Haitian delegation returns; disappointed with progress

A street vendor in Port-au-Prince is evidence of economic activity slowly returning to the devastated capital. A Massachusetts Haiti delegation led by state Rep. Marie St. Fleur recently returned, finding it hard to see results of foreign aid invested in the island nation. (Peter Koutoujian photo)

Brian Wright O’Connor

Buffeted by political and humanitarian setbacks, Haiti’s hopes for a lasting recovery from the devastating January earthquake are in danger of withering away.

According to outgoing state Rep. Marie St. Fleur, D-Dorchester, who recently led a delegation of five Bay State lawmakers to the island nation, red tape and funding bottlenecks have hindered rapid rebuilding of the country in spite of billions in pledged aid assistance.

With the Haitian parliament no longer functioning, numerous political parties excluded from upcoming elections, and power increasingly concentrated in the executive branch and foreign donors, trust in government is also eroding, especially among civil society groups.

“The people we spoke to from women’s groups, youth organizations and others want to participate in the direction their country is headed,” said St. Fleur. “But so far, they feel excluded. The U.S. has to act as a useful convener to bring lasting change to Haiti. If not, 20 years from now we’ll be singing the same song. It’s not too late, but I’m concerned that the window of opportunity for progress in Haiti created by the earthquake is now closing.”

During their seven-day trip, the delegation met with Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, visited relief sites around Port-au-Prince, and inspected potential development projects in the north, which escaped the 7.0 tremor relatively unscathed.

“We could hardly see any evidence of the money we’ve invested,” said St. Fleur, expressing frustration at what she saw on the ground as well as recent reports that of the $14.9 billion donated since January to help Haiti, just a fraction has been spent.

In one instance, a letter from the government needed to authorize international forces to clear donated land and lay down a bed of gravel to build a transitional camp for about four dozen Haitian orphans has been held up for months by overwhelmed bureaucrats, she said.

“We need more visible progress to build confidence,” added the Haitian-born lawmaker.

Much of the money donated to the impoverished country is slated for such long-term infrastructure needs as roads, schools, hospitals, power plants and transmission lines. But Haitians displaced by the earthquake are increasingly impatient with conditions in squalid encampments around the capital, with few plans apparent for more permanent housing.

One of the largest tent cities they saw surrounds the crumbled National Palace on the historic Champs des Mars parade ground — a teeming mass of thousands living in plastic tents and open sewers with the rainy season about to make conditions even more miserable.

Nearly half the country’s population of 10 million is jammed into the plains and mountainsides of Port-au-Prince, seeking escape from the degraded environment and poverty of the rural interior. The January 12 quake caused the immediate collapse of thousands of homes, killing an estimated 250,000 people.

“Walking around Port-au-Prince and seeing the poverty, seeing the destruction, seeing the tent cities was a first-hand view of the humanitarian crisis,” said two-term state Rep. Sean Garbally, D-Arlington, who represents a large Haitian community in West Medford.

“There are huge amounts of rubble still in the city. The earthquake was in January. And this is May. We were told that the tent cities will be there for another 12 months. It’s extremely frustrating,” he said.

State Rep. Vinny deMacedo, R-Plymouth, a six-term legislator born in Cape Verde, said he was moved to visit Haiti to show solidarity with St. Fleur, a fellow immigrant, and the people of her country. “I thought if we went to see the conditions first-hand, I would have a better idea of how we could help,” he said. “But as bad as I thought it was, it’s even worse than I imagined.”

According to a CBS News report, enough money has been raised to deliver a check for $37,000 to each of the 1.5 million homeless families, but somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of funds donated to international relief organizations sits unspent in agency bank accounts.

The aid spent thus far has itself created problems. Donated food flooding the country has undermined local farmers, who are unable to compete with free handouts. “We saw mangoes, yams, and other food rotting in the markets,” said St. Fleur. “We’re in danger of creating a hand-out society and not a sustainable one.”

Meanwhile, legislative elections scheduled for this spring have been cancelled and presidential elections slated for December are left up in the air.

As of May 10, President Rene Preval was the country’s only functioning constitutional officer and is barred from running for re-election to a successive five-year term. The 99-member Chamber of Deputies was dissolved in the absence of elections and only one-third of the 30-member Senate remain in power.

Before adjourning, the parliament extended Preval’s term so that he can leave office any time between Feb. 7, 2011, the current expiration date, and May 14, the latest date by which officials hope presidential and legislative elections will be held.

To help fill the intervening vacuum in governance, an international consortium of major donor countries, led by the United States, is being convened to distribute aid dollars. A Haitian populace long resentful of foreign intervention in their national affairs has met the solution, while practical, with skepticism.

Another source of popular discontent is a recent electoral council decision to exclude 14 Haitian political parties from the ballot, including Fanmi Lavalas, the grassroots movement started by ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The absence of Lavalas, the country’s largest party, from the last round of elections resulted in a boycott of the polling by an estimated 80 percent of registered voters.

Demonstrations calling for the resignation of Preval and the return of Aristide from exile in South Africa, where he has lived since fleeing a coup in 2004, have become more frequent in Port-au-Prince and other population centers. In the byzantine factionalism of Haitian politics, protesters from right-wing groups that pushed for Aristide’s ouster have marched alongside die-hard Lavalas supporters — opposites united in their bid to end the international military occupation, topple Preval and engineer their own candidate’s rise.

In an address on Haitian Flag Day, Preval offered reassurances that he will leave office next year. “This is the last May 18 I will spend with you as president,” said Preval.

“Further destabilizing the government is not the answer right now,” said St. Fleur, who supports Preval’s term extension. “What’s needed is to involve more people in the transition.”

According to Garbally, opportunities to launch development projects should not wait for the resolution of political squabbles. “Haiti is a country that has been neglected for a long period of time. We cannot turn the country around without real economic development,” said the lawmaker, citing projects like potential tourist centers along the beaches of the northern coast.

The delegation visited the northern city of Cap-Haitien and toured the imposing 19th century Citadelle La Ferriere, a mountain redoubt built by Henri Christophe, who briefly ruled as Haiti’s emperor after the 1791 slave rebellion defeated Napoleon’s army and won independence in 1804.

The largest military fortress in the western hemisphere, La Citadelle and the nearby coast receive just a fraction of the visitors who crowd the resorts of the Dominican Republic just to the east.

State Rep. Peter Koutoujian, D-Waltham, whose district has a sizeable Haitian population, said competing development visions between government ministries and non-governmental organizations for the use of aid dollars has stymied progress in such areas as Cap-Haitien.

“I saw a great deal of frustration — with the government, with the assistance,” he said. “What was most impressive was the Haitian people themselves — so much hopefulness in the midst of hopelessness, so much compassion in the midst of such misery.”