Doomed to repeat itself

[bcholmes]

January 1st is a double celebration. Not only is it the first day of the new year, but it's also Haitian Independence day. On January 1st, 1804, Haiti was officially declared an independent country. As I type this, now, I can hear multiple parties going on in the distance; music playing and occasional gunshots. Celebration Haitian-style.

One of the Latin American solidarity folks asked, a few days ago, for an economic overview of Haiti. Kevin was a bit daunted by that request, at first, but ultimately lined up an excellent speaker for us to talk to. The speaker's name was Georges Werleigh, and he's a rural economist.

It happens that I've met Georges before, a few times. He spoke to our delegation in 2007, and I bumped into him once during my trip in the fall of 2008. He's a friendly, unassuming man, but also one of those quiet intellectual types. And he gave us an incredible overview of the current situation in Haiti, which was many parts history lesson and many parts economics.

According to Georges, we can view the history of Haiti as having three main parts: a colonial period, a national period, and a neocolonial period. (Strictly speaking, there's a period before all three: the period of the Taino before Europeans or Africans came to the island) The colonial period was obvious. Haiti is located on the island of Hispaniola, discovered by Columbus in 1492. By 1697, the western third of the island was formally ceded to France as the colony of Saint-Domingue and it became an incredible source of wealth for France. During the latter half of the 18th century, France pondered the question: if it had to give up claim to the colony in Canada or the colony at Saint-Domingue, which would it surrender? Canada, obviously. Saint-Domingue was too valuable.

Unfortunately, that value was based on slave labour. And in 1791, the slaves decided that they'd had enough of that. In the following years, the slaves fought three of the most powerful armies of Europe: the English Army, the French Army and the Spanish Army. And they eventually won their freedom in 1804.

1804 begins the Nationalist period. Haiti was fiercely proud of what it had accomplished, and sought to support other popular uprisings. They gave weapons, soldiers and a printing press to Bolivar on the condition that he abolish slavery. This period has its ups and downs, but ultimately comes to an end in 1915 when the U.S. occupied Haiti, and rewrote its laws to ensure that foreigners could own land. Suddenly, U.S. attitudes toward Haiti are based on how the country can be used for profitable business ventures.

This takes on especial resonance after 1986 -- after Baby Doc fled the country. At this point, a group of 10 wealthy families really come to prominence, and effectively control the majority of the country's wealth. Each of these families is originally middle-eastern, having immigrated to Haiti in the 30s and 40s. The big names are Brandt, Accra and Mevs, but other names on the list include Apaid, Bigio and Haloon. These families control enough wealth that they're able to manipulate the value of Haitian Gourde; by driving down the value of the Gourde, they're able, for example, to make the manufacturing-based businesses more profitable.

Recent studies suggest that a minimum livable wage is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 200-250 gds per day (although the nose-diving gourde means that one must re-evaluate that number periodically). Recently, the minimum wage has been raised -- there are three classes of wages, but the most common one is apparently about 150 gds per day. So most Haitians aren't making living wages.