Commentary: The Haitian solution

Published on Saturday, January 2, 2010 Email To Friend    Print Version By Jean H Charles Every year around January 1st (Haiti Independence and first day of the year) I take time, to stop, ponder and reflect on where the nation has been going in its nation building process. From a passionate observer, I have muted into a passionate architect of the future of Haiti. I am now a candidate to become President of the Republic in the November 28, 2010, election; as such engaging the people to extirpate the culture of social, economic and political exclusion against the majority of the population, while injecting the seeds of a moving solidarity towards each and every one. Jean H Charles MSW, JD is Executive Director of AINDOH Inc a non profit organization dedicated to building a kinder and gentle Caribbean zone for all. He can be reached at: jeanhcharles@aol. For the last 500 years, Ayti, now Haiti, has been seeking its path to shine in the sun amidst the most beautiful scenic setting on earth. It is still the land of the wretched of the earth. In this column I will expose and review the many solutions brought into Haiti with no apparent result. It is now time to let the Haitian solution take hold to bring at least and at last the bliss of well being for the majority of the population. It was first the Spanish and the French solution; it lasted three hundred years (1500 to 1800). Christopher Columbus, an Italian of fiery imagination, convinced with great difficulty the queen of Spain of abundant return and a better route to the spice lands (spice was at that time a commodity which aroused the same glamour and excitement that caviar does today). After several months of travel with some mutiny always on the edge, Christopher Columbus discovered one day the tip toe of an island named Ayti that he renamed Santo Domingo because, being a fervent Catholic, it was the day that corresponded with the Fiesta of St Domingue. Columbus and his men lured the inhabitants of the islands, all Indians of a peaceful nature into accepting them with small gifts made of cheap material in return for large pieces of gold that the Indians used to decorate their bodies. The Spanish men brought by Columbus soon fell upon the bodies of the Indian women, raping them, leaving them with syphilis and gonorrhea, while forcing the men into alcoholic beverage, which was new to their system, leaving them acting like zombies. They were put into slavery to dig more gold and start plantations for their own consumption and to bring back to Spain the richness of the island. The Indian population soon dwindled to a small percentage and was almost extinguished due to firearms, disease, alcoholic drinking and forced labor. It was then that a defrocked priest named Las Casas offered a fatal solution: "Let's bring black men from Africa and evangelize them and civilize them and let them work for us." For two centuries, they came, bonded, shackled and caged to work the plantations to produce, sugar, cotton and coffee for the splendor of Spain and later France. It was as such until a slave of Jamaican origin named Bookman instilled into the heart of his comrades the courage to fight until death to bring the end of the world order of slavery in Haiti. He was soon caught and killed but the seedling of the movement took roots and spread from the north of Haiti into the entire island. Napoleon Bonaparte, with his troops that defeated the entire continent of Europe, could not resist the fury of men and women determined to stand free and grow as true children of God. On January 1, 1804, the Haitian solution took birth. A nation was born where all those who suffer the ignominy of bondage could come and live free. The experience did not last long. Two years later, Haiti's founding father, Jean Jacques Dessalines, was assassinated by his comrades, who did not believe in the concept of nation building. A Haitian general with roots in Grenada, Henry Christophe, took the reins of power to continue the process. He was bypassed by the same forces that killed the Emperor Dessalines. Christophe could rule only in the northern part of the island. At his death, fifteen years later, the country returned to the revisionism culture. Two hundred years later Haiti has not gotten out of it. Several solutions have been tried during those two decennials. It was first the solution of shadow politics. National and international clans would put into the seat of power, one of the most illiterate person to run the country and then- pull the strings on their side, to the detriment of the population. Haiti, as an outcast in the world, was subjected to all types of gunboat pressure to enter into debt and give away its natural resources. It was as such until 1915, when the Americans imposed the American solution. The country was invaded and ruled by the Americans until 1932. The positive outcome was meager. Public health, the building of some infrastructure, the Haitian army, was on the plus side. On the other scale of the balance, the culture of social exclusion and the concentration of the resources in the capital have encroached into the fabric of the Haitian society. Haiti knew its golden age during the 1950s under the presidency of Paul E. Magloire. Yet he was not an ideologue president; he did not understand the root cause of the Haitian problem, which is to create a society that should incrementally become hospitable to all. The dictatorial solution decimated or sent to exile the cream of the crop of the Haitian intelligentsia. It lasted thirty years, with the support and connivance of the American government. When Duvalier pere died, a smooth transition to Duvalier fils was arranged by the American Ambassador. It took Haitians the determination of their forefathers to boot out the Duvalier regime, which was soon replaced by the military solution. Under the disguise of democratic bamboche or fiesta, Haiti opened wide its population to global commerce, killing its indigenous production, setting the stage for a negative balance of payments that lasted decades after. In addition, the military regime disturbed with strong violence the first democratic election into the country. Haiti has been going into a transition and a trauma that is without end. The populist solution has been experimented with and guided from Washington. It is still the game of today. Jean Bertrand Aristide and, later, Rene Preval have promised much in bringing growth and in reducing poverty, yet Haiti has been descending into the abyss of insecurity of food, lives and environment. It was time for the United Nations Solution. With a force of 9,000 soldiers and a budget of 600 million dollars per year, the MINUSTHA, the acronym for the UN peace force, is still seeking a relevant mission after five years in the country. The irrelevance is so visible to the naked eye that General Secretary Ban Ki Moon sought the Bill Clinton Solution finally to help Haiti to stand on its feet. It is too early to evaluate the one-year goodwill ambassadorship of former President Clinton. Already, the Friends of Haiti are talking about the Dominican Solution. President Leonel Fernandez, as well as some Dominican legislators, has said thanks but no thanks to the Dominican Solution. They already have some one million Haitian migrants into the country competing for the scarce jobs the country can manage to create. In this new decade, the hour is for the international community to accompany the Haitian people into finding the Haitian solution, which is to create a country where no one will be left behind, where the infrastructure will be built from the rural country to the capital, where the institutions will be hospitable to its citizens and where Haiti will regain its leadership position for the benefit of the Caribbean and for the rest of the world.   Reads : 126