Abie Green
NYU Law Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law
New York, USA
I’ve recently been conducting interviews with people who have recently traveled to Haiti as well as with members of the Haitian community itself in an attempt to better understand the current conditions in the country. Surprising to no one, the biggest takeaway seems to be that Haiti is unprepared and unable to accommodate the return of 60,000+ people.
The people in Haiti are kind, generous, and of a welcoming spirit, but the government is corrupt, bankrupt, and incapable of providing services to meet the basic needs of the current residents. There is no formal system or even a department set up for returnees in the country, and though a local NGO, GARR, is currently filling that gap, it cannot handle such a large influx. The recent protests after the government attempts to hike up fuel prices demonstrate just how far Haiti has to go.
Haiti has a long and painful history that highlights how incredibly resilient the people are. From the start, they were forced into debt via reparations to France for loss of slaves–something France has never repaid. They were forced into isolation by the West as punishment for being a country founded by free blacks, and then when the bans were lifted, the US repeatedly interfered and sucked Haiti’s natural resources dry. It’s been this combination of debt and a weak–or worse, corrupt and authoritarian–government that has led to many of the present-day issues. The fuel hikes were due to a demand the IMF placed upon the government, which the government admittedly mishandled in implementation.
The reaction to this in Haiti is demonstrative of the power of the people and the unfortunate lengths they must go to in order to get the government to listen. They shut down Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s beating heart, with large-scale protests and road blocks. Even those who did not participate gave their consent to these actions, as they stayed home with no complaints, even though they were cut off from many basic necessities. They agreed with the protesters and wanted the government to heed their demands, which it eventually did. However, this tug-of-war required the capital to be shut down before the government took any note of the people’s needs.
A healthy, thriving democracy cannot function this way. Many people still lack basic services and needs, such as housing, healthcare, food, clean water, etc., and the government is still struggling. A wave of returnees from the US will send an already weak economy further down.