By Jean H Charles

I have spent recently a month long in Haiti; I just came back from St Lucia. While there, I said to myself, Haiti needs fifty years to catch up with, where St Lucia is at, in terms of development. Yet, it can do so in the next five years if it develops a sense of urgency in attacking some of the main issues that block its future.

The vital numbers of the geographical classification of the country are the following:

• the capital: Port au Prince
• 10 major cities
• 140 small towns
• and 565 rural counties.

Jean H Charles MSW, JD is Executive Director of AINDOH Inc a non profit organization dedicated to build a kinder and gentle Caribbean zone for all. He can be reached at: jeanhcharles@aol.com

My observation has indicated that there is a minimum of good governance and sustainable living in only four cities: Port au Prince, Petionville, St Marc and Jacmel. The rest of the country is abandoned to the grace of God and to the gallant behavior of the Haitian people who are surviving every day, awaiting the advent of a governance that understand it is essential that things must go faster so the baby can be fed, the grown men will have a job and stop selling their work force in livid conditions in the Dominican Republic, the youngsters will see a future and the women will not have to sell their soul for a living.

The present Haitian government is benevolent, peaceful and unobtrusive. Yet it is a weak government. It does not have the sense of urgency to engage attack and solve the many problems of the country.

First of all it is the province of a government to provide a sense of Public Security, Public Health and Environment Security to its people. Haiti has failed in all three counts.

Security

In terms of security, let me hasten to say that Haiti is 85% to 95% secured, not because of the Government or because of MINUSTHA but because the Haitian people, in spite of the voracious propaganda of violent behavior, are peaceful and self-content. Except for the slum areas of Martissant and Cite Soleil in Port au Prince, the majority of the inhabitants go about their business in military-like conformity, decency and collegiality. Haiti is 95% without electrical power. In any other country, the people would run into the stores if there was a black-out that lasted two hours. Haiti is in a constant state of blackout. Yet the days succeed to the nights in orderly fashion with no visible signs of disturbance.

But, one kidnapping is too many kidnappings. The sense of being invaded in your personal freedom and in your persona stamps your life and your activities. It cannot and should not be accepted. I have heard on the newswire recently, the President of Haiti pleading with the kidnappers to save the children. The correct order should be to seek the suspension of the Constitution for three months and deal with the bandits and the kidnappers in their own terms or a la Giuliani.

Furthermore, I have observed the decibel of banditos and kidnapping are raised each time Jean Bertrand Aristide (the former President) made a speech and talk about his own kidnapping. Is it a code word for the bandits to operate at a higher level? For the sake of peacefulness of the Haitian people, the Haitian government and the international community should work in tandem to put an end to this long hand. Jean Bertrand Aristide a former priest must understand whether he is in lust of the love of power or as a former man of God he has in him the power of love.

I have often told my Lavalas friends (Jean Bertrand Aristides’s political Party) that I would be waving their flags high if they have fixed up 5 rural counties, say three, no, one rural county during their fifteen years in power. I would have been their most ardent supporter. Haiti needs governance that make all its children or, using the St Lucian Creole term, its mamaille, rich or poor, black or mulatto, feel comfortable. The father of a nation cannot with impunity pit one group against another group.

In addition, the Haitian Army, a constitutionally mandated force must be re-established without fanfare, without debate and without delay. It was unconstitutionally disbanded. The correct solution is to put the army back together as soon as possible starting with the specialized forces of the Haitian Police mutating into the new Haitian army. (How many regiments do you have to protect your Constitution and the territorial integrity of your nation?) Its first task will be to stamp the banditos and the kidnapping at its source. The story that it costs too much to have a standing army is a bogus one on its face. The actual Haitian police force has more resources and absorbs more of the Haitian budget than the former Haitian army. Time is of the essence. 2008 must be the Year of the reorganization of the Haitian army.

Public Health

When I was a youngster, Haiti had its Public Health agents who were the police and the facilitator of the Public Health System. This corps has been disbanded during the Duvalier era. It has not been reinstalled since. The Ministry of Health should seek the enlistment of that corps as a matter of urgency. The State University of Haiti, School of Medicine should have its complementary Graduate School of Public Health to prepare the specialists in that field. In the meantime, the many entrepreneurial universities in almost each neighborhood of Port au Prince should expand their curriculum to include a specialty in Public Health and in environmental protection.

The city of Cape Haitian (my home town) is off limits to the tourists from Labadie because the public health system has been broken down for the past three decades. The public markets where the rich and the poor Haitians go everyday for their groceries are in a situation so dire that they shock the conscience of the newcomers. Yélé Haiti in concert with the USAID has been providing an excellent job in cleaning the streets of Port au Prince. This intervention should be extended to all the major cities in particular to Cape Haitian. Its historical importance, its architecture, its monuments deserve a state of urgency to clean up as soon as possible, so the rest of the world can come, eat and merry into a live Museum where most of the common citizens live in houses that dated circa 1700.

Environmental Protection

The view, the vortex, the wow phenomenon! is now the catch buzz for real estate developers who used to talk about location, location, location! Each one of the 10 major cities of Haiti including the capital of Port au Prince and the 140 small towns are surrounded by majestic mountains that give a view that is worth million of dollars for each domicile. The view invites the visitor to thank God for its splendor.

Yet in Haiti, those views are invaded by squatting peasants who cannot afford to live in the countryside because the past governments have not seen fit to bring about a minimum of indices of good living such as roads, electricity, water, habitat to these people. They have invaded those sites by the hundred every month with impunity. There must be a sense of urgency to provide decent and affordable habitats to these people so those who can afford and pay for the view will do so. Haiti has all the appeal of a Sedona, Arizona, except it is repeated a thousand times. The gurus of the world would pay to seek and worship the deity of creativity in such an environment. Haiti must have peace, order and good governance. I was at the Club Med in Dominican Republic, with a group of French citizens from the Provence, they told me with the innocence of a child, they would prefer to be in Haiti: it has more culture, more scenery, it is more real… Except, the Haitian people must put their house in order.

It has been said recently by the United Nations that only 2% of Haiti flora is still in force. I will strongly debate such statistics. The north and the south of Haiti is still a virgin land filled with majestic fruit trees. Furthermore I have observed that Haiti needs only one week of sustained rain to look again like a Garden of Eden. Nevertheless, it is unconscionable to leave to the Haitian peasant the task of purveying the Haitian household with the fuel it needs to cook the daily meal. The government must in a sense of urgency work with the government of Trinidad and Tobago to wire in gas pipe to all the households of the major cities. Digicel has proven that the Haitian customers are ready and willing to pay (in advance!) for a good service. The Haitian government must in urgency solicit and facilitate bids for such entrepreneurial necessity.

In addition the public, the private schools, the new reformed Haitian Army and the many ONG including MINUSTHA should be in the business of replanting Haiti, starting with the Palma Christi that grow rapidly producing the much expensive Palma oil while it replenishes the land. Later they can plant the seedlings of mahogany trees providing the next generation of Haitians with a life insurance policy as a ticket to wealth accumulation.

I have been told by members of the St Lucian government that they have forgo the rush to a higher GNP to adopt a formula of index to good living for their citizens. Each minister must account to the government and to the people the improvement accomplished to that end.

Haiti must embark into that mold. The government must set milepost for each minister.

• The Minister of Justice must reduce by x… the number of murders and kidnappings each month.
• The Minister of Health must reduce the number of babies who die at birth by half and increase the number of beds in hospitals and clinics by ten.
• The Minister of Tourism must increase the number of tourists entering into the country by ….
• The Minister of Commerce and Industry must increase the number of jobs by…
• The Minister of Environment must plant one million of trees per month and dislodge with proper planning x number of slums in the mountains surrounding the cities.
• The Minister of Education must fix and increase the number of classrooms by… x …. Every month.
• The Ministry of Planning should provide guidance to and monitor the work of such …. Numbers of ONG’s per month.
• The Minister of Public works shall finish…. such number of paved roads every month.
• The Minister of Haitian abroad should facilitate the return of x… number of Haitians back to Haiti.
• The Minister of Social Affairs shall pick up and reintegrate in a suitable institution x… number of street children every month.

A Haiti that engages itself in such an urgency mold will bring about solace and development to its people. It has 8 million inhabitants. It has the intellectual muscle. It has a willing Diaspora ready to help. It has the legacy of leadership. It can and it shall reborn from its aches to the glory of the Founding Fathers and facilitate a stronger Caribbean. As it celebrates today its 204th Anniversary, it must and should embark into this platform of urgency.