Haiti: Just When You Think It Can't Get Worse

We may soon look back on this per­iod in Haiti with great­er apprecia­tion. Amidst the world-historic levels of death and suf­fer­ing from last January’s earthquake, citizens have at least been spared the scale of govern­ment viol­ence that has mar­ked much of their nation’s past (not­withstand­ing at­tacks against in­ter­nal­ly dis­placed per­sons dur­ing for­ced evi­c­tions, and oc­casional­ly against street pro­test­ers.)

This may chan­ge under Mic­hel Mar­tel­ly, the in­com­ing pre­sident. For start­ers, he wants to bring back the army that form­er pre­sident Jean-Bertrand Aris­tide dis­mantled in 1995. Since Haiti al­ready has a police force to main­tain pub­lic order and the co­unt­ry is not ex­pec­ted to go to war, Mar­tel­ly can have only one aim for re­introduc­ing armed for­ces: to re­claim the tool that past pre­sidents have used to shore up their power by means of violent re­press­ion of dis­sent and com­peti­tion.

For­ces are al­ready rea­dy­ing for viol­ence, which will li­ke­ly be ex­er­ted both through the army and through gangs. Jour­nal­ist Isabeau Doucet filed this eyewit­ness re­port last month: “For over a year, on a hillside south of Port-au-Prince, around 100 form­er sol­di­ers and young re­cruits train three times a week. They claim to have a net­work of camps all over the co­unt­ry where Haitian men meet and ex­erc­ise, learn milita­ry pro­tocol and mar­ti­al arts and re­ceive basic train­ing... The black-and-red flag of Jean-Claude Duvalier’s party hangs in their tar­paulin dress­ing room… Some­body is pay­ing for this, even though they claim that it’s all-volunteer, and the cur­rent govern­ment is turn­ing a blind eye, if not giv­ing tacit sup­port.” 

Just how the for­ces of viol­ence may ally with vari­ous back­ers - some com­bina­tion of Mar­tel­ly and those sur­round­ing the re­tur­ned form­er di­ctator Jean-Claude Duvali­er - is one ques­tion. An­oth­er is how much they may tyrann­ize a citizens’ move­ment which is de­mand­ing sol­u­tions to widespread homeless­ness, un­employ­ment, and ex­treme pover­ty. Two U.S.-based groups sup­port­ing com­mun­ity or­ganiz­ing in Haiti are al­ready pre­par­ing em­er­gen­cy re­spon­ses in case sig­nificant polit­ical viol­ence should erupt.

Be­yond Mar­telly’s plans for an army, his past as­socia­tions raise con­cerns about what poli­cies he may bring to of­fice. Mar­tel­ly was pub­lic in his sup­port for the death squad-friendly re­gimes that re­ig­ned after coups d’état against Aris­tide (1991 and 2004). More re­cent­ly, Mar­tel­ly has made such pub­lic state­ments as "I would kill Aris­tide to? stick a dick up his ass."

Mar­tel­ly won in a run-off in which less than one in four re­gis­tered vot­ers bot­hered to turn out, mean­ing he was end­or­sed by 16.7% of all re­gis­tered vot­ers. If this sounds ab­ys­mal­ly low for a man­date, it is lofty com­pared to the 4.6% who are be­lieved to have sup­por­ted Mar­tel­ly in the first round. No one knows the figure for sure, be­cause that round was so fraudulent that even the government’s Pro­vision­al Elec­tor­al Co­un­cil re­fused to rat­ify it with a major­ity vote. While legal­ly, this should have nul­lified the first round, the Or­ganiza­tion of American States and the U.S. govern­ment in­ten­sive­ly pre­ssured the Haitian govern­ment to approve the elec­tions and send Mar­tel­ly to the run-offs. Sec­reta­ry of State Hil­la­ry Clin­ton even traveled to Haiti to en­sure these out­comes.

After Mar­tel­ly was de­clared pre­sident, Clin­ton said, “Now he has a chan­ce to lead and we are be­hind him. He is com­mit­ted to re­sults. He wants to de­liv­er for the Haitian peo­ple. And we are com­mit­ted to help­ing him do so.” 

Other bad news dogs Haiti. The lives of those left dis­placed from the earthquake are grow­ing more, not less, vul­ner­able, contra­ry to what one might ex­pect with the pass­ing of time and the many bi­ll­ions of aid dol­lars cir­culat­ing.

A prima­ry risk is cholera, which is due to spike once the im­minent rainy season hits, be­cause the near-daily storms will leave stand­ing water and mud in most camps. The camps are al­ready the per­fect breed­ing ground for this dis­ease of pover­ty, with their de­nse­ly con­centrated popula­tions who are frequent­ly weak and ill, often lack water – not just drink­ing water but often any water at all – and suf­f­er from a de­arth of hy­giene opt­ions and med­ical care. A re­cent study in the med­ical journ­al The Lan­cet pre­dic­ted 779,000 cases and 11,100 de­aths from cholera by the end of Novemb­er.

With all humanitarian and in­ter­nation­al agen­cies in Haiti aware of the dire risk of this il­l­ness, which can re­sult in death only a few hours after in­fec­tion, 39% of ‘trans­ition­al shelt­ers’ still do not re­ceive water or basic sanita­tion ser­vices. Mic­helle Karshan, an American ad­vocate en­gaged in anti-cholera ef­forts, re­por­ted: “There is a de­ad­ly shor­tage of avail­able cholera pre­ven­tion and treat­ment sup­pl­ies. And the most im­por­tant pre­ven­tion of cholera trans­miss­ion – crea­tion of a water sys­tem in­frastruc­ture mak­ing treated water wide­ly avail­able – is still not off the ground, while dis­tribu­tion of water con­tinues to reach only a minus­cule numb­er of camps. The major­ity of the resource-poor camps are left to fend for them­selves." [1] The U.N. Cholera Ap­pe­al for Haiti has only re­ceived 45% of the funds it needs. 

The de­ep­er worry is why, with up to 1.5 mill­ion peo­ple still homeless after 16 months, water purifica­tion tab­lets and port-o-potties are being dis­cus­sed as a sol­u­tion. The only way to make peo­ple safe from this dis­ease is to re­settle them into de­cent hous­ing. Yet still neith­er the in­ter­nation­al com­mun­ity nor the Haitian govern­ment has any work­able plans. The govern­ment has yet to in­voke its con­stitution­al right to de­clare em­inent domain and claim large plots of un­used private land in order to re­locate peo­ple. In­ter­nation­al aid has yet to be sig­nificant­ly em­ployed in clear­ing rubble, 80% of which re­mains, re­nder­ing much of Port-au-Prince uni­nhabit­able.

An­oth­er hazard that in­ter­nal­ly dis­placed per­sons (IDPs) face is being for­ced out of their camps, left in even great­er pre­carious­ness. Ac­cord­ing to the In­ter­nation­al Or­ganiza­tion for Mig­ra­tion, 820,000 of the origin­al set of IDPs dwell­ers – more than half - have left the camps, but not be­cause they have found a bet­t­er situa­tion. Only 4.7% have gone to new or re­paired hous­ing. The re­maind­er, as re­por­ted by the In­ter­nation­al Or­ganiza­tion for Mig­ra­tion and sub­stan­tiated by many com­mun­ity watchdog groups in Haiti, have fled for two rea­sons. One is an anywhere-but-here re­spon­se, in which famil­ies have es­caped to dan­gerous­ly earthquake-damaged struc­tures, ravines, crow­ded rooms, or whatev­er they can find. Oth­ers have been evi­cted in a grow­ing wave of ex­puls­ions – some violent, many il­leg­al - by both govern­ment in­stitu­tions and private lan­down­ers.

As they have since the earthquake, co­ali­tions of pro­gres­sive NGOs, com­mun­ity groups, and camp com­mit­tees are try­ing to mount pre­ssure to win gains in a broad-based agen­da which in­cludes de­moc­ratic par­ticipa­tion and socio-economic rights. Pre­dominant strateg­ies in­clude popular educa­tion, legal sup­port for camp re­sidents, poli­cy ad­voca­cy, and grassroots mobiliza­tion. A snapshot of some of the groups’ ac­tivit­ies in the three-week per­iod sur­round­ing this ar­ticle in­cludes: a three-day May Day mobiliza­tion for work­ers’ rights; a three-day sym­posium critiqu­ing dis­ast­er capital­ism, “What Fin­anc­ing for What Re­construc­tion?”, and a three-day ex­chan­ge to strength­en ef­forts to force re­settle­ment of IDPs, “In­ter­nation­al Forum for the Right to Hous­ing.”

These move­ments cur­rent­ly lack fund­ing and co­hes­ion. At many points in Haitian his­to­ry, howev­er, pre­ssure from below has pro­v­en to be the crit­ical vari­able in forc­ing chan­ge. Given the dis­ap­point­ing track re­cord of the in­ter­nation­al com­mun­ity and de­velop­ment in­dust­ry, and the omin­ous pro­spects of Mar­telly’s pre­siden­cy, they may be Haiti’s best hope. 

[1] Email from Mic­helle Karshan to Be­ver­ly Bell, April 27, 2011. 

We ex­tend our gratitude to the or­ganiza­tions in the Haiti Re­spon­se Co­ali­tion for their care­ful ob­ser­va­tion and steady stream of vital in­for­ma­tion. We send speci­al thanks to the Cent­er for Economic and Poli­cy Re­search and to Just Foreign Poli­cy for their con­sis­tent­ly ex­cel­lent re­search. Once again, many thanks for Ben Depp for the gift of his photog­raphs. 

Be­ver­ly Bell has wor­ked with Haitian soci­al move­ments for over 30 years. She is also aut­hor of the book Walk­ing on Fire: Haitian Women's Sto­ries of Sur­viv­al and Re­sis­tance. She co­or­dinates Other Worlds, www.ot­herworldsarepos­sible.org, which pro­motes soci­al and economic al­ter­natives. She is also as­sociate fel­low of the In­stitute for Poli­cy Stud­ies.