In his new book, Ricardo
Seitenfus writes about the “electoral coup” which brought
President Martelly to power, the UN’s “genocide by negligence”
through importing cholera, and Venezuela’s “new paradigm” with
PetroCaribe
(First of
two parts)*
(Part 2)The
title of Brazilian professor Ricardo Seitenfus’ book, HAITI:
Dilemas e Fracassos Internacionais (“International
Crossroads and Failures in Haiti,” published in Brazil by the
Editora Unijui – Universite de Ijui– in the series Globalization
and International Relations) appropriately opens with a
reference to existentialist philosopher Albert Camus.
Camus’ third great novel, The Fall,
is a work of fiction in which the author makes the case that
every living person is responsible for any atrocity that can be
quantified or named. In the case of Haiti, the January 2010
earthquake set the final stage for what amounted to what
Seitenfus says is an “international embezzlement” of the
country.
The tragedy began over 200 years ago in
1804, when Haiti committed what Seitenfus terms an “original
sin,” a crime of lèse-majesté for a troubled world: it
became the first (and only) independent nation to emerge from a
slave rebellion. “The Haitian revolutionary model scared the
colonialist and racist Great Powers,” Seitenfus writes. The U.S.
only recognized Haiti’s independence in 1862, just before it
abolished its own slavery system, and France demanded heavy
financial compensation from the new republic as a condition of
its honoring Haiti’s nationhood. Haiti has been isolated and
manipulated on the international scene ever since, its people
“prisoners on their own island.”
To understand Seitenfus’ journey into the
theater of the absurd, it is necessary to revisit the months
after the 2010 Haiti earthquake. As the Organization of American
States’ (OAS) Special Representative in Haiti, Seitenfus lost
his job in December 2010 after an interview in which he sharply
criticized the role of the United Nations and non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) in the devastated country. But it appears
that the author also had insider information about international
plans for a “silent coup d’etat,” electoral interference and
more.
On the Ground in Haiti: October-December
2010
It was not yet one year since a 7.0
magnitude earthquake killed 220,000 or more, left infrastructure
in chaos, and 1.5 million people homeless. Accusations were
rampant in October international press reports that the United
Nations mission to Haiti (MINUSTAH) had introduced cholera into
Haiti’s river system. As of Feb. 9, 2014, 699,244 people
contracted cholera and 8,549 have died.
Ground zero for the outbreak was negligent
sewage disposal at the Nepalese Mirebalais MINUSTAH camp. The
malfeasance was first documented by the Associated Press and
ultimately provided crucial proof of the U.N.’s guilt. Thousands
were infected and the number of dead rose exponentially. On Nov.
28, the national election was contested in what can only be
termed an electoral crisis. Hundreds of thousands of voters were
either shut out of the electoral process or boycotted the vote
after the most popular party in the country — Fanmi Lavalas —
was again banned from competing. Many of those displaced by the
earthquake were not allowed to vote, and in the end less than
23% of registered voters had their vote counted.
Eyewitness testimony on election day
reported numerous electoral violations: ballot stuffing, tearing
up of ballots, intimidation and fraud. Haiti’s Provisional
Electoral Council , responsible for overseeing elections,
announced that former first lady Mirlande Manigat won but lacked
the margin of victory needed to avoid a runoff. An OAS “experts”
mission was dispatched to examine the results. Even though it
was indeterminate that he should advance, due to the OAS’
intervention, candidate and pop musician Michel “Sweet Micky”
Martelly was selected to compete in the runoff instead of the
governing party’s candidate Jude Célestin.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research
(CEPR) subsequently released a report showing that there were so
many problems with the election tallies that the OAS’
conclusions represented a political, rather than an electoral
decision.
CEPR reported that for some 1,326 voting
booths, or 11.9% of the total, tally sheets were either never
received by the CEP, or were quarantined for irregularities.
This corresponded to about 12.7% of the vote not being counted
and not included in the final totals that were released by the
CEP on Dec. 7, 2010 and reported by the press. CEPR also noted
that in its review of the tally sheets, the OAS Mission chose to
examine only a portion, and that those it discarded were from
disproportionately pro-Célestin areas. Nor did the OAS mission
use any statistical inference to estimate what might have
resulted had it examined the other 92% of tally sheets that it
did not examine.
The runoff was finally scheduled for Mar.
20, 2011 and Martelly was declared the winner with 67.6% of the
vote versus Manigat’s 31.5%. Turnout was so low that Martelly
was declared president-elect after receiving the votes of less
than 17% of the electorate in the second round.
Into the fray stepped Brazilian professor
Ricardo Seitenfus. Seitenfus, a respected scholar, made
statements to Swiss newspaper Le Temps criticizing
international meddling in Haiti in general and by MINUSTAH and
NGOs in particular. He was abruptly ousted on Christmas Day. The
press was equivocal on whether Seitenfus was fired or forced to
take a two-month “vacation” before his tenure ended in March
2011.
Was Seitenfus let go for citing a “maléfique
ou perverse” (evil or perverse) relationship between the
government of Haiti and NGOs operating amidst fraud and waste;
his accusations about the cholera cover-up; or more troubling,
knowledge of a silent coup being orchestrated against
then-President Rene Préval by a secret “Core Group?” Was he
silenced because of his knowledge of covert meetings between the
then Special Representative of the Secretary-General and
MINUSTAH chief Edmond Mulet, then U.S Ambassador Kenneth Merten,
and then-Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive?
Seitenfus’ passionate accounting of the
events in the year after the January 2010 earthquake reveals a
man seemingly at odds with his internal moral compass and what
he describes as “the black hole of western consciousness” in
relations between Haiti and the international community of donor
nations. This is a book written by a man enthralled by the
beauty and promise of Haiti. It is also a book written by a
professor serving as a diplomat struggling to be a whistleblower
in the absurd and troubling world of international diplomacy.
Q: You write about
international collusion in plans for a “silent coup.” Why wait
until now to name the perpetrators? Does the fact that Mulet,
Bellerive and Merten have all moved on from their offices have
anything to do with your timing? You state emphatically that you
opposed the coup plans.
RS: No. It is not true that I kept
quiet. I gave various interviews to the Brazilian and
international press, in late December 2010 and early January
2011, mentioning this and other episodes. See, for example, the
BBC and AlJazeera.
The problem is that the international press
was manipulated during the electoral crisis and never had an
interest in doing investigative journalism. In the interviews
that I gave, and especially in my book (“International
Crossroads and Failures in Haiti”), soon to be published in
Brazil and other countries, I describe the electoral coup in
great detail.
Furthermore, the vast majority of the
elements I reveal, I discovered in a scientific research project
over the past three years. Many questions were hanging in the
air, without adequate answers. I believe I managed to connect
the different views and actors, providing the reader a logical
and consistent interpretation about what happened. We are
dealing with a work that is required by the historical memory,
without any shadow of revenge or settling of scores.
Q: Were you the background
press source on early reports of the cholera epidemic being
caused by MINUSTAH in October 2010? You write about the
“shameless” attitude of the United Nations (including Edmond
Mulet and Ban Ki-moon) and ambassadors of the so-called “friends
of Haiti;” countries that refused to take responsibility after
MINUSTAH introduced cholera to Haiti. You say that this
“transforms this peace mission into one of the worst in the
history of the United Nations.” Would you be willing to testify
in the current class action lawsuit, filed in a U.S. federal
court, accusing the U.N. of gross negligence and misconduct on
behalf of cholera victims in Haiti?
RS: There is no doubt that the fact
that the United Nations — especially Edmond Mulet and Ban Ki-moon
— systematically denied its direct and scientifically-verified
responsibility for the introduction of the Vibrio cholera into
Haiti, projects a lasting shadow over that peace operation. What
is shocking is not MINUSTAH’s carelessness and negligence. What
is shocking is the lie, turned into strategy, by the
international community. The connivance of the alleged “Group of
Friends of Haiti” (integrated at first by Argentina, the
Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Chile, the United States, Guatemala,
Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, as well as
Germany, France, Spain and Norway, in their role as Permanent
Observers before the OAS) in this genocide by negligence,
constitutes an embarrassment that will forever mark their
relations with Haiti.
Even former President Clinton, in a visit
in early March 2012 to a hospital in the central region of
Haiti, publicly admitted that “I don’t know that the person who
introduced cholera in Haiti, the U.N. peacekeeper, or [U.N.]
soldier from South Asia, was aware that he was carrying the
virus. It was the proximate cause of cholera. That is, he was
carrying the cholera strain. It came from his waste stream into
the waterways of Haiti, into the bodies of Haitians.” [1]
Although soon after he stated that the
absence of a sanitation system in Haiti propagated the epidemic,
these statements by the Special Envoy of the U.N. Secretary
General for Haiti represent the first major fissure in the
denial strategy of the crime committed by the United Nations.
Currently, the United Nations hides behind
the immunity clause conferred by the Jul. 9, 2004 agreement
signed with Haiti legalizing MINUSTAH’s existence. Now, this
agreement is void, since it was not signed, as provided in the
Haitian Constitution (Article 139), by the Acting President of
Haiti, Boniface Alexandre, but by the PM [Prime Minister] Gerard
Latortue. According to the 1969 and 1986 Vienna Conventions on
the Law of Treaties, any treaty signed by someone who lacks
jus tractum — that is, treaty making power — is null and
considered ineffective.
As with any legal action, without validity
it has no [legal] effect. The existence of a lack of consent —
whether due to the inability of state representatives to
conclude a treaty or to an imperfect ratification — results in
the absolute voiding of the action (Vienna Convention, Article
46, paragraph 1).
With the contempt for Haitian
constitutional rites and for the legal principles that govern
the Law of Treaties, the United Nations demonstrated, once
again, the constant levity with which it treats Haitian matters.
Responsible for establishing the rule of law in the country,
according to its own mission, the UN does not follow even its
own fundamental provisions, thus making the text that it
supports and that should legalize its actions in Haiti void and
ineffective.
Therefore, the UN’s last recourse in trying
to deny its responsibility for introducing cholera in Haiti can
be easily circumvented, since MINUSTAH’s very existence is
plagued with illegalities.
Clearly, I am and will always be available
to any judicial power that deals with this case. Even federal
courts in the United States. If asked, I will testify, with the
goal of contributing to establish the truth of the facts and the
search for justice.
Q: Were you threatened in
any way prior to your departure from Haiti? Since you were
effectively fired, why not name names and discuss the actions of
the “Core Group” in 2010?
RS: As a coordination agency for the
main foreign actors (states and international organizations) in
Haiti, a limited Core Group (which includes Brazil, Canada,
Spain, the United States, France, the UN, the OAS and the
European Union) is an indispensable and fundamental instrument
in the relations between the international community and the
Haitian government. It is not about questioning its existence.
What I was able to verify was that on [election day] Nov. 28,
2010, in the absence of any discussion or decision about the
matter, [then head of MINUSTAH] Edmond Mulet, speaking on behalf
of the Core Group, tried to remove [then president of Haiti]
René Préval from power and to send him into exile. Meanwhile,
the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince published a press release at
9 p.m. the same day dismissing the voting results and imposing
its position on the whole Core Group. Still, the majority of the
decisions in which I participated as representative to the OAS
in the Core Group during the years 2009 and 2010 were sensible
and important.
Q: You write about the
“maléfique ou perverse” (evil or perverse) relationship between
NGOs and Haiti. In your view, has this problem become
institutionalized? You said some of the NGOs exist only because
of Haitian misfortune?
RS: There is a will — deliberate or
tacit — by the international community to bypass the Haitian
institutions and to give preference to Transnational
Non-Governmental Organizations (TNGOs). [2] Their overwhelming
invasion following the earthquake reached levels never before
imagined. [Then] U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton,
herself pointed out in an interview some months after the
earthquake that more than 10,000 TNGOs were operating in Haiti.
This means that there was an increase in their presence of over
4,000% in the course of a short period of time. This NGOization
turns Haiti into what many have called a true “Republic of the
TNGOs.”
In the face of a weakened state and one
that was almost destroyed by the earthquake, the emergency aid
apparatus had no option but to directly confront reality. Direct
connections were established with the victims and even those in
charge of the UN system in Haiti were not taken into account. A
true pandemonium came into being in which everyone decided on
his own what to do, and when and how to do it.
An optimistic and official report,
presented by Ban Ki-moon to the UN Security Council in October
2012, recognizes that of the alleged US$ 5.78 billion in
contributions made over the 2010-2012 period by bilateral and
multilateral donors, a little less than 10% (US$ 556 million)
was given to the Haitian government. It is worth mentioning that
the governments of the donor states use both private donations
and public resources to cover the spending of their own
interventions in Haiti. As such, for example, more than US$ 200
million in private donations from U.S. citizens served to
finance the transportation and stay of U.S. soldiers in Haiti
soon after the earthquake.
Traditionally in Haiti, the “goods” such as
hospitals, schools and humanitarian aid are delivered by the
private sector, while the “bads” — that is, police enforcement —
is the state’s responsibility. The earthquake further deepened
this terrible dichotomy.
The circle was closed with the ideological
discourse to justify this way of proceeding. According to this
[discourse], the transfer of resources is done through the TNGOs
for the simple reason that the Haitian state suffers from total
and permanent corruption. Sometimes, the lack of managerial
capacity is cited. Therefore, there is nothing more logical than
to bypass public authorities without even thinking that without
a structured and effective state, no human society has managed
to develop.
The former Governor General of Canada,
Michäelle Jean — of Haitian origin — is one of the rare voices
in the international community to propose a complete change of
strategy. To her,
“Charity comes from the heart, but
sometimes, when it’s poorly organized, it contributes more to
the problems than to the solutions. Haiti is among the countries
that’s been transformed into a vast laboratory of all the
experiments, all the tests, and all the errors of the
international aid system; of the faulty strategies that have
never generated results, that have never produced or achieved
anything that’s really sustainable despite the millions of
dollars amassed in total disorder, without long term vision and
in a completely scattered fashion.” [3]
Certainly, direct financial cooperation
with a state that has a lack of administrative capacity
increases the risk that resources will be misused. However,
there is no other solution: either the public management
capacity of the Haitian state is strengthened or we will keep
plowing the sea.
Unfortunately, the international community
prefers to continue with the strategy that has already proved to
be thoroughly inefficient. It not only impedes financial
transfers to Haitian institutions, but it also tries to force
them to channel their own meager resources to be administrated
by international organizations. There was, for example, an
attempt to transfer the PetroCaribe fund resources for Haiti to
the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission. The determined resistance
by Préval and Bellerive terminated this move. Nonetheless, in
every election campaign, the donor countries insist on having
the resources of the Haitian treasury be administered by the UN
Development Program (UNDP). Therefore, the strategy of the
international community not only impedes institutional
strengthening, but it also takes away from the Haitian state the
little financial autonomy that it possesses.
The model imposed on Haiti since 2004 has
two elements. On the one hand, there is the military presence
through MINUSTAH, and on the other the civil presence in the
form of the TNGOs and the alleged private development
corporations. Added to these are the bilateral strategies of the
member states in the so-called Group of Friends of Haiti. In
interpreting the popular sentiment, it is impossible to disagree
with these words by Liliane Pierre-Paul:
“The great majority of Haitians weren’t
mistaken and the promises ultimately did nothing to change the
disastrous perception of an international community that was
bureaucratic, condescending, wasteful, inefficient, and lacking
in soul, modesty and creativity.” [4]
As long as this model is not significantly
revamped there will be no solution. Social vulnerability and the
precariousness of the state continue to be major Haitian
characteristics. With the model applied by the international
community through the UN system, the TNGOs and the United
States, we are deceiving ourselves, misleading world public
opinion and frustrating the Haitian people.
Q: What are your thoughts
on the amount of agricultural land taken out of production to
make way for the Caracol Industrial Park, a $300 million
public-private partnership among a diverse set of stakeholders??
RS: Caracol symbolizes a development
policy far more than any loss of mainly agricultural lands. It
so happens that the Caracol model was used during the
dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier and its results are known
to everyone. As a complement to agricultural production, Caracol
is acceptable. Nonetheless, to want to turn Haiti into a “Taiwan
of the Caribbean” [5] is to completely disregard the social,
anthropological, historical and economic characteristics of the
country.
Q: You write that
Venezuela’s PetroCaribe initiative was a key motive for the U.S.
government’s turn against Préval. Why then do you think the U.S.
and the OAS wanted a candidate – Michel Martelly – in the second
round of elections who would ultimately be even friendlier with
Venezuela? Do you think Martelly’s relations with Venezuela
might pose a threat to him as well?
RS: Compared to the alleged
development cooperation model imposed by the international
community on Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela follow absolutely
opposite paths. Whatever our opinion about the domestic policies
of these countries, it cannot be denied that their form of
cooperation takes into account more the demands and needs
expressed by Haitians themselves. Cuba — lacking financial
resources and rich in human resources –since 1998 has
implemented a local family health and medicine program that
reaches the most remote places in Haiti. Cuban medical diplomacy
directly benefits the most humble of the Haitian people and
attempts to compensate for the brain drain in the health sector
promoted by certain western countries, particularly Canada.
In turn, although recent, the Venezuelan
development cooperation offered to Haiti asserts itself as a new
paradigm in the Caribbean Basin. It is sustained through the
following trilogy: on the one hand, Caracas listens to the
Haitian claims and strives to make its offers and possibilities
compatible with these demands. On the other, nothing is carried
out without the knowledge and previous consent of the public
institutions and the Haitian government. Finally, the
cooperation aims to bring direct benefits to the Haitian people
without taking into consideration any ideological discrepancy
there may be with the incumbent government in Haiti. This is a
principle equally espoused by Cuba and it explains not only the
absence of any interference by the two countries during the
election crisis of 2010, but also the excellent relations
maintained, both by Havana and Caracas, with the Martelly
administration.
The PetroCaribe program is the crown jewel
of Haitian-Venezuelan cooperation. Everything is put into it.
Everything depends on it. In the face of a true boycott of
Haitian public power promoted by the so-called Group of Friends
of Haiti, the resources made available by the PetroCaribe
program represented, in 2013, 94% of the investment capacity of
the Haitian state. [6]
Most of the beneficiary countries — as with
Haiti — do not include the resources from the PetroCaribe
program in the national budget, preventing legal and accounting
oversight. This situation generates distrust and criticism, both
domestic and foreign, due to the lack of transparency in using
them.
Far beyond its results, the philosophy on
which the Venezuelan cooperation is based contrasts with that of
the developed countries. The energetic Pedro Antonio Canino
Gonzalez, Venezuelan ambassador in Port-au-Prince since 2007,
highlights the principles that guide the actions of the ALBA
countries in Haiti: “We did not come to carry out an electoral
campaign in Haiti. Why would we make spurious commitments?
Venezuela’s assistance aims to attenuate the Haitian people’s
misery without any strings attached. My government isn’t even
interested in the Haitian Republic’s diplomatic relations with
other countries, including the U.S.. This is a prerogative of
the Haitian authorities, who are free to have relations with
whomever they wish.” [7]
This is the exact opposite of the long and
constantly increasing list of conditionalities that
characterizes the cooperation offered by the west. With
disregard for national idiosyncrasies, the idea of democracy is
used as a screen to camouflage their own national interests.
The United States and its allies in Haiti
should pay attention to the lessons of the young Venezuelan
cooperation because, in addition to respect for the public
institutions of the host state, as a current Haitian leader
bluntly states, ” Friendship with a country as poor and with as
many needs as Haiti isn’t measured in the number of years of
domination, but in how many millions are on the table. “[8]
Although the PetroCaribe program is based
on an anti-imperialist and liberationist discourse to mark a
break between Monroe and Bolivar, it is, in fact, a counter
model to traditional development aid from the developed
countries and international organizations. In the universe of
the international cooperation provided to Haiti, Venezuela
constitutes an exception, being the only one that provides,
regularly, financial resources directly to the Haitian state.
[9]
(To be continued)
* This article was originally published
under the title “International Crossroads and Failures in Haiti”
by the LA Progressive. Georgianne Nienaber is a freelance
writer and author and frequent contributor to LA Progressive.
Dan Beeton is International Communications Director at the
Center for Economic and Policy Research and a frequent
contributor to its "Haiti: Relief and Reconstruction Watch"
blog.
Notes
1. ABC News, March 9, 2012. Accessed
January 7, 2014.
2. Seitenfus: “I prefer the term TNGO
because I am only referring to the foreign non-governmental
organizations that operate in Haiti.”
3. In Le Nouvelliste, Michaelle
Jean: Présidente d’Haïti ? , Port-au-Prince, March 25, 2013.
4. La grande manip in Pierre Buteau, Rodney
Saint-Eloi and Lyonel Trouillot, Refonder Haïti ?, Mémoire
d’encrier, Montréal, 2010, p. 290.
5. Duvalier — and backers such as the
Reagan administration – famously promised to transform Haiti
into the “Taiwan of the Caribbean” through low-wage apparel
production in the 1980s.
6. In Le Nouvelliste, June 28,
2013.
7. In Le Nouvelliste, March 11,
2013.
8. In Le Nouvelliste, March 5, 2013.
9. Seitenfus: “Taiwan’s cooperation to Haiti occupies a special
place. Devoid of bureaucratic obstacles, it is quick and is
preferably used with the turnkey (clef en mains) model.”
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