U.S. Marines bring in humanitarian relief to Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake. Today, Washington wants to use humanitarian relief as a cover to deploy troops in Haiti for the next decade.
In the late 1980s, after the Feb. 7, 1986 fall of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, Washington began to implement in earnest its neo-liberal “structural adjustment” of Haiti. “Structural adjustment” is simply an economist’s euphemism for crushing austerity cuts, comprised of firing thousands of state workers, sale and closure of state enterprises, the dramatic lowering of tariffs, and the slashing of social programs.
Journalist Michael Massing deftly described the havoc that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID or simply AID) brought to Haiti in late 1987 in the New York Review of Books.
As Haiti’s single largest donor, the agency had tremendous leverage with the Haitian government, and it now used its influence to push for a thorough overhaul of the Haitian economy…. Its chief ally was the new [Haitian] finance minister, Leslie Delatour. Delatour was “an AID mission’s dream,” as one AID officer put it. He had earned degrees from Johns Hopkins and the University of Chicago, then gone to work for the World Bank…. Delatour adopted an austerity budget and, as part of it, slashed government expenditures… [H]e cut tariffs and eliminated import quotas, thereby allowing in a flow of cheap goods…
Arriving in Haiti in mid-August [1987], I found a country rapidly spinning out of control… As for the economy, the policies of Delatour and AID had produced utter disarray… [A] flood of cheap imports was having a devastating effect on local producers, who simply couldn’t compete… The job situation, too, was dismal… Not only were few jobs created, but the closing of the state-owned companies had thrown hundreds of people out of work…
Many Haitians blamed the United States. The country was rife with talk about an ominous “American Plan” designed to keep the country backward and dependent. According to the common wisdom, the plan sought to keep Haitian wages low so as to make the country attractive to American capital. To an outsider, it sounded as though some secret U.S. documents had fallen into the wrong hands. In fact, the “American Plan” was a handy political term for the annual country statements that AID routinely draws up for countries around the world. The [AID] statements had come to the attention of Haiti Progrès, a lively leftist newspaper published in Brooklyn. Its articles on AID were then picked up by Haiti’s powerful radio stations, the chief source of news for illiterate Haitians. As a result, even Port-au-Prince’s poorest residents could talk knowledgeably about the “American Plan.” By the spring of 1987, AID had grown so weary of being attacked that it paid an American consultant $40,000 to find out why it was so disliked.
When Haitians resisted the neo-liberal austerity by twice electing President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1990 and 2000, they were turned back by two U.S.-backed coups d’état in 1991 and 2004, followed by UN military occupations.
Now, almost four decades later, neo-liberal policies, with their concomitant coups and invasions, have devastated Haiti, leaving it chaotic, crime-plagued, and without an elected government. And guess who’s coming to save Haiti from the damage its done? Washington, again.
This time, the U.S. is using what could be called the “American Plan” 2.0. It is essentially a new alliance of USAID “know-how” with Pentagon muscle. The new “American Plan” is called the Global Fragility Act or just GFA.
U.S. Special Forces in Haiti in 2010. The Global Fragility Act might be dressed in USAID’s humanitarian garb but is fundamentally a military deployment.
Just as Haïti Progrès sounded the alarm about the first “American Plan,” Haïti Liberté, started to call attention to the GFA last summer. Although the GFA was passed with bipartisan support under Trump in 2019, it has remained under the radar. Until now.
Last week, the Biden administration for the first time trumpeted its plans, established in 2021, to make Haiti the GFA’s “pilot case.”
Unveiling “The U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability 10-Year Strategic Plan for Haiti” on Mar. 24, Washington said it had chosen Haiti for “its strategic relevance and proximity to the United States and the need for a more coordinated long-term approach to address drivers of instability in the country.” To fulfill this mission, the U.S. plans to “integrate U.S. diplomacy, development, and security-sector engagement in Haiti.” In other words, the State Department, its humanitarian arm, USAID, and the Pentagon will all work in close coordination.
The next day, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken followed up with a press statement to emphasize that the new American Plan was to “acknowledge that the most pressing challenges of our time do not confine themselves within national borders” and that the U.S. seeks to “address the underlying causes of violence and instability before conflicts can break out or escalate.”
This means that the new DOS/USAID/DOD complex will effectively take over Haiti, if Washington gets its way, thereby returning the country from a neo-colony back into a virtual colony as it was from 1915 to 1934, when U.S. Marines occupied and ran it. Nonetheless, the U.S. would try to keep some Haitian window-dressing.
“Integrated deterrence is enabled by combat-credible forces, backstopped by a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent.” — U.S. National Defense Strategy
“U.S. government efforts will engage and leverage partners among Haitian civil society and the Haitian National Police (HNP)… to strengthen citizen security and the rule of law… [with a] focus on key high-crime and high-violence neighborhoods,” [our emphasis] the Mar. 24 statement reads. Translation: Washington will deploy troops to fight and subdue armed neighborhood committees seeking radical social change, like the groups of the “Revolutionary Forces of the G9 Family and Allies” federation, while putting some Haitian civilians and cops in front for show.
As a part of this month’s roll-out, the Alliance for Peacebuilding, a Washington-based NGO which has been a leading GFA proponent, issued a paper entitled “How Congress Can Break Down Barriers to GFA Implementation.” The paper argues that “Congress must also address existing legal barriers to expedite implementation and take measures to provide integrated, non-earmarked, and adaptive funding streams, support to address personnel shortages, and an exemption of the ‘material support’ prohibition for peacebuilding organizations” operating in Haiti and other GFA target countries. In short, the NGO is proposing to give the GFA’s humanitarian/military apparatus a totally free hand and no oversight in its operations. As their paper puts it: “The broad legal restrictions that create criminal and civil liability for providing material support to foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) limit the effectiveness of programs designed to prevent people from engaging in violent conflict and extremism.”
The previously classified Pentagon handbook entitled “Defense Support to Stabilization (DSS): a Guide for Stabilization Practitioners” also has some telling formulations as to how the U.S. military will engage with its adversaries in GFA-targeted nations. It contains extracts pulled from the Defense Department’s December 2018 Directive, such as “Stabilization is an inherently political endeavor involving an integrated civilian-military process to create conditions where locally legitimate authorities and systems peaceably manage conflict and prevent a resurgence of violence.”
The DSS aims to “synchronize missions” to “reinforce USG [U.S. government] stabilization efforts and promote stability… in conflict-affected areas outside the United States.”
The purpose is to stop “violent extremism,… transnational terrorism,… refugees and internally displaced persons,… and mass atrocities… before they impact the security of the United States and its allies and partners.”
“Stabilization is required to translate combat success into lasting strategic gains” and “a necessary complement to joint combat power at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels.” Furthermore U.S. troops will carry out a “range of military operations in order to counter subversion” and “consolidate military gains to achieve strategic success” using “small-footprint, partner-focused” teams with “indigenous and other external partners,” i.e. U.S. Special Forces working with the Haitian army and police. In short, the Pentagon aims “to identify, train, equip, advise, assist, or accompany foreign security forces conducting stabilization actions independently or in conjunction with other USG efforts.”
The GFA and DSS also complement Washington’s 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) which “sets out how the U.S. military will meet growing threats to vital U.S. national security interests” and “act urgently to sustain and strengthen U.S. deterrence, with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the [Pentagon’s] pacing challenge. The strategy identifies four top-level defense priorities that the Department must pursue to strengthen deterrence: (1) Defend the homeland. (2) Deter strategic attacks against the United States, allies, and partners. (3) Deter aggression, while being prepared to prevail in conflict when necessary. (4) Build a resilient Joint Force and defense ecosystem.”
The Pentagon plans to do this “by working seamlessly across warfighting domains, theaters, the spectrum of conflict, other instruments of U.S. national power, and our unmatched network of Alliances and partnerships. Integrated deterrence is enabled by combat-credible forces, backstopped by a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent.” In other words, if the GFA fails, the next step is nuclear war.
In short, Washington’s unclassified policy papers reveal that the GFA might be dressed in USAID’s humanitarian garb but is fundamentally a military response to China, the principal challenger of U.S. world hegemony. It seeks to make Haiti a “partner” in a front to “gain advantage against the full range of competitors” through “logically linked military initiatives.”
Nonetheless, Anthony Blinken presents it in more flowery terms: “[T]hese 10-year plans [will] address drivers of conflict and violence collectively and […] support our partner countries in pursuing peace and prosperity.”
À la fin des années 1980, après la chute de Jean-Claude « Baby Doc » Duvalier le 7 février 1986, Washington a commencé à mettre en œuvre sérieusement son « ajustement structurel » néolibéral d’Haïti. Les politiques d’ « ajustement structurel » ne sont qu’un euphémisme d’un économiste pour désigner des coupes d’austérité écrasantes, consistant à licencier des milliers de travailleurs de l’État, à vendre et à fermer des entreprises d’État, à réduire considérablement les tarifs et à réduire les programmes sociaux.
Le journaliste Michael Massing a habilement décrit les ravages que l’Agence américaine pour le développement international (USAID ou simplement AID) a apportés à Haïti à la fin de 1987 dans la New York Review of Books.
En tant que plus grand donateur d’Haïti, l’agence avait un énorme effet de levier auprès du gouvernement haïtien, et elle a maintenant utilisé son influence pour faire pression pour une refonte en profondeur de l’économie haïtienne…. Son principal allié était le nouveau ministre des Finances [haïtien], Leslie Delatour. Ce dernier était « le rêve d’une mission de l’AID », comme l’a dit un officier de l’AID. Il avait obtenu des diplômes de Johns Hopkins et de l’Université de Chicago, puis était allé travailler pour la Banque mondiale… Delatour a adopté un budget d’austérité et, dans ce cadre, il a réduit les dépenses publiques… [Il] a réduit les tarifs douaniers et éliminé les quotas d’importation, permettant ainsi un flux de marchandises bon marché…
Arrivé en Haïti à la mi-août [1987], j’ai trouvé un pays qui échappait rapidement à tout contrôle… Quant à l’économie, les politiques de Delatour et de l’AID avaient produit un désarroi total… [Un] flot d’importations bon marché avait un effet dévastateur sur les producteurs locaux, qui ne pouvaient tout simplement pas être compétitifs… La situation de l’emploi, elle aussi, était lamentable… Non seulement peu d’emplois ont été créés, mais la fermeture des entreprises publiques a chassé des centaines de personnes travail…
De nombreux Haïtiens ont blâmé les États-Unis. Le pays était en proie à des discussions sur un « plan américain » inquiétant conçu pour maintenir le pays en arrière et dépendant. Selon la sagesse commune, le plan visait à maintenir les salaires haïtiens bas afin de rendre le pays attractif pour le capital américain. Pour un étranger, il semblait que certains documents secrets américains étaient tombés entre de mauvaises mains. En fait, le « plan américain » était un terme politique pratique pour désigner les déclarations annuelles par pays que l’AID rédige régulièrement pour les pays du monde entier. Les déclarations [de l’AID] avaient attiré l’attention d’Haïti Progrès, un journal de gauche animé publié à Brooklyn. Ses articles sur l’AID ont ensuite été repris par les puissantes stations de radio d’Haïti, la principale source d’information pour les Haïtiens analphabètes. En conséquence, même les habitants les plus pauvres de Port-au-Prince pouvaient parler en connaissance de cause du « plan américain ». Au printemps 1987, l’AID était devenue si lasse d’être attaquée qu’elle a payé 40 000 $ à un consultant américain pour découvrir pourquoi elle était si détestée.
Lorsque les Haïtiens ont résisté à l’austérité néolibérale en élisant deux fois le président Jean-Bertrand Aristide en 1990 et 2000, ils ont été punis par deux coups d’État soutenus par les États-Unis en 1991 et 2004, suivis d’occupations militaires de l’ONU.
Aujourd’hui, près de quatre décennies plus tard, les politiques néolibérales, avec leurs coups d’État et leurs invasions concomitants, ont dévasté Haïti, la laissant chaotique, en proie à la criminalité et sans gouvernement élu. Et devinez qui est venu sauver Haïti des dégâts qu’il a causés ? Washington, encore.
Le Global Fragility Act ou simplement GFA a été adopté par le Congrès et promulgué par le président Trump le 20 décembre 2019.
Cette fois, les États-Unis utilisent ce qu’on pourrait appeler le “plan américain” 2.0. Il s’agit essentiellement d’une nouvelle alliance du “savoir-faire” de l’USAID avec le muscle du Pentagone. Le nouveau «plan américain» s’appelle le Global Fragility Act ou simplement GFA.
Haïti Progrès tirait la sonnette d’alarme sur le premier « Plan américain », Haïti Liberté elle-même, attirait l’attention sur le GFA l’été dernier. Bien que le GFA ait été adopté avec un soutien bipartite sous Trump en 2019, il est resté sous le radar… jusqu’à maintenant
La semaine dernière, l’administration Biden a pour la première fois claironné ses plans, établis en 2021, pour faire d’Haïti le “cas pilote” du GFA.
Dévoilant «La Stratégie américaine pour prévenir les conflits et promouvoir la stabilité du plan stratégique décennal pour Haïti» le 24 mars, Washington a déclaré qu’il avait choisi Haïti pour «sa pertinence stratégique et sa proximité avec les États-Unis et la nécessité d’un long- approche à long terme pour s’attaquer aux moteurs de l’instabilité dans le pays». Pour remplir cette mission, les États-Unis prévoient «d’intégrer la diplomatie américaine, le développement et l’engagement du secteur de la sécurité en Haïti». En d’autres termes, le Département d’État, sa branche humanitaire, l’USAID et le Pentagone travailleront tous en étroite coordination.
Le lendemain, le secrétaire d’État américain Anthony Blinken a poursuivi par un communiqué de presse pour souligner que le nouveau plan américain consistait à « reconnaître que les défis les plus urgents de notre époque ne se limitent pas aux frontières nationales » et que les États-Unis cherchent à « s’attaquer aux causes sous-jacentes de la violence et de l’instabilité avant que les conflits n’éclatent ou ne s’aggravent. »
Le secrétaire d’État américain Anthony Blinken
Cela signifie que le nouveau complexe DOS/USAID/DOD prendra effectivement le contrôle d’Haïti, si Washington obtient ce qu’il veut, transformant ainsi le pays d’une néo-colonie en une colonie de style portoricain, au sens large. Néanmoins, ils essaieraient de garder une façade haïtienne.
« Les efforts du gouvernement des Etats-Unis engageront et tireront parti des partenaires de la société civile haïtienne et de la Police nationale haïtienne (PNH)… pour renforcer la sécurité des citoyens et l’état de droit… [avec un] accent sur les principaux quartiers à forte criminalité et à forte violence, » [notre emphase] la déclaration du 24 mars indique. Traduction : Washington déploiera des troupes pour combattre et mater les comités de quartier armés cherchant un changement social radical, comme les groupes de la fédération « Forces révolutionnaires de la famille G9 et alliés », tout en mettant en avant des civils et des flics haïtiens pour le spectacle.
Dans le cadre du déploiement de ce mois-ci, l’Alliance for Peacebuilding, une ONG basée à Washington qui a été l’un des principaux partisans du GFA, a publié un document intitulé « Comment le Congrès peut briser les obstacles à la mise en œuvre du GFA ». Le document affirme que « le Congrès doit également s’attaquer aux obstacles juridiques existants pour accélérer la mise en œuvre et prendre des mesures pour fournir des flux de financement intégrés, non affectés et adaptatifs, un soutien pour faire face aux pénuries de personnel et une exemption de l’interdiction de « soutien matériel » pour les organisations de consolidation de la paix. » opérant en Haïti et dans d’autres pays cibles du GFA.
En bref, l’ONG propose de donner à l’appareil humanitaire/militaire du GFA une liberté totale et aucun contrôle sur ses opérations. Comme le dit leur article : « Les vastes restrictions juridiques qui créent une responsabilité pénale et civile pour avoir fourni un soutien matériel aux organisations terroristes étrangères (FTO) limitent l’efficacité des programmes conçus pour empêcher les gens de s’engager dans des conflits violents et l’extrémisme ».
Le manuel du Pentagone précédemment classifié intitulé “Defense Support to Stabilization (DSS): a Guide for Stabilization Practitioners” contient également des formulations révélatrices sur la manière dont l’armée américaine s’engagera avec ses adversaires dans les pays ciblés par la GFA. Il contient des extraits tirés de la directive de décembre 2018 du ministère de la Défense, tels que « La stabilisation est une entreprise intrinsèquement politique impliquant un processus civilo-militaire intégré pour créer des conditions dans lesquelles les autorités et les systèmes localement légitimes gèrent pacifiquement les conflits et empêchent une résurgence de la violence ».
Le DSS vise à “synchroniser les missions” pour “renforcer l’USG [U.S. gouvernement] les efforts de stabilisation et promouvoir la stabilité… dans les zones touchées par le conflit en dehors des États-Unis.
L’objectif est d’arrêter “l’extrémisme violent, … le terrorisme transnational, … les réfugiés et les personnes déplacées à l’intérieur du pays, … et les atrocités de masse … avant qu’elles n’affectent la sécurité des États-Unis et de ses alliés et partenaires”.
Aujourd’hui, Washington veut utiliser l’aide humanitaire comme couverture pour déployer des troupes en Haïti pour la prochaine décennie.
“La stabilisation est nécessaire pour traduire le succès au combat en gains stratégiques durables” et “un complément nécessaire à la puissance de combat interarmées aux niveaux tactique, opérationnel et stratégique”. En outre, les troupes américaines mèneront une « gamme d’opérations militaires afin de contrer la subversion » et de « consolider les gains militaires pour obtenir un succès stratégique » en utilisant des équipes « à petite empreinte, axées sur les partenaires » avec des « partenaires autochtones et autres partenaires externes », c’est-à-dire les États-Unis. Forces spéciales travaillant avec l’armée et la police haïtiennes. En bref, le Pentagone vise « à identifier, former, équiper, conseiller, assister ou accompagner les forces de sécurité étrangères menant des actions de stabilisation indépendamment ou en conjonction avec d’autres efforts du gouvernement américain ».
Le DSS complète également la Stratégie de défense nationale (NDS) de Washington pour 2022, qui “énonce comment l’armée américaine répondra aux menaces croissantes contre les intérêts vitaux de la sécurité nationale des États-Unis” et “agira de toute urgence pour maintenir et renforcer la dissuasion américaine, avec la République populaire de Chine (RPC) comme défi de rythme [du Pentagone]. La stratégie identifie quatre priorités de défense de haut niveau que le Ministère doit poursuivre pour renforcer la dissuasion : (1) Défendre la patrie. (2) Décourager les attaques stratégiques contre les États-Unis, leurs alliés et leurs partenaires. (3) Dissuader l’agression, tout en étant prêt à l’emporter dans le conflit si nécessaire. (4) Construire une force interarmées et un écosystème de défense résilients.
Le Pentagone prévoit de le faire en “travaillant de manière transparente dans les domaines de la guerre, les théâtres, le spectre des conflits, d’autres instruments de la puissance nationale américaine et notre réseau inégalé d’alliances et de partenariats. La dissuasion intégrée est rendue possible par des forces crédibles au combat, soutenues par une dissuasion nucléaire sûre, sécurisée et efficace. En d’autres termes, si la GFA échoue, la prochaine étape est la guerre nucléaire.
En bref, les documents politiques non classifiés de Washington révèlent que le GFA pourrait être vêtu de l’habit humanitaire de l’USAID, mais est fondamentalement une réponse militaire à la Chine, le principal challenger de l’hégémonie mondiale des États-Unis. Il cherche à faire d’Haïti un « partenaire » dans un front pour « obtenir un avantage contre l’ensemble des concurrents » grâce à « des initiatives militaires logiquement liées ».
Néanmoins, Anthony Blinken le présente en termes plus fleuris : « [C]es plans décennaux [s’attaqueront] collectivement aux facteurs de conflit et de violence et […] soutiendront nos pays partenaires dans la poursuite de la paix et de la prospérité ».
U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Eric Stromayer at an event announcing its “Civil Society Strengthening Program” (CSSP), which aims to line up 250 U.S.-compliant Haitian “civil society” groups.
While USAID claims that it provides international assistance to “strengthen democratic governance”in “support of American foreign policy,” the historical record reveals that it has been used to finance opposition groups and regime-change attempts in countries that challenge Washington’s foreign policy interest.
Researcher Peter Hallward documented how USAID funds were used to fund anti-government civil society fronts in Haiti after Aristide’s landslide election in 2000. This followed a cut in funding to Haiti immediately following Aristide’s victory.
The understanding that the NED and USAID serve as tools for U.S. imperialism is more widely accepted these days.
On May 2, 2023, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sent President Biden a letter criticizing Washington for meddling in his country’s internal affairs. He condemned funding that USAID had provided to right-wing opposition groups organizing protests against Mexico’s elected government and seeking to destabilize it. The letter had wide coverage in the Western mainstream media.
AMLO is not the first Latin American leader to decry U.S. interventionist policies implemented through USAID.
In 2011, Bolivian President Evo Morales announced the expulsion of USAID from Bolivia. The Movement Towards Socialism (Morales’ party) told reporters that USAID provided right-wing opposition parties over US$20 million. Party leaders also said USAID was attempting to undermine “the good relations between Bolivia and Venezuela.”
Seven years later, USAID returned to Bolivia at the invitation of Jeanine Anez’s U.S.-supported coup government to monitor elections.
USAID’s Role in the “10-Year Strategic Plan for Haiti”
The “United States Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability” (SPCPS) emphasizes that foreign assistance is a “critical tool” to “enhance specific foreign assistance programs that address fragility directly, including those that seek to strengthen social cohesion, combat corruption, [and] protect human rights.”
A USAID-funded meeting in Aux Cayes on Apr. 28, 2023. Through such events, Washington seeks to recruit a legion of puppet “civil society partners” to create the illusion of “Haitian consensus” with its plans.
Phase Two of Washington’s “10-year Strategic Plan for Haiti” will address “root causes of instability” and “places a strong emphasis on partnering with Haitian leaders and stakeholders.”
A “strategic communication plan”is also included to “ensure U.S. government-funded efforts are effectively amplified throughout the country.”
The State Department also plans to “deepen engagement with Haitian civil society, including religious groups and NGOs, as well as other international donors, Haitian diaspora organizations, and multilateral organizations.”
USAID officially announced its “Civil Society Strengthening Program”(CSSP) for Haiti on Oct. 21, 2022. This program is part of the early implementation of Phase Two.
The program was officially launched Jan. 11, 2023 in Cap Haïtien.
A U.S. Embassy press release explained that the goal of the CSSP is to “strengthen the capacity of Haitian civil society organizations [CSOs], including faith-based organizations, local groups, and those working with the diaspora that are registered and operating in Haiti.” CSOs which participate will “be better equipped to develop, implement, and monitor their advocacy,” the press release explains.
USAID “Partners” With 250 Haitian Civil Society Organizations
USAID explains that “there is a critical need” for Haitian CSOs to collaborate and “expand their impact” and “their influence on public policy and decision-making.” One of the CSSP’s main objectives is to “support productive working relationships between civil society organizations and development actors including, but not limited to, local/central government, the private sector, and major donors.”
PapyrusSA is managing the CSSP, identified by USAID as one of their “local partners” in Haiti. Papyrus SA is a private, for-profit “limited liability management company” that has been operating in Haiti since 2007 and has managed several USAID projects there, operating “several high-value and high-visibility projects for the private and donor sectors in Haiti.”
With (left to right) Bahamian PM Philip Davis, Jamaican PM Andrew Holness, and de facto Haitian PM Ariel Henry sitting in front, Haiti’s warring political class gathered in Kingston, Jamaica from Jun. 11-13 to try to hammer out a political deal, but it is “largely distrusted.”
The CSSP coordinates with Counterparts International, which implementsUSAIDprograms in dozens of countries worldwide. It recognizes USAID as its main source of funding (ExxonMobil is its main corporate funder).
Counterparts’ current CEOAnn Hudockworked for the State Department as the Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for Global Affairs.
The stated goals of the CSSP in Haiti overlaps with the NED’straditionalrole of funding CSOs in Haiti. It is likely not a coincidence that the NED has recently scrubbed its website listing 2021 grantees in Haiti (this will be explored in depth in an upcoming article). It is also unlikely a coincidence that the NED has yet to release its list of grantees in Haiti for 2022.
With the CSSP, the U.S. government aims to grow their network of CSOs which are compliant to U.S. interests. It is crucial that the names of the 250 CSOs funded by USAID under the CSSP be revealed, along with the CSOs and so-called “human rights” groups receiving NED funding. They will inevitably have a role in supporting the U.S. occupation of Haiti and whatever transitional government it anoints.
Phase One and Phase Two of the “10-Year Strategic Plan for Haiti” represent an effective take-over of Haiti, if Washington gets its way. This take-over would effectively shift Haiti’s status as an American neo-colony back into a virtual colony as it was from 1915 to 1934, when U.S. Marines occupied it.
This transformation will occur under the MSS – an occupation force – while CSOs and “human rights” groups nurtured and financed by USAID and the NED, guide Haiti’s reconstruction into a society completely beholden to U.S. interests, a virtual U.S. colony.
This will create a facade of Haitian agreement or “consensus” (i.e. compliance) with U.S. domination of Haiti. These CSOs and “human rights” groups will provide spokespeople and leaders who can dutifully parrot USAID and State Department talking points. USAID, through its “strategic communication plan,” can “ensure U.S. government-funded efforts are effectively amplified throughout the country” through their network of over 250 CSOs and “human rights” groups.
The U.S. Government aims to rebuild the Haitian government to achieve its imperialist goals
The political class has abandoned Haiti’s people and is largely distrusted. With few exceptions, they vacillate between various Accords and informal coalitions, all towards the same goal: appealing to Washington and their proxies for legitimacy and the authority to lead a transitional government.
The disconnect is apparent among some of Haiti’s allies in the West as well.
There are many common threads between the various solidarity, legal advocacy, and leftist organizations which champion the Haitian people’s cause. Calls for foreign governments to withdraw support from Haiti’s dictator, Ariel Henry, for example, are common. But there is no consensus on who to support – whether they are leaders, political parties, movements, or CSOs.
This is due, in part, to a successful propaganda campaign waged by the U.S. government through the NED and other organizations, backed by the U.S. government and the Open Society Foundation, including propaganda outlets like the RNDDH and the FJKL.
On Aug. 17, 2023, Jimmy Cherizier, leader of the Revolutionary Forces of the G9 Family and Allies, held a press conference where he said Haitians would fight “until their last drop of blood” against a foreign invasion in support of de facto PM Ariel Henry.
The result is that some of these “progressive” organizations join in the demonization of popular, local leaders like Jimmy Cherizier, spokesman for the Revolutionary Forces of the G9 Family and Allies, while others ignore him completely, perhaps to avoid the vitriolhisdetractorsspout at anyone who questions the narrative concocted by U.S.-backed “human rights” groups that have been thoroughly debunked in the documentary AnotherVision.
Letters to various international bodies like the AfricanUnion and the UN have been signed by a wide range of Haiti’s allies to prevent the MSS’s deployment or simply demand the U.S. stop propping up Ariel Henry. Others focused on appealingtoChina and Russia to use their veto on the Security Council to block an invasion. Unfortunately, all these efforts have ultimately failed.
Meanwhile, analysts are keenly aware that Cherizier is the main target of the U.S.-led invasion. This is not because the U.S. government is interested in taking down criminal gangs – it supports Ariel Henry – but because they understand Cherizier is the most significant leader who represents a threat to U.S. interests in Haiti.
During a recent interview with Dan Cohen, analyst and former U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command officer Jean-Pierre Alfred explained that Cherizier, whom he deems a “so-called gang leader,” has become a “figurehead” due to mainstream media’s persistent portrayal of him as a notorious villain. Alfred emphasized that if Cherizier cannot be forced by leaders of the MSS or PNH to join them, then they will try to jail or kill him.
A recent articleforNation (Africa) explained that Kenyan forces will face Cherizier and his allies, acknowledging that he is a primary target. In an Aug. 17 press conference, Cherizier stated that the Haitian people would fight foreign invaders supporting Ariel Henry “until our last drop of blood.”
“It will be a fight of the Haitian people to save the dignity of our country,” Cherizier explained, echoing a sentiment shared by many Haitians against the MSS.
Unlike Haiti’s political leaders, who appeal to Washington for legitimacy and ask it to remove Henry from power to facilitate their ascension, Cherizier has openly called for Henry to be deposed by arms. The threat of an armed insurrection against Henry and establishment of a revolutionary provisional government not under its control is Washington’s foremost concern.
Thus Cherizier and his G9 movement, for the moment, represent the only serious threat to Ariel Henry’s dictatorship and a U.S.-led intervention, thus jeopardizing implementation of the American Plan 2.0 through the MSS and GFA.
Travis Ross is a teacher based in Montreal, Québec. He is also the co-editor of the Canada-Haiti Information Project at canada-haiti.ca . Travis has written for Haiti Liberté, Black Agenda Report, The Canada Files, TruthOut, and rabble.ca. He can be reached onTwitter.
USAID headquarters in Washington, DC. : “USAID’s Civil Society Strengthening Program (CSSP) for Haiti, with a budget of $15 million, plans to fund 250 Haitian ‘civil society organizations’ or CSOs.”
InPart One, Ross shows how United States Institute for Peace (USIP) writers like Keith Mines and Nicolás Devia-Valbuena telegraph Washington’s foreign policy months in advance, prompting other sectors of the academic-military-industrial complex to churn out preparatory propaganda. Mines and Devia-Valbuena also outlineda “Council of Sages” 2.0, providing a framework for what would become the Transitional Presidential Council – TPC – that may soon appoint a transitional government to organize elections. However, a “privatized security force” would be required to install the TPC in Haiti‘s NationalPalace, they argue.
Mines proposed a National Advisory Council (NAC) that ought to be established “one step down” from the TPC. He suggested that this NAC be made up of “20 individuals, an equal number of men and women, drawn from key areas of civil society and the country’s departments, [and it] would be empowered with the mandate to bring new ideas, expertise, and awareness to the Presidential Council. In addition to the 10 departments, sectors could include agriculture, business, the diaspora, education, health, human rights, labor, religion, women, and youth.”
The Washington-led negotiations (with CARICOM’s assistance) which birthed the agreement creating the nine-member TPC provides for the creation of a National Advisory Council.
According to a report by Juno7, the “agreement provides for the creation of a control body of the Executive called the Government Action Control Body (Organe de Contrôle de l’Action Gouvernementale – OCAG).” OCAG’s members will be named after “broad consultations by the Presidential Council with Haitian civil society organizations [CSOs] in the capital, the departments, and the diaspora.”
Pascale Solages, a former Nou Pap Domi spokeswoman, founded the feminist organization Négés Mawon with funding from Open Society Foundations, as well as the Canadian government.
OCAG will be composed of “15 members, including two designated by the diaspora, two by organizations defending the rights of women and young people, two for the West department, and one for each of the other nine departments.”
OCAG, whose role is to advise the TPC, is nearly exactly what Mines proposed.
Mines and others in the U.S. deep state are aware of the various Haitian organizations who receive funding from USAID programs and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) grants. These organizations receive funding because they facilitate U.S. interests in Haiti. A handful of these organizations will likely provide spokespeople to sit on OCAG as advisors to the TPC.
USAID and the NED – Planting Seeds for Compliance with U.S. Policy
A U.S. Embassy press release explained that the CSSP’s goal is to “strengthen the capacity of Haitian civil society organizations, including faith-based organizations, local groups, and those working with the diaspora that are registered and operating in Haiti.”
“There is a critical need” for Haitian CSOs to collaborate and “expand their impact” and “their influence on public policy and decision-making,” the press release explained. One of the CSSP’s main objectives is to “support productive working relationships between civil society organizations and development actors including, but not limited to, local/central government, the private sector, and major donors.”
While the 250 Haitian CSOs have yet to be identified, Counterparts and Papyrus, the two organizations implementing the CSSP in Haiti, have begun working to implement the first phase of the CSSP.
The NED also funds several organizations inside Haiti but recently scrubbed from its website the names and information of several of its grantees in Haiti. The NED has also not published information about what funding it has given Haitian organizations over the past two years.
The NED funds organizations in Haiti which either endorse U.S. foreign policy or do not oppose U.S. hegemony. An in-depth analysis of the NED’s funding for Haitian CSOs and human rights groups is available in an article for the Black Agenda Report: The NED’s Role in Undermining Democracy in Haiti.
Some of these CSOs and “human rights” groups, funded either by the NED or USAID through the CSSP, will provide spokespeople or leaders who can dutifully parrot U.S. State Department talking points or, at the very least, not challenge U.S. foreign policy in Haiti.
Emmanuela Douyon, another prominent NPD spokeswoman, previously worked for the NDI, an arm of the NED, which in turn is funded by the U.S. State Department and USAID.
Careful attention ought to be provided to whether members selected for OCAG represent organizations who receive funding from foreign governments or other institutions such as the NED and the Open Society Foundations.
Haitian organizations like FOKAL and the RNDDH, funded by the NED and Open Society Foundations, support U.S. foreign policy in part by explicitly endorsing neoliberal reforms.
The Canadian government, a CORE Group member, also provides funding for CSOs in Haiti, often overlapping with other institutions and the U.S. government. For example, a recent investigation revealed that Canada provides funding to the RNDDH through a Canadian NGO. The RNDDH also receives funding from the NED and Open Society Foundations.
Selecting Millennial Haitians for OCAG
The activists who make up Nou Pap Domi (NPD) (We’re Not Sleeping), a collective of Haitians dedicated to fighting corruption, came from the Petrochallenger movement that led massive protests inside Haiti in 2017 and 2018 against President Jovenel Moïse’s government.
NPD is also a founding member of the coalition behind the Montana Accord.
The Montana Accord, once the main political rival to Henry’s coalition, has since devolved into a CSO representing a sector of Haiti’s bourgeoisie. The Montana Accord occupies one of the TPC’s seven seats for voting members.
Many NPD members have since moved on to found organizations with funding from the Canadian government, the NED, the Open Society Foundations, and American Jewish World Services (AJWS), among others.
Consequently, these new organizations led by former NPD members do not fundamentally oppose U.S. hegemony in Haiti. Aside from backing the Montana Accord, these individuals often publicly support U.S. policy in Haiti.
One of NPD’s foremost spokespersons, Pascale Solages, founded the feminist organization Négés Mawon with funding from several organizations, including Open Society Foundations, as well as the Canadian government, which has provided funding for Négés Mawon since its founding.
Négés Mawon’s Advisory Council includes Rosy Ducema of the NED-funded RNDDH and Yanick Lahens, a former member of the Group of 184. The U.S.-backed Group of 184 led “civil society” protests and opposition against President Aristide in the lead up to the 2004 coup d’état. According to Guy Philippe, elites within the Group of 184 financed the purchase of arms and ammunition for paramilitary forces which played a key role in the 2004 coup.
Emmanuela Douyon, another prominent NPD spokeswoman, previously worked for the NDI, an arm of the NED, which in turn is funded by the U.S. State Department and USAID. Later, she received an NED grant and funding from AJWS to found a “think tank” named Policité.
Jeffsky Poincy, another NPD member, is a program manager at Partners Global, a consultancy firm funded by the U.S. State Department, the Canadian government, the Open Society Foundation, and USAID.
Washington has also manufactured consent for U.S. policy in Haiti through other NED-supported groups, like Initiative de la Société Civile and OCAPH, which have also endorsed the Global Fragility Act.
Elections Managed by Washington and the CORE Group
Once a private security force (mercenaries) has installed the transitional government, the U.S. would have the Kenyan police-led Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) deployed to secure key infrastructure and government buildings, starting with the airport. Plans are already underway to build a base for the MSS near Port-au-Prince’s Toussaint L’Ouverture airport, the same area that the MINUSTAH was based. In a recent interview with the BBC, Brian Nichols said that he expects construction to begin “any day now” and that it will take “about a month to construct.”
Next, the TPC will appoint and publish a list of people composing the Provisional Electoral Council within 60 days. The OCAG, consisting of representatives vetted by Washington, will likely be established soon after.
Washington has interfered in all of Haiti’s elections following the 2004 coup that it backed to remove Aristide from power. USAID has a program in place to influence future Haitian elections. The Haiti Electoral Security and Support Program (HESSP), initiated in May 2023, has a budget of over $8.5 million.
USAID funding for this program has been awarded through the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS), which claims to pool the “expertise of three premier international organizations,” including the NDI and the International Republican Institute (IRI), NED tentacles. NDI and IRI representatives are part of the CEPPS’ staff. The IRI played a key role in backing many Aristide opponents and founding the Group of 184, which was a central player in Haiti’s 2004 coup.
Considering the many vectors that Washington has created to influence Haiti’s eventual elections, it is very likely that any future polling held without curbing these groups will result in a government and parliament that will align with U.S. foreign policy and accept the deal offered by the GFA.
Once the GFA is negotiated and installed, Washington will have a variety of strategies to control Haiti’s future.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken thanking Guyanese President Irfaan Ali for a job well-done in fronting for the U.S.-orchestrated “transitional presidential council” (CPT) in Haiti.
A French saying goes: ‘Those who resemble each other, always end up flocking together.”
Traditional Haitian political figures, who have flocked to the “transitional presidential council” (CPT) that U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken cooked up with the aid of a few lackeys from CARICOM in Kingston, Jamaica on Mar. 11, all have the same class instincts and nurse from the same imperialist teat.
At the same time, a Haitian proverb says “they are just crabs in a basket,” snapping at and climbing on each other, finding it easier to tear each other apart rather than to agree on any issue that concerns the nation.
Self-centered and cynical, these opportunists of the highest order are taking advantage of de facto Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s fall (to which they contributed nothing) to sneak into power while trying to deal the Haitian people a low blow.
U.S. troops deploying in Haiti in 2004 after Washington orchestrated a coup against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
After taking part for over two years in fruitless negotiations, all under Washington’s watchful eye, this pack of scoundrels is too happy to take part in imperialism’s CPT charade. Having finally lost Henry, the U.S. is now simply turning to other instruments in its arsenal for controlling Haiti.
What is hidden behind this CPT is perhaps even more scandalous than we think. It is not simply the flip side of a neocolonial coin, similar to the Republican/Democrat alternation that is used to fool and distract the American people. Due to the Haitian masses’ militancy, Washington has had to resort to this “collegial” formula a few times in the past four decades. In 1986 after Baby Doc’s overthrow, they formed the infamous neo-Duvalierist National Council of Government (CNG), which went through several reiterations before boiling down to two murderous generals, Henri Namphy and Williams Regala.
After engineering its 2004 coup against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Washington came up with the “Council of Sages,” of which Ariel Henry was a member. The U.S. used that Council as the camouflage to insert as de facto prime minister its preselected puppet, Gérard Latortue.
Washington can only perform this cheap card-trick once again, two decades later, due to the decay of the nation’s institutions and the decrepitude of its political life, a fragile state which the U.S. has worked to create so it can experiment on Haiti with its Global Fragility Act. This bipartisan project, passed in 2019 under Trump’s presidency, aims to establish a U.S. military base in Haiti and completely destroy our agricultural production, making us dependent on a lifeline of USAID “humanitarian aid,” which is simply excess U.S. agricultural output.
Thus, we are at a crossroads, as we were a century ago in 1915 when the U.S. began its takeover of Haiti’s economic and political life. Charlemagne Péralte and the Cacos, who were also characterized as “bandits,” valiantly fought for Haitian sovereignty.
Today, we see new Sudré Dartiguenaves clamoring to be the next tool of the imperialists in dominating the Haitian people. This CPT, shamefully sold to the world with CARICOM as its salesman, is thus a flagrant violation of Haiti’s sovereignty, and we must clearly and strongly denounce it, no matter what “pragmatic” rationalizations are dreamt up by its participants.
Washington had wanted to use proxy forces from Kenya, Benin, Chad, Bahamas, Barbados, and other “black-face” collaborators to do the initial repression (they call it “peace-keeping”) and then carry out a “demonstration election” – as Edward Herman calls them – which would insert an “elected” puppet who could then sign Haiti up for Washington’s Global Fragility Act.
But the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission has not been able to get off the ground, in part due to the resistance of the masses in those other neocolonies, particularly in Kenya.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Haiti James B. Foley: ““Haiti’s dysfunction is a permanent condition that continues to force itself upon the agenda of American policymakers.”
So now it looks like Washington will have to once again, as it did in 1994 and 2004, lead France and Canada in the third foreign military intervention into Haiti in three decades.
On Mar. 24, compatriot Jean-Robert Cinéus tried to sail to La Gonâve but was turned back by seven U.S. Marines in a Zodiac boat which had come from U.S. Navy vessels stationed in Port-au-Prince bay.
Last week, SOUTHCOM’s Gen. Laura Richardson stated that the Pentagon “is prepared with a broad range of contingency plans.”
It also looks like the Global Fragility template is getting an early start. We have learned that former U.S. Marine John Manza has been named Executive Director of Washington’s Haiti Interagency Working Group. Previously he was Assistant Secretary General for Operations at NATO and is a “Professor of Practice” at the Joint Advanced Warfighting School, known as JAWS.
Then on Mar. 25, James B. Foley, who was the U.S. Ambassador to Haiti from 2003 to 2005, wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post which argued that, when he was ambassador, “the worst outcomes were avoided through decisive American intervention. Today’s crisis might require it as well.”
“In late February 2004, Port-au-Prince was falling into chaos,” Foley continues. “Criminal gangs loyal to then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide were on a rampage, even as a ragtag band of ex-military thugs led by warlord Guy Philippe pressed on the capital, seeking to topple the government… But it was only thanks to the timely arrival of about 2,000 U.S. Marines that anarchy was avoided and an interim government was established in a Haitian-run process.”
Continuing with almost unthinkable arrogance, Foley concludes that “Haiti’s dysfunction is a permanent condition that continues to force itself upon the agenda of American policymakers,” one of the most disgusting articulations of “white man’s burden” ever made.
The Haitian people must take to the streets in massive numbers to say “NO” to imperialism and its henchmen. Let us fight for the unconditional defense of Haiti’s sovereignty against the U.S., Canadian, and French troops which are poised to pounce. (We published last week excellent reporting by a colleague in Martinique about war preparations happening there.)
Yes, uprooting the Haitian oligarchy and its “tools” in the political class is important, but driving out imperialism is the only way we can achieve lasting peace, bread, health, and work. In short, it is the sine qua non of everything in the popular masses’ interest.
This new occupation will be directed against the popular movement – some of it armed – heroically resisting the social catastrophe into which the population has been plunged. The probable military intervention will target this movement’s leaders in an attempt to thwart the massive advance of popular protest against the parasitic political class which is no longer viable but which imperialism seeks to resuscitate.
Shame on all those who, instead of fighting this criminal machine, prefer to join it in crushing all attempts to organize the proletarian and peasant masses. Fanmi Lavalas, the Montana Accord, Pitit Dessalines, OPL, and EDE, to name only those, bring disgrace upon themselves. None of these parties or movements can claim to represent the aspirations of the working people when they shamelessly pledge allegiance to humankind’s greatest enemy. These opportunists will not have to wait long before the Haitian people completely reject them, just like Ariel Henry.
Thousands of Haitians must take to the streets as they have in years past to fight the imperialists and the “transitional presidential council” they want to impose. Photo: Peoples Dispatch
Currently, the urgency is the founding of a new democratic Republic by, for, and of the Haitian people. The urgency is to fight the “laboratory” that has poisoned us and which returns to the crime-scene as our savior.
Should we remain prisoners and slaves of a system that has ruined us and will not solve any of our problems? Definitely No! Any Haitian solution must be the product of the working masses themselves, not of ruling class tools working under U.S. supervision.
Fighting for national liberation is not the fight of the crabs in the Presidential Council. Rather we must organize with respect, determination, and sacrifice in order to destroy this formidable machine.
Foley ends his piece by writing: “Many are calling for Haitian-led or even Haitian-only solutions, but this is unrealistic…” Let us true Haitians show him how wrong he is.
On Mon., Oct. 2, 2023, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2699 authorizing a non-UN Multinational Security Support (MSS) force for Haiti. The resolution, adopted under UN Charter’s Chapter VII, was drafted by the United States and Ecuador. This Resolution represents the successful implementation of phase one Washington’s “10-Year Strategy for Haiti.” An U.S.-led invasion and 10 year occupation of Haiti is now imminent.
Phase two of the “10-Year Strategic Plan for Haiti” was implemented in the summer of 2023. Phase two seeks to build a network of at least 250 U.S.-funded “civil society” organizations to influence public policy and decision-making as Washington oversees the reconstruction of Haiti’s state institutions and government.
The consequences of Washington’s “10-Year Strategic Plan for Haiti” would be comparable to the 1915 American invasion and occupation of Haiti. If Washington gets its way, Haiti will turn from its current status as a U.S. neo-colony back into a virtual colony, as it was under U.S. Marine rule from 1915 to 1934.
Washington’s Global Fragility Act
Passed with full bipartisan support under President Donald Trump in 2019, the Global Fragility Act (GFA) was initially framed by proponents as an “an opportunity to drive the necessary change” to prevent “adversaries such as China and Russia to expand their influence.”
The U.S. government selected Haiti to be the first “partner” under the GFA. Also on the list are Libya, Mozambique, and Papua New Guinea, along with West Africa’s Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, and Togo.
Kenyan Foreign Minister Alfred Mutua estimates “that the [MSS] project would take three years and require from 10,000 to 20,000 personnel.”
The GFA follows the “2017 National Security Strategy” that will work to “strengthen” so-called “fragile states… where state weakness or failure would magnify threats to the American homeland.”
The GFA aims to prevent “fragile states” from developing diplomatic and trade relationships with Russia and China. In a 2021 speech, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described China as “the only country with the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to seriously challenge the stable and open international system – all the rules, values, and relationships that make the world work the way we want it to.”
This adversarial stance on China results from its rapprochement with “fragile states” which involves geo-strategic concerns, including access to raw materials.
In a major policy speech in Seoul in 2022, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen explained that the U.S. “cannot allow countries like China to use their market position in key raw materials, technologies, or products to disrupt our economy and exercise unwanted geopolitical leverage.”
Haiti has mineralresources, primarily gold, valued at an estimated US$20 billion. It is unclear, however, whether these mineral resources can be extracted at a profit.
Washington also wants to prevent Haiti from developing closer diplomatic relations and economic ties with Russia. Jovenel Moïse, who was assassinated two years ago, established formaldiplomaticrelations with Moscow only one month before his assassination, accrediting Russian ambassador Sergey Melik-Bagdasarov. It was the first time Haiti had established diplomatic relations with Russia. Many argue that this could have been a factor which led Washington to green-light Moïse’s assassination.
Meanwhile, Haiti remains one of only 11 nations (not counting the Vatican) out of 193 worldwide which recognize Taiwan as an independent nation, the so-called “Republic of China.” The People’s Republic of China has sought to woo Haiti to drop Taiwan and formally establish diplomatic relations with it, just as the neighboring Dominican Republic did in 2018.
Kenyan cops in their purple riot gear.
A “partnership” under the GFA between Haiti and Washington would ensure that Haiti remains under U.S. hegemony for decades. This would also block diplomacy and investment from countries like China. In 2017, China offered to overhaul Port-au-Prince’s crumbling infrastructure with a US$4.7 billion aid package if Haiti would recognize it and join its “One Belt, One Road Initiative.”
So far that hasn’t happened, and the GFA aims to keep things that way. It is a plan to maintain global hegemony and gather former colonies and neo-colonies under its wing.
It is no wonder that Washington chose Haiti as its first “partner” under the GFA. Haiti is often the laboratory where Washington tests its new imperialist strategies for maintaining hegemony.
Washington’s “10-Year Security Assistance” Program
The GFA emphasizes building relationships with “local civil society” by “strengthen[ing] the capacity of the United States to be an effective leader of international efforts to prevent extremism and violent conflict.”
This “capacity” also includes 10-year “planned security assistance.”
The U.S. government’s efforts to organize an armed intervention into Haiti over the past year are symbiotic with the GFA. Under the GFA, the U.S. government can negotiate “planned security assistance” with Haiti as part of a 10-year plan, but to do so, Washington wants a nominally elected government.
Blinken explained in a recent official statement that the GFA “underpins” a new strategy and provides an “ambitious framework for engaging creatively” with the United-States’ “global partners.” This new strategy is explained in a 2020 document titled “United States Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability” (SPCPS), published by the State Department, Defense Department, USAID, and Treasury Department.
The SPCPS meets the GFA’s requirement for Washington’s “Global Fragility Strategy” and also outlines the its initial plan for providing 10-year “security-assistance” programs to its “partners.”
Washington wants to improve Haiti’s “governance of the security sector,” in addition to “professionaliz[ing] partner nation security forces, and build long-term relationships with key host nation security officials consistent with U.S. national security and economic interests.” (emphasis added).
In a follow-up document titled the “10-Year Strategic Plan for Haiti,” the U.S. outlined its intent to “integrate U.S. diplomacy, development, and security-sector engagement in Haiti.” In other words, the State Department, USAID, and the Pentagon – soft power and hard – will work together to implement the Global Fragility Strategy in Haiti.
Kenya is providing personnel for Phase one of Washington’s “10-Year Strategic Plan for Haiti” under the guise of providing support to the PNH. It’s the spearhead of the GFA “partnership” between Haiti and the U.S..
In a prepared statement to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Jim Saenz, Deputy Assistant Secretary Defense for Counternarcotics and Stabilization Policy, explained that the “DoD’s role in GFA implementation is to support the efforts of the Department of State as the lead, and the USAID as the lead implementer ” to “ensure that the 10-year plans …align the relevant goals, objectives, plans, and benchmarks with DoD policy.”
A key feature of Washington’s strategy is to intervene in Haiti’s affairs by directing USAID funds to Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) who are open to the U.S. government’s “market-based approaches” to “promoting stability” under a “partnership” imposed by a multinational armed force officially requested by Haiti’s current dictator, Dr. Ariel Henry.
The State Department Implements its 10-Year Strategic Plan for Haiti
During Phase one, the U.S. government outlines a plan to “engage and leverage partners among Haitian civil society and the Haitian National Police (PNH) to inform and implement programming to strengthen citizen security and the rule of law.”
“Initial efforts will focus on key high-crime and high-violence neighborhoods and key transportation and economic hubs” the plan explains.
The UN Security Council’s (UNSC) approval of the one-year MSS non-UN mission to Haiti means Phase one is moving ahead.
This UNSC vote comes almost one year after Henry’s initial Oct. 6, 2022 request for “the immediate deployment of a specialized armed force, in sufficient quantity, to stop throughout the territory the humanitarian crisis caused by, among other things, the insecurity resulting from the criminal actions of armed gangs and their sponsors.”
Kenya is slated to lead the MSS, despite widespread popular and political resistance both in Kenya and Haiti, as well as internationally. Henry’s political rivals – the signatories to the Kingston Joint Declaration and the “January 30th Agreement” – are opposed to the MSS with Henry in power and insist that a transitional government must be put in place before the MSS enters Haiti.
A Kenyan press report explains that Kenya has said it will focus on guarding key infrastructure – ports, airports, and main roads. Le Nouvelliste, on the other hand, reported that Kenya will deploy a task force to combat armed gangs in Port-au-Prince.
Ecuador and several CARICOM countries have also pledged support and personnel for the Kenyan-led MSS, including Jamaica, the Bahamas, Barbados, and Antigua and Barbuda. The Miami Heraldreported that Italy, Spain, Mongolia, Senegal, Belize, Suriname, Guatemala, and Peru have also offered support, although it is unclear what form this will take.
Speaking on Fri., Sep. 22 at the start of a UN meeting in New York, Antony Blinken said the United States would supply “robust financial and logistical assistance” to the MSS, promising US$200 million.
The MSS is an invasion of Haiti that could lead to a brutal 10 year occupation
In essence, Kenya is offering to provide personnel for Phase one of Washington’s 10-Year Strategic Plan for Haiti under the guise of providing security and support to the PNH. It is the spearhead of the GFA “partnership” between Haiti and the U.S..
“This proposed invasion is different from those of 1994 and 2004,” Kim Ives explained, “which involved bonafide UN blue-helmeted ‘peacekeepers’ under the control and oversight of the Security Council itself. The MSS’s unprecedented formula would be nominally overseen by Kenya, but actually by the U.S..”
Kenya provides the “Blackwashing” necessary for the U.S.-led invasion. This approach helps the UN avoid accountability as well. As Ben Norton explained, “It is a U.S. military intervention, using the UN and Kenya as cover.”
While the MSS’s purported purpose is to combat gangs, the primary goal is to facilitate a controlledchangeover from Henry’s embattled regime to another transitional government also beholden to Washington.
Henry has been accused of playing a role in President Jovenel Moïse’s Jul. 7, 2021 assassination as well as backing some of Haiti’s most notorious criminal gangs. Henry was installed as PM by the U.S. government and its allied embassies, known as the “CORE Group,” via a short statement and tweet days after Moise’s assassination.
Since his selection, Henry has ruled without popular support or a single elected official in his government. He dutifully imposed U.S. policy in Haiti, allowing Haiti’s state institutions to crumble.
The UNSC only approved a one-year mandate for the MSS with renewal reviews after nine months. It is not surprising, however, that Kenyan Foreign Minister Alfred Mutua told the New York Times that their recent assessment “estimated that the project would take three years and require from 10,000 to 20,000 personnel.” He sanguinely explained that he “envisions some 50 more countries each pledging from 500 to 1,000 officers, so they can achieve the 20,000 or more needed.”
Jake Johnston commented on X (formerly Twitter), writing “MINUSTAH 2.0, the non-UN sequel?” The comparison is as obvious as it is ominous.
MINUSTAH is how the U.S. “outsourced its control of Haiti,” author and activist Bill Quigley explained. The UN force helped consolidate Washington’s post-2004-coup puppet prime minister Gérard Latortue and committed multiple crimes and massacres against the Haitian people. The force varied in size over the 13 years it was deployed in Haiti, averaging about 9,000 military troops and 4,000 police officers from 56 mostly poor countries.
MINUSTAH’sinitial mandate was also for only six months, starting in 2004 following the coup against democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The mandate was extended several times. MINUSTAH occupied Haiti for 13 years – until 2017, where it was replaced by another Chapter VII armed force, MINUJUSTH.
Comprised at its peak of about 1,300 police officers, MINUJUSTH remained in Haiti for another two years, until 2019.
Mutua’s timeline of three years – triple the proposed one year MSS mission timeline – is surely an underestimate. Indeed, in a March 2023 interview, the International Crisis Group’s Renata Segura was pushed to explain how long the mission would take. She responded “probably years.”
Kim Ives’ Oct. 5 tweet about opposition leader Babu Owino saying that the Kenyan parliament and street demonstrations could block Ruto’s plan to lead the MSS.
Five months ago, while discussing a timeline for a multinational intervention force in Haiti, retired Canadian General Tom Lawson told CBCRadio that “we’re not talking a couple of years. We’re likely talking five to 10, 15 years, because we’re talking about nation-building. We’re not talking about establishing a safe and secure area for the government now to get to its tasks. We’re talking about a non-functioning government…And that’s in terms of – like we’ve seen in Afghanistan and Iraq – decades.”
Lawson’s comments underline that the MSS is an occupation force aiming to set the stage for the GFA’s “10 year security assistance” package.
Opposition emerges in Kenya itself
But the MSS is far from a done deal, despite the UNSC’s benediction. It hinges on Kenya’s leadership, and the Kenyan people may not put up with it.
On Oct. 5, Kim Ives tweeted that Kenyan parliamentarian Babu Owino believes there is a “102 percent” chance that Kenyan lawmakers will be able to prevent a deployment of 1,000 Kenyan police officers to Haiti, offering a ray of hope for Haiti. Owino shared his views during a Zoom conference with journalists and activists.
But Kenyan President William Ruto’s government can be expected to strike back. In July, Owino was arrested by Kenyan police and detained for three days for speaking out against police brutality.
This is a foreshadowing of the kind of violent oppression of dissent that will result from Kenyan forces occupying Port-au-Prince. Kenyan police have a “culture of internal impunity and criminality, and inadequate internal and external accountability,” explained Peter Kiama, the executive director of Kenya’s watchdog Independent Medico-Legal Unit. Kenyan police have also been accused of torture and shooting civilians.
As Owino predicted, the invasion plan has encountered pushback. On Oct. 9, the Kenyan High Court blocked Kenya’sdeployment as part of the MSS in Haiti until Oct. 24, 2023, following a petition submitted by the Third Way Alliance political party.
Travis Ross is a teacher based in Montreal, Québec. He is also the co-editor of the Canada-Haiti Information Project at canada-haiti.ca . Travis has written for Haiti Liberté, Black Agenda Report, The Canada Files, TruthOut, and rabble.ca. He can be reached onTwitter
Dominican President Luis Abinader speaking to the OAS Permanent Council on Sep. 15. “Haiti is a threat to the national security of the Dominican Republic," he said.
Tensions between Haiti and the Dominican Republic have grown in recent weeks while Dominican nationals are reportedly collaborating with some of Haiti’s most notorious criminal armed groups, particular the kidnappers based in Martissant and Village de Dieu.
Last week, Dominican President Luis Abinader traveled to Washington to meet with U.S. government officials about the situation and to address the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) on Thu. Sep. 15.
“The crisis that overflows the borders of Haiti is a threat to the national security of the Dominican Republic”, Abinader told the body. He has been pushing for a renewed foreign military intervention into Haiti over the past several months and plans to build a $30 million border wall along the entire 244-mile frontier with Haiti, although only a small 14-mile section is currently under construction.
Over 12,000 Dominican soldiers are deployed along the Haitian border.
In November 2021, Abinader took the unusual step of suspending automatic yearly renewals for Haitian student visas, purportedly concerned that Haitian armed groups could infiltrate the DR disguised as students.
The increased security measures may help curb Haitians crossing into the DR but do nothing to stop Dominicans from traveling to “el pais vecino,” the “neighboring country,” as they often refer to Haiti.
In June, Diario Libre revealed that Molaï Ortiz Mieses, known as “Nèg a tè,” was a leading member of the Martissant gang headed by “Ti Lapli,” one of Haiti’s most brazen kidnapping kingpins.
According to the Haitian police, Mieses, 32, said that “many Dominicans are an integral part of the armed gangs that currently operate in Haiti.”
He also “allegedly revealed that each gang has Dominican nationals in its ranks” and “other gangs have direct connections with Dominicans,” Diario Libre reported.
The Haitian police also said they had arrested people connected with illegal arms trafficking across the border from the Dominican Republic via the Haitian towns of Belladère and Ouanaminthe, among others.
Gédéon Jean, the executive director of the Center for Analysis and Research on Human Rights (CARDH), also feels that Dominicans are a part of Haitian criminal gangs, according to the press agency EFE.
“Some of the kidnapped say they hear people speaking Spanish in the places where they are held, which makes us think of the Dominicans,” he said. EFE further reported that “other Latin American nationalities are part of the [Haitian] armed gangs,” particularly those of “Ti Lapli” and the “5 Seconds” gang headed by “Izo” in Village de Dieu, another bastion of kidnappers.
The criminal gangs of Ti Lapli, Izo, as well as the 400 Mawozo, which kidnapped 17 North Americans last year, are loosely confederated with others from Belair and Cité Soleil in a front called the “G-Pèp.” Over the past six months, the “G-Pèp” has been at war with the “Revolutionary Forces of the G9 Family and Allies, Mess with One, You Mess with All,” a federation of armed neighborhood organizations fighting crime, the de facto regime of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, and Haiti’s bourgeoisie. Headed by former anti-gang policeman Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, the G9, as it is commonly called, is often conflated by U.S. officials and the mainstream press with the criminal gangs it is fighting against.
Abinader also mixes the criminal and anti-criminal federations, issuing a list last week, published in leading newspapers, prohibiting the entry into the DR of 12 of their leaders, adding as well former Haitian interim Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Claude Joseph.
As if not to be outdone, presidential pre-candidate Francisco Dominguez Brito of the PLD (Partido de la Liberacion Dominicana) recently conducted a sobering press conference in Santo Domingo. Brito, the DR’s former Attorney General under Presidents Fernandez and Medina, publicly called on Abinader to immediately invoke “proactive” measures, such as creating an intelligence database and special unit to counteract Haiti’s armed groups as well as intercepting telephone communications. In short, Brito was recommending that the DR use IMSI Catcher/Stingray equipment, as operated by security agencies in North America and Europe, in order to monitor cellphones and track people believed to be a threat to the state and public safety. This clearly raises many privacy and civil liberty concerns.
Dominican Molaï Ortiz Mieses was a leading member of the Martissant gang headed by “Ti Lapli,” one of Haiti’s most brazen kidnapping kingpins.
Adding to Brito’s dire warnings, former Foreign Minister Miguel Vargas Maldonado publicly declared that insecurity in Haiti represented a “real threat” to the Dominican Republic. He further stated that Haiti’s insecurity situation was worsening rapidly, and the power vacuum placed that nation on the verge of civil war.
Whenever Haiti has the spotlight, Dominican ultra nationalist groups are energized. The “Marcha Patriotica” action on Aug. 6, was organized by the “Instituto Duartiano” and other civic society organizations and personalities. The Aug. 6 nationalist action was both quantitatively and qualitatively superior, to similar activities in the past. Hundreds or perhaps thousands attended the march in Santo Domingo’s Colonial Zone. The hashtag #MarchaPatrioticaRD trended quite heavily, especially on the day of action, and currently there is another such activity planned for Santiago in October.
A tragic incident occurred on the day of the Aug. 6 “Marcha Patriotica,” the hate crime stabbing death of an Afro-Dominican man in Santo Domingo. This hate crime happened on a bus of OMSA (the Metropolitan Bus Authority), following an argument between two passengers “regarding Haitians.” The OMSA Communications Director called the crime an “isolated act,” knowing fully well that earlier on Aug. 6 the anti-Haitian “Marcha Patriotica” had taken place in the capital. The murder happened later that afternoon. Furthermore, OMSA did not immediately release the videos of this hate crime, according to the victim’s family, raising suspicions of evidence tampering and obstructing justice.
The ultimate responsibility for what is transpiring in Haiti right now falls squarely on the United States, which has interfered in Haiti’s internal affairs for over a century.
“The island is one and indivisible,” Toussaint L’Ouverture prophetically pronounced over two centuries ago. Undoubtedly, the fates of both peoples of Hispaniola are inextricably intertwined in this tumultuous 21st century.
Ariel Fornari is an independent journalist based in the Dominican Republic.
Il n’y a pas de combat pour la libération nationale, sans une lutte armée !
Note de Haiti Liberté: Dans son texte, l’auteur fait référence, sans s’en rendre compte, au nom de Toussaint Louverture, qui à la tête d’une « armée d’esclaves noirs » a fait « mordre la poussière » à « cette armée qui allait bientôt envahir presque toutes les nations européennes » [celle de Napoléon Bonaparte]. Bien sûr, il aurait dû faire référence à Dessalines, ce qu’on voudrait mettre au compte d’un lapsus calami, Vers la fin de l’article, on peut lire : « Toussaint et les grands chefs de la révolution anticoloniale et antiesclavagiste doivent se révolter dans leurs tombes… » Sans aucun doute, mais s’agissant de la victorieuse révolution haïtienne, de Vertières, le nom de Dessalines devrait figurer d’abord, celui des « autres chefs » ensuite, bien que personne ne saurait contester les grands mérites de Louverture.
***
Jean-Jacques Dessalines, le chef de la révolution haïtienne de 1804
Le 1er janvier 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclame l’indépendance d’Haïti de son ancienne métropole, la France, c’est-à-dire que cette année ramène le 218e anniversaire du premier exploit indépendantiste en Amérique réussi, mais l’attention des médias liés à la gauche et certaines variantes du progressisme a été éclipsée par le souvenir du triomphe de la Révolution cubaine.
Un oubli impardonnable
Je profite d’une courte période de vacances d’été dans une petite ville de la côte atlantique argentine et comme toujours, où que je sois, j’emporte mon ordinateur portable et je ne me déconnecte jamais du monde. La lutte anticapitaliste et anti-impérialiste est de 7 x 24 et les ennemis ne prennent pas de repos: le capital a une puissance de feu écrasante, magnifiée par son contrôle quasi-absolu des médias à travers lesquels ils répandent leurs mensonges, sèment la peur et répandent le poison de la haine. C’est pourquoi il faut être dans une attitude de garde permanente pour contrer, ou du moins affaiblir, leurs attaques symboliques et sémantiques continuelles.
En vérifiant mon courrier et en passant en revue les messages qui me parviennent des plateformes les plus diverses, j’ai été surpris par quelqu’un, maintenant perdu dans un tsunami de messages, qui a fait une allusion oblique à l’indépendance d’Haïti « faite précisément le premier janvier ». J’ai été assommé en lisant cette phrase ! A peine remis de la surprise, je me suis précipité pour lire le texte intégral, mais il n’en disait rien de plus. C’était un commentaire en passant dans un message de salutation du week-end. Comme un premier janvier, me suis-je demandé.
Pendant des décennies, j’ai commémoré à cette date le triomphe du processus révolutionnaire cubain sans me rendre compte que ce même jour, par une de ces énigmes indéchiffrables de l’histoire ou peut-être par la ruse de la raison qui aime envoyer des messages codés, un puissant cri d’alarme provenant des entrailles des Caraïbes a appelé nos peuples à s’émanciper du joug colonial..
Comment ai-je pu être une telle brute, me suis-je demandé encore et encore, indigné contre moi-même. Je connaissais un peu l’histoire de ce pays. J’ai été le condisciple de deux Haïtiens – Gérard-Louis et Pierre – à la maîtrise en sciences politiques de la FLACSO/Chili dans la seconde moitié des années 1960 et j’avais eu de longues conversations avec eux sur leur fascinant pays. Pour un porteño de vingt-quatre ans, émoussé par l’esprit de clocher et le poids de l’eurocentrisme qui empêchait – ou du moins déformait – la perception du monde au-delà des limites étroites de son village, j’avais trouvé fascinants leurs récits de l’histoire, de la vie quotidienne et des coutumes de leur pays ? J’étais loin de tomber dans le piège du pittoresque ou de la séduction de l’exotisme. Jeune sociologue critique, le récit de mes confrères m’a permis de revivre, à la loupe de leur pays, la permanence du drame historique de Notre Amérique. Je les ai écoutés et dans mon cerveau des concepts tels que la Conquête de l’Amérique, la traite négrière, la destruction des communautés indigènes, les ravages du colonialisme et de l’impérialisme, la surexploitation capitaliste et la malédiction du despotisme politique, incorporés dans mon héritage intellectuel à Buenos Aires au début des années soixante, ont pris vie, ils m’ont questionné sans pitié et radicalisé ma pensée, remettant en cause « le savoir » qui était enseigné dans les cours de sociologie de l’époque. Les projections de ses histoires allaient bien au-delà de ce qui se passait dans leur pays et m’ont donné certaines clés pour comprendre pourquoi le blues des noirs américains ou les solos d’un John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong ou Miles Davis m’atteignaient l’âme alors que les musiques “blanches” des grands groupes comme celles de Glenn Miller ou Benny Goodman m’apparaissaient des factures industrialisées, froides et sans vie.
L’exil au Mexique a approfondi ma relation avec deux éminents haïtiens : Gérard-Pierre Charles et Suzy Castor, deux figures emblématiques des sciences sociales non seulement en Haïti mais dans tout le bassin de la Grande Caraïbe. Des dizaines de fois je me suis entretenu avec eux dans les couloirs de l’UNAM, à FLACSO/Mexique, dans des activités organisées par CLACSO et dans de nombreux séminaires internationaux. Tous deux ont apporté des contributions fondamentales à la compréhension des actions de l’impérialisme dans la gestation et le maintien de la dictature féroce de François « Papa Doc » Duvalier et les ravages de l’occupation nord-américaine en Haïti. De retour en Argentine, j’ai maintenu une communication régulière avec eux et aussi avec leurs disciples. J’avais également eu plusieurs étudiants haïtiens à l’UNAM et vers la fin des années 70 j’ai visité ce pays, j’ai connu de première main les luttes de ce peuple sous la dictature de “Papá Doc” et j’en suis revenu ébloui par la richesse de leur culture, leur musique. , sa peinture, sa gastronomie, sa joie de vivre, son optimisme débordant même au milieu des conditions très difficiles qui prévalent. Je me souviens de l’impression que cela m’a donné de visiter l’un des marchés populaires de Port-au-Prince : là, j’ai senti dans mes entrailles que Mère Afrique était vivante et continuait à nourrir ses enfants caribéens de son énergie et de ses influences. En fin de compte, c’est en Afrique que l’aventure humaine a commencé sur cette planète menacée et ce sera l’Afrique – et ses fragments dans les Caraïbes – l’endroit où l’on trouvera la sagesse et le courage d’arrêter la locomotive outrancière du capitalisme qui nous emmène tous à toute vitesse dans l’abîme, rappelant la métaphore effrayante de Walter Benjamin.
Toussaint Louverture
Alors que tous ces souvenirs étaient mobilisés en masse, j’étais encore plus furieux contre moi-même de n’avoir pu percevoir la coïncidence entre les faits historiques des Haïtiens et des Cubains, deux nations géographiquement séparées par un canal, le Paso de los Vientos, dont la largeur est d’à peine 80 kilomètres, et relié par une infinité de liens historiques, culturels et politiques. Comment expliquer mon oubli impardonnable, surtout dans le cas d’un pays qui a produit des leaders politiques extraordinaires tels que Toussaint Louverture, Henry Christophe, Alexandre Pétion, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Charlemagne Péralte et le grand précurseur de la révolte antiesclavagiste : François Mackandal, exécutés sur le bûcher par les autorités coloniales françaises. Alejo Carpentier avait fait de lui l’un des protagonistes centraux de son beau roman Le Royaume de ce monde, que j’ai pris plaisir à lire comme peu d’autres. Comment se fait-il que jamais, je le répète, ne m’est jamais venu à l’esprit de fixer l’acte de naissance de l’énorme exploit haïtien ; Comment se fait-il que personne dans le monde de l’histoire, des sciences sociales ou du journalisme ne se souvienne d’elle ? Pourquoi, malgré mes défenses, suis-je devenu une autre victime de ce déni raciste ?
Alexandre Pétion
Honteux de moi, j’ai décidé de réparer ce défaut. Sans plus tarder, mes projets de vacances se sont effondrés. J’ai commencé à fouiller dans mes archives et heureusement, j’ai trouvé des documents et de vieilles notes de ce voyage en Haïti. J’ai cru que c’était une manière d’expier, au moins en partie, la culpabilité qui m’accablait pour mon oubli impardonnable et de promouvoir une attitude plus vigilante de la pensée critique latino-américaine pour éviter qu’Haïti ne soit dévasté, tantôt par notre indolence ou par le pessimisme d’une vision fataliste de l’histoire qui accepte le destin tragique d’Haïti comme immuable et nous éloigne du champ de bataille, au bonheur de l’impérialisme.
Le cri
Le 1er janvier, le souvenir du triomphe de la Révolution cubaine a retenu l’attention des médias liés à la gauche et à certaines variantes du progressisme. La raison est bien compréhensible : même pour ses critiques les plus acharnés, cet exploit révolutionnaire était un coup de hache qui a marqué un avant et un après, le début d’une nouvelle ère dans l’histoire de l’Amérique latine et des Caraïbes. Il n’est pas étonnant de constater une fois de plus que la commémoration d’un autre événement de projection universelle-historique ne méritait pas la même attention, comme aimait à le dire Hegel : également le 1er janvier 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclama l’indépendance d’Haïti, de son ancienne métropole, la France. La politologue haïtienne Sabine Manigat note que la rébellion des esclaves noirs a culminé son épopée historique en humiliant les troupes qu’en 1802 – un nombre estimé à 32 000 – Napoléon avaient envoyées à Saint-Domingue avec un double mandat réparateur : rétablir l’autorité de la France sur la colonie et le statu quo avant cela qui reposait sur l’esclavage.[1] Cette armée qui allait bientôt envahir presque toutes les nations européennes a mordu la poussière de la défaite devant une armée d’esclaves noirs, dirigée par Toussaint Louverture. Une épopée dont l’ignorance ou l’oubli ne s’explique que par une impardonnable négligence ou notre sous-estimation autodestructrice, fille d’une longue histoire de soumission coloniale.
Le monument des héros de Vertières
Avec sa proclamation, Dessalines a envoyé un message à l’ordre mondial de son temps disant que sur cette île turbulente était né le deuxième État indépendant des Amériques, précédé seulement par l’indépendance des treize colonies anglaises d’Amérique du Nord. Un État, par ailleurs, né d’une longue lutte anticoloniale et qui a été le premier à déclarer (et à mettre en pratique) l’abolition de l’esclavage. C’est pourquoi Eduardo Galeano avait raison quand dans « La menace haïtienne » il rappelait que « le premier pays à s’être libéré de l’esclavage dans le monde, le premier pays libre, vraiment libre, des Amériques était Haïti ». [2] Et ce fut le premier et le seul cas de l’histoire où une rébellion d’esclaves noirs triompha, de manière irréversible, et donna lieu à la création de son propre État, secouant le joug séculaire de ses oppresseurs français et créoles. Haïti avait six ans d’avance sur les processus d’indépendance qui allaient éclater dans le Rio de la Plata en 1810, et a aboli l’esclavage trois ans avant le Royaume-Uni bien qu’en réalité, Londres ne l’atteigne qu’en 1832 avec une législation beaucoup plus sévère. Bref, Haïti a été le premier « territoire libre » des Amériques ; Il a fallu plus de soixante ans à leurs prédécesseurs du Nord pour mettre fin à l’esclavage.
Juan Bosch, homme politique, écrivain, historien, ancien président de la République dominicaine a synthétisé avec éloquence le caractère de l’exploit historique des Haïtiens et des Haïtiens lorsqu’il a écrit que « Le peuple d’Haïti a à son actif une révolution phénoménale… la seule qui fut à en même temps une guerre sociale des esclaves contre les maîtres ; une guerre raciale, des noirs contre les blancs et les mulâtres ; une guerre civile, des noirs et des mulâtres du nord et de l’ouest contre des mulâtres et des noirs du sud ; une guerre internationale, contre les Espagnols et les Anglais, et une guerre d’indépendance, de la colonie contre la métropole. »[3] Dans la lignée de ce qu’a observé Bosch, la politologue haïtienne Sabine Manigat a signalé que du point de vue sociopolitique la révolution des esclaves en Haïti a inauguré le cycle des indépendances latino-américaines et caribéennes par un triple exploit : « la redéfinition de la liberté au mépris direct de la conception dominante au siècle des Lumières et de la révolution qu’elle a engendrée en France ; la construction d’un État noir anticolonial et antiesclavagiste au sein de l’empire colonial français dans la région ; et la confrontation victorieuse avec une puissance coloniale, c’est-à-dire avec l’ordre mondial actuel. » [4] Il reste à ajouter qu’Haïti a payé un prix exorbitant pour une telle audace. C’est ce que nous verrons ensuite.
Semer la misère
Nous avons l’habitude d’associer Haïti à l’extrême pauvreté, à la dégradation de la vie sociale et à une succession sans fin de tyrannies qui étouffent les élans démocratiques récurrents de son peuple, ainsi que des catastrophes périodiques telles que des tremblements de terre dévastateurs et des ouragans. Pourtant, tout au long du XVIIIe et d’une partie du XIXe siècle, Haïti était de loin le joyau le plus précieux de l’empire français, et probablement l’une des possessions d’outre-mer les plus convoitées par les pilleurs coloniaux insatiables. L’Espagne, l’Angleterre et la France, parfois aussi les Hollandais, se disputaient âprement le contrôle de Saint-Domingue. A certaines époques, le produit de ses plantations de sucre en vint à représenter la moitié de la consommation européenne, et le café, le tabac, le cacao, le coton et l’indigo jouèrent également un rôle important dans les exportations haïtiennes vers l’Europe. Pour comprendre les raisons de l’essor économique de ce que les patriotes rebaptiseront plus tard de son nom indigène, Haïti, il suffit de jeter un coup d’œil à l’évolution de la consommation de sucre dans les pays développés. En Grande-Bretagne, par exemple, cinq fois plus de sucre était consommé en 1770 qu’en 1710, explique Clive Pontin, un historien anglais de renom.[5] Cet auteur dit que des années 1740 aux années 1820, le sucre était l’importation la plus précieuse de Grande-Bretagne et, pendant de nombreuses années, des pays européens dans leur ensemble. Le sucre était, en d’autres termes, ce qu’est le pétrole à notre époque. L’augmentation de la productivité des plantations caribéennes, en particulier à Cuba, ainsi que la substitution de la canne à sucre à la betterave, ainsi que les progrès des transports terrestres (chemins de fer) et maritimes (bateaux à vapeur) déplaceraient la demande des secteurs en croissance des sociétés européennes vers les terres fertiles, plaines d’Amérique du Sud, et le rôle autrefois joué par le sucre a été repris par les céréales et les viandes.
La grande révolte des esclaves de 1791 et l’approbation en France de la « Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen » (août 1789) exacerbent encore les contradictions caractéristiques de l’ordre social rigide de la Colonie car les beaux postulats de la « Déclaration ” ne s’appliquait pas aux esclaves, aux mulâtres et aux noirs libres. Le bouleversement était en crescendo et lorsque cinq ans plus tard (février 1794) la Convention nationale française déclara l’esclavage des noirs dans toutes les colonies françaises aboli, les conditions idéologiques et politiques pour l’assaut final contre l’ordre esclavagiste avaient mûri et la révolution n’était qu’une question de temps. Les doutes sur la stabilité du régime d’accumulation d’esclaves grandissent à mesure que les insurgés mettent le feu aux champs et aux maisons des propriétaires terriens français et de certains créoles. Cela a commencé à avoir un impact négatif sur la capacité d’exportation d’Haïti, qui a commencé à perdre sa gratification dans le commerce international.. De son côté, l’interdiction de la traite négrière enlevait la main-d’œuvre nécessaire aux plantations, qui étaient toutes « intensives en main-d’œuvre ». Les conditions de travail extrêmement dures et les maladies raccourcissent la vie des esclaves, et face à l’interdiction de la traite négrière, l’économie haïtienne commence à décliner en raison de l’insuffisance de l’offre de force de travail, à laquelle s’ajoutent le retard technologique et l’incertitude politique sus-mentionnée. La coalition instable entre Noirs et mulâtres patiemment construite par Toussaint Louverture a momentanément refermé une scission qui avait longtemps affaibli l’élan indépendantiste, a rendu possible le triomphe des patriotes haïtiens.
L’incendie du Cap, lors de la grande révolte des esclaves de 1791
En peu de temps, Cuba a déplacé Haïti en tant que principal producteur mondial de sucre, facilité par le fait que dans la plus grande des Antilles la domination coloniale espagnole se poursuivit tout au long du XIXe siècle, garantissant la continuité d’un ordre politique répressif favorable à l’introduction d’innovations technologiques qui n’ont pu être testées en Haïti et qui ont augmenté la productivité des sucreries cubaines. Ainsi, l’étoile la plus brillante des Caraïbes allait être, depuis lors, Cuba, mais à un coût terrible : l’esclavage ne sera aboli qu’en 1886 et le joug colonial espagnol s’étendra jusqu’en 1898.
Colonialisme et « ordre mondial »
La rébellion des indépendantistes haïtiens s’est heurtée au rejet prévisible des puissances coloniales qui n’ont pas mis une minute à unifier leurs forces pour réagir contre les Jacobins noirs, comme ils étaient heureusement étiquetés dans l’ouvrage classique de l’historien trinitaire C. L. R. James. Haïti était stigmatisé, considéré comme une peste ou une aberration monstrueuse qu’il fallait isoler et, si possible, écraser. Malheureusement, les colonialistes ont réussi les deux. Déjà à cette époque, les États-Unis apparaissaient comme les gardiens de l’ordre international dans leur arrière-pays caribéen. Le président Thomas Jefferson, propriétaire de quelque six cents esclaves de son vivant, a pris l’initiative de condamner le gouvernement haïtien. Eduardo Galeano rappelle ses propos : « le mauvais exemple haïtien » (comme ceux représentés aujourd’hui par Cuba, le Venezuela et le Nicaragua) exigeait que « la peste soit confinée sur cette île » et qu’un cordon sanitaire soit établi pour empêcher la propagation d’un exemple. Qui terrorisait les propriétaires terriens du sud.[6] Tim Matthewson, un spécialiste de la politique étrangère « pro-esclave » des États-Unis à cette époque, affirme que Jefferson s’en est pris aux Noirs haïtiens en les qualifiant de « cannibales de la terrible république » et en les comparant à des meurtriers.[7] Les États du Sud, qui gravitaient de manière décisive au Sénat et à la Chambre des représentants, n’ont pas voulu entendre parler d’Haïti, qui évoquait pour eux leurs pires cauchemars. Ce n’est qu’en 1862, sous la présidence d’Abraham Lincoln qui a mené une guerre civile pour mettre fin à l’esclavage dans le sud de l’Amérique du Nord, que le gouvernement d’Haïti sera reconnu par la Maison Blanche. La France l’avait fait en 1825, après un accord de lion, plus qu’injuste et immoral, pour payer une énorme compensation (150 millions de francs or, équivalent, en 2021, valeurs à un chiffre qui selon les calculs oscille entre 22.000 et 31.000 millions [8] La Grande-Bretagne a reconnu le gouvernement haïtien en 1833 et les États-Unis l’ont fait, comme nous l’avons mentionné plus haut, une fois les États esclavagistes du Sud séparés de l’Union. La Colombie et le Venezuela mettront plus d’un demi-siècle à reconnaître l’indépendance d’Haïti, le Saint-Siège l’a fait en 1864. Inaugurant ce qui deviendra plus tard une tradition infâme, le Congrès des États-Unis, cédant au tollé d’une partie de la « communauté internationale » – en fait, les pressions des principales puissances coloniales : la France , Espagne et Grande-Bretagne, toujours en possession d’enclaves de plantations en Guadeloupe, Martinique, Sainte Lucie, Cuba et Jamaïque, entre autres – et d’autre part, des propriétaires des esclaves du sud produisit une législation par laquelle un blocus commercial contre Haïti fut établi… C’est ainsi que les États-Unis entrèrent sur la scène internationale, jusqu’alors un acteur de deuxième ligne ; et c’est la façon dont elle opère encore aujourd’hui, perfectionnant de plus en plus « l’art des sanctions », des blocus et des pressions contre les pays tiers pour perpétuer un ordre économique et politique international qui n’est pas seulement essentiellement injuste et insoutenable !
L’héritage du racisme
Comme l’observe à juste titre Lautaro Rivara, même parmi les dirigeants les plus éclairés et les plus progressistes du début du XIXe siècle – tels que Francisco de Miranda, Simón Bolívar ou Manuel Dorrego – la méfiance et les préjugés suscités par cette rébellion victorieuse des esclaves noirs ont été ressentis avec intensité. C’est pourquoi notre auteur affirme qu’à la veille du Congrès amphictyonique, une éventuelle invitation à Haïti a été écartée parce qu’elle était considérée comme un ” groupe hétérogèneet étranger bien qu’ayant tracé l’itinéraire de la voie de l’indépendance, ayant soutenu, armé et financé les campagnes d’indépendance successives de Simón Bolívar ou d’avoir offert un asile généreux à Manuel Dorrego. »[9] L’historienne vénézuélienne Carmen Bohórquez a souligné la préoccupation de Miranda selon laquelle, afin d’éviter un soulèvement des personnes de couleur, il propose que les préparatifs de son expédition soit accélérés. Cette mesure, a-t-il dit, « ” devient d’autant plus urgente que les mulâtres et les gens de couleur libres constituent une partie essentielle de la population actuelle des villes, et que, déjà armés et organisés en corps de milice, ils pressent ce mouvement et menacent de s’emparer eux-mêmes de tout le pouvoir, si les créoles et les principaux propriétaires ne se hâtent de prendre les mesures nécessaires pour calmer les esprits et satisfaire en même temps les aspirations générales du pays ’’[10]
Ces dernières années, ce sujet a donné lieu à une discussion intéressante. Dans la note susmentionnée intitulée « La malédiction blanche » et parlant de l’isolement continental d’Haïti et du manque de reconnaissance de son nouveau gouvernement de noirs et de mulâtres, Eduardo Galeano déclare que « Simón Bolívar ne l’a pas reconnu non plus, bien qu’il lui devait tout. Haïti lui avait donnédes navires, des armes et des soldats en 1816, lorsque Bolivar est arrivé sur l’île, vaincu, et a demandé protection et aide. Haïti lui a tout donné, à la seule condition qu’il libère les esclaves, idée qui jusque-là ne lui était pas venue à l’esprit. Plus tard, le héros triompha dans sa guerre d’indépendance et exprima sa gratitude en envoyant à Port-au-Prince une épée en cadeau. Sans parler de la reconnaissance. »[11]
Malgré l’énorme respect que mérite le travail de Galeano, je pense qu’il est nécessaire d’introduire quelques nuances à son reproche catégorique. Premièrement, parce qu’au-delà des directives stratégiques dictées par Bolívar, les décisions concrètes sur le fonctionnement du Congrès amphictyonique ont été prises par Francisco de Paula Santander en tant que vice-président et Pedro Gual en tant que chancelier de Gran Colombia et non par Bolívar. Deuxièmement, pour dire que dans de nombreuses lettres et messages Bolivar a exprimé sa dette et celle du « continent sud-américain » envers Haïti et surtout envers Pétion. Il a dit, par exemple, que celui-ci “est l’auteur de notre indépendance… et qu’il a gouverné la République la plus démocratique du monde”. Déjà sur son sol natal, Bolívar n’a pas oublié ses promesses, proclamant en 1821 la libération des esclaves, dans un pays massivement dominé par les esclaves. Les ruses juridiques et les manœuvres politiques d’abord, et la mort du Libérateur en 1830, ont fait dérailler leurs projets au point que ce n’est qu’en 1854 que le Congrès vénézuélien adoptera une loi qui mettrait fin à l’esclavage. En Colombie, avec l’unité de la Grande Colombie déjà rompue, l’abolition fut approuvée en 1851. Et la reconnaissance officielle, de gouvernement à gouvernement, que les Haïtiens réclamaient, allait mettre encore des décennies à se matérialiser.
Simon Bolívar et Francisco Miranda
L’ingratitude des pays de Notre Amérique envers Haïti est déprimante et impardonnable, et elle continue à ce jour. Actuellement, il n’y a que huit ambassades à Port-au-Prince des 33 pays qui composent la CELAC : Argentine, Brésil, Chili, Cuba, Mexique, Panama, République dominicaine et Venezuela. Qu’est-il arrivé aux 25 autres? Comment expliquer une telle désaffection pour un pays qui a toujours soutenu les luttes des autres sans rien demander en retour ? Haïti a été le premier pays au monde à reconnaître l’indépendance de l’Argentine alors qu’un an ne s’était pas encore écoulé depuis sa déclaration formelle au Congrès de Tucumán. Les relations au niveau des ambassadeurs entre les deux pays ont été établies en 1947 et se sont poursuivies sans interruption jusqu’à ce jour.[12]
Comme nous l’avons dit plus haut, le Libérateur n’était pas en charge de la politique étrangère de la Grande Colombie. Ceci est étayé par une note de José Steinsleger remettant en cause l’approche de Galeano, arguant qu’en tant que président de cette entité politique, il avait poursuivi sa campagne de libération dans le sud du continent, tandis que son vice, Santander, était en charge des ” questions de la présidence, y compris la gestion de la politique étrangère et les préparatifs du Congrès du Panama. C’est Santander et non Bolivar qui a saboté la reconnaissance officielle du gouvernement révolutionnaire haïtien. Pas seulement cela : contrairement à la volonté du président, « le ministre des Affaires étrangères Gual a invité les États-Unis à présenter des délégués au grand congrès, et a incidemment donné des instructions à ses délégués pour éviter de reconnaître l’indépendance d’Haïti. » [13] Il convient d’ajouter que la réponse de Washington à l’aimable invitation du peuple de Santander a été catégorique : il ne participerait à aucun forum où Haïti serait à l’ordre du jour, et encore moins où des représentants de Port-au-Prince seraient invités à prendre part.
La vérité est que la république héroïque des noirs et des esclaves a été marginalisée lors de ce qui était censé être un congrès continental d’Amérique latine et des Caraïbes. Et, malheureusement, l’ostracisme se poursuivra pendant les deux cents prochaines années.
Les États-Unis s’emparent d’Haïti
La dégradation économique, sociale et politique d’Haïti ne peut se comprendre sans deux facteurs de causalité : la « compensation » exigée par la France et, par la suite, la politique étrangère des États-Unis. Le truc français, c’était du chantage sur toute la ligne : échange de la reconnaissance diplomatique contre la dette. Le chiffre évoqué plus haut (prenons l’estimation la plus favorable pour la France : 22 milliards de dollars) était monstrueux, représentant 10 fois le montant des revenus annuels d’Haïti.[14] Il n’est donc pas surprenant de constater que ce pays a dû transférer des paiements d’intérêts annuels à Paris jusqu’en 1947, ce qui a constitué une hémorragie financière irrépressible qui a terrassé la jeune république noire au cours de son premier siècle et demi d’existence. Il est scandaleux de voir comment la France de la soi-disant “démocratie et des droits de l’homme” a extorqué de l’argent, de façon aussi maléfique et avec une telle ignominie, à l’une de ses anciennes colonies pour avoir commis le crime impardonnable de vouloir être libre! Et vérifiez aussi comment cette position raciste et génocidaire a été accompagnée sans broncher par les autres « démocraties » en Europe et, bien sûr, par les États-Unis.
Marines des États-Unis en Haïti, 1915
La politique de sanctions et de blocus couplée aux réparations de guerre aurait été destinée à indemniser les propriétaires de plantations. C’est-à-dire récompenser les bourreaux de noirs et de mulâtres et, accessoirement, jeter un voile d’oubli sur le crime d’esclavage et de traite négrière pour lequel ils auraient dû être obligés de dédommager le peuple haïtien et non l’inverse. . Cet ensemble de facteurs est décisif pour expliquer le gouffre économique dans lequel allait plonger l’ancienne perle des Caraïbes, et qui allait en faire le pays le plus pauvre de l’hémisphère occidental et l’un des plus pauvres du monde. C’est dans ce contexte, propice à son braquage, que la capitale financière nord-américaine a fait son entrée, et c’est le deuxième facteur causal de la tragédie haïtienne.
En 1910, la Citibank rachète une part importante de la Banque de la République d’Haïti, la banque centrale qui avait le monopole de l’émission de la monnaie.[15] Cette même année, un consortium international de banques a refinancé la dette haïtienne et a pris, de fait, le contrôle des finances du pays. Peu de temps après, en 1914, les membres du consortium ont demandé au président Woodrow Wilson d’envoyer des Marines pour protéger les réserves d’or existantes d’Haïti et les protéger des troubles politiques locaux dans leurs coffres bancaires à New York. Il n’a pas fallu trop de pression pour le convaincre. Wilson, qui est entré dans l’histoire pour son « idéalisme » fallacieux, déjà la même année, avait ordonné une incursion de ses marines au Mexique (Veracruz) afin qu’il accède sans délai à la demande des banquiers. Six mois plus tard, en juillet 1915, les marines allaient occuper Haïti et l’année suivante, enhardis, ils feraient de même avec l’autre partie de l’île, en s’établissant en République dominicaine.[16] Ils sont restés en Haïti pendant dix-neuf ans et un mois, lorsque Franklin D. Roosevelt ordonna au corps expéditionnaire de rentrer au pays en août 1934 dans le cadre de sa politique trompeuse de « bon voisinage ». Les Marines ont imposé la loi martiale à Port-au-Prince et après presque deux ans de combats intermittents, ils ont désorganisé les guérillas basées dans les zones rurales, exécutant le chef de l’insurrection, Charlemagne Péralte.[17] Avec toute résistance écrasée, la Banque nationale a été réduite à une simple succursale de Citibank ; la présidence du pays est devenue un otage de la Maison Blanche et la police, l’armée et les agences fondamentales du gouvernement sont passées sous son contrôle. La montée en puissance des États-Unis en tant que nouvelle hégémonie mondiale à la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale a encore renforcé les liens de dépendance qui unissaient Port-au-Prince à Washington, dont les conséquences déplorables n’ont fait que s’aggraver avec le temps. En plus des accords de libre-échange léonins imposés par la Maison Blanche, les politiques économiques néolibérales, l’intervention du FMI et de la Banque mondiale, le sinistre héritage des dictatures terroristes soutenues des États-Unis se sont ajoutés de puissants tremblements de terre et de violents ouragans qui ont dévasté physiquement une grande partie du pays, en particulier à Port-au-Prince le remettant, servi sur un plateau, au contrôle des États-Unis avec la médiation de l’ONU et de certains gouvernements latino-américains. Haïti vit aujourd’hui de « l’aide humanitaire », qui arrive au compte-gouttes, et de la présence militaire de l’ONU pour protéger l’ordre intérieur. Toussaint et les grands chefs de la révolution anticoloniale et antiesclavagiste doivent se révolter dans leurs tombes tandis que les « houngan » et les « mambo » (les officiants de la religion vaudou) accomplissent leurs rituels confiants que tôt ou tard la fumée de leurs feux de joie leur apporte le retour imminent d’une nouvelle génération de « Jacobins noirs ».
Notes :
[1] Cf. Sabine Manigat, « La révolution indépendantiste haïtienne dans sa première étape : L’édification du pouvoir noir à Saint-Domingue », in Science and Culture Magazine (La Paz, Bolivie), Nº 22-23, 2009.
[2] Disponible sur : Página / 12, 11 octobre 2012.
[3] Juan Bosch, « Prologue » à Gérard Pierre-Charles, Haïti. Radiographie d’une dictature (Mexique : Editorial Nuestro Tiempo, 1969), p.9. La bibliographie sur ce processus révolutionnaire est extrêmement abondante. Nous nous limitons ici à signaler le livre de Cyril L.R. James, l’un des pionniers à étudier ce processus dans les années 30 : Les Jacobins noirs (1938). Disponible en ligne sur : https://elsudamericano.wordpress.com/2017/10/14/los-jacobinos-negros-toussaint-loverture-y-la-revolucion-de-haiti-por-clr-james/ En Argentine la problématique haïtienne a été étudiée dans deux livres brillants d’Eduardo Grüneren : La Oscuridad y las Luces (Buenos Aires: Edhasa, 2010) et Juan Francisco Martínez Pería, Libertad o Muerte! Histoire de la Révolution haïtienne (Buenos Aires : Centro Cultural de la Coopération Floreal Gorini, 2012).
[4] Manigat, op. cit.
[5] Histoire du monde : une nouvelle perspective (Londres : Chatto & Windus, 2000)
[6] « Haïti : la malédiction blanche », dans La República, 19 janvier 2004).
[7] “Lettre de Jefferson à Aaron Burr”, Philadelphie, 11 février 1799. Pour plus de détails, voir A Proslavery Foreign Policy : Haitian-American Relations during the Early Republic (Londres et Westport : Praeger, 2003)
[8] Gerardo Lissardy, « La France ne rendra pas la ‘dette d’indépendance’ à Haïti », BBC News, 16 août 2010.
[9] “Le Congrès de Panama et une solitude de deux siècles”, dans https://argmedios.com.ar/el-congreso-de-panama-y-una-soledad-de-dos-siglos)
[10] Cf. Francisco de Miranda, précurseur de l’indépendance de l’Amérique latine. (La Habana : Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2003), p. 205.
[16] Wilson a également ordonné une intervention militaire à Cuba en 1917, Panama 1918 et a maintenu les troupes d’invasion envoyées au Nicaragua par son prédécesseur, William H. Taft, pendant les huit années de sa présidence.
[17] Au sujet de l’occupation nord-américaine je me réfère à l’ouvrage fondamental de Suzy Castor : L’occupation nord-américaine d’Haïti et ses conséquences (Mexique : Siglo XXI, 1971)
One of Haiti’s post-earthquake tent camps. Aid agencies' figures for tent camp residents rose from 370,000 people on Jan. 20, 2010, to 700,000 on Jan. 31, to 1.3 million on Mar. 1, to 1.536 million on Jul. 9.
Last week we presented the first part of Dr. Timothy Schwartz’s analysis of why and how giant tent-cities of earthquake victims sprang up from metropolitan Port-au-Prince to Léogâne in the weeks after Jan. 12, 2010.
Publishedon his blogin May 2019 and adapted from a chapter in his 2017 book“The Great Haiti Humanitarian Aid Swindle,”the full article delves in depth into the struggle for housing and land in those days after the earthquake and throughout Haiti’s history. It is very worth reading but has been abridged for Haïti Liberté.
We left off last week with Dr. Schwartz demonstrating how the humanitarian aid community knowingly lied to the world about how many people were living in the tent camps. This week we examine why.
Kim Ives
So Why the Lies?
What we were seeing with the growing camps was in part a scramble to get aid that the humanitarian organizations were giving away. But what the humanitarian aid professionals and the press seemed to miss was that for the poorest people it was more about escaping rent payments and gaining access to free land, i.e. land invasion. Just like the poor and middle class throughout the world, urban rents are a huge burden for those who have to pay them. The first goal of most independent household heads is to own their own home, and the earthquake presented a golden opportunity to get one. (…) It’s interesting and useful because it helps us make sense of Haiti and the impact of humanitarian aid. But just as interesting, for me (…) was the exaggeration, indeed, outright lying from the humanitarian sector. For despite the obvious mathematical distortions, despite the fact that even common aid workers like Maria were aghast at the scale of the opportunism, despite that behind closed doors we all went on at length about the rampant opportunism, the leaders of the humanitarian aid community, like UN director Nigel Fisher, kept a straight face while bewailing to the press and overseas public absurd numbers of homeless. In that respect it was very much like the orphans and rapes. And just as with the orphans and rapes, lurking behind it all was pursuit of money from sympathetic overseas donors.
The Money
The NGOs were pouring aid into the camps. Or at least they appeared to be. Olga Benoit, the director of SOFA, the largest women’s organization in Haiti, (…) recounted that, “it was like an invasion of NGOs. They went to the camps directly. This camp was for CRS [Catholic Relief Services], this camp for World Vision, this camp for Concern.”
Some might think that’s alright. Why not? Even if many people in the camps were not direct victims of the earthquake, they must have been in need. Yolette Jeanty of Kay Fanm, the second major feminist organization in Haiti tells us why that really wasn’t alright: “The great majority of ‘sinistre’ (desperate people) were and still are inside the neighborhoods. Those people didn’t want to go to the camps, they stayed home. Even those in the camps, many don’t sleep there. They go home to sleep. They only come to the camps during the day to get water or whatever they might be giving away. But the NGOs, they all go to the camps.”
By ignoring the neighborhoods, the humanitarian aid workers were able to avoid (…) security. In the weeks after the earthquake, the press had not only sold a lot of newspapers with sensational stories of gangs and street battles, they had also frightened the hell out of everyone, not least of all the humanitarian professionals working for NGOs and UN agencies. In 2013, criminologist Arnaud Dandoy wrote about the absurdity of what he calls “moral panic” among the humanitarian community in Haiti.
The typical NGO headquarters in Port-au-Prince was secured behind 10 foot walls topped with concertina wire. Its employees were restricted by curfews, forbidden to even roll down their windows in certain neighborhoods or enter others, precisely those neighborhoods most in need of humanitarian aid. The camps solved a lot of problems.
Despite the fact that the NGOs and the grassroots organizations such as KOFAVIV were reporting skyrocketing violence, the camps could be patrolled. UN soldiers were stationed at camps where NGOs worked. Security experts could monitor the situation. And at night, when things supposedly got really bad, the aid workers weren’t there. They went back to the elite districts, to their apartments and hotel rooms located, once again, behind high walls and in guarded compounds. [11]
On Jul. 9, 2010, Nigel Fisher, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Haiti, declared that 1.5 million were living in 1,555 camps. That would have been 46% of all 3.375 million people in the entire strike zone. He didn’t say anything about the fake tents.
The problem with focusing on the camps, from a humanitarian perspective, is that they were missing a lot of the real victims. But what’s worse, from the perspective of helping, is that it was precisely the indiscriminate giving, the protection of the camps, and the carte-blanche certification of camp residents as legitimate that encouraged opportunists to pour into the camps. The camps grew for seven months after the earthquake, long after the last aftershock. They went from 370,000 people living “under improvised shelters” on Jan. 20, 2010 (IOM), to 700,000 on Jan. 31 (USAID 2010), to 1.3 million on Mar. 1 (UN 2010), to Nigel Fisher’s claim of 1.536 million in 1,555 camps on Jul. 9. Among those numbers were a lot of opportunists who sought to benefit from the aid, many of whom already had little grey concrete homes near the camps, homes that had not fallen down. And most of whom had some means of earning a living, however meager. And it’s unfair to those in need that such people would pretend to be victims left homeless by the earthquake. But more to the point here, it’s hard to overlook the fact that those who most benefitted from the lies and from permitting opportunists to indiscriminately pour into the camps were not the impoverished opportunists feigning to be homeless. Those who most benefitted from the lies were the foreign humanitarian aid agencies and their workers, many of whom were living in $50,000 per year hotel rooms and apartments. And it’s here where we can best understand why the United Nations and the NGOs were spewing untruths and omitting facts about the camps. [12]
The camps brought in donations. Whether deliberately or by default, the humanitarian aid organizations used the camps in much the same way as the people pretending to live in them: as aid bait to get overseas donors to give. The NGOs and UN agencies presented the camps to the overseas donors as a humanitarian aid smorgasbord of ills. Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in central locations with every imaginable need: food, water, shelter, security, lighting, sanitation, health, therapy. They were getting paid to take care of those ills. And by making a show of their efforts, taking lots of photo opportunities, it was as an easy solution to make it look like they were doing something. They didn’t have to go to the neighborhoods, didn’t have to implement rigorous mechanisms for vetting real victims from the pretenders. In this way the aid agencies essentially conspired with those pretending to live in the camps by not telling the truth about them and by wanton distribution of the aid. What makes it sad and distressing, if not criminal, is that those most in need, the weakest and most vulnerable who had gone to camps were, by and large, not getting aid. In the six years since the earthquake, I’ve listened to it over and over in focus groups:
“The camp committee took everything that was given for the camp. They took the tarpaulins and if you needed one you had to buy it from them for 250 or 300 gourdes. If not, you lived in the rain. Sometimes we saw trucks come with food. But they took everything to store at their houses. They didn’t give us anything. Some of these people had houses in good condition. The camps offered them more advantages than staying in their own houses.”
Erns Maire Claire (Female; 43 years; 3 children; teacher)
Focus Group for CCCM OCHA Cluster, Mar. 12, 2016
“What I saw happening was that they sold the food. Sometimes they made arrangements with other people and gave them food several times. These people sold the food and shared the money with them.”
Cadio Jean (Male, 43 years old; 4 children; mason/ironworker)
Focus Group for CCCM OCHA Cluster, Mar. 13, 2016
So there was waste and the NGOs were doing a lousy job getting the aid to the people who really needed it. There was massive embezzlement and hoarding. But if most of the people in the camps were not really earthquake victims and most were not getting anything from the humanitarian aid agencies, why did several hundred thousand people continue to live in camps for years after the earthquake? The answer is something that everyone seemed to speak about constantly but no one, not even journalists, seemed to realize was driving the camps. The answer is because they were renters and they hoped to get a piece of land and a home. Indeed, it was a consummation of Haitian historical trends, the invasion and expropriation of land, and most recently that of the invasion of Haiti by NGOs and the emergence of being a viktim as an opportunity to escape poverty. The poorest people and relative newcomers to the city were mobilizing their status as “earthquake victim” to seize land. (…)
Spontaneously Disappearing IDPs
By December 2012, there were 347,284 people in the camps, down from the 1.5 million IOM had said were living in camps six months after the earthquake; 74% of them had simply left the camps, “spontaneously” according to IOM. It was not clear how many of the remaining thousands were holding out to see if they could keep the land they had their shelter on. Most revealing, over 90% of those who were still in the camps had been renters before the earthquake. But victims of the earthquake or not, the humanitarian aid agencies could not leave them as a reminder to the world of the failed post-earthquake relief effort. And so, a new plan was hatched.
In a strategy that critics denounced as “paying off the poor,” 80,000 families (representing 250,000 people) were given $500 toward a year’s rent. To make sure they really left the camps, the contract for the money was often given, not to the family, but to the owner of the rental unit where they were supposed to go live. The family had to move; then the tent was torn down; and then the money got transferred. Some 2 to 6 weeks after the move the aid agencies sent people in to verify if the people had really moved into the rental unit, and not simply partnered with a landlord to game the system. And in a move that seemed targeted to assure anyone who was lying to continue to do so—I by rewarding them for having lied in the first place–, they gave the recipients another $125—if they appeared to still be in the house.
How many really did move into the homes isn’t clear. The NGOs and UN claimed fantastic success rates. Red Cross evaluators found the results “extremely promising” explaining that “one year on, no grantees have returned to camps and 100% have autonomously found an accommodation solution. [59] Similar results can be found from evaluators for all the aid agencies, “100% satisfaction”, “90%” of all recipients really moved to the houses.” [60] [61]
Behind the scenes it wasn’t so pretty. In 2016, I was hired to lead a team of researchers for the United Nations Camp Coordination and Camp Management Cluster (CCCM Cluster), an agglomeration of 10 of the biggest humanitarian organizations involved in the rental subsidy program. Our task was to review their internal reports and then design and conduct a survey of 1,400 of those who had received rental subsidies.
The American Red Cross — under fire at the time for the now famous NPR investigation that revealed they had, despite getting $500 million in donations for Haiti earthquake victims, built a total of 6 houses — wouldn’t even give us the lists to find their beneficiaries. Neither did Sean Penn’s organization JP/HRO, which had spent some $8 million of World Bank funds to provide rental subsidies. When you read between the lines the deception was abundantly in evidence. Alexis Kervins, who managed the data for JP/HRO follow-up verifications, told me that 60% of the recipients had never even moved into the homes. In the survey we conducted for the CCCM Cluster, 80% of the phone numbers that the NGOs gave us on the contact lists were no good or no longer working.[62] The World Bank would note in its 2014, Rental Support Cash Grant Programs: Operations Manual that, “one interviewee gave some idea of the scale of the challenge when he noted that of 600 complaints received following registration at one camp, 70 were found to indeed live there.” In what was one of the few examples of a verifiable beneficiary list, Concern Worldwide wrote in an internal report that: “Over 3000 persons declared not having any ID during registration; however verification by local organization ACAT (contracted to provide birth certificates) found that the great majority of those persons do in fact have ID. ACAT’s verification brought down the number of paperless beneficiaries to 379 ….”[63]
In retrospect, the camps were one more version of the Great Haiti Aid Swindle. And just as with the rapes, orphans, the number dead, and all the other hyped afflictions the humanitarian aid agencies used to collect donations, they justified them with bad data, truth stretching and lies, all needed to fool the overseas public and legitimize the aid that was pouring in. The aid agencies knew what data was in their best interests and what was not. When the numbers didn’t add up, they came up with new numbers Was it impossible that 43% of the population were in camps? In one of the first major reports on the camps, U.S. university professor, activist-anthropologist and humanitarian aid researcher Mark
Schuller claimed that 70 to 85% of the people in Port-au-Prince had been renters before the earthquake. It was a number that got picked up by aid agencies and became part of the narrative. But Schuller had, deliberately or otherwise, mis-cited his colleagues Deepa Panchang and Mark Snyder who in a report had said, not 85%, but rather “up to 70%” of people were renters. And they were not referring to the population of Port-au-Prince.
They were referring to people living in the camps. Meanwhile, the real figure for proportion of the population that was renters at the time of the earthquake was, as seen, 40-50% of Port-au-Prince households, a figure that was available in several major and widely known studies. [64] [65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70]
Another myth that justified camps was “skyrocketing rental costs.” Once again, this untruth came from the prolific Professor Schuller, who by this time had dubbed himself the “professor of NGOs” and was traveling to Washington DC to brief congressional committees on earthquake expenditures. Schuller cited UN data that rents had increased 300% since the earthquake, data that the aid agencies again latched on to.
Yet, using real income indicators, rental prices in Port-au-Prince slums where the same in 2010, 2011, and 2012 as they were in 1982 when author Joegodson’s father paid the equivalent of $209 for 1-year rental of a one-room, dirt floor shack with no latrine in Cité Soleil—one of Port-au-Prince’s poorest slums. As for the 300% increase in the cost of housing, Professor Schuller had been citing a UN report. But the UN wasn’t talking about the poor. They were talking about their own personnel who, along with NGO workers and consultants, were getting gouged while the rest of us who lived in Haiti, in popular neighborhoods, continued to pay the same rents.[71] [72] [73] [74]
Conclusion: Behind the Greed and Negligence
The misunderstandings, the failure to reach many of the most vulnerable, the lies about the numbers, the lies about opportunism, and the exploitation of the camps as “aid bait” to draw in donations were major features of the Haitian earthquake relief effort that should not be forgotten. Just as with the rescues, the orphans and the so-called rape epidemic, we shouldn’t allow politics, self-interest, and headline hunting journalists to impede our capacity to learn from the failures that came after the earthquake. But it’s important to make clear that the process is not some kind of conspiracy to mislead donors and benefit aid workers. Most aid workers who were present—from the lowest field worker to the highest directors—were as dismayed as I am with the waste, with the money that seemed to vanish, and with the failure to reach those who were most in need.
And many of the lowest level aid workers did not earn fat salaries. There were thousands of missionaries who earned nothing at all. There were people who paid to come to Haiti, who simply got tired of seeing the thousands of suffering Haitians on television, got off the couch, bought plane tickets, and came to Haiti to try do something about it. And even the high-level directors and administrators of humanitarian aid agencies are mostly good people who believe in what they are doing. I’ve known hundreds of them. The clear majority are compassionate people who set out to help, who wanted to change the world, alleviate poverty and suffering. But as they advance in the corporate world of charity, they get caught up in the industry of aid, the dreams get swept away and replaced by hope for a salary raise, a pension plan, a promotion, better working conditions, and the very real need to care for their own families. Turning on your employer and revealing that aid is failing is a fast way for an aid executive to lose those perks and get booted out of the business they and their families have come to depend on.
So it’s not the aid workers that we should blame for the failures. The issue is ultimately one of accountability. Those mega-aid institutions such as CARE International, Save the Children, and UNICEF depend on donations. The directors’ salaries and pension plans depend on those donations. The capacity for the organizations to be present in poor countries—no matter how wasteful and ineffective the organization is—all depends on getting donations. Their dependency on that money means the aid agencies must be pumping the public and the press with information that encourages people to give; their bureaucratic inefficiency means that there is never enough money; and the total absence of any mechanism to make the organizations accountable assures waste and failure to get the money to those for whom the aid was intended.
There are no institutional benefits to resolving these problems. There is no mechanism that assures that the organization that most effectively spends the money and helps people out of poverty will get the most money. On the contrary, It’s not about effectively spending the money; it’s about getting the money. The most donations go to those who exaggerate and lie the best. The profit motive is getting donors to give, selling images of extreme need and suffering: vulnerable children, orphans, child slaves, rape victims, homeless people. And they need that money to keep going, to keep the directors paid, keep the organization alive. It’s those needs that assure the problems will be exaggerated and the accomplishments, no matter how pathetic, will be hyped. It assures they will always hide the truth. And no matter how ineffective an aid agency is, those idealists working for the organization can always latch on to the belief that yes, there were mistakes in the past, but it’s all about to change, and they’re part of that change. But you can’t make change happen if the money stops. And in what becomes a fierce competition of making afflictions up, a type of arms race of lies, the money goes to those with the most fantastic tales. And so in the absence of any mechanism to vet those lies and censure those organizations behind the lies, the experts and professionals go right on pumping out untruths and sabotaging their own efforts to help the poor.
NOTES
[11] For Arnaud Dandoy’s analysis of “moral panic,” see, Insecurity and humanitarian aid in Haiti: an impossible dialogue? Analysis of humanitarian organisations’ security policies in Metropolitan Port-au-Prince. Groupe URD (Urgence – Réhabilitation – Développement)
[54] Regarding the documentary “Where Did all the Money Go” by Michelle Mitchell, my opinion of the film was that it was narrow, demagogic attack on the NGOs from a journalist who depended heavily on activists such as Scott Snyder and Professor Mark Schuller. The film nevertheless stirred up a storm in driving home the undisputable fact that people in the camps in fact got very little of the aid money. The next question was, of course, if the camps didn’t get it—and the NGOs were claiming that it was the camps that were getting most—then where did the money go. Indeed, it became almost a cliché: “Where did all the money go?”
[55] Ratnesar, Romesh. 2011. “Who Failed on Haiti’s Recovery?” Time, January 10. http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2041450,00.html
[56] Doucet, Isabeau. 2011. “The Nation: NGOs Have Failed Haiti,” NPR. January 13. http://www.npr.org/2011/01/13/132884795/the-nation-how-ngos-have-failed-hait
[57] Salmon, Felix. 2011. “Where Haiti’s money has gone,” Reuters, August 22. http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/08/22/where-haitis-money-has-gone/
[58] Schuller, Marc. 2011. “Smoke and Mirrors: Deflecting Attention Away From Failure in Haiti’s IDP Camps.” Huffington Post. December 22, 2011.
[59] See, Rana R., Condor J. and Juhn C. 2013. “External Evaluation of the Rental Support Cash Grant Approach Applied to Return and Relocation Programs in Haiti.” RSCG Programs – Operational Manual. Wolfgroup Performance Consultants.
[60] See: Socio-Dig. 2016. “Final Report for Comparative Assessment of Livelihood Approaches Across Humanitarian Organizations in Post-Earthquake Haiti Camp Resettlements.” Concern Worldwide. September 22.
[61] For data on the number of camps and population sizes of the camps see, United Nations. 2011. HAITI Camp Coordination Camp Management Cluster DTM v2.0 – Update – March 2011 1 DISPLACEMENT TRACKING MATRIX V2.0 UPDATE March 16, 2011. www.cliohaiti.org/index.php?page=document&op=pdf.
[62] A quick summary of findings from the survey we did on behalf of the CCCM cluster: Of the 20% of phone numbers that worked, we drew a sample of 1,400 people and we went to their rental home and interviewed each for over an hour. We asked detailed questions about everything from where they lived and what they owned before the earthquake to what they owned in the camp and now. We asked about medical care, people who had been sick and died. And we asked about occupations. What we found was more of the adult women in the sample (household head and/or spouse of male household head) were uneducated, and clearly many of the households were dirt poor. But the findings did not significantly differ from the rest of Port-au-Prince: 89% had phones, 53% had televisions; 14% of the women were traders, and 18% of those regularly traveling to the Dominican Republic to buy goods for resale, one unthinkingly reported that she goes to Miami to buy goods; 32% of the men and 13% of the women were skilled workers such as masons, electricians, tailors and seamstresses. There were 39 drivers, 18 motorcycle taxis, 23 civil servants, 16 fisherman, 19 school teachers, 1 policeman. None of the people we interviewed had been out of the camps for more than three years, most less than two years, but 8% had purchased land in Port-au-Prince; 32% already owned land in rural areas. As for the 40% who really were not doing well and had moved out of their rental unit, 30% moved into to homes with family and friends, 10% moved back into tents or camps. 20% no longer had a toilet or even an outhouse. And these were the people we could find. I could go on and on with this. But the bottom line was that there was nothing unusual about the population of camp dwellers. Overall they were not the poorest of the urban poor as illustrated by finding such as only 27% of the Subsidy Sample vs. a higher 30% of the general population was without a television at the time of the earthquake; 5 vs. 15% lived in a house with a dirt floor, and 4 vs. 15% were without a toilet. Not least of all the average rent that subsidy sample respondents reported paying per year at the time of the earthquake was 13,240 HTG (US$331), much lower than the US$40 annual rent that UN Habitat estimated in Site Soley in year 2009.
[63] For the quote regarding only 379 of 3,000 people claiming to have lost their ID cards being legitimate see, Concern Worldwide Report to the European Commission – Directorate General – Humanitarian aid and Civil protection – ECHO eSingle form for humanitarian aid actions App_version AgreementeSingle form for humanitarian aid actions App_version Agreement; page 6.
[64] The point is that those working for aid agencies deliberately pick and chose the data they would pass on to the press and in other cases outright twisted their own data to suit their narrative. Put another way, obvious facts, logical deductions, and representative statistical studies did not deter those bent on arguing that the camps were inhabited almost wholly by legitimate earthquake victims and homeless people. Instead of trying to understand the results and acknowledging widespread opportunism—something that would have put the humanitarian agencies on the track to helping those really in desperate need—the reaction to any contradiction was swift and defensive. IOM spokesman Leonard Doyle told The Miami Herald:
“It stretches the credibility to suggest that there are less than 100,000 [internally displaced persons] in camps when we physically counted 680,000 in March… A few camps in Port-au-Prince easily exceed their IDP number.”
No one had said that there were not real IDPs. No one had ever said that there were not 680,000 people in the camps at the time the BARR was published. Certainly not me. The issue was who were those people and how many of them were from destroyed homes. And more to the point regarding what can only be understood as yet one more twisting of the data to suit their needs, Doyle and everyone else working for IOM knew that what he said was not true. Five months before Doyle made the statement to the Miami Herald, IOM had done a survey of 1,152, camps and found that at least 25 of all tents in the camps were empty (See following endnote).
[65] In January and mid-February 2011, precisely while we were carrying out the BARR, and when IOM was reporting to the press that there were 806,377 IDPs in 1,152, camps, IOM and its partners ACTED had been completing another survey. Their field teams visited 1,152 IDP sites. What they found was that 92 of those sites had only empty tents. That’s almost 10% of all the sites. All empty tents. Of the 1,061 camps that did have tents with people living in them, 712 were found to contain at least some empty tents. What that meant varied. In one area (Ganthier), 73% of the 213 tents were empty. 155 empty tents were empty that hosted a total population of 58 Households. In the commune of Croix-Des-Bouquets, 6,525 tents located on 63 sites were empty; that’s 30% of all tents in that area. In the southern regions of Grand Goâve 736 empty tents located on 34 sites were empty: 49% of tents all tents in that area. In Léogâne, 1,770 tents located at 74 IDP sites were empty; 36% of all tents in that area. Overall, combining the empty tent cities with the empty tents, we can infer that 25% of all tents in the IDP sites that IOM checked were empty. As for how many of the 75% of the remainder had people how actually lived in those tents, we don’t know. But IOM did report that the average household size was 4.1 and in some areas as low as 3.3, compared to 5.2 to 5.8 for Port-au-Prince homes in general. To their credit, IOM interpreted this as suggesting that, “some IDPs have decided to keep some household members in the IDP sites so as to retain access to services in the sites, while other family members return or resettle elsewhere.”
All the proceeding came from an unpublished summary. But those interested in a reference and official summary may go to, United Nations. 2011. HAITI Camp Coordination Camp Management Cluster DTM v2.0 – Update – March 2011 1 DISPLACEMENT TRACKING MATRIX V2.0 UPDATE March 16, 2011 www.cliohaiti.org/index.php?page=document&op=pdf.
[66] After the BARR was published, Doyle wrote to me and complained,
I’m trying to square your figures with the DTM which recorded 680,000 camp residents in March and a fraction lower in an upcoming report. This is based on a direct headcount, usually at 6 am, when the researchers go to camps. Heads of family get a registration card. It seems hard to game that system as it’s an actual count.
(Personal communication, e-mail, May 30th, 2011)
He knew that people in the camps had not been registered during 6 a.m. head counts. IOM had set up tables whereupon people lined up and registered themselves.
[67] IOM did report that the average household size was 4.1 and in some areas as low as 3.3, compared to 5.2 to 5.8 for Port-au-Prince homes in general. To their credit, IOM interpreted this as suggesting that, “some IDPs have decided to keep some household members in the IDP sites so as to retain access to services in the sites, while other family members return or resettle elsewhere.
[68] The IOM/ACTED survey also found that 17% of respondents reported they wished to return to their original homes, 12% said they wanted to leave Port-au-Prince and go back to the countryside. Some 11% said they needed more information to decide, 10% said they wanted to go to a planned site, while 9% were prepared to return to their own home, even if it was not repaired. Finally, 19% said they had no place to go.
This survey provides factual-based evidence of the need to communicate more and in a better way with the earthquake affected population. All humanitarian partners need to better assess the information needs of these communities to be able to adapt and design relocation and return projects according to the needs and concerns expressed by displaced people.
See, ACTED. 2011. “Enquête IOM – ACTED. Intentions Des Deplaces Haïti.” May 8,-2012
[69] As seen elsewhere, activist-anthropologist Marc Schuller became one of the most ardent defenders of the ‘legitimacy’ of the camp residents and in doing so was an important bulwark of mis-information for the aid agencies. In a US National Science Foundation funded surveys that Schuller conducted in IDP camps, 3.5% of the respondents reported having immigrated to Port-au-Prince after the earthquake. Extrapolating that to the general population meant, Schuller was saying, meant if there were 100,000 people in camps, 3,500 were from areas outside of Port-au-Prince, i.e. had come from outlying cities and rural areas after the earthquake (most people in Port-au-Prince were in fact born outside the metropolitan area) . It’s a testament to the honesty of some of those people in the camps that they admitted they arrived after the earthquake. It also illustrates the extent to which the camps served—even without the aid—as an advantage to the poor, i.e. they did not have to pay rent. But Schuller used that finding to argue that::
To the concern about the free aid being a magnet pulling tens of thousands of people from the provinces, the survey showed only 3.5% came since 2010, with the mean year of migration to Port-au-Prince being 1993, which follows the general pattern of Haiti’s rural exodus. Simply put, all but 3.5% are “real” IDPs.
It’s a rather bizarre conclusion. Only people who arrived from the rural areas after the earthquake could be ‘fake’ IDPs? It also suggests a type of condescension on the part of Schuller to assume that the people in the camps were so simple that they would not have had the good sense to appear to surveyors that they had been displaced by the earthquake thereby assuring that they would partake in any aid and perhaps even be given land, a home, or at the very least one free year rent. Those that did say they arrived after the earthquake assured themselves of getting nothing in the end, except evicted.
[70] Regarding home ownership in Port-au-Prince: in fact, surveys before the earthquake estimated that 42% of Port-au-Prince residents were homeowners (see page 53 of FAFO 2003 Enquête Sur Les Conditions De Vie En Haïti ECVH – 2001 Volume I).). In the USAID/BARR (2011) survey we found that 70% of Port-au-Prince respondents claimed to own the house they lived in, 60% claimed to own the land, 93% of these had some kind of paper. Notable as well is that the USAID/BARR census of Ravine Pentad (2010)—one of the Port-au-Prince neighborhoods most impoverished and most severely damaged in the earthquake—found that 60% of respondents owned the house; 51% owned the house and land. The discrepancy in the differences between the USAID surveys and that of the 2001 ECVH is due to the latter not have differentiated between ownership of the house and ownership of the land. As seen in the USAID surveys, a common practice in popular neighborhoods is to build homes on rented land and subsequently purchase the land. Rents for land are typically 1/10 to 1/20 that of the rent for home. In a 2012 survey I designed and coordinated for CARE International we visited 800 randomly selected homes in Léogane and found that 72% of household heads reported they owned the land and the house. In a CARE funded survey of heavily urbanized Carrefour we found that 50% of 800 randomly selected household heads claimed to own the house and the land; 60% owned the house.
[71] For Schuller’s claim that the cost of housing had increased 300%, see: “UNSTABLE FOUNDATIONS: Impact of NGOs on Human Rights for Port-au-Prince’s Internally Displaced People.” Oct. 4, 2010, page 4.
[72] For Schuller’s mis-interpreted citation of 70-85% of Port-au-Prince population that was renters before the earthquake, see Deepa Panchang and Mark Snyder who had written are report entitled, “We Became Garbage To Them Inaction And Complicity In IDP Expulsions A Call To Action To the U.S. Government” (Aug. 14, 2010). As seen in the text, Panchang and Snyder—both highly productive activists in the months and years following the earthquake—had in fact not said 85%, but rather “up to 70%.” And they were not referring to the population of Port-au-Prince but rather to the population of the camps. Specifically, they cited IOM camp registrations as their source: Registration Update, Feb. 25-Jun. 25, 2010. “Haiti Camp Coordination Camp Management Cluster.” International Organization for Migration.
For Schuller’s claim that “An estimated 70-85% of Port-au-Prince residents did not own their home before the earthquake.”, see: “UNSTABLE FOUNDATIONS: Impact of NGOs on Human Rights for Port-au-Prince’s Internally Displaced People.” Oct. 4, 2010, page 4.
[73] In the case of Schuller it was more likely deliberate prevarication for a noble cause, helping the poor, which is respectable but presumptuous of Schuller to second guess the data and assume that he knew what was in the best interest of the poor.
[74] One World Bank report claimed that before the earthquake Haiti had a deficit of 500,000 residence units, which taken literally would have meant that 1/4 the entire population lacked a home—again, that’s before the earthquake. Given that there are 5.2 people per household, that would have amounted to 2.6 million people, about 1 million more than lived in Port-au-Prince before the earthquake and about 75% of all the people living in the entire strike region. I suppose it depends what one considers ‘residential unit.’ The report did not say. (see: World Bank. 2015. “Home Sweet Home: Housing programs and policies that support durable solutions for urban IDPs.” Page 3).
Le manuel du Pentagone précédemment classifié intitulé “
How many really did move into the homes isn’t clear. The NGOs and UN claimed fantastic success rates. Red Cross evaluators found the results “extremely promising” explaining that “one year on, no grantees have returned to camps and 100% have autonomously found an accommodation solution. [59] Similar results can be found from evaluators for all the aid agencies, “100% satisfaction”, “90%” of all recipients really moved to the houses.” [60] [61]
