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Writing
about the Corail-Cesselesse disaster in an article and his
recent book, Associated Press reporter Jonathan Katz accused
NABATEC President Gérald Emile “Aby” Brun of pulling off a
“backroom deal” by recommending NABATEC land for emergency
refugee camps so that he could eventually offer foreign
companies “a ready-made workers community.” Brun was a member of
a presidential commission that recommended the site.
In extensive interviews with Haiti Grassroots Watch, Brun did
not deny that he had hoped the camps might one day be integrated
into “a decent and modern housing scheme that had already been
approved” as part of the Habitat Haïti 2020 project. But he also
noted that the expanse of territory owned largely by NABATEC is
the only open space left near Port-au-Prince, which is bordered
on one side by mountains and a lake and by the Caribbean Sea on
another.
“When they were looking for land for debris, land for recycling,
and eventually land for settlements, they realized that the
state did not have any land larger than the size of a soccer
field,” Brun said.
Numerous sources, including officials at UN-Habitat, confirmed
that “the land problem” was one of the biggest challenges of the
reconstruction.
Katz never spoke with Brun in person.
Brun – who resigned from the commission after Katz’s Jul. 12,
2010
article – said he never
dreamed squatters would soon overrun the property.
“Why in the world would I have dropped a 14-year planning and
investment dream and effort?” he asked HGW in a December 2012
email.
Once the land invasions started, foreign companies that had been
negotiating with NABATEC, including Korean clothing firm SAE-A,
dropped out of the project. (Today SAE-A is the “anchor tenant”
of an industrial park in the north championed by Clinton and
Martelly.)
“A dreamed of new city was killed by narrow minded and greedy
people, under the tolerant observation of the international
community,” according to Brun, who said NABATEC had spent over
US$1.5 million on its project. “Habitat Haïti 2020 has been most
likely killed by Corail and Canaan!” |
