Haiti Faces Major Challenges Two Years On

By Samuel Jaberg

Political paralysis, a lack of leadership among the international community and a cholera epidemic continue to plague Haiti two years after a devastating earthquake.

An estimated 1.5 million people lost their homes following the quake on January 12, 2010, which killed almost 250,000 people. Half a million remain homeless.

Nevertheless, the United Nations has made a positive assessment of the international community’s efforts. An inventory of fixtures compiled at the end of November 2011 showed that almost 100,000 temporary shelters had been built and 21,000 houses repaired or rebuilt.

“We can say that the humanitarian response has been a success,” declared Nigel Fisher, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator.

This optimistic vision is far from shared in Haiti or among the diaspora.

“You can’t say that a lot has happened over the past two years,” said Charles Ridoré, a Haitian sociologist based in Switzerland.

“The United Nations are judge and party at the same time. We saw this clearly with the cholera epidemic. External expertise was needed to make [the UN] aware of their responsibility in importing the disease to the island.”

Gérard Bedock, head of the Swiss section of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Haiti, said the situation “wasn’t good”, adding that one couldn’t talk of success.

“The damage is still being cleared away, almost half of those displaced still live in tents and the cholera epidemic has been raging for more than a year,” he said.

Lack of leadership

The lack of leadership – both among the international community and the Haitian government – has prevented the implementation of a global reconstruction plan.

Michel Martelly, a former musician and businessman, was sworn in as president on May 14, 2011, but spent the first six months of his mandate fighting to get a parliamentary majority. The government has still to announce its list of priority projects.

“It’s the sign that we’re slipping,” said Frantz Duval, editor of Le Nouvelliste, one of the country’s main newspapers.

“But it’s also the price of improvisation, since Martelly wasn’t a political man. The process is complicated. What’s good is that everything’s happened without violence and guns.”

The chaotic and uncoordinated reconstruction was started by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and bilateral groups, but above all by individuals.

At Canaan, for example, a large plain north of the capital Port-au-Prince, tens of thousands of more or less solid buildings spring up from the earth as part of an irreversible process of turning urban zones into shanty towns.

Ridoré repeats what was already being stressed more than a year ago. “The electoral process should have been postponed and a national unity government set up. Far too much time was lost.”

Cholera epidemic

Ridoré talks of a “disheartened and disillusioned” population which stumbles from one calamity to the next without having time to catch its breath.

The cholera epidemic, which appeared in November 2010, has already claimed almost 7,000 victims and affected half a million.

“Despite the number of people getting involved and the amount of money at their disposal, the response has been completely insufficient and totally disorganised,” Bedock said.

MSF has been able to take charge in almost a third of the cases.

“We’re at the front line facing one of the most serious epidemics of modern times. We’re trying to respond as much as possible, but the battle is unequal,” he said.

The end of the rainy season should give some respite to the disease’s progression.

“But what will happen in six months when the epidemic returns?” Bedock asked.

Some medical NGOs are already leaving Haiti because they are running out of money or are forced to forgo emergency aid to devote themselves to their core mission.

In a country where the health system rests almost entirely on the large NGOs, principally MSF, this haemorrhaging makes people fear the worst.

“Aid paradox”

“That’s the paradox of aid: you don’t want the NGOs to go, but neither is it tenable to be propped up by the international community for such a long time,” Duval said.

“Over the past two years people haven’t asked themselves how invalids are going to survive without their crutches.”

Ridoré points to the example of his 78-year-old sister, a member of a religious congregation forced to take charge of an orphanage overnight when the American NGO which had looked after it until then found itself without funding.

Bedock points to an “ambiguity” when it comes to foreign aid.

“Local authorities fear our departure and the taking over of what we do by the health ministry, which can’t guarantee quality, free medical care and universal access,” he said.

“But on the other hand, politicians use NGOs as scapegoats, which creates strong resentment towards us among the population.”

(Translated from French by Thomas Stephens)