[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 107 (Wednesday, July 31, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7731-S7733]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CRISIS IN HAITI
Mr. DODD. First, I commend my colleague from Hawaii for his fine
leadership on the pending matter before the Senate dealing with the
Defense appropriations bill.
The matter that I wish to address regards the nation of Haiti, a
tragedy that is unfolding a short distance from our own shores,
literally only 90 or 100 miles away from the coast of the United
States. As yesterday's New York Times article entitled ``Eight Years
After Invasion, Haiti's Squalor Worsens,'' written by David Gonzalez,
makes abundantly clear, the people of Haiti in that article, as we
know, are on the verge of despair.
I ask unanimous consent that the article written by David Gonzalez in
the New York Times be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Eight Years After Invasion, Haiti's Squalor Worsens
Sonia Jean-Pierre's life is one of apocalyptic misery. With
hardly any food or work, her only refuge is a concrete cell.
The searing sun is blotted out by cardboard pasted over the
windows. On the wall by her bed, she has scrawled, ``Jesus
Christ is coming soon,'' like a promise of salvation to greet
her every morning.
Ms. Jean-Pierre and hundreds of neighbors live as squatters
inside the old Fort Dimanche Prison once the brutally
efficient killing chamber of the Duvalier dictatorships. A
prison no longer, it has been renamed, hopefully, Village
Democratie. The poor cram themselves into the dingy cells and
even inside the old sentry towers that look out over the
surrounding shanties, where 2,000 more souls live without
water, schools or electricity. Some are so desperate they eat
pancakelike disks of bouillon-flavored clay. Poverty is the
only jailer.
``We are free prisoners,'' said Ms. Jean-Pierre, who rested
one recent afternoon on the cool concrete floor. ``We are
still living like prisoners.''
Nearly eight years after the United States led an invasion
of Haiti to oust a military junta and restore President Jean-
Bertrand Aristide to power, Village Democratie is just one
measure of this country's despairing slide.
Increasingly exasperated with Mr. Aristide's government,
which has yet to resolve a two-year-old deadlock with its
opposition, the United States and European countries have
blocked some $500 million in aid, hoping to encourage greater
democracy. Critics say the decision has merely eroded the
hopes and deepened the poverty of this country's seven
million or so people.
For a nation as poor as Haiti, withholding the money has
become both carrot and stick. Haiti still lingers near the
bottom of the United Nations' annual survey of living
conditions. Life expectancy is less than 53 years.
Preventable diseases go untreated. The yearly income of the
average family is less than is needed to sustain a single
person.
Mr. Aristide calls the withholding of the aid an
``embargo.'' His American supporters, including the
Congressional Black Caucus and well-paid lobbyists, say it is
immoral to withhold the aid and punish the Haitian people, as
government agencies go without budgets, plans or projects to
provide water, health care and schools. Some $150 million
from the United States, they note, might not only improve
roads, water and health but also create jobs.
Still, diplomats and aid officials say, Mr. Aristide's use
of the term ``embargo'' reflects calculated rhetoric more
than reality. Trade and travel continue, and relief,
including contributions from the United States, flows into
Haiti through nongovernmental groups.
Solving Haiti's problems, they argue, will take more than
just an infusion of aid. Most important, they say Mr.
Aristide has yet to prove that his government has escaped the
corruption and destructive self-interest of governments past.
Meanwhile, the political stalemate, which arose over a
disputed election, and the international response to it, have
stalled what little functioning government democracy might
have brought.
``The situation is getting worse for the majority of the
people,'' said the Rev. Jan Hanssens, a Roman Catholic priest
who sits on the Justice and Peace Commission of the Bishops'
Conference. ``There is certainly no hope unless there is a
drastic reassessment of Haitian society itself. If things
simply go on as now, there is no chance.''
Along the streets of Village Democratie, faith in
politicians is as elusive as a decent job. Faded posters of
Mr. Aristide, wearing the presidential sash and with his arms
outstretched, are his only presence.
Laughing young men crouched at the entrance to the former
prison and gambled a few wrinkled gourde notes, the country's
currency. Inside, past corridors whose crumbled walls reveal
a weed-choked courtyard, people walked home after church
clutching hymnals titled ``Songs of Hope.''
Inside tiny rooms with cardboard walls, slim shafts of
sunlight cut through the haze of charcoal smoke from braziers
where pots of rice boiled. There are no sewers or running
water anywhere in the neighborhood, and when the rains come
they leave fetid puddles where malaria-carrying mosquitoes
breed.
``Artistide said here is the room of the people,'' said
Dorlis Ephesans. ``But he has never showed his face here.''
Some of the residents had tried to leave Haiti during the
1991 coup that ousted Mr. Aristide. Some made it to Miami,
some died and others like Israel Arince, were caught at sea
and returned.
The same America that sent him back to Haiti and restored
Mr. Aristide to power in 1994, Mr. Arince said, now make life
impossible.
``They have blocked the country from getting aid,'' he
said. ``We are human beings and we do not like to live like
this. Only animals should live here.''
In La Saline sum, down a busy road near the prison that is
often choked with carts and traffic, pigs waded through
streams of human waste and poked their snouts into mountains
of garbage in a drainage canal. Young women dropped plastic
buckets into a sewer and hauled out a gray water they would
use to wash their floors. Potable water is too expensive.
``There is no way to be healthy here,'' said Elisena
Nicolas, who spends a third of her income on water. ``But you
have to keep the children clean.''
As hard as it is to conceive, people come to La Saline to
escape rural misery. In the Central Plateau town of Cange,
doctors with the Zanmi Lasante clinic and children commonly
died from malaria or diarrhea, while tuberculosis and AIDS
killed their parents. Even polio, once thought to have been
eradicated, has resurfaced recently.
Although the clinic receives no international aid, doctors
said they worked with many Haitian government clinics in
nearby villages where the frozen aid has left them unable to
cope. In recent years, their volunteer clinic's patient load
has tripled to 120,000, with patients sometimes walking five
hours for free care.
Dr. Paul Farmer, an American who helped found the clinic in
the 1980's, said he could not prove that the blocked aid
resulted in more suffering, but the deteriorating conditions
were evident. International aid, provided on an emergency
basis to charitable groups, was no substitute for a working
government, he said.
``One of the world's most powerful countries is taking on
one of the most impoverished,'' he said of the United States
decision to withhold aid. ``I object to that on moral
grounds. Anybody who presides over this blockade needs to
know the impact here already.''
But Haiti's record of official corruption and
mismanagement, regardless of who was in power, has given
pause to many international aid officials. A recent study by
the World Bank concluded that 15 years of aid
[[Page S7732]]
through 2001 had had no discernible impact in reducing
poverty, since projects were carried out haphazardly and
government officials aid not sustain improvements.
Today, for instance, a maze of rat-infested pipes is all
that is left of a potable water project after funds ran out
before the pipes could be connected to the water main.
At the same time, political opponents and diplomats said,
the government has money to provide cars for legislators or
pay off neighborhood groups that are its foot soldiers and
that the opposition charges, have been used to intimidate
government opponents.
As a result, diplomats and aid officials said Mr. Aristide
must not only resolve this political crisis, he must also
show that he will allow economic and administrative reforms
to guarantee that any forthcoming aid will be honestly spent.
``We are saying we want to help you,'' said a European
diplomat, who noted that the European Union was ready to
provide $350 million. ``But you must help us help you. You
comply, I'll comply.''
Absent any aid or a political pact, people scrape by as
they have for years, sharing what little they have or
sacrificing themselves for their children. In the
neighborhood of Fort Sinclaire, a dilapidated maze of shacks,
indigent teenagers with tuberculosis sleep on sheets spread
out on hard concrete porches.
A soft carpet of soggy wood chips blankets the entrance to
the neighborhood, as men carve wooden bowls to sell to
tourists who have yet to return to Haiti. Lionel Agustain, a
woodworker, sometimes earns two dollars a day, not enough to
prevent him from losing his home a few years ago.
A friend lets him sleep on a rickety cot inside a gym where
the weights are improved for gears and other car parts. The
walls are tauntingly decorated with wrinkled posters of
bodybuilders with bulging chest and bicep Mr. Agustian is
thin, and he sometimes eats only a bowl of rice.
``We don't know when they are going to fix things,'' he
said. ``We suffer. And when you suffer enough, you die.''
Mr. DODD. Madam President, I share with my colleagues briefly the
situation in Haiti. This is one of the most desperate countries in the
world, a few miles from our shore. There has been pending over the last
2 years a $500 million request through the Inter-American Development
Bank. The United States of America, and several of its allies, are
holding up the disbursement of these funds to one of the poorest
countries in the world. Seven million people in that country are
suffering incredibly. It is being held up over a question of whether or
not institutions in that nation are as strong as they ought to be,
whether or not there is corruption, and whether or not the elections
that occurred in 2000 were fair, open, and honest.
I am not going to argue about any of that. There is corruption. The
agencies, administration, and structures are very weak. The elections
in 2000 had major flaws in them. I am not arguing about that, either.
But for the strongest, wealthiest nation in the world, that stands 90
to 100 miles away from one of the poorest nations in the world, and to
have us deny Inter-American Development Bank funds, through our power
and influence, to reach these desperately poor, dying people, where
life expectancy is age 53, where there are problems with malaria,
diarrhea, and tremendous hardship--polio has reemerged on this island--
I think is terribly wrong.
This article, written by David Gonzalez, points out how desperate the
situation is in Haiti. I will not read all of the article but he talks
about shanties, he talks about the former prison at Fort Dimanche, a
prison in Port-Au-Prince where now 2,000 people live without any water,
schooling, or electricity. These are fellow human beings who are in
great despair, living under the worst possible of circumstances.
In rural areas as well, local clinics have shut down and one clinic,
according to David Gonzalez's article, in the Central Plateau town of
Cange, doctors with the Lasante Clinic dealt with 120,000 patients who
came to them in recent years. The clinic's patients tripled to 120,000,
patients sometimes walking 5 hours for care.
As I mentioned, tuberculosis, malaria, and now even polio, once
thought to be eradicated, is emerging. I am hopeful that the IDB, the
Inter-American Development Bank, would listen to those who have been
supportive of this Bank. I have been supportive, as many of my
colleagues have, over the years. For the IDB to hold back on these
funds any longer is wrong.
Haiti is sinking deeper and deeper into irreversible poverty. The
extent of the heartache now being endured by the Haitian people is
simply unspeakable. Their suffering is devastating and it is far
reaching. In some places there is no potable water, there are no
sewers, there are no basic medicines on hand to treat disease, no
medical infrastructure in place to ward off otherwise easily
preventable diseases.
Haiti ranks as one of the lowest on the U.N. survey of living
conditions. As I mentioned, life expectancy is age 53. Of course, the
despair and hopelessness which prey upon the victims of such suffering
cannot be quantified.
It is the people of Haiti, in my view, who should be our concern
today, not the flaws of their political institutions. I am deeply
saddened and incensed in many ways that we are planning electoral
negotiations over the clear, tangible plight of a people.
Ironically, it is the United States that has taken the lead in
preventing Haiti from receiving assistance from the International
Development Bank, the institution that is supposed to be the premier
regional development agency. Proponents of withholding crucial IDB
funding point to Haiti's weak institutions, to the need for drastic and
timely economic and administrative reforms, as a prerequisite for
restarting assistance.
It is true, Haiti is an impoverished nation with weak institutions.
It is true there is corruption at high levels. I do not deny that. And,
yes, there is a serious need for reform in these areas. It is also very
true that poor countries breed weak institutions and seek to strengthen
themselves and help their people with the assistance of international
humanitarian aid, but that is not the real reason that assistance is
being withheld. The real reason funds are being withheld is political--
-- namely, as leverage in an ongoing Organization of American States
negotiations to resolve issues related to the May 2000 elections of
that country.
The Secretary-General of the OAS has endeavored over the last 2 years
to resolve the political stalemate in Haiti and the disputed 2000
parliamentary elections. He has put on the negotiating table a balanced
and credible proposal for resolving the election dispute and is working
to ensure the security and other matters of concern to the Haitian
society that are being seriously considered by the Haitian Government.
I believe they are.
That said, Haiti has flawed elections. Absolutely. We are talking
about a country without a long historial tradition of democracy. While
this worsens, and public faith in government is reduced to zero, what
remains of the fragile democracy is eroded further. Even in the United
States, with our proud history, peaceful transition of power, orderly
elections, and representative governments, we have had significant
troubles with our own elections. Merely look at what happened in the
year 2000 in this country with our elections. No one is perfect.
In one of the most desperately poor nations in the world, it should
not be a great surprise that institutions and electoral processes are
not what we would like them to be. By not providing basic help, by the
United States blocking the assistance reaching the desperately poor
people, we are not strengthening the institutions but making it worse
and harder for the Nation to get back on its feet.
I have always strongly opposed linkage between ongoing political
dialog and the Haitian access to resources of the Inter-American
Development Bank. These moneys have been held hostage for too long. The
damage to the Haitian economy is devastating. The good-faith efforts of
the Government in responding to the OAS initiative should be more than
enough justification for beginning the process of loan disbursements
from the Inter-American Development Bank. Although the state of despair
in Haiti is all the justification that should be needed for an
institution whose primary obligation, as the IDB, is to promote
economic and social development in this hemisphere, and they are doing
anything but that.
Shame on the Inter-American Development Bank for being used in this
manner. It does not speak well for an institution that for the most
part has a good reputation. Shame on the Government of the United
States for pressuring the IDB to do so. Seven million people are
desperately in need of help. We have gone on now for years denying this
basic assistance. It is time to put
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a stop to playing politics with Haitian lives, and it is time to
respond to the unfolding crisis in Haiti. I urge the administration to
withhold, to lift the embargo, on the dollars.
For those who have supported the IDB year in and year out, it has
been terribly disappointing to me that they have continued to acquiesce
in the demands of the Bush administration to deny the disbursements of
these dollars. I hope they will take the action of saying they have
waited long enough and they will provide the assistance needed to the
Haitian people.
We are about to leave for a month and the situation is growing worse.
I ask my colleague to take a look at the David Gonzalez article in the
New York Times yesterday. This is a snapshot of what is going on in the
country and what desperately poor people are suffering as a result of
the lack of support. They would suffer anyway. I am not suggesting this
will solve all their problems. It is hard to believe we are holding up
the funds--seeing how these people live, how these children are being
raised, only a few miles off our shore, when we could make a little bit
of a difference. We could also strengthen the very institutions we are
complaining so strongly about if we provided that kind of help.
____________________