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Haiti, a report card, one year later
Related to country: Haiti

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By Jean H Charles:


Last year on January 1st 2007, I wrote an essay entitled: ‘Haiti must engage in a mode of urgency to catch up with the rest of the Caribbean.” One year later, it is now time for a report card on, how Haiti has faired in its praxis of good governance. A caveat is in order! 2008, has been an annum terribilis for Haiti. Three successive hurricanes, within the month of August, followed by an environmental disaster that struck a school have left hundred of children dead.

I have said in the article, the critical business of a government is to provide at least, three belts of security for its people: Public safety, sanitation and public hygiene and environmental protection. I am pleased to report in the matter of public safety, a gigantic improvement can be observed.

The Haitian police well equipped with all types of gadgets, and adorned with its khaki uniform can find nothing to envy from his comrade police force from Georgia or Mississippi. The policemen act professionally, with firmness and courtesy providing day and night a well measure of security that left everyone feel safe and secured. It would be appropriate though, if the chief of police could act more like a national chief of police than like a chief of police for the capital. Periodic, unannounced visits to the provincial cities of the country would ensure that the same standard of safety can be found nationwide.

I am saddened though to report, for every thing else, the Haitian government deserves a failing record. In public health and in public hygiene, there is no commitment to keep the streets, the market places and the sewers clean and unclogged.

If there is a regular schedule of cleaning the streets on the right side of the imposing national palace (where the well to do Haitian people live) there is little attention paid to provide the same service to the left side of the palace where you find the business district and the homes of the less privileged Haitians.

The city of Cape Haitian has sewers that have not been touched and cleaned for the last forty years. The rest of the country is still a no man’s land with little or no governmental intervention for the benefit of the populace.

In matter of environmental protection, I am predicting that the future of Haiti will be Gonaives as it is now.

A city that was almost destroyed by a small raging river that was in its bed for the last two thousand years. It has created last year a vista of a moonscape upon thousand of hectares of land. I do not see any systematic measures of tree planting and structural walls to prevent future disaster.

The Haitian government is showing clear signals of negligence and arrogance exhibited by the tinted windows of its official cars preventing the ministers from seeing the misery of the average Haitian individual.

In Cape Haitian, I have observed thousand of young women busy getting a profession with no hope of job, at the end of their education. I have made the same observation in Port au Prince, where thousand of young men have no future upon graduating except trying to get a visa to America.

The international organizations, with the exception of Oxfam Great Britain, the European Community and the German Haitian cooperation, are involved into a public relations mode where the politics of bandage to the wrongs of Haiti is the best remedy to deal with the situation. There is no involvement in and no real impact to rural Haiti where the majority of the people live in conditions that are not better than their forefathers used to live in colonial time.

The American government some fifty years ago (1954-1964) had introduced an integrated program of development called Point Four or Pote Cole in the northern part of Haiti. If that area of the country is still rich with fruit trees and produce of all types, it is because of that intervention that lasted only ten years.

The present USAID is guilty of leading the gang of public relation operators, insisting on injecting millions of dollars into Cite Soleil, (the largest slum of the Caribbean) an area that is unfit for human habitation under any standard that one cares to use.

On the positive side, with the elevation of Barack Obama as President of the United States, there is hope that the new American Ambassador to Haiti, will be of the type of an Hector Morales who did have an excellent grasp of the Haitian problems and of the solutions to deal with the ills of the country and of its society in the short time he was acting as the de-facto Ambassador of the American government in Haiti.

In a recent meeting of the ACS (Association of Caribbean States) in Haiti, there was a common concern to prioritize Haiti and focus on the structural problems that impede its development.

Last but not least, the Haitian private sector akin to the Dominican one is engaging itself to take the leadership in stimulating the Haitian economy in the area of tourism and agro-business. In less than a week after his nomination as President of the Chamber of Commerce of Port au Prince, Dr. Reginald Boulos has succeeded in pulling all the other Chambers of Commerce of the country together into one unit for an effective coordination of the resources and the strategies for action.

The year 2009 will be a difficult one, world wide; it could become catastrophic for Haiti if preventive measures are not taken to save the country in spite of itself. While hording the national and the international resources for political purposes, the Haitian government is taking steps to remain for ever the hope (Lespwa) of the people of Haiti.

MINUSTHA, the UN mission in Haiti with its budget of 600 million dollars per year spent mostly on its own needs, is betting on the furry of the hurricane season of 2009 to find some relevance to justify its remaining in the country.

May God save Haiti!


Jean H Charles MSW, JD is Executive Director of AINDOH Inc a non profit organization dedicated to build a kinder and gentle Caribbean zone for all. He can be reached at:jeanhcharles@aol.com


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January 17, 2009 | 6:38 PM Comments  0 comments

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