The Haitian question

CARICOM, which held discussions on Thursday on the possibility of suspending Haiti from the Regional body, should be careful at all times to differentiate between its attitude toward the interim regime and toward the country and its people. It should also leave open its options with respect to any provision of technical, social and economic assistance for Haiti, even as it diplomatically maintains its aversion to the regime itself. Haiti is still a Member State of the Caribbean Community of Nations and even had it not been still considerations of geography and history would have had to apply.

In addition, long after the end of the present regime, there will still be the crucial question of economics and the welfare of the ordinary people of Haiti, a country still paying the penalty 200 years after it declared its Independence from France, of becoming the world’s first successful slave revolution. The burdensome reparations exacted by France as “repayment” for its “loss of property,” largely meaning slaves, the economic blockade by France and other European powers, and the refusal by the United States to recognise Haiti for almost six decades crippled the country’s economy.

Caricom should recognise the historical impediments to Haiti’s economic growth and the for far too long ongoing impoverishment of its people, and seek within the framework of the United Nations to provide social and economic assistance. And because the majority of Caricom Member States are not in a position to provide economic aid to Haiti, save perhaps for Jamaica, Barbados, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Trinidad and Tobago, then emphasis on aid should be on the provision of vocational skills and entrepreneurial training. In turn, Caricom should commission an in-depth study, again under the umbrella of the UN, of what goods and services provided by Haiti can with reason be imported by Caricom. Additionally, Trinidad and Tobago should examine the feasibility of providing the country, on a short-term basis, with crude below prevailing international prices. Regional front runners in business should be invited by Caricom to explore the viability of investing in Haiti. Haiti is rich in art, whether sculpture, mats for floors or the decorating of walls or handicraft,  and if its art is carefully exploited this should bring the country some needed measure of foreign exchange. Already, Jamaica’s Prime Minister, PJ Patterson has cautioned that Haiti’s crisis cannot be resolved without the involvement of the Caribbean Community of Nations.

And the grouping’s Secretary General, Dr Edwin Carrington, has publicly expressly regret at the absence of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from the Summit, which he said would no doubt “be the first of much discussion over the next few days.” But in the world of realpolitik it would have been impossible for Aristide to have been there, although the original intention of his request to be allowed to visit Jamaica at this timemay have been with a view to being invited to the two-day Caricom Summit in St Kitts. However, whatever may have been Aristide’s plan or more to the point, whatever the term in Office of the interim regime in place today as a result of the ousting of Aristide, or Caricom’s attitude to the regime, Haiti must not be abandoned by the Region.