Haiti: A Better Way

In the aftermath of the January earthquake that devastated Haiti, greed combined with militarization of the aid effort have worsened the disaster. Traffic controllers at the U.S. military-occupied airport in Port-au-Prince repeatedly re-routed flights for Doctors Without Borders, while allowing planes carrying military equipment to land. White Baptist missionaries, claiming to be operating an adoption service for the earthquake's orphans, were actually stealing children from their parents. Meanwhile, cruise ships continued to visit Haiti, proving that the island nation could still provide a fantastic spot for rich people looking for a holiday in someone else's misery.

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In the aftermath of the January earthquake that devastated Haiti, greed combined with militarization of the aid effort have worsened the disaster. Traffic controllers at the U.S. military-occupied airport in Port-au-Prince repeatedly re-routed flights for Doctors Without Borders, while allowing planes carrying military equipment to land. White Baptist missionaries, claiming to be operating an adoption service for the earthquake's orphans, were actually stealing children from their parents. Meanwhile, cruise ships continued to visit Haiti, proving that the island nation could still provide a fantastic spot for rich people looking for a holiday in someone else's misery.

There has to be a better way. In her recent book, A Paradise Built in Hell, anarchist writer Rebecca Solnit argues that natural disasters bring out the best in people. Unconsciously, everyone knows that the only way to survive a disaster is through the kindness of strangers, and so most people will find themselves extending a hand to neighbors they wouldn't have given a second thought to before.

The problem with most disaster response, she argues, is that most governments distrust the survivors of a disaster and insist on restoring order before delivering aid. People who scour cities for desperately needed food, clean water, and other supplies are labeled looters and shot. Anyone who remembers Katrina can fill in the rest.

Cuba, by contrast, builds their hurricane response system from the ground up, by depending on local community leaders to lead the reconstruction efforts. Not coincidentally, Cubans see far fewer deaths from hurricanes than Americans. Local Northwest journalist Brendan Funtek described the difference between Cuba and nearby nations. “I've traveled there and spoke with normal people who see and describe what capitalism has done to their neighbors, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Things aren't ideal in Cuba, but they're often more prepared for crises.”

Haiti has gotten it particularly bad. When Haiti overthrew French colonial rule in 1804, France argued that since the nation was created through a slave rebellion, they had a duty to repay the French for the loss of their human “property.” Haiti has been shackled by unjust foreign debt ever since.

During the Cold War, the U.S. encouraged the Dulavier dictatorship to implement economic policies that replaced Haiti's traditional forms of subsistence agriculture with cash crops. No longer able to feed themselves, Haiti's largely rural population migrated to the city. When the jobs turned out to be scarce, people were forced into shanty towns - the same shanty towns that had the highest earthquake casualties.

In January, many of us were so moved by the images of human suffering broadcast from the shanty towns that we donated aid without understanding how the money would be used. Unfortunately, most of the reconstruction efforts currently underway are doing little more than prop up the failed state that was in place before January 12th.

“Some of the assembly plants have reopened,” reports the Haitian worker’s organization Batay Ouvriye, “but they have increased the work quotas, because they claim they have to make up for time lost. Some of the businesses and local factories are also claiming not to be able to pay the recently adjusted 200 gourdes ($5) daily minimum wage...they would like us to believe that reconstruction is a technical matter, a good-will enterprise. But we know that it is geared to guarantee their project of low wage assembly exploitation and domination that they already were trying to implement before the January 12 earthquake."

The outside world has continually meddled in Haiti's attempts to improve its condition. It’s time we listen to the needs of the Haitian people before we act.

Visit http://www.batayouvriye.org/ to learn more about the work of Batay Ouvriye.