Global IssuesCracking the Donor Discourse on Haiti
In her remarks last week to the president of the U.N. Security Council on the first anniversary of Haiti's earthquake, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice called for a free and fair election that reflected the views of Haitian voters, applauded the work of the U.N. Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), and declared that the 'prospects for rebuilding Haiti depend upon maintaining a secure environment and creating jobs for Haitians'.
Rice made no mention of historic patterns of Western coercion, occupation, interference and destruction in Haiti, which has rendered the grassroots movement in the country virtually powerless.
'It was striking to hear Rice talking about the 'will' of the Haitian people as essential to moving forward,' Peter Hallward, author of 'Damning the Flood — Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment', told IPS.
'For her to say this publically involves a level of hypocrisy that is quite staggering in light of what the U.S. has done to disrupt the mobilisation of the Haitian people over the last hundred years or more,' Hallward said.
Since the earthquake, Haiti's biggest stakeholders, namely, the U.N., the U.S., Britain, France and Canada, have dominated the news and analysis coming from the country.
The mainstream media, buffered by the discourse of these 'concerned parties', has followed a centuries-long practice of positing Haitians as helpless, passive recipients of aid, rather than as autonomous, sovereign, politically-able people.
However, if the international community is to address the root causes of Haiti's destitution and recognise its incredible potential to recreate and reconstruct itself, many activists say we must crack the donor discourse and, instead, put our ears to ground to hear the calls from the grassroots.
Grassroots vs. IHRC: a Donor Deadlock
Natural disasters anywhere have already proved to be enormously lucrative for superpowers with the capacity to step in and 'rebuilt, recreate and reconstruct'. In Haiti, critics say 'disaster capitalism' has taken on a whole new meaning.
Lisa Davis, a professor in the International Women's Human Rights Clinic at CUNY law school and human rights advocacy director for MADRE, told IPS, 'We're fast approaching the one year anniversary of the donor conference where donor countries pledged almost 14.2 billion dollars towards reconstruction efforts.'
'Right now, very little of that money has been released; of that which has, most has gone to international NGOs rather than to local Haitian groups or even directly to the government,' she said.
Referring to the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC), which includes representatives from each of the major international financial institutions and all of the major donor states but not a single representative from the strong, resilient grassroots movement in Haiti, Davis told IPS, 'They don't prioritise voices of groups working locally on the reconstruction process.'
'What seems to be more important are the economic goals of donor states and their perception of what Haiti's should look like post-earthquake,' she added.
'This is the cookie cutter process of countries being rebuilt from the outside, for example, when donors create economies that manufacture goods for export rather than to meet the needs of the Haitian community,' Davis said.
The presence of so many international agencies who are either unable or unwilling to engage with existing local groups, combined with NGOs' top-down method of aid distribution, has exacerbated disparities, shortages and violence in the camps, critics say.
Declaration from Below
MADRE works in close partnership with KOFAVIV, a grassroots organisation working tirelessly to support women in the 22 IDP camps spread across the country. Yet despite the U.N.'s ostensible benevolence, Davis said that MINUSTAH has consistently failed to partner with KOFAVIV, or use its funds to increase the group's capacity.
'MINUSTAH's peacekeeping troops are totally disorganised, cannot speak the language, they're not patrolling at night, or even policing all the camps, which means a huge amount of funding is being poured into something completely inefficient,' Davis told IPS.
'The U.N. subcluster that is supposed to be tackling gender- based violence actually said they had trouble identifying all of the 22 camps in the country,' Davis said, 'but this is ridiculous because all they had to do was ask KOFAVIV! This is indicative of a perpetual disconnect between the donors and the grassroots.'
While the international community pontificates on the 'future' of Haiti, coalitions on the ground are mobilising to push their own agenda, on an indigenous, organic platform.
As early as February last year, over 50 NGOs representing all corners of the vibrant Haitian landscape, from peasants and youth to farmers and women, met in Port-au-Prince and drew up a declaration.
It included priorities as particular as 'putting the earth before capital and protecting life from commodifcation', as well as broader principles such as creating a participatory democracy, privileging Haitian producers in decisions on trade and development, placing social needs at the centre and prioritising agriculture.
Without the explicit and sustained participation of this thriving movement, real recovery in Haiti likely remains a distant dream.
© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service