Democracy Now! in Port-Au-Prince: Patrick Elie on Haiti Six Months After the
Earthquake
July 12, 2010
Haiti remains a nation in ruins, six months after one of the world's worst
natural disasters killed more than 300,000 people. Thousands of bodies still
lay under rubble. We begin today's show in Port-Au-Prince outside what
remains of the Montana Hotel where some 200 people died in the earthquake.
We speak to Patrick Elie, a longtime Haitian democracy activist and Haiti's
former Secretary of State for Public Security.
"We are a people who can fend for ourselves," Elie said. "We have a vision
of where we want to go so we do need friends but we don't need people to
think for us or to pity us and that is probably this attitude that is
playing a part in the aid not being forthcoming."
(Song, by Rosemond)
AMY GOODMAN: That's Rosemond. We were with him six months ago, considered
the American Idol of Haiti. Six months ago was just days after the
earthquake, January 12, 2010. One of the worst natural disasters in history.
Over 300,000 people have died. Yet, since we saw Rosemond after the
earthquake in Creole, known as Terre Tremble, the earth trembled, not much
has changed. Thousands of people remain under the rubble. The rubble has
hardly been moved. 1.7 million people are homeless. There are more than 1300
official refugee camps. Hundreds more dotting the country. People under
tarps, under tents, outside their homes on baking plateaus, waiting, waiting
for something to change here in Haiti. Today we will be speaking with a
human rights attorney. We will go to one of those camps. But first, we are
going to speak with the former Secretary of State for Public Affairs, a
longtime pro-democracy activist. We are standing in the ruins of the Montana
Hotel. Just behind me, one part of that hotel that was the site of
international press for many years. 111 guests died, more than 200 people
were killed in the earthquake, people who worked at the hotel. Today it
continues to lie in ruins. Our guest is Patrick Elie We welcome you to
Democracy Now!
PATRICK ELIE: Thank you for the invitation.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you first talk about your country?
PATRICK ELIE: Yes. As you know, maybe a lot of the American public don't
know, Haiti has had a very difficult history, having emerged from slavery
and colonialism through a war against the most powerful countries at the
time. And since then, for a lot of its history, Haiti has been almost
blockaded, or at least isolated and faced the hostility of the powerful
countries of the time. On top of that, Haitian revolution after independence
did not actually bring what the people of Haiti expected from it. What
happened is that a minority seized most of the riches and as a consequence,
the development of the country has been a very unequal. I believe Haiti is
now one of the countries where you have the most social divide, is the
widest, and probably as a consequence of that, the Haitian state is very
weak, has always been after independence and has mostly, for the majority of
Haitians, the power of [inaduible]. Haitians have never had a chance to
collaborate with their state. And even though dictatorship after
dictatorship took power in Haiti, what they brought was not order, but
chaos. It seems like a paradox, but the Haitian system had only one
objective, was for the strong man at the time and the classes that were his
allies, to hold power. They didn't care what happened on the periphery of
power. And we are actually in the reconstruction, and even before that, you
could say that the horrible toll of the earthquake, even though its
magnitude was serious, but that toll is the result of the behavior of the
Haitian state, often allied with foreign power, to disenfranchise the
majority of the Haitian people and, if you want, impoverish the peasants who
had no choice but to either migrate toward the DR and the Cuban cane fields
when these belonged to U.S. interests, or to migrate to Port-au-Prince. And
there, there was no plan to accommodate them, and the result is what you
have seen, shantytown upon shantytown, no standards for building, very high
population density, and that's why when the earthquake struck we had so much
damage and more than the damage, so much loss of life.
AMY GOODMAN: It wasn't long after the Haitian earthquake there was an
earthquake in Chile. It was hundreds of times stronger than the Haitian
earthquake and yet hundreds of times fewer people died, less than 300 people
died. In Haiti it was close to 300,000. Now I want to ask you about the aid.
There has been close to $11 billion promised. Haiti hasn't seen even 10% of
that. Why is that?
PATRICK ELIE: Well, you might point to the bureaucracy of, you know, the
international donors; but also I think that the weakness of the Haitian
state also explains that. You see, it is a vicious circle. The powers that
be-and I mean by that, the U.S., France, and Canada-but mostly the U.S.,
have worked over decades to weaken the Haitian state. And then now they are
using this weakness as a pretense, not to free the aid or have it go through
Haitian authorities. So, that 10% of aid that has been released actually,
most of it did not go through the Haitian state. And I can say, even though
I am not a specialist, that a lot of it went into things that were not
indispensable for reconstruction. As you know, in the beginning we have 82nd
Airborne being deployed around Haiti and in Haiti. These cost a lot of money
and all this money, if you want to count it, is money that went to help
Haiti. So, it gives you a false sense that, you know, already a lot had been
done and we are not seeing the result on the ground.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you're saying, less than 10% of the money was released and
much of that was actually to the U.S. military?
PATRICK ELIE: A lot to the U.S. military and to the NGO's. And this is not
to disparage what the NGO's have done here. But the lack of coordination
explains a lot of the slowness of the process. Mind you, I don't want to be
too severe in my judgment, and especially I have been reading the U.S. press
and as always, they're clobbering the Haitian authorities. I am not at all
saying that we have the best government. I have always said we have a state
that is not only weak but apart with the nation. But on top of that, the
government-or the State was weakened more by the earthquake itself because
the earthquake hit not a remote part of Haiti but right smack in the middle
of the administrative, political, and economic center of the country. As a
result, about 17% of public servants died, ministries collapsed with all of
their memory, their archives, their computers, etc. So, we are facing a
pharaonic task of rebuilding. Besides, everybody in Haiti seems to agree we
cannot actually rebuild Port-au-Prince as it was. So, aside from building,
you have to plan again differently. This involves some heart wrenching
decisions that have to be made.
AMY GOODMAN: Like?
PATRICK ELIE: Like, you know, are you going to displace people? Are you
going to, for example, using eminent domain, expropriate people so they
don't
live on terrain that is inherently weak. Or, are you going to, as I say,
expropriate people and already, you know, the troubles are starting. Land
tenure in Haiti is total chaos. This is also the result of the behavior of
the Haitian elites over centuries. They appropriated land which was,
especially after independence and the end of slavery which would have been
common property, and they appropriated vast tract of land, pushing the
peasants-the newly freed slaved who did not want to work on the plantation
system anymore-to the mountains, you know, which would also help to explain
the frustration. And now, of course, there is a lot of discussion about who
owns what piece of land. And it is almost intractable to resolve that
through the law. I don't know if the Haitian state is going to be forceful
enough given the size of the problem, to actually by decree, decide what is
going to be done.
AMY GOODMAN: We are going to break and we will come back to this discussion.
We are speaking to Patrick Elie. He is the former Minister of Public Safety
here in Haiti. He is a long time pro-democracy activist. A country here,
Haiti, that is still in ruins, six months after the earthquake, one of the
worst natural disasters in history, killed close to three hundred thousands
of people, many thousands still lie under the rubble. Most of it has not
been moved. 1.7 million people are displaced. There are well over 1,300
official refugee camps, hundreds of unofficial ones. We'll be back with
Patrick Elie in a minute.
[music break]
AMY GOODMAN: We are broadcasting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, from ground
zero, the center of the earthquake six months ago, January 12, 2010. One of
the worst natural catastrophes in human history. Close to 300,000 died, 1.7
million people are displaced in the refugee camps, and where is the money?
People everywhere, as we go from camp to camp is asking, where is the
support? There are many NGO's, the American Red Cross collected more than a
billion dollars and people continue to ask where is the support, where is
the aide, why don't we have better homes vendees tarps and tents. They are
and able population, wanting to work and move rubble. But there is no
coordination, they say. We are joined by Patrick Elie, former secretary for
public security here in Haiti, a longtime pro-democracy activists. In fact,
Patrick Elie, where you six months ago today?
PATRICK ELIE I was having a drink with some friends. Fortunately under a
very light structure. So, the house collapsed, but the structure did not
because it was simply, you know, kind of like a tart, especially made of tin
roof-kind of like a tarp, a tin roof and four posts. The house collapsed in
not this, and that is the reason why we were not crushed because the House
totally collapse.
AMY GOODMAN: Here where we are now, the Hotel Montana, the former Hotel
Montana, the site of the elite hotel where the elite gathered, international
press. 111 people died, who knows how many are still in the rubble. More
than 200 people died all together with the workers who are here, and we are
standing in its remains. Patrick Elie, you have referred to the vultures.
Who do you mean?
PATRICK ELIE Well, I mean both the local who are trying to-if you want to
take advantage of the situation to make money, but mostly also to the usual
vultures. Whenever there is a catastrophe, there are vultures. On the grand
scale like that, there are grandscale vultures. Talking about the likes
of-Dyncorp, Blackwater, Halliburton-I am sure they are already laying down
their plans to take as much of the loot as they can, not caring about what
ever they do, what impact it will have on Haiti's future. And whether or not
we take into account whether the Haitian people themselves want. And I don't
know, if Haitians and their friend's at the international level, can match
your lobbying power of these large vultures, who are very well connected, as
you know, not only in Washington but I would say internationally.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you see signs of who you call these vultures, the mercenary
companies that you mentioned, Dyncorp, Blackwater, Halliburton, here now?
PATRICK ELIE I am not saying I am seeing them now. But as you know, the
reconstruction hasn't started yet. That is when you will see the grabbing.
But, in the first weeks after the earthquake-I almost said the coup-we saw
mercenaries accompanying some NGO's and even some journalists and carrying
war weapons without any kind of license from the Haitian government. It was
like we were in a no-man's land, in a open country. So, this I saw as a sign
of what might come if Haitians and Haiti's friends are not vigilant, are not
watchful.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you, you mentioned the coup. The interim commission
to reconstruct Haiti, known as the C-I-R-H, many people have raised concerns
about, a little more than two dozen people, half Haitian but half not
Haitian. It is headed by the Prime Minister of Haiti, Jean-Max Bellerive,
and former President Bill Clinton. The only one with the veto power is the
president, Preval.
PATRICK ELIE Preval, at the moment. But if that structure is kept, it will
be the next president.
AMY GOODMAN: But the shock of people that there are-and it was originally
proposed to have more foreigners than Haitians-and among those who are on
the commission are people like Gary Lissad, who was the attorney for the
coup leaders in the first crew against Aristide when he was deposed in 1991
to 1994 and Reginald Boulos who helped finance the coup. These are the
people in the interim so-called reconstruction commission.
PATRICK ELIE Yes, this gives me pause. But you have to see in what
conditions these were picked. President Preval has tried always during his
second presidency to arrive at a decision with consensus. Time will tell
whether this was the right approach. But of course, this worries me
personally because, as you know, I have been involved with Haitian politics
for many years now and I've met some of these people. By the way, in the
name of truth, I should say that Mr. Lissad, after being the lawyer of the
first coup makers, then became President Aristide's Justice Minister, which
is something which always shocked me.
AMY GOODMAN: And you also worked for President Aristide and now are advising
presidents Preval after the earthquake?
PATRICK ELIEAfter the earthquake, even though I tried before to keep
strictly my autonomy, but after the earthquake I thought that it was
imperative that I help as much as I can.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think is most important for people to understand
right now? People who are watching and listening to and reading this
broadcast all over the world?
PATRICK ELIE I think the most important thing is the resilience, the
courage, and the discipline of the Haitian people. I would have given up
after the earthquake given the size of the destruction, if not for the
behavior of the Haitian people. And that's what people have to understand:
We are a people who can fend for ourselves. We have a vision of where we
want to go. So we do need friends but we don't need people to think for us,
or to pity us. That is probably the attitude that's playing a part in the
aid not being forthcoming. Our friends, if they are friends, should trust
us.
You know, people say nothing has changed. Not enough has changed after the
earthquake, but some things have changed. The first days, people were living
out in the streets without anything, without any type of shelter. And
completely in chaos and disorder. Now camps have been organized very often
by the people themselves. A lot is mentioned about the breakdown of
security. After a tragedy like that, you always have some form a breakdown
of security and a camp environment is not conducive to the best type of
security. But, things are a lot less bad that is being described, not
because of the Haitian police or because of the UNPOL or the minister, but
because people have started organizing themselves and taking care of their
security themselves. Since the earthquake, one thing that has given me some
hope is that the movement of neighborhood committee has sprung up again, and
I have been to numerous meetings, the last one Saturday, with a federation
of neighborhood committee. And they are talking about precisely that, how
they are going to take care of their community.
AMY GOODMAN: Patrick Elie, we are going to have to leave it there. When we
come back, we will be in camp Corail. You will be hearing from the refugees
themselves. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace
report. We are in Haiti, a country still in ruins.
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