The Bumpy Road: An Abridged History of Haiti Since 1990
If you are like me you find yourself incessantly refreshing the homepage of The New York Times for the updates in Haiti. By now, you know that on Tuesday, January 12, an earthquake with a measured intensity of 7.0 on the Richter scale flattened the Haitian capital city, Port Au Prince. Additionally, the U.S. Geological Survey recorded 14 aftershocks with intensities measuring between 5.0 and 5.9. The American Red Cross estimated that nearly three million Haitians have been affected by the disaster. Despite earlier fatality estimates of 45,000 - 50,000, the most recent examples have nearly quadrupled with Haitian authorities expecting the death toll to reach 200,000. The infrastructure has been wiped, hope seems lost, and aid workers are struggling to swiftly and effectively distribute help.
Unfortunately, this tragedy has been made worse by the history of this nation marked by ineffectual politics and grave human conditions. The Huffington Post describes Haiti's situation:
The country's poverty is the worst in the region -- with 80 percent of the population below the poverty line. Its politics are incorrigibly fractious. Its industries are nascent if not non-existent (there is, according to the CIA World Factbook, zero percent industrial production growth). Its struggles with medical illness are legendary -- there are roughly 60 deaths for every 1,000 live births. But instead of being embraced as a reclamation project for first-world developers, Haiti has often been cast off as a hopeless cause.
What about Haiti has continually stymied international development efforts and has worsened this disaster?
In December 1990, a Roman catholic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected as president of Haiti pledging to rid the nation of the pervasive corruption during the previous regime. Only months after taking the oath, Aristide's government suffered a near-unanimous vote of non-confidence by the Haitian Senate. This vote triggered a bloody coup d'état in September 1991, which left 1,500 dead and implanted an interim military government. Though elections were scheduled for the end of the year, international fears of falsified results by the military administration postponed the elections. Meanwhile, a major issue throughout the 1992 American presidential election touched on an order by George H.W. Bush to enact a blockade against Haiti and restrict the flow of Haitian refugees to the United States. In 1994, the United Nations authorized an international effort to forcefully overthrow the military government and restore Bertrand Aristide to the presidency. Operation Uphold Democracy was led by the United States and was successful. The international community hoped to usher in a process of democratization and modernization to Haiti, expanding upon investments in Haiti's physical and social infrastructure. After constitutional law barred Aristide from running for re-election, Aristide ceded the presidency in 1995 to a benign administration. For the next five years, international aid was gradually withdrawn from the nation. Haiti was left with an inept domestic police force, a weak economy, and an over-centralized government. Government corruption and narcotrafficking flourished during this time.
In 2000, Aristide once again won the presidential election in Haiti, though the international community suspected fraud. Corruption charges and seeming indolence by the Aristide administration prompted widespread and violent protests from 2000 until 2003. In 2004, an opposition rebel group known as the National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Haiti seized control of the city of Gonaives and began to march towards the capital, aiming to overthrow Aristide once more. To the dismay of the Congressional Democrats, the Bush Administration refused to intervene. Only days later, President Aristide fleed Haiti. The United Nations swiftly authorized a peacekeeping force led by the Brazilian military. Despite the presence of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), bloody protests and government criminality pursued. Since then, Haiti has been tragically geographically unlucky. In the Summer of 2004: flash floods in Dominican Republic and Haiti left 1,600 dead. Only a few months later in September, 2004, Hurricane Jeanne slammed the Caribbean and left more than 3,000 dead in Haiti.
Hopes for a prosperous, stable, and more democratic nation following the election René Préval in 2005 were relinquished as there was little marked change. Rising global food prices hit particularly hard in Haiti. By 2008, 80% of Haitians were living on less than $2 a day. Violent protests ensued until Hurricanes Fay, Gustav, Hanna, and Ike landed in Haiti in the span of no more than a month. The hurricanes left more than 800 dead in Haiti. The effects were compounded by environmental degradation, poor irrigation, and an incompetent government. Afterwards, there were recurrent calls throughout the international diplomat community for increased aid to the Caribbean nation. Until the earthquake, there were even hopes of sustained economic growth in Haiti as the tourism industry appear to be gain notable strength.
Post-emergency Haiti
Unfortunately, this unprecedented international response will lose its fire and many aid efforts will eventually halt. The Washington Post reports on post-disaster Haiti efforts:
"To prevent a deepening spiral of death, the United States will have to do things differently than in the past. American relief and development institutions do not function properly, and to believe otherwise would be to condemn Haiti's poor and dying to our own mythology... A serious response will require a new approach. President Obama should recognize that the U.S. government alone lacks the means, attention span and true regard for Haiti that is needed to see this through past the most urgent phase. After the coming weeks, during which U.S. emergency airlift assistance is essential, the effort should be quickly internationalized, in an effective manner that acknowledges U.S. political realities and leverages the help that Washington will give.
It seems heartless to view this disaster positively, however the events of Tuesday present a remarkable opportunity to the world and to Haiti to finally set up a long-term strategy of reconstruction, growth, and healthy politics.
Donate to Haiti: The Pan-American Development Foundation is a highly respected and established grassroots organization set up throughout the Hispaniola island. (http://padf.org/)
Read Further:
"From Haiti's ruins, a chance to rebuild a nation" - Alec MacGillis, The Washington Post, January 17, 2010
"Eight Ways to Rebuild Haiti" - Op-Ed Contributors, The New York Times, January 17, 2010
Photo: Foreign Policy Magazine "The Unluckiest Country" (2010), "The second-oldest republic in the Western Hemisphere has been wracked by coups, dictators, and foreign interventions throughout nearly its entire history. But you don't have to agree with Pat Robertson to agree that even by Haitian standards, the last few decades have been particularly tragic."
