( I had written this a couple of months ago and then forgot to put it here. Anyways better late than never)
As cameras begin to roll out of Haiti and public memory gets ever shorter in the age of ‘instant news, instant fuse’, the fate of millions of Haitians hangs in balance. The stories coming out of the country are ghastly, and one journalist recently returned from Haiti believes that while 300,000 people are feared to be dead the greater disaster is yet to happen. It is death by infection. Epidemics are beginning to spread in Haiti and even through it has the largest per capita density of NGOs right now, their lack of cooperation and coordination with each other is beginning to take its toll on the poor survivors.
Meanwhile, United States is doing what it notoriously does the best – finding military solutions to every problem. On 13 January, the day after the earthquake, United States sent its military to bring situation under control. To be true, United States military has an unrivalled logistical capability and in that light the effort was praiseworthy. However, true to their military ethics US commanders began to divert aid away from disaster zone. They made the fears of unrest and insecurity on the streets as the primary concern and not humanitarian effort. This was despite remarkable level of patience and solidarity on part of most Haitians in the capital city of Port au Prince. This, in effect, has caused unrest and outbreaks in some part as Haitians feared that guns and soldiers were being privileged over doctors and food.
Haiti meanwhile is not just another poor country. It is the flag-bearer of independence. It was here in 1804, that the first third world republic was born. In 1803, a slave army defeated the much acclaimed forces of Napolean Bonaparte which also resulted in Napolean selling New Orleans and Louisiana to US as his depleted forces couldn’t move ahead. This feat of the slave army in almost doubling the size of United States is however never acknowledged. Even stranger is the fact that while French and American revolutions are celebrated in world history as the most sacred moments, Haitian revolution doesn’t even get a footnote appearance.
The poverty of Haiti meanwhile is not just a structural problem. It is very much a political problem. A black republic just across the sea of a racial America and a defeated France was long a thorn in the eye. Right from 1806, America under the slave owning Thomas Jefferson had invoked an economic embargo. France went even further. In 1825, France’s King Charles X made the republic an outrageous offer which it had no chance to refuse. As the King’s warships cruised near the Haitian Capital, the French demanded 150 million gold francs in exchange for recognizing the new republic. The alternative was, of course, invasion and enslavement. With no choice, Haitian President reluctantly agreed to pay the sum which was five times the country’s export revenue. This huge debt could only be paid in 122 years with the last installment given to US in 1947, after it had bought the debt from the French.
This huge fraud by the French and the US which effectively reduced the pearl in French crown to an abject pauper was conservatively estimated at US $22 billion. It was this colonial rapaciousness against which the ex-President of Haiti Jean Bertrand Aristide, now in exile in South Africa, raised his voice. In 2002, he asked the colonizers to return that money which was extorted from it through gunboat diplomacy.
However that has not been its only curse. US supported Duvalier dictators – notoriously called Papa Doc and Baby Doc – ruled it from 1957 to 1986 killing thousands of Haitians. They were in turn rewarded with ten-fold increase in international aid most of which was stolen or misspent. The tyrants gave support to US industries in setting up sweatshops where the labour was kept in abhorrent living conditions and paid absysmally low wages. During 1970s and 1980s alone, absolute poverty in Haiti is estimated to have increased by 60 per cent. Moreover, it gave rise to a new elite which had supported the foreign investors.
The first democratic elections were held in Haiti in 1990 and Jean Bertrand Aristide was elected through a majority by the poor. Soon however, the elite removed him through a US backed coup as the President had begun to reform the labour sector and reduce military intervention in public affairs. The exiled president however was re-instated in 1994. In 2004, once again the President was deposed through a coup even when he was recently elected with a majority of more than 90 per cent. This was after he had called for the disbanding of Army.
The disaster in Haiti is a crude reminder to us that even natural problems have political hues to them. It is indisputable that the current tragedy has been made massive because of poverty in Haiti. The shacks of the poor are first casualty of any disaster. A very high density of population in Port au Prince, natural for any country where poor people rush to the main city to find jobs even if menial, did not help matters either. Before the media spotlight fades over Haiti, it is important that the world community demands the return of much loved President Aristide. Also, it is imperative that the governments and the civil society work in unison and coordinate their efforts to bring a quick but sustainable relief to the Haitian masses.
