What’s Next For Haiti?

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Haiti’s political elite has, as usual, been found sadly lacking during the terrible crisis that has enveloped the country following the massive earthquake of January 12.

As many as 200,000 people may have died and millions more have been rendered destitute, without food and shelter.

The country’s president, René Préval, has barely been noticed. No surprise – its rulers have mismanaged things for decades.

Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere – per capita income is less than $400 a year. It has been victimized by corrupt dictatorial rulers for decades, in particular the father and son combination of François (“Papa Doc”) and Jean-Claude (“Baby Doc”) Duvalier.

Francois Duvalier became president in 1957, ushering in a reign of terror and brutality harsh even by Haitian standards. In 1959, he created a rural militia, the Milice Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale, commonly referred to as the Tonton Macoutes, which brutalized the population and murdered political opponents: by some accounts those killed may have numbered 30,000.

In 1964, Duvalier held a constitutional referendum making him President for Life. His repressive regime only came to an end with his death in 1971. His son, a callow 19 year old, succeeded him, until overthrown in an uprising in 1986. “Baby Doc” fled to France, taking much of the country’s cash reserves with him.

This did not end Haiti’s political turmoil. The Duvalier era was later followed by the rule of a populist priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whose attempts to improve the lot of Haiti’s poor led to a coup by army elements, supported by the country’s economic elite.

More disorder followed; Aristide was eventually returned to power due to the intervention of the United States, but, following mounting violence, was again sent into exile in 2004. After another period of political confusion, Préval assumed the presidency in 2006.

If the country is to move forward, it might consider tapping into the expertise of the large and well-educated Haitian diaspora. Other countries have done the same. One Baltic state comes to mind.

Dr. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, president of Latvia from 1999 to 2007, was born in Riga in 1937. Her parents came to Canada as refugees after World War II and she grew up in this country, eventually becoming a professor of psychology at the University of Montreal, where she taught from 1965 to 1998.

She retired that year, returned to her native land, and had a distinguished political career as the country’s head of state.

Might this serve as an example to our Governor General, Michaëlle Jean, whose parents came to Canada in 1968 as refugees from Duvalier’s brutal rule in Haiti when she was 11 years old?

Like Vike-Freiberga, Jean too was briefly an academic, before becoming a journalist. Her term as the Queen’s representative is nearing its end, and Haiti could certainly use someone with her international reputation as it tries to recover from the desperate situation it finds itself in.