Professing a desire to help Haiti recover from the devastating January 12th natural disaster may be noble, but the use of fuzzy numbers by the benefactors to that end is plainly deceiving and negates the purpose of the endeavor. Moreover the preconditions attached to the reconstruction project, i.e. international oversight and privatization of the remaining state enterprises, including the country’s ports of entry, practically dilute the government’s institutional role as sole representative of the country’s interests. This rescue mission, loaded with ulterior motives, epitomizes arrogance and indecency, because while Haiti is in desperate need of help the oppressors/saviors are setting up a shadowy entity responsible to no one.
Clearly the plan of reconstruction proposed by the international community poses an existential threat to our inalienable right as a free and sovereign nation, hence must be challenged by all sectors that stand for “one and indivisible Haiti”. To make the ready-to-implement plan more palatable to the public, it was promoted as a creation of the Haitian government, which eagerly acquiesced to the deception. That ironically makes it more unacceptable, since the actual government has a track record bordering on indifference to the predicament of the citizenry and willful subordination to the interests of the economic elite and international finance. Aptly, when the official version of the plan was unveiled at the Donors Meeting in New York on March 31st and its role practically downgraded to that of a passive participant, the government, having been duped, simply went along.
What is it exactly do these oppressors/saviors have in mind? Because the ready-to-implement experiment has no precedents from which one could form an educated opinion, one can only speculate as to what they are up to. Nonetheless, the history of induced instability, intimidations, extortions and military interventions that characterizes the relations between Haiti and the international community provides an insight into these people’s motives. It seems that the international community has decided that Haiti should not continue to exist as a sovereign entity as long as it doesn’t embrace western values (lock, stock and barrel) as its raison d’être. The inclusion of representatives of foreign NGOs and religious missions (peddlers of the gospel of resignation) in the supervisory board is consistent with the grand project of remaking the Haitian nation or bringing it to heel, which has eluded the international community for two centuries. Even the perpetual tormentors of Haiti’s majority (the Mediterranean economic elite that controls ¾ of the country’s wealth) have a seat in the supervisory board, while the country’s true representatives (Vodou practitioners, grassroots organizations and Lavalas) are excluded. Basically, these people have also decided that the new Haiti that will rise from the disaster should be a carbon copy of the old.
This patronizing attitude was also evident in a statement made the U.N Secretary-General representative in Haiti, Raymond Mulet, who nonchalantly tells the conference “If we (the international community) don’t do something about the situation, we will have a peacekeeping force in Haiti for the next 200 years”. Apparently, Mr. Mulet is banking on the heavy-handed tactics of the MINUSTAH, the infallibility of the politic of exclusion, the cloning of the current crop of politicians, the resilience of the Haitian people and the staying power of the present geopolitical realities. Otherwise, I cannot see how someone could make such an arrogant, undiplomatic and imprudent statement that negates the principles enumerated in the U.N Charter, Article 1(2), which states: To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace. Because the invasion of Haiti on February 29, 2004 and its continued occupation invalidated the principles of equal rights and self-determination of peoples and has not strengthened universal peace, the U.N Security Council, by its unwarranted actions (the many resolutions mandating the occupation), had in fact destroyed its own credibility as guarantor of peace and security.
If the Reconstruction plan, as presented at the Donors Meeting on March 31st, is integrally implemented, the destruction of the Haitian nation, which began with the abomination of April 14, 1825 (the extortion of 150 gold francs by France), the U.S occupation (1915-34), the truncating of Haitian territory (1929), which caused the deaths of 30.000 Haitians under Trujillo (1930) and the U.N mandate (2004-?) will be final. It will certainly be the triumph of oppression over freedom and arrogance over reason. At that meeting in New York, one was under the impression the oppressors/saviors were committed to the country’s development, but the final communiqué tells otherwise. What is a pledge? It is a solemn promise or agreement to do or refrain from doing something: e.g. a pledge to help or a pledge not to interfere. Unless the deliberations at the UN Donors Meeting on Haiti were misunderstood, the 5.2 billion-package could not possibly be considered a pledge since it included whatever amount was already spent since January 12th. The subterfuge may be good public relations for the donor countries, but will essentially amplify the mistrust between the Haitian government and the population.
To paraphrase Voltaire (1694-1778) who declared, upon becoming a freemason on April 4, 1778, one month before his actual death, “I had to die, in order to be reborn”. May be Haiti needs to die in order to be reborn, but without those who brought it to its knees.
ddjougan@gmail.com