Today is the fifth anniversary of the 2010 earthquake that killed more than 217,000 Haitians. It’s becoming a largely forgotten event—what smattering of mainstream U.S. commentary on Haiti has ranged from the explicit paternalism of today’s New York Times op-ed (“Haiti will be a global stepchild until it makes something people want to buy”) to the Washington Post’s slightly-less-overt editorial that implored the “international community” to “re-engage” a country in need of “outside help.” Greg Grandin and I oppose such a framing, arguing in a response published in the Washington Post that the U.S., UN, OAS, Canada and France have already been engaged, and are in large part responsible for the catastrophes that Haiti now faces. The UN has presided over a decade-long military occupation of the country, which was organized by the U.S. after the Bush administration destabilized and later kidnapped Haiti’s first democratically elected president, in 2004. UN troops, through criminal negligence, introduced cholera into the country, killing at least 8,700 Haitians. The UN steadfastly refuses to provide reparations to its victims. The U.S., Canada and France acted through the OAS to overturn the results of a sham election which they had financed in order to retain their preferred candidate. That election had excluded Haiti’s largest political party and was held just weeks after the cholera outbreak, attracting a voter turnout of 23 percent. Those who urge greater investments from the U.S. in Haiti should recognize that the status quo does little more than facilitate the enrichment of well-connected domestic elites. Consider the fact that USAID has awarded $1.5 billion in contracts to Haiti. Only 1 percent of this has gone to Haitian organizations, while 56 percent has gone to Beltway firms. For-profit development company Chemonics International, for example, received $216 million; the U.S. gave the Haitian Ministry of Health $170.9 million. In 2000, extreme poverty in rural Haiti stood at 38 percent; in 2012 it was unchanged—38 percent. Until the citizens of the U.S., France and Canada successfully contrain their political leaders from routinely violating Haitian sovereignty and self-determination, Haitians will never share in the improved living standards that much of the rest of the hemisphere has experienced. The U.S. and its allies understand that Haitians, if acting without the constant threat of outside coercion and if given the chance to freely elect their own leaders, would chart an independent course of development and join the progressive tide that has prevailed throughout Latin America over the past decade and a half. This prospect is anathema to them—Haiti and other poor, weak countries like Paraguay and Honduras, unable to withstand intervention, serve as grim reminders of successful U.S. rollback. The Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH)i is one of a few organizations that doesn’t function under the patronizing belief that Haitians are entitled to greater generosity. IJDH instead demands accountability from powerful institutions that continue to subvert Haitians’ aspirations for independence, self-governance and dignity. Consider supporting IJDH today with a donation and a commitment to participate in its tireless advocacy: ijdh.org/take-action/
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 23:37:30 +0000
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