Haiti After the Earthquake (61 page)

22
The point was made by Mildred Aristide in her excellent book on the topic,
L'Enfant En Domesticité en Haïti: Produit d'un Fossé Historique
(Port-au-Prince, Haiti: Imprimerie H. Deschamps, 2003), pp. 89–90: “It is clear that Haiti's rural development and the faltering road to a national public education system have been and remain at the center of the propagation of child domestic service in the country. This explains why the prototypical image of a child in domestic service is one
of a child from the impoverished countryside seeking an education, working in the city.”

23
Timothy T. Schwartz.
Travesty in Haiti: A True Account of Christian Missions, Orphanages, Food Aid, Fraud and Drug Trafficking
(Self-published, 2008), p. 66.

24
For more information on the construction of the bridge to Boucan Carré, see Partners In Health's September 2009 online bulletin, available:
http://www.pih.org/pages/pih-e-bulletin-2009-09
(accessed April 15, 2011). Also see a short documentary clip in which Dr. Louise Ivers discusses the importance of the bridge, available here:
http://www.pih.org/pages/service/
(accessed April 15, 2011).

25
Ophelia Dahl. “Thomas J. White Symposium 2009 Remarks.” October 3, 2009.

26
The hatchery had been designed by charismatic and talented Ivoirien agronomist Valentin Abe, whose work is mentioned in Jéhane Sedky's essay “Building Back Better.”

27
The baby was named Rolando in honor of our guest.

28
For more about the conference, along with a critique of donor activity in Haiti, see Robert Maguire's briefing for the United States Institute for Peace (Special Report 232, September 2009). Available:
http://www.usip.org/files/resources/haiti_after_donors_conference.pdf
(accessed April 15, 2011). “The state's lack of capacity to render public services,” Maguire argues, “has resulted in the virtual absence of the government as a positive presence in citizen's lives, thus stoking citizen frustration and weakening the democratic process. Donor support of nonstate entities has created an environment that lacks coherence, particularly in support of national development plans.”

29
Kathie Klarreich. “Haiti's Working Better.”
Miami Herald
: December 8, 2009. Available:
http://www.haitiinnovation.org/en/2009/12/09/haitis-workingbetter-piti-piti
(accessed April 15, 2011).

30
See, for example, J. Frenk et al. “Comprehensive Reform to Improve Health System Performance in Mexico.”
Lancet
368 (October 2006): 1524–1534; J. Frenk “Bridging the Divide: Global Lessons from Evidence-Based Health Policy in Mexico.”
Lancet
368 (2006): 954–961.

31
Bolduc survived the August 19, 2003, truck bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad. The explosion killed seventeen UN staff, including Sergio Vieira de Mello, the chief envoy to Iraq, and injured more than one hundred others. “Truck Bomb Kills Chief U.N. Envoy to Iraq.”
CNN
(August 20, 2003). Available:
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/08/19/sprj.irq.main/index.html
. See also Samantha Power's stirring book on this topic,
Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World
(New York: Penguin, 2008), which explores the perils, moral and logistic, of such missions.

1
David Halberstam.
The Best and the Brightest
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1992).

2
The church-run Collège La Promesse in Pétionville collapsed on November 7,
2008, killing ninety-two students and teachers and injuring one hundred fifty or more. Like most buildings in Port-au-Prince, the school had been self-built by the property owner without the help of engineers or any sort of building code. See “Death Toll Rises to 92 in School Collapse in Haiti.”
New York Times
(November 8, 2008). Available:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/world/americas/09haiti.html
(accessed April 15, 2011).

3
Pierre-Louis was voted out of office by the Senate by simple majority, after serving for little more than a year. In public fora, her opponents complained that her response to the 2008 hurricane season had been slow and inept. But others suspected that her ousting had more to do with the threat she may have posed to her superior, although Pierre-Louis had never expressed any intention of running for president. For example, Mario Joseph, a human rights lawyer, suggested that “Préval was threatened by the growing power and connections of Pierre-Louis, particularly after the visits of Bill Clinton. She was becoming the darling of the donors, who called her capable, and I think he felt she was getting too big for her britches.” See Joseph Guyler Delva. “Haiti President Designates Economist to Be Premier.” Reuters (October 29, 2009). Available:
http://in.reuters.com/article/2009/10/30/haiti-primeminister-idINN3039324720091030
; Joseph quoted in Kim Ives. “Haitian Prime Minister Ousted by Senate.”
Pacific Free Press
(November 5, 2009). Available:
http://www.pacificfreepress.com/news/1/4999-haitian-prime-minister-ousted-by-senate.html
(accessed April 15, 2011).

4
“Former President Clinton on Haiti.”
Real Clear Politics:
January 13, 2010. Available:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/01/13/interview_with_fmr_president_clinton_on_haiti_99900.html
(accessed April 15, 2011).

5
Ibid.

6
Louise Ivers. “A Doctor's Story.”
Irish Times:
January 18, 2010.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0118/1224262564631.html
(accessed April 15, 2011).

7
The interview was broadcast on CBS's
60 Minutes
on January 17, 2010. Available:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6108550n&tag=api
(accessed April 15, 2011).

8
For an extended discussion of the challenges of coordinating humanitarian aid efforts in general and after the earthquake in Haiti, see Chapter 7, “Reconstruction in the Time of Cholera” and
passim
, frankly, because that is what this book is about. For an account of these issues in the press, see Patricia Zengerle and Jackie Frank. “Haiti Needs Better Coordination.” Reuters (Jan 27, 2010) Available:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/01/27/us-quake-haiti-idUSTRE60O29A20100127
(accessed April 15, 2011).

9
Dean Lorich, Soumitra Eachempati, David Helfet. “Doctors: Haiti Medical Situation Shameful.”
CNN
, January 25, 2010. Available:
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-01-25/opinion/doctors.haiti.hardships_1_haiti-trauma-surgeons-medical-supplies?_s=PM
:OPINION (accessed April 15, 2011).

10
P. Farmer. “Gram-Negative Sepsis of Uncertain Etiology.”
New England Journal of Medicine
340, 11 (1999): 869–876; See also Paul Farmer. “Haiti, l'embargo et la typhoide.”
Le Monde Diplomatique
(July 2003): 26–27.

11
In 2002, Haiti was ranked 147 out of 147 countries on the Water Poverty Index, and 101 out of 122 countries for water quality—dead last in the hemisphere in both studies. See P. Lawrence et al. “The Water Poverty Index: An International Comparison.”
Keele Economic Research Papers
(2002); D. C. Esty and P. K. Cornelius, eds.
Environmental Performance Measurement: Global Report 2001–2002
(2002). Comparison chart available at
http://www.unesco.org/bpi/wwdr/WWDR_chart2_eng.pdf
(accessed April 15, 2011); see also Farmer. “Political Violence and Public Health in Haiti.”

12
For more on the role of universities during the earthquake response, see Andrea Fuller. “American Universities Rush to Front Lines in Haiti.”
Chronicle of Higher Education:
January 21, 2010. Available:
http://chronicle.com/article/American-Universities-Rush-to/63692/
(accessed April 15, 2011).

13
Paul Farmer, Louise Ivers, and Claire Pierre. “Tales from the Front.”
Miami Herald
(January 23, 2010). Available:
http://www.haitispecialenvoy.org/press/op-eds/drs-farmer-ivers-pierre-tales-from-the-front/
(accessed April 15, 2011).

14
See Peter Baker and Joseph Berger. “U.S. to Resume Airlift of Injured Haitians.”
New York Times:
January 31, 2010. Available:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/world/americas/01airlift.html
(accessed April 15, 2011); Alex Lantier. “U.S. Halts Military Flights to Evacuate Haiti Earthquake Victims.”
WSWS.org
: February 1, 2010.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/hait-f01.shtml
(accessed April 15, 2011).

15
Farmer.
AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame
.

16
We also discussed his visit to Rwanda earlier that month, which was meant to improve Franco-Rwandan relations. The diplomatic relationship between the two countries had been strained since the genocide and was severed by Kigali in 2006, when a French judge issued arrest warrants for a number of top aides to Paul Kagame, the current Rwandan president, on the grounds that they were somehow involved in the downing of Rwandan dictator Juvenal Habyarimana's plane on April 6, 1994—the event marking the start of the hundred-day genocide. Most observers didn't find the evidence against the Kagame aides to be credible. Kouchner's trip to Kigali aimed at a return to amicable relations, including the resuscitation of cultural exchanges and development assistance. Franco-Rwandan relations would be strengthened further a month later with President Nicholas Sarkozy's visit on February 24; Sarkozy allowed that the French government had made “grave errors of judgment” during the genocide. For news coverage of Kouchner's visit to Rwanda, see “Rwanda and France Pledge to Boost Ties after Three-Year Freeze.” RFI (January 7, 2010). Available:
http://www.rfi.fr/actuen/articles/121/article_6426.asp
(accessed April 15, 2011). For coverage of Sarkozy's trip, see Anjan Sundaram. “On Visit to Rwanda, Sarkozy Admits ‘Grave Errors' in 1994 Genocide,”
New York Times
(February 25, 2010). Available:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/world/europe/26france.html
(accessed April 15, 2011).

17
Peter Walker. “Haiti Can Lead Earthquake Relief Effort.”
Guardian
(January 25, 2010). Available:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/25/haiti-earthquake-relief-effort-summit
(accessed April 15, 2011).

18
Quoted in Rob Gilles. “Haiti Conference: Nations Call for Haitian Government to Lead Rebuilding,”
Huffington Post:
(January 26, 2010). Available:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/26/haiti-conference-nations_n_436495.html
(accessed April 15, 2011).

19
Quoted in Marc Lacey and Ginger Thompson. “Agreement on Effort to Help Haiti Rebuild,”
New York Times
: January 25, 2010. Available:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/world/americas/26haiti.html
(accessed April 15, 2011).

20
Christine Welter. “Montreal Hosts Haiti Reconstruction Conference,”
Suite 101
: January 26, 2010. Available:
http://www.suite101.com/content/montrealhosts-haiti-reconstruction-conference-a194024
(accessed April 15, 2011).

21
To those eager to level corruption charges against the Haitian government, I would push on two fronts. First, it's not very helpful to criticize a government such as Haiti's in a vacuum. A sound analysis situates Haitian politics and bureaucratic performance in a broader context, historical and geographical. Few years in Haiti's history are unmarked by foreign intervention or meddling of some kind. What we know about democracy in Haiti is this: whenever a popular leader (elected by significant margins) is given a chance to hold office, he will, as surely as night follows day, soon face embargoes and bad press and possibly worse. No one would deny that the current government has certain inveterate weaknesses, but perhaps it's time to let Haitian democracy run its course, to let the Haitian civil services grow and take root. Second, to avoid corruption, public institutions—from the line ministries to facilities such as the General Hospital—need an infrastructure of transparency: modern bookkeeping, electronic disbursement of payroll, performance-based financing, effective communications technology. For the last two decades, the Haitian state has been starved of resources. Long accustomed to paltry tax revenues, embargoes intended to pressure the governments in the direction of foreign business interests emptied the meager federal coffers. Instead, money flowed to NGOs, which wittingly or unwittingly weakened the public sector. By the close of the millennium, the Republic of NGOs had undermined the Republic of Haiti's capability to fulfill its government mandate. In these conditions, corruption charges sometimes seem misplaced.

22
Lacey and Thompson. “Agreement on Effort to Help Haiti Rebuild.”

23
Amy Wilentz, who has written extensively about recent Haitian political history, made the point that Préval's leadership style was a welcome break from a history of “strongman” politics she connects with Duvalierism. Préval's administration, “while certainly not incandescent,” she writes, “had a calming influence on the roiling tide of Haitian politics.... The quiet president, operating behind the scenes with the international community, instead of strutting before the foreign press and claiming he'll fix everything, is perhaps at this moment not such a bad leader for Haitian democracy, after all.” See Amy Wilentz. “The Dechoukaj This Time.”
New York Times,
February 7, 2010. Available:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/opinion/07wilentz.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1292446954-gjxDURsrw0KQhLo4k/EZpw
(accessed April 15, 2011). Wilentz's perspective is a helpful counterweight to the heavy doses of criticism laid on
Préval and his administration after the quake. But it is not an exaggeration to say that the government's efforts often have been anemic at best.