THINGS THAT MATTER
Sun, 10/23/2016 - 12:00am
The scandalous betrayal of Haiti
On October 4, Hurricane Matthew made landfall on the Tiburon peninsula of south-western Haiti, as a Category 4 Hurricane. It left more than a billion US dollars in damage, and killed more than a thousand people. Numbers remain uncertain, because of the poor infrastructure, the loss of communications with the peninsula effectively cut off from the rest of Haiti, and difficulties assessing the losses and the damage.
The effects in the southern portion of the country have been described as complete destruction. The hurricane severely damaged about 200 000 homes, with 90 per cent of houses along the southern coast destroyed. The strong winds knocked down trees, power lines, and cell towers, which limited communications. The floods produced mudslides that washed out roads and bridges, including the only bridge linking the nation’s capital Port-au-Prince with south-western Haiti. This meant that relief workers and supplies had to fly to reach the worst areas. A temporary bridge to transport humanitarian relief was constructed with astonishing speed by October 6.
Matthew wrecked most crops in southern Haiti, leaving no source of food. It damaged 300 schools, affecting 130 000 children and 150 other schools functioned as shelters for around 6 000 evacuees. In Grand’Anse Department 86 223 houses were destroyed or severely damaged, displacing about 99 400 families. In Sud department alone, Matthew destroyed 95 per cent of all shelters, including at least 29 000 homes. This catalogue of destruction and disaster was repeated everywhere in the southwest. There are 1.4 million people homeless … 13 per cent of the population.
The Haitian government requested emergency assistance from the United Nations and other international agencies. The International Charter Space and Major Disasters was activated at once, allowing charitable organisations to use satellite data for their relief work. The United Nations peacekeeping force in the country helped clear roads around Port-au-Prince.
Interim Haitian President Jocelerme Privert declared three days of national mourning, beginning on October 9, while the United Nations launched an emergency appeal for aid, requesting some $120 million to provide for the needs of the storm victims. The UN Central Emergency Response Fund provided a grant of $5 million toward rebuilding efforts and on October 8, their World Food Programme began sending 118 tons of food.
Several other relief agencies are working to provide needs for storm victims, including Action Against Hunger, All Hands Volunteers, Direct Relief, Mercy Corps, Project HOPE, World Vision International, and Catholic Relief Services.
Based on the heavy storm damage, the Haitian government received some $20 million – the most substantial aid – from the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility Segregated Portfolio Company, which provides disaster insurance for nations in the Caribbean. The Pan American Health Organisation, International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement have all pitched in. USS Mesa Verde, which functions as a hospital ship, stationed off Haiti’s southern coast, had personnel and supplies for areas inaccessible by road. USAID sent $1 million in funds and 480 tons of supplies. Canada donated CAN $4.58 million in aid.
The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency sent a team assisting the efforts of the Emergency Operation Centre in Jérémie and Les Cayes. Barbados has responded at several levels, including a Rotary/Capital Media HD Radiothon (fund-raising) and the ongoing efforts of the charity United Caribbean Trust (Founder Jenny Tryhane) focusing on clean drinking water, and efforts to combat a renewed outbreak of cholera. So help is coming, from the Caribbean and the world.
However, while a visit by Ban Ki-moon to Haiti on Saturday 15, helped to publicise the devastation and call for help, he expressed disappointment that international funding to fight cholera, which the UN accidentally introduced into Haiti, and to rebuild is falling far short. In fact, cholera is there and is already being re-activated in some communities.
However, while sympathising with Haiti and doing all we can for Haiti’s suffering citizens, there is a deep, tragic, wicked story of betrayal of Haiti that continues to be brushed under the carpet, that is largely responsible for Haiti’s poverty and suffering. It needs to be told, because I have discovered that few people are aware of it, in spite of the ongoing general debate about European reparations for slavery.
The slave revolution of Haiti – the only successful slave revolution in the Caribbean – lasted from 1791 until 1804. Haiti was declared an independent country on January 1, 1804, when the council of generals chose Jean-Jacques Dessalines to assume the office of governor-general. Yet, while there were many internal problems for the new republic, its success was totally compromised by the gun-boat extortion by the French 21 years later.
There are many, many accounts, by many prominent persons of France’s “debt of dishonour” to Haiti, some of which are quoted here:
“In July 1825, France, during a period of “restoration” for the monarchy, “French Navy” fleet to reconquer the island. With warships at the ready, France demanded Haiti compensate France for its loss of men and slave colony. In exchange for French recognition of Haiti as a sovereign republic, France demanded payment of 150 million francs (modern equivalent of $21 billion) for which France would finally, formally recognise the independence of the nation. In 1838, France agreed to reduce the debt to 90 million francs to be paid over a period of 30 years. The enforced payment to France reduced Haiti’s economy for years. Western nations did not give Haiti formal diplomatic recognition.”
These problems – a debt of dishonour and Western complicity, plus the long, corrupt Duvalier regime – have kept the Haitian economy and society isolated, and depressed, committing Haiti to permanent poverty, with the tacit approval of the Western world. Eloquent calls have been made for restitution.
Furthermore, pledges of aid made after the devastating earthquake of 2010 have mainly been honoured in the breach. Few countries have made good on their promises, while there are many unanswered questions about some of the aid funds.
Isabel McDonald, in The Guardian, August 16, 2010, wrote: “Dozens of leading academics, authors and activists from around the world have proposed a bold solution to this desperate financial shortfall. Why not reimburse Haiti for the illegitimate “independence debt” it paid France? In an open letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy published in the French newspaper Libération, 90 leading academics, authors, journalists and human rights activists from around the world have urged the French government to pay Haiti back for the 90m gold francs Haitians were forced to pay as a price for their independence. There are “powerful arguments in favour of the restitution of the French debt,” Harvard medical professor Paul Farmer, who was appointed deputy UN special envoy to Haiti, pointed out in his testimony in the 2003 hearings in France on Haiti’s independence debt. This historic payment was patently illegitimate, and, on several different scores, it was also illegal, according to a 2009 paper produced by the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti.” (The Institute is a partnership of Haitian and US human rights advocates.)
Perhaps this latest tragedy will finally lead to a co-ordinated call for restitution and force France to pay its debt of dishonour … France must respond, and Matthew could be the catalyst for finally forcing a moral imperative on a guilty country.
Professor Fraser is past Dean of Medical Sciences, UWI and Professor Emeritus of Medicine. Website: profhenry fraser.com