Anyone who has had the nerves to watch the feettage (plural of footage?) from Haiti would have seen the vulnerability of human bodies. A natural disaster in the form of an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale is not something that you can predict or prevent. An act of God? Many would not agree that the God of mercy would be caught playing such tricks on a people already sick and tired by their own rulers. That they are not in hospitals as a result of being sick and tired is not that they do not wish to go to hospital; it is simply that there are no hospitals or hospital staff around to take care of them. To help correct this situation Cuba, in the last few years, has been sending doctors to Haiti and helping to train doctors of Haitian origin. In fact, Cuban doctors, as well as the doctors without borders, were already on the ground when the earthquake struck. This is because there was already a disaster on the ground in Haiti, a disaster that did not need any act of nature or of God to impress on the people that they were a hopeless people. The situation was so dire that Aristides, perhaps the only true leader Haiti has had in its 206 years of independence, proposed as his vision to bring Haiti from destitution to dignified poverty!
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| Kole Omotosho |
There have been attempts around the world to place blames for what has happened in Haiti. Black writers from the Caribbean, from the Americas and from the African continent have been quick to place the blame at the feet of France, Great Britain and the United States of America. France was the country defeated by self-liberated slaves on this piece of the island of Hispaniola. Twenty years into their independence the Haitian leaders sought to be recognised as a free country in the company of other countries. This was in 1824. The United States of America was still slave holding. How the racist whites of the American south felt about having a black free nation next door to their slaves can be found out by looking at the records. To be recognised as country among countries, Haiti asked that Great Britain recognise its sovereignty. Britain consulted France for advice since France was the previous colonial master. France insisted that Haiti must pay reparations to France for the plantations lost, the irrigation works in the plantations and the humiliation of being defeated by the ex-slaves before France would advise Britain to recognise Haiti. The leaders of Haiti consulted their people about these negotiations including the matter of paying France for damages consequent on the struggles of the people for their liberation. The people told their leaders that they owed nobody any money and did not have to pay France for anything. The leadership went back to France to tell France what the people said. France answered that they heard but that France would lend Haiti the money that they should pay France. This was the beginning of the foreign debt of Haiti. At the meeting in Canada on Monday deliberating on the way forward for Haiti, one of the demands of the NGO and other organisations is that Haiti must be forgiven its foreign debt which amounts, at peak, to US$1.8 billion. US$1.2 billion was forgiven sometime in 2005, leaving the rest for Haiti to start all over again. Well, to be a country you have to be recognised by other countries. So Haiti’s leaders accepted to borrow from France to pay France.
From the 19th century into the 20th, Haiti became a football kicked here and there by the Western powers until the United States invaded and took over the treasury in 1915-1916. There followed periods of deplorable leadership which left the people more destitute by the decade. This destitution expressed itself not only on the people but also on their environment. In an interview with the wife of Baby Doc who had succeeded his horrible father as president of Haiti sometime in the 1970s, the good lady insisted that nobody could live in Port au Prince without air conditioning. The interviewer reminded her that millions of Haitians did in fact live in the capital as well as the rest of Haiti without air conditioning. The vegetations suffered, there is no river as water source and the soil was carried away into the sea when floods came.
In 2004, Haiti celebrated its 200th year of independence. While agreeing that there was always a need to mark a historic date, I was not sure that there was much to celebrate that Haiti had been independent for 200 years only to be the poorest country in the western hemisphere. But more frightening for me was the implication of Haiti’s history. I was scared when confronted with the possibility that this is Africa in 200 years! Haiti shares the following characteristics with Africa: feeble or non-existent infrastructure; illiterate, irrational and insatiable population of political followers; an uninformed or ill-informed and indolent but consumerist political leadership; and wheedling ponzi-oriented foreigners preaching peace and profiting from war; not to speak of foreign debt, consuming what they do not produce and producing what they do not consume! Is this Africa in the next 200 years?
In commenting on the catastrophe that is Haiti today, African leaders in South Africa have shied from making the comparison in terms that this is happening in Haiti, but what is on the ground in some African countries looks as if the catastrophe that is just happening in Haiti has already happened in Africa.
Kwame Nkrumah, first president of independent Ghana from 1957 to 1966, insisted that all Africa had to do was ‘seek first political freedom and all other things shall be added unto us’. Well, the experience of Haiti and of African countries until now would seem to say that ‘political freedom is not a necessary condition for economic success!’ This must sound like a blaspheme to the ears of liberals all over the world but it is true!
Soon after Haiti’s liberation, the leaders tried to revive the sugar plantations from which the French had made billions but the now free Haitians refused to work in the sugar plantations. The leaders tried to force the people but the people reminded their leaders that they were free!
So, we need to attend to the fundamental question of political freedom and economic success.
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rob atkins
22 February 2010 (3 weeks ago) 16:03Thanks again for the very insightful and master piece. One important thing missing in the article is that the reparation fees demanded of Haiti by France is toady’s worth of $23 billion. Haiti had to borrow from other countries at very high interest rates to pay and then in turn had to borrow more money to service the interest on the interest on the original reparation fees. That is why till today, Haiti is in to debt beyond its head and Haiti only produces Coffee and Sugar.