Last
week’s U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee
hearing on
Haiti did not
turn into a partisan skirmish as
we had
expected.
Instead, Sen. Marco
Rubio (R-FL), a Republican presidential candidate and
chairman of the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere,
Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human
Rights, and Global Women's Issues, opened the hearing
with a banal review of Haiti’s political and economic
situation and without the slightest criticism or
questioning of the Obama administration’s policies in
Haiti believe.
“I believe that Haiti is of vital interest to
Florida, to the United States, and to the entire Western
Hemisphere,” said Rubio in his prepared statement. “When
Haiti is stable and prosperous, America benefits. When
Haiti is unstable, insecure, and lacking the
opportunities for its people, it creates vacuums where
criminal gangs or worse can operate, and it can lead to
migratory pressures in the United States or disastrous
and deadly tragedies on the high seas.”
Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), David Perdue
(R-GA), and Cory Gardner (R-CO) also took part in the
hearing but didn’t have anything serious to say or
question, except a short rant by Boxer about the child
servants known in Haiti as
restaveks.
However, the 45-minute hearing did contain
some interesting remarks by its sole witness, Thomas C.
Adams, the U.S. State Department’s Special Coordinator
for Haiti. He made clear the central role that the U.S.
is playing not just in the upcoming elections, but in
overseeing Haiti’s sovereign governmental affairs.
Most stunning was Adam’s admission that
Washington and its fiscal enforcement agency, the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), are directly
supervising the Haitian government’s financial conduct.
Asserting that the “perception and reality of
corruption are very high” and the Haitian accounting
system “not very transparent,” Adams complained that
“Haiti started out [under Martelly] with over 500 bank
accounts for the government, that were poorly policed.”
But then former “Prime Minister [Laurent] Lamothe
[who resigned in December] agreed with us to do
something about this” and made an arrangement with
Washington whereby “we have a [U.S.] Treasury
[Department] advisor working on this along with the IMF
to reduce the [number of] accounts and to set up
accounting units in each ministry, and that’s going
pretty well.”
So just like under the 1915-1934 U.S. Marine
occupation (which will mark its centennial on Jul. 28),
today’s Haiti also has U.S. supervisors watching over
sovereign Haitian affairs.
Adams also explained that “at times this [foreign
oversight regime] has stalled because a lot of people
don’t want to see this. At critical times, the prime
minister [Lamothe] came in and got the ministries
together and said ‘Do it.’ And they’re continuing now
through the Ministry of Finance,” under the direction of
Marie Carmelle Jean-Marie, who had resigned due to
regime corruption in 2013 only to be brought back (due
to Washington’s dismay) in a cabinet reshuffle in 2014.
She is today to the regime of President Michel Martelly
what former World Bank official Marc “Mr. Clean” Bazin
was to the regime of President for Life Jean-Claude
“Baby Doc” Duvalier in 1982: the U.S. State Department’s
deputy.
Adams also made some telling
remarks about the upcoming election. “As electoral
planning continues,” he said, “ the United States
supports the CEP, the United Nations, the OAS
[Organization of American States] and the Government of
Haiti (including its national police) in their efforts
to coordinate and execute successful 2015 elections.” In
a very nuanced way, he placed the CEP, Haiti’s sole and
independent electoral authority, on an equal footing
with two foreign agencies and a corrupt partisan
government in the “execution” of the elections.
The Haitian party Dessalines Coordination (KOD)
and several Haitian popular organizations have expressed
skepticism about the electoral process precisely because
of the central role being played by the UN and OAS, who
intervened at Washington’s behest in the 2010/2011
election to lay the ground for Martelly’s “victory.”
Perhaps foreseeing the nationalist reaction he
might provoke, Adams went on to say: “Let me stress that
the United States has no vote in these elections and
does not support any candidate or group of candidates.”
“Does the administration believe that President
Martelly is capable of administering free and fair
elections for the Haitian people, and do you believe
that he will step aside after the next president of
Haiti is elected?” Rubio asked.
Adams replied that the CEP “got started late
because of political gridlock” and now “they’re playing
a little catch up, but I think that they are on track to
hold the first round of elections on Aug. 9, and we are
certainly supporting them in that effort.”
As for Martelly, Adams said: “I think he is
deeply committed as a part of his legacy to having free
and fair elections. He wants to have them and he wants
to leave in February. He has told me that on numerous
occasions.”
The day after the Jul. 15 hearing in Washington,
Adams traveled to New York for a donors conference at
the UN General Headquarters on Jul. 16, with UN Mission
to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH) chief Sandra Honoré and de
facto Haitian Prime Minister Evans Paul in attendance.
Countries, including the U.S., pledged financial support
for Haiti’s elections to cover what Adams said was a $50
million shortfall.
Despite Adams’ open assertion of U.S. involvement
in Haiti’s government and election, the subcommittee
chairman seemed concerned about other foreign
involvement.
“Is Venezuela playing any role in helping them
conduct these elections?” asked Rubio, a Cuban-American
fiercely opposed to the Cuban Revolution.
“They have mentioned they might,” answered Adams
cautiously. “I think they might make a pledge tomorrow
to support the elections financially,” which Venezuela
in fact did.
“But will they be involved beyond that in terms
of the actual...” Rubio pressed.
“No,” Adams asserted with the conviction of an
unclear authority.
“Because in Venezuela, the current government
there is not very good at free and fair elections,
that’s why I ask,” Rubio explained.
“As I understand,” Adams replied, smirking. “Yes,
sir.”
In the end, Adams closed by asserting that only
foreign capitalists can save Haiti through “direct
foreign investment.” This tired mantra of U.S.
administrations over the past 50 years discounts the
creative and transformational power of the Haitian
people themselves, who have been hobbled by political
destabilization, economic blackmail,
counter-revolutionary violence, and military occupation.
But Adams offered this assessment:
“Haiti needs lots of new laws. They have a lot of
antiquated laws. They need a lot of things that will
make that country attractive to investment. While we
have the Help and Hope Acts that do that, but there is
not enough foreign aid or remittances to fix Haiti. If
Haiti can’t attract more foreign direct investment, it’s
going to be the same old story. There has been good
economic growth in Haiti since the earthquake. Forty
years before the earthquake there was a negative growth
rate in Haiti, slightly negative. It’s been about 3 or 4
percent since then, but it needs to be 7 percent to
eradicate poverty. For that to happen, they have to
really fix a lot of their institutions, their judicial
system, and pass a raft of modernizing laws, and clean
up corruption. If they do that, I think they will get
the foreign direct investment that will ultimately solve
their economic problems.”
In closing the hearing, Sen. Marco Rubio told the
faithful State Department official Adams without the
slightest trace of irony: “We want to thank you for your
service to your country and your service to Haiti.” |