By Jean H. Charles:

Every year at this time, I try to take a fresh look at the progress and setbacks of the Republic of Haiti. January 1st is a universal milestone for reflection and for pondering on the achievements and missteps of the year past. Haiti has the privilege of celebrating its birthday on January 1st, a double occasion to look back to forge ahead better.

I must say at the outset that my pessimistic mood regarding Haiti’s future has taken a major shift towards a more optimistic outlook. The new government of Michel Martelly and Garry Conille has brought to Haiti renewed hope that incremental steps have been taken to bring the country into nationhood.

Streets and sewers that have been uncleaned and clogged for the past forty years have been regularly maintained since the government took office. Education for all, the barometer of the concern of the country for its future, has been put at the right place. The educational budget has been increased threefold.

The road towards establishing his own government has been a difficult one for President Martelly. His first choice for prime minister was rejected at the outset because of his skin colour; the second choice was also rejected because of his tough stand on law and order.

The third choice to pass the muster of the legislature required multiple political compromises that weakened the political vision of the government.

As if those difficulties were not enough, the lower chamber promises to start in January a procedure to challenge the legitimacy of several key ministers, including the powerful minister of interior, on the trumped up charge that the president humiliated the legislature by ordering the arrest of one of its members for alleged prison escape.

At visu, it seems there has not been much change in the life of the ordinary citizen. The opposition claimed that the government is enjoying so much the perks left by the former regimes that they are being entrenched in the new one, compromising the concern for the legitimate needs of the people.

The reconstruction project is still in the draft stage. Finally, many of the major buildings destroyed by the earthquake have been cleared of debris. Yet the refugees are still under tents in most of the parks and the school yards of the capital. The major international organizations that rushed to the bedside of Haiti after the earthquake are folding their baggage after using the donated funding mostly on their own needs, leaving the refuges in the lurch for the foreseeable future.

President Clinton, the eminence grise of Haiti, is still professing his love for the country by parading several possible investors and accomplishments:

- The Koreans that are investing in the apparel industry in the northern part of the country;

- Marriott International, which is building in concert with Digicel a major international hotel.

- The Dominican Republic that gave to Haiti the physical structure of a magnificent university campus capable of handling twelve thousand students.

Haiti is suffering from the malaise of national appurtenance. The civil society, the government as well as the international community have not been able to galvanize their resources to nurture the seedling of that sense of appurtenance that will break the culture of discrimination against rural Haiti where the majority of the people still live and enjoy living.

So many states and so few nations this is also the state of the state of the world. The United States after spending thousands of billions dollars on pacifying Iraq is leaving a country not a nation. To wit, this week, as the American soldiers were packing their bags, the Iraqis are already killing each other, not realizing their salvation rests on the glory of the past and the will to create together a continuous future.

I participated this week in a meeting with the president and with officials of the government and members of the young Party Repons Paysan, the party that put President Martelly into power.

We have in this forum offered the agenda for building a Haiti well for all. With the prospect that the Martelly government wil overcome the challenge of the legislature, there is an agreement to work together with the party to create an agenda to build a Haiti that shall become hospitable to all.

The year 2011 was not a bad year for Haiti. I am predicting the year 2012 will be a much better year for the country!

December 29, 2011

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