| By Jean H Charles Every year around January 1st (Haiti Independence and first day of the year) I take time, to stop, ponder and reflect on where the nation has been going in its nation building process. From a passionate observer, I have muted into a passionate architect of the future of Haiti. I was a candidate to become President of the Republic in the November 28, 2010, election; as such engaging the people to extirpate the culture of social, economic and political exclusion against the majority of the population, while injecting the seeds of a moving solidarity towards each and every one. For the last 500 years, Ayti, now Haiti, has been seeking its path to shine in the sun amidst the most beautiful scenic setting on earth. It is still the land of the wretched of the earth. In this column I will expose and review the many solutions brought into Haiti with no apparent result. It is now time to let the Haitian solution take hold to bring at least and at last the bliss of wellbeing for the majority of the population. It was first the Spanish and the French solution; it lasted three hundred years (1500 to 1800). Christopher Columbus, an Italian of fiery imagination, convinced with great difficulty the queen of Spain of abundant return and a better route to the spice lands (spice was at that time a commodity which aroused the same glamour and excitement that caviar does today). After several months of travel with some mutiny always on the edge, Christopher Columbus discovered one day the tip toe of an island named Ayti that he renamed Santo Domingo because, being a fervent Catholic, it was the day that corresponded with the Fiesta of St Domingue. Columbus and his men lured the inhabitants of the islands, all Indians of a peaceful nature into accepting them with small gifts made of cheap material in return for large pieces of gold that the Indians used to decorate their bodies. The Spanish men brought by Columbus soon fell upon the bodies of the Indian women, raping them, leaving them with syphilis and gonorrhea, while forcing the men into alcoholic beverage, which was new to their system, leaving them acting like zombies. They were put into slavery to dig more gold and start plantations for their own consumption and to bring back to Spain the richness of the island. The Indian population soon dwindled to a small percentage and was almost extinguished due to firearms, disease, alcoholic drinking and forced labor. It was then that a defrocked priest named Las Casas offered a fatal solution: « Let’s bring black men from Africa and evangelize them and civilize them and let them work for us. » For two centuries, they came, bonded, shackled and caged to work the plantations to produce, sugar, cotton and coffee for the splendor of Spain and later France. It was as such until a slave of Jamaican origin named Bookman instilled into the heart of his comrades the courage to fight until death to bring the end of the world order of slavery in Haiti. He was soon caught and killed but the seedling of the movement took roots and spread from the north of Haiti into the entire island. Napoleon Bonaparte, with his troops that defeated the entire continent of Europe, could not resist the fury of men and women determined to stand free and grow as true children of God. On January 1, 1804, the Haitian solution took birth. A nation was born where all those who suffer the ignominy of bondage could come and live free. The experience did not last long. Two years later, Haiti’s founding father, Jean Jacques Dessalines, was assassinated by his comrades, who did not believe in the concept of nation building. A Haitian general with roots in Grenada, Henry Christophe, took the reins of power to continue the process. He was bypassed by the same forces that killed the Emperor Dessalines. Christophe could rule only in the northern part of the island. At his death, fifteen years later, the country returned to the revisionism culture. Two hundred years later Haiti has not gotten out of it. Several solutions have been tried during those two decennials. It was first the solution of shadow politics. National and international clans would put into the seat of power, one of the most illiterate person to run the country and then- pull the strings on their side, to the detriment of the population. Haiti, as an outcast in the world, was subjected to all types of gunboat pressure to enter into debt and give away its natural resources. It was as such until 1915, when the Americans imposed the American solution. The country was invaded and ruled by the Americans until 1932. The positive outcome was meager. Public health, the building of some infrastructure, the Haitian army, was on the plus side. On the other scale of the balance, the culture of social exclusion and the concentration of the resources in the capital have encroached into the fabric of the Haitian society. Haiti knew its golden age during the 1950s under the presidency of Dumarsais Estime and Paul E. Magloire. Yet the last one was not an ideologue president; he did not understand the root cause of the Haitian problem, which is to create a society that should incrementally become hospitable to all. The dictatorial solution decimated or sent to exile the cream of the crop of the Haitian intelligentsia. It lasted thirty years, with the support and connivance of the American government. When Duvalier pere died, a smooth transition to Duvalier fils was arranged by the American Ambassador. It took Haitians the determination of their forefathers to boot out the Duvalier regime, which was soon replaced by the military solution. Under the disguise of democratic bamboche or fiesta, Haiti opened wide its population to global commerce, killing its indigenous production, setting the stage for a negative balance of payments that lasted decades after. In addition, the military regime disturbed with strong violence the first democratic election into the country. Haiti has been going into a transition and a trauma that is without end. The populist solution has been experimented with and guided from Washington. It is still the game of today. Jean Bertrand Aristide and, later, Rene Preval have promised much in bringing growth and in reducing poverty, yet Haiti has been descending into the abyss of insecurity of food, lives and environment. It was time for the United Nations Solution. With a force of 9,000 soldiers and a budget of 600 million dollars per year, the MINUSTHA, the acronym for the UN peace force, was still seeking a relevant mission after five years in the country. The irrelevance is so visible to the naked eye that General Secretary Ban Ki Moon sought the Bill Clinton Solution finally to help Haiti to stand on its feet. Clinton himself apologized for destroying the main staple of the Haitian people the rice of the Artibonite for the rice of Arkansas. Already, the Friends of Haiti are talking about the Dominican Solution. Luckily the Dominican legislators, have said thanks but no thanks to the Dominican Solution. They already have some one million Haitian migrants into the country competing for the scarce jobs the country can manage to create. The Haitian solution Haiti is la une in most media of the globe, the Prime Minister, Ariel Henry is locked off the country by gangs leaders menacing the put the country on fire if the plane of the Prime Minister land in Port au Prince or Cape Haitian. This landing is rendered difficult since the neighborhood country Dominican Republic, refused to allow permission to land. A little bit of history to put the Haiti solution in perspective is in order. It was the beginning of the agony of Haiti. Duvalier went on to last 33 years, adding insult to injury, at his death in 1977, his son of 19 years old succeeded him completing the father and son dictatorship and their grip on Haiti.On February 7 1986, the people of Haiti muscled their strength and booted out Jean Claude Duvalier out of the country. Alas the agony continued under the so called debauchee of democracy presided by the General Henry Nampy. At that time, I have already migrated to the United States, armed with a graduate degree in Social Work and Law from the best universities in the country, I was helping a civil right lawyer Gerard Gourgue to become the next President of Haiti.He made the mistake of not getting his proper vetting from the United States as such, General Namphy received the order to disrupt the election that was going to name Gerard Gourgue as president. The Calvary of Haiti took a sharp intensity that lasted 38 years, until today.Led by the fiery Jean Bertrand Aristide, a defrock priest, Haiti knew its dark days with the beginning of the use of young gangs to threaten the opposing members of his illiberal regime. Twice evicted from the country, he left the structure of a gang militia that now controls 90% of the capital, paralyzing daily commerce between the capital and the rest of the country.Daily kidnappings for huge sum of money indicates the practice entered a phase where it is a business practice controlled by legitimate businessmen. After Aristide, Haiti went into the abyss of being led by demagogues like Rene Preval (twice) and Michel Martelly. Corruption, indecency and ill governance were at their nadir. I tried to put my hat in the game by running to become the President of Haiti, my chances were nil with Jovenel Moise using the resources of the government (25$ per vote) to win the presidency. That is the time when the country endured the ill governance of Jovenel Moise a nemesis of Michel Martelly placed into power to continue his grasp on the wealth of the country. Jovenel’s arrogance was so brazing that he was brutally assassinated on July 7th 2021 by his peers. Ariel Henry, a physician and an Adventist replaced him. He is so incompetent that he manages to gather the ire of the whole population. Kidnapping and murders reach their zenith under his watch. According to an estimate of the United Nations there were some 4000 people killed in the country of 12 million people, the number of kidnappings and sexual violence reach 2500 people this year. No one is safe, recently a dozen of nuns were kidnapped. The Pope was involved in securing their release. In that atmosphere, the United Nations voted to have an international force under the leadership of Kenya entered into the fray in Haiti. The Highest Court in Kenya just voted to interdict the police force to intervene.We are approaching the fatidic date of February 7th 2024 when the ire of the population comes to its peak to have Ariel Henry departs from the seat of power.The crisis in Haiti is at boiling point with Guy Phillipe the former chief of police and former elected senator announcing his quest for leading a “revolution in Haiti”. He plans to tackle the problem of insecurity by using the Army, the police and the help of the international community to ferret out the bandits as terrorists who sully the good name of Haitians as a peaceful population with known good character and impeccable reputation.It is time to try with the Haitian solution to replace the CARICOM Solution of a collegial governance. For this momentum task I am proposing a Justice of the Supreme Court, Marie Jocelyne Casimir a woman of the tramp of Ertha Pascale Trouillot who realized the first democratically elected President, Jean Bertrand Aristide. Haiti has a bipedal tradition of Prime Minister and President the collegial concept a la maniere of the collegial of Henry Namphy did work for the space of a day The new leader of Haiti with her Prime Minister will have to tackle the most irritants problems that annoyed the population such as the decrepit infrastructure and the failing institutions that make a mockery of calling Haiti a nation. They will have to try to institute the sentiment of appurtenance within the population. Haiti is so inimical to its own people that 85% of the populace is taking advantage of Biden voluntary parole program to leave the country.They will than named the electoral board that will direct the elections by degree. First the election of the rural county delegates will be accompanied with a major renovation and resurgence of the 565 rural towns. This first balloting will move to the 150 towns where the electoral board will conduct the elections of the mayors that will direct the development in the towns of Haiti.This exercise will continue in the main 10 cities of Haiti where the board will proceed to elect the legislators (senators and deputies). An urbanization program will go along with that election.At last the program will rebuild the capital, Port au Prince setting the election of the President and the amendments to the Constitution. Forty years after my advising Gerard Gourgue who missed the presidential sharp because of his lack of understanding of the international game, this new leader must be an adept of the international game for not missing his chance to re-create Haiti. The spirit of the founding fathers shall guide him to succeed in becoming the next temporary chief of State in Haiti.As such the country will be on its way to become an independent, rich and prosperous nation as I have indicated in my book “For the country for the homeland” a vision of society that will render Haiti rich, independent and power full nation.” It will cease to bear the title and the appellation of the most corrupt and poorer nation of the Western Hemisphere. | |
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Jean Hervé Charles LLB, MSW, JD was a presidential candidate in the election of 2016. He can be reached at jeanhcharles@aol.com
Cell: 646-248 1171
