Haiti: cursed or brave?

While this may sound crude, it is not unprecedented. Most Australians remain unaware that 50 per cent of our government’s $1 billion “tsunami package” to Indonesia post-tsunami was in the form of reconstruction loans which must be paid back. When the Coalition government was putting the bill through Parliament in early 2005, the Greens attempted to have it amended, arguing for the full amount to be made in grants. However concessional the terms of the loans, they said, in the medium to long term this would worsen Indonesia’s debt problems and further impair the government’s ability to manage its own budget. Even Kevin Rudd, who was then spokesmen for the Labor opposition, cautioned the Coalition against thinking that in extending the $500 million in loans they would be buying some political advantage for Australian contractors.

In terms of foreign debt, Haiti’s deficit still stands at more than US$1 billion. The G7 nations have agreed to cancel 100 per cent of the bilateral debt owed to them in response to massive public pressure. Now we must put weight on the international financial institutions, particularly the IMF, to do the same.

People will be asking whether cancellation of this debt will simply reward a corrupt government and continue a cycle of dependence. But playing the corruption card is all too often a convenient way of avoiding some uncomfortable truths. If Haiti’s elites were corrupt and venal, it was only be because we in the West taught them to be that way, and more often than not supported them because it served our interests to do so.

In fact, a more profitable line of questioning would be - who is holding the international community accountable for its role in Haiti. Beyond the immediate relief, how will aid money be spent in Haiti? Will big donors and international institutions continue to dictate how the money must be spent, giving preference to those parts of the reconstruction process which benefit foreign companies the most, and which encourage the exploitation of cheap labor in foreign owned export industries? Or will the aid money be spent in a way which puts the people’s basic needs first: to build a system of efficient free public education, a new public health system and a sustainable local agricultural industry?

Most of us wish greater democracy for Haiti. But authentic democracy cannot be imposed from the outside. It must be home-grown. We should be asking how we can support self-empowerment of Haitian people and public institutions. This means listening to the voices of grassroots groups and civil society movements who for decades have been on the front line of the struggle for democracy and the fight against their nation’s underdevelopment.

In an open letter to international NGO partners, the co-ordinating committee of Haiti’s progressive civil society movements made its desire clear: “We are advocating a humanitarian effort that is appropriate to our reality, respectful of our culture and our environment, and which does not undermine the forms of economic solidarity that have been put in place over the decades by the grassroots organisations with which we work.”

One thing is certain: the people of this embattled nation are facing the challenges with courage and optimism. Days after the earthquake, at a public gathering in the Court of Human Rights to honour the victims, those present declared in solidarity that they are not a people cursed, but a brave people who will rise from the ashes. As for me, I’m choosing to be on the side of the brave.