ON WEDNESDAY, April 9, I received a call from my sister, informing me that she had flown out of Haiti that morning, and had safely arrived in New York.

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A demonstrator eats grass in front of a UN Brazilian peacekeeping soldier during a recent protest against the high cost of living in Port-au-Prince.

"I barely made it out of Haiti," she said. "The experience was absolutely terrifying. As I was driving to the airport the people were taking to the streets, and burning the place down. The friend who drove me to the airport was not able to go back home until late in the evening."

Magnificent potential

She added that it was a crying shame, as in the context of a tourism project she is working on, she had just visited some pristine coastal towns, which were absolutely beautiful, and confirmed Haiti's magnificent potential for tourism development. She later emailed me some video slides, with the subject line: 'This is what is left of our dear country'.

I viewed with consternation the same images I had been watching on TV of the thousands marching in the streets, the flaming barricades and buildings, the burned gas stations, looted businesses and smashed windows, the clouds of thick black smoke billowing from burned-out cars, and the widespread rioting over skyrocketing food prices, which had shut the country down. As violence escalated, businesses were shuttered, banks and schools were closed, and many remained indoors, while the groundswell protest movement spread like wildfire across the country.

The world was once more transfixed by Haiti due to decades of unsound economic policies, and IMF/World Bank-imposed structural adjustment and liberalisation, which had finally catapulted people living on the brink over the edge. But Haiti was only the tip of the iceberg. The unrest provided dramatic evidence of the destabilising effect of accelerating food inflation and insecurity around the globe.

On Tuesday, April 8, the demonstrators stormed the presidential palace to demand the resignation of President Rene Preval, and the departure of the UN occupation force. Community leaders insisted the government roll back free-market policies, remove taxes on food, and create community stores with subsidised prices. UN peacekeepers battled rioters with rubber bullets and tear gas fired from assault vehicles, forcing them away from the palace gates.

Preval, who had recently given a speech in which he had declared his solidarity with the people against the rising cost of living, even asking them to come and fetch him, so he could march with them if needs be, was now huddled in the palace with government ministers and international officials, trying to figure out what to do. After a whole week, the president finally emerged from behind the UN armoured personnel carriers and barbed wire surrounding the palace to give a televised speech, widely anticipated by observers, who felt that his response would determine the course of the demonstrations, and of his government.

Promises

In a speech deemed a let-down by many, Preval tried to explain that Haiti was in the grip of a global food crisis, and that riots and destruction would not reduce prices, but only increase misery and the cost of living, while deterring investment. He pledged that the government would work to boost food production, announcing a multimillion-dollar package of investments in agriculture and infrastructure, to create jobs. He also promised to subsidise Haitian-grown products. The president's proposals were too little too late, however, providing no immediate relief to the hungry rioters, who had not come to hear about agrarian reform.

Having long lived in isolation, Haiti had always cultivated a very high level of self-sufficiency, especially when it came to food production. Haiti was once self-sufficient in staples like rice and sugar, and the peasants had their indigenous black pigs, which were literally their piggy bank. US-backed dictators like the Duvaliers allowed US interests to initiate the deforestation of Haiti, and to destroy the local pig industry.

After the ouster of Jean-Claude Duvalier in 1986, a series of US-sponsored military juntas implemented neoliberal policies, slashing tariffs, and allowing cheap imports from the US and the Dominican Republic to flood the Haitian market. Trade liberalisation meant that food imports undercut local farmers, who were denied subsidies, or the means to invest in their production, killing the Haitian food industry, and driving the farmers off the land. Farmers had no choice but to swell the ranks of the urban proletariat because US firms looking to outsource production wished to capitalise on the country's cheap labour.

Highly touted claims of transforming Haiti's economy into the 'Taiwan of the Caribbean' never materialised. Instead, 20 years later, Haiti has little industry besides a handful of assembly plants, where the minimum wage is less than $2 a day. Unemployed youths fester in overcrowded slums, while the country's agricultural production is mainly subsistence.

Global scarcity

In the 1990s, though, Aristide fought hard against the neoliberal policies of the Clinton Democrats. He was eventually forced to continue the free trade regime, cutting import tariffs on rice and corn in half. In 2000, when the Bush Republicans took over, the US simply turned off the tap to bring down the government, imposing an embargo on the already agonising nation.

Now that there is global scarcity, and no local production, prices of imported goods are being hiked on the poorest of people, with no subsidies to cushion the blow of the soaring food prices. Since 2004, the price of rice, corn, beans, cooking oil and other staples has tripled. Inflation is rampant, and the Haitian gourde has been devalued by sectors interested in keeping Haitian labour cheap.

Since Aristide's 2004 deposition and exile in South Africa, the anti-Aristide forces have perceived his hand in every social disturbance. This one was no exception, and many demonstrators clamoured for Aristide's return. Haitians traditionally develop personality cults around their leaders. But the masses have yet to understand that on a political and economic level, Arisitide can do no more for them than Preval can.

In fact, as long as the Haitian president depends on foreign aid to pay his cabinet, and on IMF and World Bank credit to run the state offices, given the enemies Aristide has in Washington and in Haiti, he would surely be even more impotent than Preval. Third World leaders have become virtually expendable, subject as they are to the pressures of IFI dictates, forcing through globalisation policies to the detriment of their own people.

No-confidence vote

On Saturday, April 12, just as Preval was unveiling a plan to cut the price of imported rice by 15 per cent, thanks to a $3 million grant, the legislature turned against the executive. Sixteen senators out of 27 in the upper house of parliament voted to censure Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis, citing his "calamitous management" of the crisis, and his government's failure to respond to the urgency of the people's legitimate demands.

The Haitian constitution calls for the prime minister (PM) to be appointed by a duly elected president, and ratified by parliament. The PM acts as the head of government, but is subject to a no-confidence vote by parliament. The axing of Alexis slowed down the momentum against the Preval government. Critics say both Preval and the international community have focused too much on political stability, without helping to alleviate poverty.

New customs procedures aimed at collecting revenues and stopping the flow of drugs, recently left tons of food rotting in ports. The US$500 million per year the UN is spending on troops and tanks could go a long way towards development and nutrition.

On Monday, April 14, I received an email, postponing a now urgently needed Donors Conference I planned to attend on April 25, due to the fact that the PM had been the one issuing the invitations.

It is imperative that the government reopen food banks; invest in social programmes; rebuild the rural economy; increase the security of production and productivity, through investment in water control, rural infrastructure, and access to inputs and credit; and revalue the Haitian gourde, in order to lower the cost of living, and imported goods.

A failed state does not mean failed people, not failed creativity, not failed hopes, not a failed culture, just failed politics.

Myrtha Désulmé is president of the Haiti-Jamaica Society

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