Haiti, Reaping the Whirlwind

This neighbor of ours is hurting in a most desperate kind of way.

With its people mired in a miasma of crime, fear, disgust, poverty and hunger, Haiti this past week witnessed no end of troubles as people took to the streets in a number of Haitian cities.

One report reaching us notes that, "At least five people have been killed during a week of violent demonstrations over the cost of living in the poorest country in the Americas, where 80 percent of the population make do on less than $2 a day and few have full-time jobs."

Demonstrators on Tuesday paralyzed the city and tried to storm the presidential palace.

The word in some circles has it that the problems Haiti faces derive from the confluence of a number of forces. It is being suggested that, "Stoked by a drought in top grains producer Australia, climbing demand from emerging markets like China and competition with plant-based bio-fuels, global food prices have leaped, prompting restlessness in many poor countries."

Haitians say prices of rice, corn, beans, cooking oil and other staples are skyrocketing. The cost of rice and some other commodities has virtually doubled in six months, while energy costs have also soared because of record oil prices.

Reports from people near the epicenter of action, say that "UN peacekeepers, deployed to Haiti after former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in 2004 in an armed revolt, fired rubber bullets and tear gas at demonstrators on Tuesday to prevent them from overrunning the presidential palace."

And somewhat pathetically so, we are told that, "President Rene Preval huddled overnight with government ministers and international officials, trying to figure out what to do."

Barring some miracle, there is little that he can do.

Rene Preval has but few options remaining.

The reality is that he must – once again – go begging in a cruel world. We are certain that he will get a myriad of promises.

This is so very sad.

Sadder still is that millions of Haitians are obliged to live in a state that borders on the intersection where despair, hunger, misery and death cavort.

Today’s realities are rooted and grounded in some of yesterday’s more ignominious decisions. One of these is that there was a time in recent memory when the greatest military power in the history of the world thought it expedient to facilitate the removal of Haiti’s democratically president, Jean Bertrand Aristide.

Today this Haitian hero lives – albeit in a kind of exile – in South Africa.

Sometime ago, he was visited by celebrated journalist, Naomi Klein who asked him to tell her the inside behind his falling out with the powers that be in the United States of America.

As she puts it, "I asked him what was really behind his dramatic falling-out with Washington. He offered an explanation rarely heard in discussions of Haitian politics — actually, he offered three: "privatization, privatization and privatization."

The bottom line as Klein reports, with his back against the wall, "Aristide agreed to pay the debts accumulated under the kleptocratic Duvalier dictatorships, slash the civil service, and open up Haiti to "free trade" and cut import tariffs on rice and corn in half."

Now fast forward to the time when George W. Bush – himself and his party no friend to Aristide’s brand of liberation theology-helped depose the elected government of Haiti.

And so it was that, "The populist ex-priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's president, became the first elected leader to be overthrown twice by armed thugs supported by the United States."

As explained by economist Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Colombia University, "Our government's role in the coup was more overt. This is a case where the United States turned off the tap. I believe they did that deliberately to bring down Aristide."

Sachs was referring to the cut off of funding from the Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank from 2001-2003.

Even more to the point, "It was an unusually cruel thing to do. Haiti is desperately poor, with the worst incidence of malnutrition and disease in the hemisphere."

Today Haiti weeps and bleeds. As it does, many fondly remember the fact that Aristide was once there with them, providing them a measure of food, freedom, dignity and democracy.

Today’s reality has to do with debt, dependency, hunger, food riots and impotent leaders.

Today, too, the Haitian people – caught as it were in a whirlwind of hunger- are reaping what they sowed.