Haiti: Progress Denied.

On January 12th 2010 an earthquake struck the poorest nation in the western hemisphere killing at least 316,000 people. In the days following the disaster the international response from both governments and private citizens was amazing. Heaven, earth and the US military were moved to provide emergency food and medical aid to the destroyed nation. US$5.8billion was pledged to help with the re-building effort and the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC) was set up to safe-guard the money and provide some of the best expertise to help re-build the country.

One year on precisely nothing has happened. Sure there has been a Cholera epidemic that continues to kill around 50 people a week but I would hardly call that progress. The main problem at the moment is the election of a new government. Constitutional terms limits meant that the President at the time of the 'quake, Rene Preval was unable to continue in the job after November 2010. For some reason a state of emergency that would suspend the election and allow Preval to continue in the job was not declared meaning that the Haitian government led reconstruction effort would have to wait until a new government could be selected at a general election in November. In the meantime the only relief and reconstruction work being done is done by international aid agencies further undermining the Haitian government and hollowing out the nation state making Haiti even more of a "Republic of NGO's."

With Haiti's civil service all but destroyed and most of the population either dead or displaced when the general election finally came it was little more then a sick joke. To no-one's surprise it failed to provide a clear winner meaning that the reconstruction effort would have to be delayed again until a run-off vote between the two leading candidates could be held in January 2011.

With the date of the run-off fast approaching and under extreme pressure from all sides Haiti's election officials suddenly discovered that they could suspend the date of elections. So on January 4th 2011 they pushed the date of the run-off back further until the Organisation of American States (OAS) publish a report into the fairness of an election where only around 4% of the population were actually able to cast their vote. This delay is simply not acceptable because the mandate for the IHRC expires in September 2011 and if it is not making progress by then it's mandate will not be renewed and the money pledged for Haiti's reconstruction will go back to the donor countries.

The problem the OAS has in it's involvement in Haiti is quite simple, Venezuela and Bolivia. These two countries constantly accuse the OAS of being biased towards the Imperialist Unites States and keep threatening to leave and set up a rival organisation. This forces the OAS to give both these countries more of a voice then perhaps they deserve. This is a problem because both Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales are trying to divert attention away from massive problems in their own countries by engaging in a diplomatic pissing contest with the United States. This means that they would rather run down the clock and see hundreds of thousands of Haitians die then allow America the diplomatic victory of turning Haiti into a safe and secure nation.


On the plus side though Haiti seems to have sorted out many of it's post-'quake bandwidth problems meaning that I can stop talking to them like idiots. Now if only the international relief agencies can try and remember that the country is a disaster area not an adventure playground we might make some progress.