Haiti: Out of the ruins

Published on Monday 18 January 2010 20:23

The devastated nation needs help on a massive scale to get back on its feet – but though US aid is welcome, there are concerns over where the balance of power in Haiti will eventually lie

• Former US President Bill Clinton helps to unload a delivery of medical supplies

THE first images seen around the world of the earthquake in Haiti carried a powerful symbolism. Alongside the widely-seen pictures of the toppled presidential palace in Port-au-Prince came the sense of a country stripped of its leadership as it tried to come to terms with the devastation of its worst natural disaster of modern times.

Amid the chaos emerged its president, Rene Garcia Preval, his sleeves rolled up and his face covered in dust, as he and his staff helped pluck victims from the rubble, sometimes stepping over

dead bodies to free them.

But with his government and its infrastructure lying as ruined as the city around them, it soon became clear that strong leadership, through the early stages of the crisis at least, would have to come from outside. Step forward the United States, which quickly took a controlling role in the immediate rescue and relief effort. Now, one week after the earthquake struck, America is beginning to look at its longer-term role in the rebuilding of the poorest country in the western hemisphere – and probably figuring just how much control it will allow others to exert.

"The classic US role is either complete neglect or, 'We come in and run the show'," said Sarah Stephens, executive director of the Centre for Democracy in the Americas, a group that monitors US policy in the region. "Here's a great opportunity for the US and President Obama to take a different role, and to work with the Haitian government as it is. Haitians know best what Haitians really need."

After a visit to Port-au-Prince on Sunday, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, was keen to promote the concept of an international coalition to help heal the wounds of the tragedy and rebuild the nation, with the will of the Haitian people at its heart. She issued a joint communiqu with Preval pledging co-ordination "among the various parties, including the Haitian government, the United Nations, the United States and the many international partners and organisations on the ground".

In Haiti, however, there is growing concern that Preval has been a largely invisible spectator as the week unfolded. What is left of his government has bunkered down in a police station close to the airport, protected by a well-armed security team, and there have been sporadic demonstrations against the government's perceived lack of action. "The government has lost its capacity to function properly, but it has not collapsed," Preval assured his people.

Haitian citizens have a long history of disillusionment and distrust with their leaders, dating back to 1804 when the nation was founded. During and since the brutal rule of father-and-son dictators Franois "Papa Doc" and Jean-Claude Duvalier from the 1950s to 1970s, corruption was rife and any dissent brutally put down. A brighter future beckoned after the Haitian rebellion of 2004, in which another despised and corrupt leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was removed from office with unofficial help from the US, and France, a former colonial power.

Preval won the subsequent election and returned for his second spell as president, and has widely been perceived as a stabilising influence. Despite four massive hurricanes that struck in 2008, the nation's economy had returned to a relatively secure financial footing and the previously frequent violent uprisings became rare.

Until the earthquake, he remained relatively popular among Haitians, even though there remained criticism that Preval and his fellow ministers would regularly travel first class on flights to the US and drive around Port-au-Prince in a fleet of gleaming, top-of-the-range 4x4s, while more than 54 per cent of Haitians live on less than $1 (about 60p) per day, according to United Nations figures. Many of the bigger questions will now focus on what role Preval, and what is left of his government, will be able to take in the rebuilding of their own country.

Currently, Preval meets the US ambassador to Haiti, Kenneth Merten, at breakfast time each day, and various other ministers hold what are called "cluster meetings" at other times. It gives the impression, at least, of some kind of functioning government which has a hand in events. But with communications so poor, and almost all of the Haitian government ministries barely operating at all, the driving force realistically would seem to be coming from the Americans. The US will need to be sensitive to avoid a perception that it is taking over completely, experts say.

"If the US continues to play that controlling role, then yes, that could happen," Stephens said. "In a crisis such as this, someone has to step up and take a controlling role and issue orders to get things done. As long as that is for practical reasons rather than political ones, then it is OK for us to have a heavy-handed role at the moment. But if we go in, take over and then leave it without leadership, it will leave Haiti weaker than before."

Already squabbles are breaking out among coalition partners over the US control of airspace around Port-au-Prince. Both France and Brazil – which has control of United Nations forces in Haiti – protested to Washington that their own planes carrying aid were diverted to the neighbouring Dominican Republic, while priority was given to US military planes that brought in troops and then evacuated US citizens back to their homeland.

The US insisted that the airspace, though in the operational hands of its civil Federal Aviation Authority, is controlled only in consultation with the Haitian government, which it said had the final say over which flights came and went. But it was clear from comments made by Denis McDonough, the US deputy national security adviser, that the White House is keen not to upset its partners in the relief effort and assure them that Washington hasn't just muscled in to take complete control.

"I don't think any of this is petty," he said when asked what he thought of the Brazilian and French protests. "When you're dealing in life and death I think that everybody feels very strongly.

"But the bottom line is we're working in very close co-ordination with the United Nations. We're obviously making very clear that we're doing everything in close consultation with the Haitian government. And we're obviously drawing on the established networks and others who have been working here for years.

"So it's absolutely understandable that tempers would flare and that frustrations would come forth here. And I think that's all being directed toward improving the process and to making sure that it runs more smoothly."

To emphasise it further, the US yesterday welcomed news from the European Union that it would send 330 million (about 290m) in emergency and long-term aid to Haiti. America's own initial pledge of $100 million (about 61m) is certain to rise in the coming weeks, as the rescue and recovery effort morphs into a rebuilding operation, administration officials insist.

Meanwhile, Haitian-American groups in Florida – a state which is home to about half of the estimated 800,000 Haitians in the US – welcomed the American involvement but warned that it must not squander the opportunity.

"Once the television cameras go home again, the tendency is to revert to normal," said Jean-Robert LaFortune, president of Miami's Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition. "In the first days there is a lot of focus and right now there is a lot of sympathy from the international community, but we don't know how long that sympathy will last.

"The task is Herculean to put Haiti back in the right spot, but the earthquake is an opportunity to not only put the country back together, but to make it better. We are hopeful that transformation will be not only physical but put things on a better path. The challenge is that the Haiti government, and the US, do not have enough resources to start rebuilding. The US has committed a lot to us but it can't do it alone."

A BLIGHTED HISTORY

&#149 1492: Christopher Columbus lands and claims the island of Hispaniola for Spain.

&#149 1697: The island is divided into French-controlled St Domingue and Spanish Santo Domingo.

&#149 1791-1803: Slave rebellion led by Jamaican-born Boukman Dutty against St Domingue colonists and Napoleon's army. The former slaves triumph in 1803.

&#149 1804: The hemisphere's second Republic after the US is declared on 1 January, 1804, by General Jean-Jacques Dessalines.

&#149 1806: Emperor Jean-Jacques Dessalines is assassinated.

&#149 1838: France recognises Haitian independence.

&#149 1915: The US president, Woodrow Wilson, orders Marines to occupy Haiti and establish control over customs houses and port authorities.

&#149 1934: The US withdraws from Haiti.

&#149 1957: Military-controlled elections lead to victory for Dr Franois Duvalier, pictured top, who in 1964 declares himself president for life and forms the infamous paramilitary group Tonton Makout.

&#149 1971: "Papa-Doc" Duvalier dies in office after naming his son Jean-Claude, 19, inset top, as his successor.

&#149 1983: Pope John Paul II visits Haiti and declares publicly: "Things must change here."

&#149 1986: Widespread protests against "Baby Doc" lead him to exile in France.

&#149 1990: Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide, above, a parish priest, is elected president with 67.5 per cent of the vote.

&#149 1991: Aristide is deposed by the military, left

&#149 1994: The UN passes Resolution 940 authorising a multinational force "to use all necessary means" to facilitate the departure of the military rgime.

&#149 1995: Ren Prval wins presidential elections.

&#149 2000: Aristide is elected president for a second non-consecutive term.

&#149 2004: Uprising against Aristide forces him into exile.

&#149 2006: A democratically-elected government headed by Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis takes office.