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HAITI: Rebuilding Is an “Immense” Job, Preval Says

Felipe Seligman

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 30 2006 (IPS) - Haiti’s new president René Préval visited Washington and the United Nations this week to press his case for support from the international community and private investors to help address Haiti’s urgent social and economic problems.

According to World Bank estimates, Haiti needs about 1.3 billion dollars just to meet the immediate needs of its population.

“The support and concrete action of the international community are extremely important in addressing the Millennium Goals,” Préval told the U.N. Security Council Monday, referring to an ambitious set of eight global poverty-alleviation targets agreed to by most countries of the world in 2000.

Also speaking at the Security Council session on Haiti, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said that Washington is committed to helping Haiti in its reconstruction process. “By the end of 2006, the United States will commit nearly half billion dollars to Haiti’s reconstruction and return to democracy,” he said.

Two years ago, international organisations like the Inter-American Development Bank, the United Nations and the World Bank, as well as governmental donors like the European Union, pledged slightly more than a billion dollars toward Haiti’s recovery.

However, Préval said this week that, “We need to quickly unblock the funds.” Only 324 million dollars out of the billion pledged have arrived in Haiti, since donors have complained that they had no guarantee the funds would reach the intended parties.

According to the new president, reconstruction should take place in three phases, beginning with creating jobs and providing food aid.

“People are in a desperate situation in terms of food. They have to be given emergency aid,” he said.

The second and third phases will focus on creating infrastructure to support Haiti’s political institutions, like the Congress and police, and encouraging private investment. Préval also called for an extension of the U.N. force in the country.

Since 2004, the U.N. has deployed approximately 9,000 peacekeepers. Their mandate expires in August, but the Security Council has decided to extend it for a further six months.

Speaking at the Security Council, Annan stressed the importance of international support for the Caribbean country. “These developments [the recent democratic elections] should encourage us to even greater efforts in Haiti, which is only beginning its long journey towards a stable and democratic future. It needs and deserves our assistance to reach that destination.”

On Tuesday, Préval had a very brief meeting in Washington with U.S. President George W. Bush, who congratulated the incoming Haitian president and said he is looking forward to working with him.

He also made an appearance at the 34-member Organisation of American States (OAS) to describe the challenges facing his presidency and ask for support from the grouping. “We must reform the state to build the nation, restore national production, develop and value human resources, and reestablish a favourable climate for investment,” he told the OAS Permanent Council Wednesday.

The Council’s chair, Ambassador Sonia Johnny of Saint Lucia, said that “more than ever, the international and the hemispheric community need to demonstrate in political, economic and financial terms its long-term commitment to the social and economic reconstruction of the republic of Haiti.”

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also met with Caribbean leaders to persuade them to embrace Haiti’s new government. The regional group CARICOM, which refused to recognise the interim government in Haiti led by Gerard Latortue after President Jean Bertrand Aristide was forced out of office two years ago, reportedly agreed to readmit Haiti.

According to the latest Human Development Report published by the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), Haiti is the poorest and least-developed country in all the Americas, ranking 153 out of 177 countries on an index that measures living standards.

More than 48 percent of the population is illiterate, only 34 percent has regular access to sanitation, and 23 percent of children are underweight for their age.

Haiti’s low indicators reflect decades of exploitation and corrupt elitist governments, even though it holds the distinction of being the world’s first independent black republic, with African slaves revolting and throwing out the French colonial regime in 1804.

>From 1915 to 1934, the United States occupied the island. In 1957, a military coup brought François Duvalier – known as Papa Doc – to power with U.S. support. His equally brutal son Jean Claude Duvalier – Baby Doc – assumed office in 1971 and remained until 1986.

Hope returned with the democratic election of priest turned politician Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991. However, one year later, Aristide was deposed by Gen. Raoul Cedras, who established a military regime.

Since then, Haiti has suffered under a series of economic sanctions, culminating in May 1994 with a U.N. embargo on all goods entering Haiti except humanitarian supplies, such as food and medicine.

The assembly sector, dependent on U.S. markets, employed nearly 80,000 workers in the 1980s. But during the embargo, employment fell sharply. Private domestic and foreign investment has been slow to return to Haiti. Since the return of constitutional rule, the assembly sector has gradually recovered, with over 20,000 now employed, but further growth has been stalled by investor concerns over safety and supply reliability.

In July 1994, a peacekeeping mission was sent by the United Nations to Haiti. Three months later, Aristide took office again.

Préval, who also held the presidency from 1995-2000, between the two terms of Aristide, is set to take office on May 7. Charges of fraud by his supporters in the February elections were resolved when Haiti’s electoral council decided to recount ballots left blank in a way that benefited Preval, pushing all the candidates’ percentages up, and Preval’s into the category of absolute majority, allowing him to win the first round.

But he inherits a country plagued by severe poverty, ongoing gang violence and political unrest.

The job of rebuilding Haiti is ”so immense”, Preval told the OAS, that it requires a national dialogue with all political sectors in the country to forge a development plan for the next quarter century.