Learning From Shattered Haiti's Year of Struggle
by Michelle Chen
ColorLines: January 5, 2011
A year ago this month, Haiti was flattened by a seismic catastrophe. It was
hardly the only tragedy that the tiny nation has faced in its 220-year
history as the first republic born of a slave revolt. Arguably, Haiti has
always been an epicenter of struggle and resistance. But the earthquake-and
the morass of bureaucratic corruption that continues to frustrate recovery
efforts-has drawn the world's attention, and the hopes of activists around
the globe, more powerfully than it has in generations.
Haiti's plight has drifted in and out of the media spotlight, but the
society persists, as it always has, through natural disasters, political
conflict, disease and destitution. Haitians' constant struggle to survive
underscores the systemic failures of government and international bodies
alike. Yet, resilient grassroots activism in Haitian communities has carved
out new space for re-imagining development models, global solidarity, and
the definition of "humanitarian aid."
Post-Colonial Purse Strings
With the recovery barely off the ground, Haiti is still grappling with basic
material needs. Though donors have pledged about $10 billion, the actual
deployment of program funding has been agonizingly slow and haphazard. Talk
of permanent, sustainable rebuilding of infrastructure and housing is
suspended in political limbo, with hundreds of thousands still warehoused in
tents. Not even the majority of the earthquake rubble has been cleared,
according to the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, the Clinton-led
international donor coalition.
In an analysis of Haiti's post-disaster progress, the Brookings Institution
cautioned:
[P]articular difficulties in four areas are impeding Haiti's recovery:
governance, displacement, housing and violence. Problems in these four areas
didn't suddenly emerge after the earthquake-rather they are rooted in
Haiti's history. ... The four challenges are all inter-related-when people
are displaced, it makes it harder for them to vote; poor housing contributes
to violence, etc.
Yet the patterns of poverty and displacement extend far past Haiti's shores,
tracing back to a legacy of imperialism. Institutions like the International
Monetary Fund have long used the pretext of economic "rescue" to shackle
Haiti to predatory "development" policies.
Economist Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic Policy and Research
recently remarked in The Guardian, "Is it because Haitians are poor and
black that their most fundamental human and democratic rights can be
trampled upon?"
Haiti's most recent wave of crisis suggests a troubling answer. When still
reeling from the quake, Haitians were then battered by a virulent cholera
outbreak and further insulted with a discredited election.
The spread of cholera is the culmination of overlapping health disasters.
With estimates of as many as 400,000 cholera cases this year, the outbreak
exposed structural flaws in humanitarian health care and understandable
public distrust of the aid regime. Following reports connecting the disease
to contamination caused by U.N. troops, local anger exploded. Sadly,
mounting resentment against foreign intervention in Haiti has reportedly
spilled over into backlash against voodoo practitioners, reflecting the
flailing desperation of a disenfranchised populace.
The haywire international medical response, meanwhile, hasn't even come
close to confronting the underlying causes of the outbreak, including
chronically deficient, underfunded water systems.
After the fraud-stained election that advanced the establishment candidate
Jude Célestin, protests and post-election violence cast further doubt upon
local capacity for managing the recovery. But perhaps more threatening was
the talk in Washington of holding humanitarian assistance hostage to
penalize Haiti's government. Whatever the international response, the
fallout from the election will again fall on the most vulnerable.
Yet some say Haiti's social service system has actually improved since the
earthquake; there are at least new doctors and sorely needed supplies on the
ground. On the other hand, once aid workers pull out, no one knows what
shape Haiti will be left in.
The Toronto Star's Catherine Porter outlined the moral ambiguities of
foreign-sponsored aid:
[H]ealth-care spending has almost doubled from 2008, with donors pouring
$460 million into health services. ... The problem is leadership.
Traditionally, Haiti's health ministry has been a junior partner of the big
international donors. The result is a patchwork, incoherent health-care
system. Foreign-funded programs for patients with HIV and AIDS flourished,
while public hospitals slumped with neglect.
Whose Recovery Is it?
Small, community-based humanitarian groups have been marginalized by both
government and international institutions. In a May 2010 interview published
by the UK-based Progressio, Colette Lespinasse of the NGO Groupe d'Appui aux
Rapatriés & Réfugiés expressed disillusionment at being shut out of the
process of drafting the officially-endorsed recovery plans:
If the reconstruction process is carried out in the same exclusionary
manner, and without consensus and respect, we will not be eliminating
poverty in Haiti. On the contrary, we will be building more fragmentation
and divisions in a process that requires building consensus.
The same complaints recur in the private sector as embattled Haitian
businesses struggle to seize precious rebuilding contracts. The AP reports,
"Out of every US$100 of US contracts now paid out to rebuild Haiti, Haitian
firms have successfully won US$1.60." That's less than 2 percent of
contracted rebuilding funds going to local entrepreneurs.
The Haitian diaspora, long an integral part of Haiti's economy, also remains
on the sidelines of the political dialogue on recovery. The Obama
administration hasn't even spared the burgeoning Haitian immigrant community
from its most draconian immigration policies. Rights groups recently urged
the White House to postpone plans to deport Haitians who have completed
criminal sentences. Such a move would not only threaten to split up families
here, but also turn America's "unwanted" migrants into internal refugees in
their ravaged homeland.
Subtle paternalism comes through in the language used to describe the
disaster's aftermath. Porter, for instance, calls the destruction of
Port-au-Prince's primary hospital a "mercy killing" that could facilitate
rebuilding the system from scratch.
Similar sentiment surfaced after Hurricane Katrina. In an email exchange
with me, human-rights activist Beverly Bell, who works on Haiti initiatives
with Other Worlds, described the parallels between New Orleans and Haiti:
The disasters brought racism-and in Haiti, neo-colonialism-into full
display. ... Both media and governmental portrayals cast Black people as
savages who needed to be policed, and falsely reported looting and violence
in what were actually largely calm situations. In Louisiana, the governor
issued a shoot-to-kill order, and only recently have the untold numbers of
police murders-largely of African-American men-begun to be brought to
justice. In Haiti, one of the first international responses was to send in
military forces [including tens of thousands of U.S. and U.N. soldiers]. ...
In both places, much of the money for repair and reconstruction has gone to
outside 'experts,' in part because the local communities are perceived to be
too corrupt to manage it.
While the international community loses its trust in Haiti, Haitians are
losing faith even more rapidly. On the cusp of the New Year, in the midst of
a brutal police crackdown on protesters, 28-year old Aliodor Pierre told AP
reporter Jonathan Katz, "God is the only one we have hope in."
Pushing History Forward
Foreign NGOs, Haitian officials and civil society groups could all find
reasons to blame each other for the ongoing crisis. Like it or not, though,
sustainable recovery demands cooperation. What's that look like? A
global-scale fundraising effort, accountability from both Haitian government
and donor countries, and the engagement of marginalized communities on their
own terms.
NGOs must also make humanitarian assistance more nimble and less
bureaucratic. The key is "decentralizing" aid systems so communities have
the autonomy and resources to respond flexibly to local needs. The cholera
response highlighted the point. Noting that thousands of preventable deaths
occurred, Unni Karunakara of International Council of Médecins Sans
Frontières criticized the "cluster" system that ropes together different
organizations under U.N. authority. "Co-ordination of aid organisations may
sound good to government donors seeking political influence," he writes. "In
Haiti, though, the system is legitimising NGOs that claim responsibility for
health, sanitation or other areas in a specific zone, but then do not have
the capacity or know-how to carry out the necessary work. As a result,
people's needs go unmet."
All Hands Volunteers, a U.S.-based group that I worked with briefly last
summer, has begun etching a blueprint for a more sustainable Haiti in
Leogane, a small city near Port-au-Prince. Though their project in Haiti was
designed to be temporary, in recent months they've laid some serious
groundwork. The group has set up innovative bio-sand water filtration
systems ("eventually a sustainable small business," says International
Operations Director Marc Young), installed simple composting toilets to deal
with rampant sanitation problems, and constructed several transitional
schoolhouses.
Their biggest achievement to date may be the clearing of mountains of
debris-an often neglected stumbling block to recovery-in order to help
families begin rebuilding their homes. More importantly, unlike the many
organizations that parachute into disaster zones, All Hands makes a point of
training local youth in order to create a skilled, sustainable, local
humanitarian workforce.
Other Worlds likewise helps Haitian activists take the lead in campaigns on
issues ranging from sustainable agriculture to sexual violence. They offer
technical assistance, political support and international solidarity with
other people's movements. Yet their conscientious partnership, says Beverly
Bell, is founded on a "recognition that, as outsiders, there is much that we
don't know."
In fact, no one knows where Haiti is headed, but the nation has survived
other shock waves. The quake opened the next chapter in a tempestuous
national history, which began over two centuries ago when the black
resistance made European empires tremble. Tomorrow, when the descendants of
those first revolutionaries stream into a makeshift schoolhouse, they'll pen
another page in a long story of emancipation, always to be continued.
(Image: Jean-Pierre Joseph being treated for cholera in a treatment facility
in Cabaret, Haiti. Getty Images/Joe Raedle)
© 2011 ColorLines
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