By KEEBLE McFARLANE:





WE will never know exactly how many lives the devastating earthquake claimed in Haiti last week. The images which have riveted us to our television screens have been appalling, distressing and occasionally, heartening.

The relief effort began chaotically, because Haiti never had the kind of public institutions the rest of us take for granted. Because of the poverty and woeful building standards, most houses were constructed without any reinforcement. Roads in the vastly overcrowded capital, Port-au-Prince became instantly impassable, choked with rubble. The airport, with one runway and basic equipment, became a choke point as aircraft from all over tried to get in. The tremor extensively damaged the port which was not all that efficient to begin with.

But as the days go by some sort of order will settle in and the international community which responded promptly and generously with aid will be able to get in the food, medical help and other relief efforts Haiti needs to get past the immediate problems.

A similar calamity hit Nicaragua at the end of 1972. The capital city, Managua, was all dressed up for the Christmas holiday when, a half-hour after midnight on December 23, a magnitude 6.2 tremor with its epicentre right below the city rumbled vigorously. Within an hour two strong aftershocks shook the city. The widespread damage that ensued claimed some 6,000 of the 400,000 people who lived in Managua. Twenty thousand were injured and more than 250,000 left homeless.

Nicaragua slipped into two decades of turmoil before real rebuilding could begin. The military regime, led by the last member of the long-running Somoza dynasty, misappropriated much of the aid which poured in, and this contributed to the victory of the Sandinista rebels seven years later.

That left-wing, populist government soon clashed with Washington, which, true to form, opposed everything the Daniel Ortega regime tried. The Central American country suffered a decade of carnage from next door by the Contras, an opposing band financed by the US with money illegally obtained from Iran, which was also under sanctions. The hostility lasted until 1990 when Ortega was defeated in an election. Since then, the Managua city centre has taken on new life, with lots of reconstruction - new commercial and government buildings, monuments and public spaces. The suburbs have been revitalised, with new residential areas, broad highways, green spaces and shopping areas.

The same thing can happen - has to happen - in Haiti. Because of the almost total lack of infrastructure and civil society, the task will be much greater than it would be elsewhere. But looking from another perspective, the disaster could be the best thing to happen to Haiti since it threw off the crushing burden of slavery two centuries ago. None of this will be easy, even though clearing away rubble and erecting new buildings is mostly an engineering challenge.

The main problem is in getting the international community, which has generously opened its purses, to sing out of the same hymn book. The United States, which has had a very chequered relationship with Haiti, is the most important player. It was quick off the mark with military personnel to bring in aid and take charge of the airport which has one runway and had only minimal facilities before the quake. US military air controllers have been the ones guiding the relief aircraft as they came in from all over. Some groups complain that they favour their own planes over those of other countries.

You can already see distrust building among these countries and groups who are supposed to be working towards the same end. What they all need to do is get together and figure out the way to go. To that end, the Canadian foreign minister has invited his counterparts from other countries to a meeting in Montreal next week. Aid groups say they should be there too, since many of them have been working in Haiti for years.

The United Nations should take the lead and organise rebuilding efforts. It has been in the island for years and knows the problems first-hand. Above all, whoever organises these efforts must give the lead to the Haitians and the diaspora, who are scattered mostly throughout the US, Canada and the Caribbean. It is the émigrés, through their remittances - which comprise about 20 per cent of the country's GDP - who can make the most important contribution to their homeland.

The effort must focus on health and education if it is to have a lasting effect. The people who went abroad are generally the most educated with skills and experience while those who remained are largely illiterate. Such little attention as is paid to health and education comes largely from foreign charitable groups. The immediate need is to figure out how to establish and operate public institutions to deliver these services.

The country desperately needs telecommunications, roads, water and power supplies. The rebuilders also have to take into account the poor state of the land itself. Perhaps the best method is to create something like the public works agencies President Roosevelt introduced in the US during the depression in the 1930s. These agencies put unemployed people to work replanting ruined lands and constructing dams, roads, conservation systems, water supplies and the like. This would be an excellent way to attract some of the excess population from severely bloated Port-au-Prince back into the countryside.

Above all, Haitian leaders and planners should have the final say on what happens and must ensure that their country doesn't fall under the sway of entities intent on imposing damaging neo-liberal policies and institutions.

All this costs money - according to President Leonel Fernandez of neighbouring Dominican Republic, at least US$10 billion over five years - but even in an economic downturn, there seems to be an international desire to contribute. The rebuilders should establish a fund exclusively for the purpose and insulate it from the influence of groups like the IMF with their Darth Vaderesque requirements.

The rebuilding would be a mini-version of the Marshall Plan, a scheme the Americans devised right after the Second World War to help rebuild the ravaged nations of Europe. Its cost was relatively modest and it showed results quickly, but those countries already had functioning institutions and infrastructure.

The need is great but so is the promise: this dreadful disaster inadvertently presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We can only hope that the cynical - but understandable - observation in a cartoon in my local paper last weekend doesn't come to pass. It depicts soldiers and aid workers (white) marching to Haiti with two little children (black) looking on. The visitors carry boxes labelled "World Aid". One of the soldiers remarks: "This should get Haiti back to pre-earthquake despair."

keeble.mack@sympatico.ca

January 23, 2010

jamaicaobserver