That's all you need to do: replace the water, replace the electrolyes and throw in some sugar to keep the guy's strength up; he will be just fine in a few days.

But maybe those wonderful folks running Haiti are too tied up standing in line waiting their turn to transfer funds to their chosen safe haven. Must be some long lines these days at the wire transfer window.

[Lucky]

If the UN is not up to the job, perhaps installing a Catholic priest as president will get it done.

[RA1]

As president of Haiti or the US?

Best regards,

RA1

MsGuy-

Some of the elements of the "simple, cheap cure" may not be available at any price. When things go silly, like this, they go very, very silly.