Editorial Board Opinion: Haiti, stuck in the mud

By Editorial, Published: August 15 THREE MONTHS after his inauguration, the presidency of Michel Martelly, Haiti’s new leader, is dangerously close to running aground. Two of his nominees for prime minister have been rejected by Haiti’s opposition-dominated parliament. In the absence of a fully functioning government, international aid and investment have slowed to a crawl. So have Mr. Martelly’s own top priorities — resettling hundreds of thousands victims of last year’s earthquake still living in tent cities, and reviving the nation’s shattered public schools so that children have access to education.
No one expected miracles from the new president, a political neophyte whose celebrity as a bawdy carnival singer helped catapult him to the presidency. The keys to his elective success were his popularity as a performer and his status as an outsider. But, with no real party structure of his own, he’s also been unable to work his will in parliament. Hence the rejection of his two candidates for prime minister.
Mr. Martelly shares the blame. Rather than seeking reconciliation and new allies following bruising, deeply flawed elections, he has continued to rely on a small circle of friends and advisers. His first pick for prime minister, an intelligent American-educated entrepreneur, had no more political experience than Mr. Martelly. His second, a former justice minister remembered chiefly for reprisals and repression directed at his ideological enemies, stood no chance of confirmation — as Mr. Martelly was repeatedly and publicly warned.
Meanwhile, the president made five overseas trips in his first eight weeks in office — including one to Spain, a country of little significance for Haiti. It’s hard to know whether these rookie mistakes are the product of inexperience, incompetence or both.
Now the president says that it may be another six months before he manages to install a prime minister to lead his government. If that turns out to be the case, it will only compound Haitians’ suffering and confirm the growing international impression of a rudderless, politically querulous nation incapable of helping itself.
Already, reconstruction efforts have been painfully slow. More than 600,000 people, displaced from their homes by the quake, remain in tent-and-tarp cities in and around the capital of Port-au-Prince. Vast fields of rubble remain to be cleared. Of $5.6 billion pledged by international donors for what was to be the original, 18-month recovery period following the earthquake in January 2010, scarcely 40 percent has been disbursed, and far less has actually made its way to projects on the ground.
It’s not that the new president lacks decent ideas or instincts. He has proposed a solid pilot plan for resettling tens of thousands of displaced residents of tent cities, and he has wisely extended the mandate of an interim relief commission led by Bill Clinton and Jean-Max Bellerive, prime minister under the previous government. His program to provide free primary education to children, and to finance it with higher taxes on wire transfers and international calls, is sensible.
But if Mr. Martelly is to have even a slight hope of success, he needs to reach out to his adversaries in parliament, widen his circle of advisers and broaden his base of support. So far, he’s stuck in the mud.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/haiti-stuck-in-the-mud/2011/08/05/gIQAbK5hFJ_story.html

Vail Valley Voices: What I saw in Haiti

Amy Herron Vail, CO, Colorado
I recently went to Haiti to see Haiti. I wanted to discover if Haiti is as bad and as dangerous as the American news machine would have us believe.
So in spite of the language barrier (I don't speak French or Creole), the protests of friends and family or the fact that I did not know anyone in Haiti, I bought a plane ticket.
I naively thought I would find a way to help. Indeed, almost every Haitian I met, would ask, with identical sarcastic tone and slight role of the eyes: “Are you here to help Haiti?” What was going on here? What did it mean that “help” was viewed as laughable, maybe even ludicrous?
Perhaps the answer lies amid the 10,000 or so non-government organizations working in Haiti. It is as if Haiti is being occupied by NGOs and even though this occupation falls under the umbrella of “doing good,” it still comes with all the humiliations and benefits an occupation brings to a poor, uneducated, indebted people whose strength is sapped by a history of internecine struggles.
Repeatedly NGO workers declared, “Darling, you don't understand.”
But I might. I understand that if you give away food in a tent community, you cripple the local economy by inhibiting vendors from selling their local food.
I understand that a tent school is not a long-term solution, only a short-term logistical problem. After all, if you don't provide the school supplies or the salary for a teacher, you did not actually create a school.
I understand that putting in a water purification system in a rural village that requires purchasing a new filter from a an American company every six months does not just improve the health in a community, it also creates a long-term dependency both financially and morally. And there is nothing clean about that.
I understand that homes damaged from the earthquake should not have to be demolished by hand.
I understand this is dangerous, heart wrenching work -- to return to your own home to dismantle the memories and the concrete without the use of cranes, bulldozers and jackhammers. Yet that is precisely the task people are beginning to undertake throughout Port-au-Prince, and there is no NGO providing the tools, technology or knowledge to do it any other way. The fact that these things are every day occurrences should not be understandable.
All NGOs are not created equal. There are worthwhile organizations doing beautiful, inspiring work in Haiti. I witnessed one: L'Athletique D'Haiti. On the outskirts of Cite de Soleil, Haiti's most notorious slum, a miracle is occurring. kKds are given a safe haven to be kids. It is here, on the only open soccer field left in all of Port-au-Prince, that 2,000 kids come daily to play soccer.
Since L'Athletique D'Haiti's inception 16 years ago, this non-profit has grown into an organization that provides sports training, nutrition, medical and educational assistance to underprivileged youth living throughout Port-au-Prince.
This is what an NGO is supposed to be about: providing opportunity, harnessing hope, teaching life lessons, encouraging education while providing discipline, love, and nourishment for the body and the mind.
Here I saw Universal Children Rights in action -- poor and wealthy kids, side by side participating in the joy of soccer, discovering the truths of teamwork and hard work.
It is amazing how things have returned to normal in Port-au-Prince, but in this case normal is not good. It is a structural failure, a human failure. For things to return to normal, it is a return to the broken.
I reject the notion that the average Haitian's response to immense tragedies are any different than how you or I would act if thrust into those situations. They are simply doing what they must to survive. I do not write that to belittle the Haitian spirit but to overcome the essence of separation within that statement.
The connotation that “we” are somehow different, that Haitians are not “us” but instead a “they.” I reject this.
The resilience to continue living through poverty, earthquake, cholera, camps, political oppression and social distress is not a testament to the Haitian spirit but to the human spirit. We are all connected.
Amy Herron is a Vail resident.
http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20110815/EDITS/110819932/1021&ParentProfile=1065