Haiti After the Earthquake (39 page)

One thing that isn't open to much debate: Rwanda in 2010 is a far cry not only from Rwanda in 1995 but also from Rwanda in the years just before the genocide. In
Aiding Violence
, Uvin explained how he and others in development circles failed to note the rise of genocidal ideology because of their exclusive focus on certain indicators: GDP per capita, inflation, corruption indices, and demographic trends. In effect, Uvin argues that he and his colleagues were blind to the palpable frictions erupting around them because their attention was fixed narrowly on the “development model.”
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The risk of making a similar mistake remains today. But armed with cautionary tales from Uvin, Polman, Terry, and Dambisa Moyo (indeed, the entire “groaning bookshelf” of critiques), it would be a shame to shirk the hard tasks of analysis and discernment, whether the topic at hand is central Africa after war and genocide or Haiti after coups and storms and the quake of 2010.

One thing Haiti could use right now is analysis informed by discernment and a pinch of optimism about rebuilding. Facing a challenge of this magnitude, taking the side of critique (and, sometimes, despair) is certainly easier. Many in Haiti (and some outside) appear content to forecast failure unendingly. But as Michèle Montas and others contributing to this book show, cynicism about reconstruction is less common among the Haitian poor—the majority of the country's population—than might be expected. Many Haitians interviewed after the earthquake or during the interminable wait for rebuilding to begin still believe that
Ayiti p'ap peri
—“Haiti will never be finished.” Many believe that Haiti can change, in spite of the fact that they themselves have, so far, been given little role in helping to rebuild their own civic institutions and infrastructure.

Haitian history is rife with examples of exclusion and its constant counterpart: resistance. The country was born through violent resistance to an oppressive social and economic system, the “peculiar institution” of slavery.
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In the years following independence, many Haitians voted with their feet, removing themselves from ruined plantations to small plots of land and rejecting, when possible, any and all systems of coerced labor. As steep mountainsides were cultivated, population growth and ecological decline (due to deforestation and erosion) set the stage for the late-twentieth-century collapse that itself set the stage for both urban migration and increasing vulnerability to storms and other disasters.

The collapse has been ecological, economic, and political. The war of independence, the forced popular movement that created a nation in 1804, had no triumphant follow-up. Instead, the country divided into north and south, and the bulk of the state's effort focused on self-perpetuation. Coup followed coup, as politicians either conscripted the remnants of the revolutionary army or created their own militias to seize power. This was, as the anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot has observed, a case of “state against nation.”
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By the late nineteenth century, Haiti had become a predatory state, like Rwanda pre-genocide: weak and unable to meet the basic needs of its people but strong enough to prey on them. The Duvalier régime (1957–1986) was less an aberration than the ultimate expression of a predatory state based on patronage and violence.

This was all supposed to change in 1990, when Latin America's oldest republic held its first free elections. The Haitian people, previously excluded from the political process, participated in great numbers, electing a representative of the renascent and unforced popular movement. That government lasted only seven months before it too was unseated by a military coup in September, 1991. But the participatory impulse was too strong, and the military régime too violent, to return Haiti to the status quo ante. Since the 1986 fall of the Duvalier dictatorship, no unelected régime has lasted long, and each elected government (there have been, really, only four) has emerged from the popular movement. Only two people have ever been elected to Haiti's highest offices in democratic elections: Aristide and his former
prime minister, René Préval. Their original platform, laid out hastily in the troubled interregnum that followed the end of the dictatorship, was to promote basic social and economic rights and to allow wider civic participation in governance.

This movement, too, has fallen prey to the fissioning tendencies of Haitian politics. By the time this book is published, another election cycle will have taken place. Haiti's many misfortunes and persistent poverty, which together have dashed some of the hopes shared after the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship, and exclusion of the political party identified with Aristide will mean less participation in the electoral process. But a strong government requires strong civic support and not only from the vocal members of “civil society”—code, as noted, for the non-poor. The non-poor are a minority in Haiti, a tiny economic élite and small middle class. A book about Haiti after the earthquake is perhaps not the place in which to reflect on theories about human rights, but struggles about voting rights and subsistence rights are intimately related to debates about development and humanitarian assistance. These debates have been playing themselves out in Haiti for decades.

Now, as cholera spreads rapidly through rural Haiti and menaces the camps and slums in urban areas, Haitians like the ones I've had the privilege to serve as a doctor continue to press for a stronger and more competent government; they continue to question mainstream views of both development and human rights. Like many Rwandans, most of the Haitians interviewed for the Voices of the Voiceless project want to live in a country no longer dependent on foreign aid. They want to live in a country with food sovereignty and basic services. They want decent jobs and to participate fully in the reconstruction of their country. The events of the past year have thrown the alternatives manifested by these debates, and the problems underlying them, into stark relief.

Listening to the poor helps us frame these alternatives clearly. Will we promote genuine development in the manner wished by the Haitian majority? Or will we stay pinned to the same, tired approaches that haven't brought us much closer to the stated goals of either development assistance or the Haitian people? Fair trade, food
sovereignty, access to health care and education and clean water—these social goals can surely be linked to economic and political strategies that lead to growth, better governance, and reconstruction. Will trade policies punish Haitian farmers, as before, or will we insist on arrangements that help expand the economy and the number of decent jobs in the country? Will food assistance develop markets for locally grown produce, or continue to rely on imported surplus from U.S. or European agribusinesses that decry subsidies for others while ardently defending their own? Will we fight to make sure that quality primary health care and primary education, at the very least, become readily accessible to all Haitians, or will we remain ensnarled in uncreative financing models that impose users' fees and thereby ensure that the poorest have no access? Will we invest in municipal water projects throughout rural and urban Haiti, or will we continue to privatize a system that is already fractured by private interests? Will the response to the shelter crisis remain every man for himself, without plan or code, and with little chance for the poor to benefit from the coming building boom? Or will the next years include pro-poor strategies that help create more and safer housing with modern sanitation for those now sheltered under tents and tarps and bits of tin?

A year after the quake, Haiti looks almost the same as it did for the six-month anniversary. But what will the next years bring? Let's say the date is now January 12, 2015. What has happened to the rubble, the camps, the promised efforts to rebuild? What has become of the threat of worse environmental disasters? What has happened to the cholera epidemic? Has reconstruction remained stalled by petty political squabbles, a lack of vision, and far too little focus on implementation of goals, whether modest or ambitious?

No crystal ball is needed. Another quake could skew any prognostication; with greater probability, the tail end of a hurricane season like that of 2008 could recur between the time this book goes to press and when it sees the light of day. But because Haiti's problems are old and reconstruction too slow, it was never difficult to forecast
likely futures, especially in the short term. The answers to these questions will depend to a large extent on programs and policies enacted and then implemented in 2011 and shortly thereafter—programs and policies decided within Haiti and without. Let's imagine the discrepant possibilities.

Reconstruction.
In scenario one (at the optimistic end of the spectrum), the reconstruction phase is in full swing by 2015. After a faltering start, an increased fraction of the resources pledged to reconstruction flowed to projects employing large numbers of Haitians and creating new Haitian businesses; indeed, the number of decent local jobs created was one of the metrics by which all proposals were judged. By 2015, more than two million Haitians have participated in public-works projects, bringing unemployment below 50 percent for the first time in decades. Thousands of skilled Haitian laborers returned from the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, and other countries in the region after they learned that they could expect better wages and working conditions—and more compelling projects—at home. Millions of tons of rubble were cleared from Port-au-Prince, and much of it was recycled and sold.

Construction, including public works, hasn't been the only growth industry. An integrated natural-defense plan linked reforestation, watershed protection, and small-scale agriculture together into one massive endeavor. A Green Haiti Pact brought together donors, regional and local governments, women's groups, peasant organizations, and young people. Projects included ready access to credit and tools for small farmers and fairer prices for their produce.
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The initiative offered subsidies for alternative energies like liquid propane so that Haiti could wean itself from charcoal. (Alternative cooking energies included briquettes made from agricultural and other waste.) The use of charcoal and wood in bakeries, laundromats, and other industries was banned as cleaner energy became a growth industry in Haiti. Wind turbines have been erected in several sites across the country and are maintained by well-trained locals who are paid for their labor and who share in the turbines' output; small hydroelectric plants gave a green boost to rural electrification projects without flooding large tracts of fertile land; these plants now also
power dozens of food-processing plants that add value to farmers' produce and ready it for local markets or export. Solar panels manufactured in Haiti have appeared on roofs throughout the country as increasing numbers of small businesses and homeowners found them affordable, dependable, and safe; several Haitian factories now manufacture these solar panels both for local use and for export to the United States and elsewhere. Within a few years, Haiti, once the world's largest assembler of baseballs and brassieres, is on the way to becoming one of the top ten exporters of solar panels in the hemisphere. Haiti is also well on its way to fuel self-sufficiency. The fraction of people connected to the electric grid has gone from under 10 percent in 2010 to over 30 percent in 2015, and as many more are generating their own power with solar panels and wind turbines.

In a bleaker version of events, 2015 has brought more heartache to Haiti. Although several projects have been completed, national reconstruction remains stalled as recriminations and backbiting dominate the political scene and the local media; frustrations on all sides lead many international partners to scale back efforts and focus on other trouble spots. Foreign aid was not reformed substantially, and uninspired bilateral arrangements (some favorable and others less so) remain the order of the day. Credit remains out of reach for most living in poverty and hampers the growth of small businesses. Charcoal, still the only cooking fuel within the grasp of poor Haitians, remains a cash crop as the deforestation of the country draws toward its endgame. The 2014 rainy season was marked with mudslides, flash floods, and great damage to property and livestock; thousands of lives were lost. The coastal fishing industry, smothered by erosion, saw dropping yields and still lacks modern storage and processing capacity. The hurricane season has just ended without another direct hit; Haitians pray that the storms spare the country again next year. But most know it's simply a matter of time before heavy rains or worse wash more lives and livelihoods onto the now lifeless reefs abutting Haiti's estuaries.