Repare Ayiti: MINUSTAH ak Beyond

F I X I N G H A I T I M I N U S T A H A N D B E Y O N D EDITED BY JORGE HEINE AND ANDREW S. THOMPSON W I T H A F O R E W O R D B Y P A U L C O L L I E R United Nations University Press is the publishing arm of the United Nations University. UNU Press publishes scholarly and policy-oriented books and periodicals on the issues facing the United Nations and its peoples and member states, with particular emphasis upon international, regional and transboundary policies. The United Nations University was established as a subsidiary organ of the United Nations by General Assembly resolution 2951 (XXVII) of 11 December 1972. The United Nations University undertakes a wide range of activities focused on knowledge generation (basic and applied re- search, and foresight and policy studies), education and capacity develop- ment (developing human and organizational capabilities), and knowledge transfer and sharing (communications, dissemination and outreach). 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CIGI is advised by an International Advisory Board. www.cigionline.org Fixing Haiti: MINUSTAH and beyond Edited by Jorge Heine and Andrew S. Thompson © United Nations University, 2011 The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not nec- essarily reflect the views of the United Nations University. United Nations University Press United Nations University, 53-70, Jingumae 5-chome, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-8925, Japan Tel: +81-3-5467-1212 Fax: +81-3-3406-7345 E-mail: sales@unu.edu general enquiries: press@unu.edu http://www.unu.edu United Nations University Office at the United Nations, New York 2 United Nations Plaza, Room DC2-2062, New York, NY 10017, USA Tel: +1-212-963-6387 Fax: +1-212-371-9454 E-mail: unuony@unu.edu United Nations University Press is the publishing division of the United Nations University. Cover design by Mea Rhee Cover art by Stivenson Magloire, Sans titre , acrylic on cloth © 1990. Printed in the United States of America ISBN 978-92-808-1197-1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fixing Haiti : MINUSTAH and beyond / edited by Jorge Heine and Andrew S. Thompson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-9280811971 (pbk.) 1. Haiti—Politics and government—21st century. 2. Failed states—Haiti. 3. United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti. 4. United Nations— Peacekeeping forces—Haiti. 5. Peacebuilding—Haiti—International cooperation. 6. Economic assistance—Haiti. 7. Technical assistance—Haiti. I. Heine, Jorge. II. Thompson, Andrew S. (Andrew Stuart), 1975– F1928.2.F5 2011 972.9407'3—dc23 2011021069 To the memory of Gerard Le Chevallier and all those who died in Haiti on 12 January 2010 Endorsements “Library shelves sag under the weight of books on Haiti. Many are truly exceptional studies probing and dissecting the causes of Haiti’s repeated failures at sustaining development and good governance: French colonial- ism, European racism, US failures to plumb its ‘culture of poverty’, eco- logical devastation – and repeatedly and often mindlessly – the laying of historical blame on what is invariably called ‘the Haitian elite’. All this, of course, is useful preface to understanding contemporary Haiti which is presently at yet another of those terrible political impasses. The well-documented economic complexity and labyrinthine nature of the island’s politics have now been magnified by a devastating earth- quake, multiple killer hurricanes, and virtually out-of-control urbanization. The presence of the UN military peacekeeping and election monitoring contingents is struggling to keep the peace. Such conditions require fresh analysis, a multifaceted focus by an array of hands-on experts. This is pre- cisely what this book offers in a straight and unvarnished fashion. Noth- ing presently in print equals it in terms of analytical depth and breadth. Its contents will most probably leave you thinking that solutions are not yet within our reach. This is as it should be if we are to join neces- sary caution to an equally necessary hope that a better future is indeed possible.” Anthony P. Maingot, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Florida Inter- national University, and past president, Caribbean Studies Association. “This superb volume reflects the most sophisticated thinking about the challenges posed by Haiti and the international community’s response, including after the devastating earthquake. The first-rate authors have no illusions about the magnitude of the task. Their appraisal of the perform- ance of the UN and key hemispheric players in helping Haiti deal with its profound problems is refreshingly balanced and clear-headed. They chart a way forward that tries to align the capacities of international actors with realities on the ground. For policy officials and decision makers con- cerned about Haiti’s future, this is an indispensable guide.” Michael Shifter , President, Inter-American Dialogue Contents Figures and tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi Paul Collier Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xviii Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix Introduction: Haiti’s governance challenges and the international community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Jorge Heine and Andrew S. Thompson Part I: Haiti’s governance challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 1 External shocks to fragile states: Building resilience in Haiti . . 27 Amélie Gauthier and Madalena Moita 2 Haiti’s unending crisis of governance: Food, the constitution and the struggle for power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Robert Fatton Jr. 3 The legacy of the 1987 constitution: Reform or renewal? . . . . . 66 Mirlande Manigat CONTENTS ix 4 Haiti: Malversive state and teetering nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Patrick Sylvain 5 Reforming the Haitian National Police: From stabilization to consolidation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Timothy Donais Part II: The United Nations at work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 6 The “MINUSTAH experience” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Gerard Le Chevallier 7 Peace operations: On the importance of perceiving versus just seeing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Eduardo Aldunate 8 Latin American peacekeeping: A new era of regional cooperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 Johanna Mendelson Forman 9 UNPKO and the Latin American armed forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Juan Emilio Cheyre Part III: The hemispheric players . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 10 Haiti and the regional dynamics of international cooperation . 175 José Raúl Perales 11 Brazil’s mission in Haiti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Marcel Biato 12 Canada and the travail of partnership in Haiti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Stephen Baranyi 13 US policy towards Haiti under the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 Robert Maguire Conclusion: Fixing Haiti—MINUSTAH and beyond . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 Jorge Heine and Andrew S. Thompson Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258 x Figures and tables Figures 9.1 Participation of the Chilean Army in peace operations . . . . . 163 9.2 Homicide rates in the Dominican Republic, St Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago, 1999–2005 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 Tables 3.1 List of Haitian prime ministers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 8.1 Latin American troop contribution MINUSTAH, September 2008 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 8.2 Peacekeeping training centres in Latin America . . . . . . . . . . . 144 9.1 Percentage of Southern Cone’s contributions to MINUSTAH in relation to Southern Cone’s general contributions to UNPKO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 9.2 MINUSTAH troop and police contribution by region . . . . . . 160 9.3 Chile–Asia trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 9.4 Breakdown of MINUSTAH forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 9.5 Number of homicides in world regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 12.1 Canadian ODA disbursements to Haiti, April 2004 to March 2006 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 12.2 Estimated distribution of Canadian ODA disbursements to Haiti, 2004 –2006 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 12.3 Canadian international assistance to Haiti, April 2006 to March 2008 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 xi Contributors Eduardo Aldunate Brigadier General (R) Aldunate was an infantry officer in the Chilean Army. He holds master’s degrees in Military History and Military Sciences and was Professor of Military Strategy and History at the Army War College. He has written three books on leadership and civil-military relations. Between September 2005 and September 2006, he served as Deputy Commander of the UN Military Forces in Haiti, MINUSTAH. His book Backpacks Full of Hope: The UN Mission in Haiti has been published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press (2010). Stephen Baranyi is Associate Professor at the School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa, Canada. Over the past 15 years, he has worked as a human rights advocate in the European Union, a policy adviser to government agencies in Canada, a grant manager at the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada and a principal researcher at the North-South Institute, also in Ottawa. He has published widely on issues at the interface of development and security. Marcel Biato is the Ambassador of Brazil to Bolivia. From 2003 to 2010 he served in Planalto, Brazil’s presidential palace, as an assistant to President Lula’s chief foreign policy advisor. A career diplomat for thirty years, he has served as a political officer at Brazil’s Embassy in London and in the Consulate General in Berlin, as well as a legal advisor to his country’s UN mission. In Itamaraty, Brazil’s Foreign Ministry, he has covered Latin American and military issues, having been an advisor to the Brazilian principal during the Peru-Ecuador peace negotiations (1995–1998). He holds an M.A. in Political Sociology from the London School of xii CONTRIBUTORS Economics, and has published extensively on Latin American politics, Brazilian foreign policy, the International Criminal Court and global governance issues more generally. Juan Emilio Cheyre is the founding Director of the Center of International Studies at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. He is also the former Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army (2002–2006). He holds a PhD in Political Science and Sociology from Complutense University of Madrid and is a former director of the Chilean Army War College. He has published extensively on issues related to military strategy, peacekeeping and international relations more generally. Paul Collier is Professor of Economics at Oxford University and Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies, as well as Co- Director of the International Growth Centre of the London School of Economics and Oxford University. He was previously (1998–2003) Director of the Research Department at the World Bank. He has been a Visiting Professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and at the Sorbonne. His books include The Plundered Planet (with Lisa Chauvet and Anke Hoeffer) Oxford University Press and Penguin, 2010, Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places (Harper Collins/ Random House, 2009) and The Bottom Billion (Oxford University Press, 2007). He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Auvergne and the University of Sheffield. In 2008, Prospect magazine ranked him among the “World’s Top One Hundred Public Intellectuals” and Foreign Policy magazine put him among the “Top Global Thinkers of 2009”. Timothy Donais is Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada. He taught previously in the Department of Political Science at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. His primary research interests lie in the area of post-conflict peace-building. He is the author of The Political Economy of Peacebuilding in Post- Dayton Bosnia (Routledge, 2006), and more recently edited the volume Local Ownership and Security Sector Reform (Lit Verlag, 2008). Robert Fatton Jr. is the Julia A. Cooper Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville USA. His publications include: Black Consciousness in South Africa (State University of New York Press, 1986); The Making of a Liberal Democracy: Senegal’s Passive Revolution, 1975– 1985 (Lynne Rienner, 1987); Predatory Rule: State and Civil Society in Africa (Lynne Rienner, 1992); Haiti’s Predatory Republic: The Unending Transition to Democracy (Lynne Rienner, 2002); and The Roots of Haitian Despotism (Lynne Rienner, 2007). He is also co-editor with R. K. Ramazani of The Future of Liberal Democracy: Thomas Jefferson and the Contemporary World (Palgrave, 2004); and Religion, State, and CONTRIBUTORS xiii Society (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Fatton Jr. studied in the mid- 1970s in France, later earning an MA and a PhD from the University of Notre Dame. Amélie Gauthier is a former researcher for the Spanish think tank FRIDE. She holds an MA in International Cooperation and Project Management from the Ortega and Gasset Institute in Madrid. Prior to joining FRIDE, she worked as a political analyst for the Canadian Embassy in Madrid (2005–2006). She has also worked for the Hispanic-Canadian International Cooperation programme at the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (2000 –2001). Jorge Heine holds the Chair in Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, is Professor of Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University and a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in Waterloo, Ontario. From 2006 to 2009 he served as vice-president of the International Political Science Association (IPSA). He previously served as Chile’s ambassador to India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka (2003–2007) and as ambassador to South Africa (1994 –1999). He is the author, co-author or editor of 10 books, including Which Way Latin America? Hemispheric Politics Meet Globalization (United Nations University Press, 2009) and, with former Haitian president Leslie Manigat, Cross Currents and Cleavages: International Relations of the Contemporary Caribbean (Holmes & Meier, 1988) and of some 70 articles in journals and symposium volumes. His opinion pieces have been published in the New York Times , the Washington Post and the International Herald Tribune . Gerard Le Chevallier (1954 –2010) was Director of Political Affairs and Planning from October 2006 to January 2010 for the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), and before that was MINUSTAH’s Chief Electoral Officer. Before joining the United Nations in August 2004, he was a senior associate and the Regional Director for the Latin American and Caribbean region at the Washington, DC-based National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI). He also served as the NDI’s field director in Paraguay (1996 –1998), Bosnia (1996) and Haiti (1995–1996). During his political career in El Salvador (1979–1994), Le Chevallier became a national leader of the Christian Democratic Party and served as a cabinet minister and MP, and as a founding member of the Central American Parliament. He was one of the key negotiators of the Salvadorean Peace Accords. He graduated from the Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC) in France and has been awarded two honorary doctorate degrees. Robert Maguire is Associate Professor of International Affairs at Trinity University in Washington, DC. and Director of the Trinity Haiti Program. He has been involved with Haiti since the mid-1970s through affiliations with the Inter-American xiv CONTRIBUTORS Foundation, the Department of State and Johns Hopkins, Brown and Georgetown Universities. From 1994 to 2001, Maguire directed the Georgetown University Haiti Program. Since 1990, he has chaired the Haiti Advanced Area Studies at the US State Department’s Foreign Service Institute. In 2008–2009 he was a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). Currently he is Chair of the USIP Haiti Working Group. Mirlande Manigat is Vice-Rector for Research and International Affairs at the Université Quisqueya in Port- au-Prince, Haiti. Following education in Haiti, she went to Paris, France, where she earned Licence degrees in History at the Sorbonne, and in Political Science at the Institute of Political Science. She is author of nine books and over 50 articles and has held positions at the Centre d’Études des Relations Internationales in Paris, the Institute of International Relations at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and at the Universidad Simon Bolivar in Caracas, Venezuela. She is currently the Secretary-General of the Rassemblement des Démocrates Nationaux Progréssistes (RNDP), one of Haiti’s leading political parties, and has served as a senator in the Haitian Senate. Johanna Mendelson Forman is a senior associate with the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington, DC, where she works on renewable energy, the Americas, civil–military relations and post- conflict reconstruction. A former co-director of the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project (CSIS), she has written extensively on security- sector reform in conflict states. She has held senior positions at the US Agency for International Development, the Bureau for Humanitarian Response and the Office of Transition Initiatives, as well as at the World Bank’s Post- Conflict Unit. She has been a senior fellow with the Association of the United States Army, a guest scholar at the US Institute of Peace and an adviser to the UN Mission in Haiti. She holds adjunct faculty appointments at the American University and at Georgetown University, USA. Madalena Moita has been a specialist in conflict resolution and post- conflict peace-building for the past seven years. She has worked as a consultant on Haiti with institutions such as the European Commission and the International Peace Institute. A researcher with the Spanish think tank FRIDE, she holds an MA in Peace and War Studies from the Universidade Autónomo de Lisboa and is currently finishing her PhD at the Complutense University of Madrid. José Raúl Perales is a senior associate of the Latin American Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC. He is an expert on Latin American relations, with particular emphasis on trade policy, domestic and international economic institutions, especially in Southern Cone and Caribbean countries and Brazil, and in Central American political economy. He has been a trade policy adviser to the CONTRIBUTORS xv government of Puerto Rico; visiting researcher at institutions in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and France; and instructor at Michigan State University, USA. Patrick Sylvain is an academic, poet, writer, photographer and social critic. He teaches at Brown University’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. He has been published in numerous anthologies and journals, including: African American Review, Agni, American Poetry Anthology, American Poetry Review, The Best of Beacon 1999, The Butterfly’s Way, Human Architecture, the Journal of Sociology of Self-Knowledge, Massachusetts Review, The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse and Ploughshares. Sylvain’s work was recently featured on a PBS NewsHour broadcast as well as on National Public Radio’s Here and Now ; and in the collection Poets for Haiti (Yileen Press, 2010). He is a contributor to CNN.com and to the Boston Haitian Reporter . Andrew S. Thompson is an adjunct assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo, Canada, and the Programme Officer for the Global Governance programmes at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Waterloo. He is a specialist in the fields of international human rights, civil society movements and fragile states. He has written and co-edited four books, as well as a number of journal articles and book chapters. He has also appeared as an expert witness before the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, and the Canadian Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights. From 2006 to 2009 he was a fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Canada. Prior to pursuing his doctoral studies, he worked for Amnesty International’s Canadian Section in Ottawa, and in 2004 he represented the organization as a member of a human rights lobbying and fact-finding mission to Haiti. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Waterloo. xvi Foreword Paul Collier Haiti has suffered a series of recent misfortunes: hurricanes, an earth- quake, cholera and a discredited election. Unsurprisingly, people tend to lose sight of more hopeful developments. Yet, on the day I write this Foreword (11 January 2011), The Wall Street Journal is running a story on how Haiti has attracted a major investment from Korea: the world’s lead- ing garment firm will establish a factory that will directly employ 20,000 people. By far the most difficult investment to attract is the first: firms reduce their costs by clustering together. Now that one garment firm has invested, others will face lower costs and so are likely to follow. Hence, the initial 20,000 jobs are likely to be multiplied. Further, each job in the garment industry will create indirect employment as workers spend their income locally. And each job can support a family. This is the sort of suc- cess that Haiti needs to transform its society from poverty and despair: waged jobs provide dignity, structure and income for ordinary families. The Korean decision to invest was not a stroke of luck: it was the end result of a coordinated effort by government and international actors. The necessary foundation for such investment is security; this is what MI- NUSTAH has provided. Investment also requires a market opportunity for its output; this was created by the US Congress, which, following the catastrophe of the earthquake, was persuaded to improve market access for Haitian-produced garments. A priority for the Haitian government post-earthquake has been to relocate the population from Port-au-Prince to places less liable to shocks. The new jobs will be located on a new site in the north-east of the country, but for this to be viable required the FOREWORD xvii provision of a range of infrastructure that is complementary to the pri- vate investment. For example, the European Union is financing the nec- essary new roads. Manufacturing requires electricity, which in turn has required finance from the Inter-American Development Bank and au- thorizations from the government. These, and similar support from the United States Agency for International Development and the Inter- national Finance Corporation, are a model for of the sort of policy co - ordination that will be needed to transform Haiti from poverty to prosperity. Obviously, jobs are not enough: Haiti needs radical improvements in basic social services, and a massive programme to rehouse the popula- tion. But, as with the story of the clothing factory, international public action can be effective as long as it is smart, coordinated and supported by timely action by the Haitian authorities. As the essays in this volume indicate, these conditions are far from easy. During my work for the secretary-general and the government of Haiti, I was impressed by the dedication of the United Nations’ team that was valiantly trying to achieve them. Many members of this team were killed in the earthquake: their fine work deserves to be remembered. Oxford, January 2011 xviii Acknowledgements This book would not have been possible without the help, guidance and support of a number of organizations and people. We would like to thank the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and the Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies for their financial support. We would also like to extend our gratitude to the many colleagues at CIGI, the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier Uni- versity, and the Balsillie School of International Affairs who assisted us with the workshop that launched this project, and the book itself. Special thanks go to Yasmine Shamsie for all of her help with the conceptualiza- tion of the initial workshop in 2008; Briton Dowhaniuk and the events team at CIGI for their invaluable assistance with the organization and logistics of the conference; Max Brem and his publications team for their wisdom and guidance during the final stages of the production process; and last but not least to Joe Turcotte, an outstanding doctoral student, who has done a masterful job with the formatting and copy-editing of the manuscript. We are indebted to all of our contributors – some of the world’s leading voices on Haiti – for their ongoing dedication to this project, which took on a whole new complexity and saliency following the earthquake of 12 January 2010. We would like to thank the United Nations University Press in Tokyo for all of its superb work in producing the book in such a timely manner. Finally, we would like to thank the two anonymous peer reviewers whose collective criticisms have had such a positive influence on the final product. xix Abbreviations ABC Argentina, Brazil, and Chile ADIH Association des Industries d’Haïti ALCOPAZ Latin American Association of Peacekeeping Operations Training Centers AOR Area of Operation CAECOPAZ Argentine Joint Peacekeeping Training Centre CARICOM Caribbean Community CASECs Administrative Council of the Rural Sections CBC Congressional Black Caucus CCC Civilian Conservation Corps CECI Centre for International Studies and Cooperation CECOPAC Chilean Joint Peacekeeping Operations Centre CEP Permanent Electoral Council CHAN Canada–Haitian Action Network CIDA Canadian International Development Agency CIRH Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti CIVPOL Civilian Policing Division of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations CNDDR National Commission for Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration CNSA National Council for Food Security CPA Canadian Police Arrangement CPI Consumer Price Index CPP Concertation des Parlementaires Progressistes CSOs Civil Society Organizations CSS South American Defense Council xx A BBREVIATIONS DDR Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Programme DEA Drug Enforcement Administration DPKO Department of Peacekeeping Operations DSNCRP National Strategy Document for Growth and Poverty Reduction; Document de Stratégie Nationale pour la Croissance et la Réduc- tion de la Pauvreté EOPE Army Peacekeeping Operations School (Uruguay) FAD’H Haitian Armed Forces FDI Foreign Direct Investment FRAPH Front pour l’Avancement et le Progrès d’Haïti GDP Gross Domestic Product GOH Government of Haiti HELP Act Haiti Economic Lift Program Act HIPC Heavily Indebted Poor Countries HNP Haitian National Police HOPE Act Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encour- agement Act ICF Interim Cooperation Framework IDB Inter-American Development Bank IFIs International Financial Institutions IHRC Interim Haiti Recovery Commission IICA Inter-American Institute for Agriculture IMF International Monetary Fund I-PRSP Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper IRI International Republican Institute for International Affairs JMAC Joint Mission Analysis Centre LACs Latin American Countries MCFDF Ministry for the Rights of Women MFO Multinational Force and Observers MICAH International Civilian Support Mission MICIVIH United Nations/Organization of American States Civilian Mission to Haiti MIF/MIFH Multinational Interim Force in Haiti MINUSAL United Nations Mission in El Salvador MINUSTAH United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti MIPONUH United Nations Civilian Police Mission in Haiti MP Military personnel MSF Médecins sans Frontières MSPP Haitian Ministry of Health NGOs Non-governmental Organizations NSI North-South Institute OAS Organization of American States ODA Official Development Assistance OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD DAC Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Eco- nomic Co-operation and Development A BBREVIATIONS xxi ONUCA United Nations Observer Group in Central America ONUSAL United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador PAHO Pan-American Health Organization PD Paris Declaration PKOs Peacekeeping Operations PRSP Poverty Reduction and Strategy Paper RCMP Royal Canadian Mounted Police RDNP Rassemblement Des Démocrates Nationaux Progréssistes; Rally of the National and Progressive Democrats ROE Rules of Engagement SIDS Small-island developing states SRSG Special Representative of the Secretary-General SSR Security Sector Reform START Stabilization and Reconstruction Taskforce TPS Temporary Protected Status UNASUR Union of South American Nations UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNMIH United Nations Mission in Haiti UNMOGIP United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan UNOC United Nations Operation in the Congo UNPOL United Nations Police UNSC United Nations Security Council UNSMIH United Nations Support Mission in Haiti UNTMIH United Nations Transition Mission in Haiti UNTSO United Nations Truce Supervision Organization WB World Bank WFP United Nations World Food Programme 1 Fixing Haiti: MINUSTAH and beyond, Heine and Thompson (eds), United Nations University Press, 2011, ISBN 978-92-808-1197-1 Introduction: Haiti’s governance challenges and the international community Jorge Heine and Andrew S. Thompson Haiti clearly is unable to sort itself out, and the effect of leaving it alone would be continued or worsening chaos. Our globalized world cannot afford such a pol- itical vacuum, whether in the mountains of Afghanistan or on the very doorstep of the sole remaining superpower. Kofi Annan, 2004 Haiti may well be the only country in the Americas with a last name. References to the land of the “black Jacobins” are almost always fol- lowed by “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere”. 1 To that dubious distinction, on 12 January 2010 the world’s first black republic added another, when it was hit by the most devastating natural disaster to occur in the Americas, a 7.0 Richter-scale earthquake. The latter, whose epicenter was in the Caribbean Sea just outside Port-au-Prince – in a shallow area, which made its surface tremors stronger – ripped with deadly force through the Haitian capital and its adjoining areas, reaching as far as the southern city of Jacmel. Some 230,000 people lost their lives, 300,000 were injured, 1.5 million displaced and 2 million left in need of food assistance. The total value of the damage inflicted that day is estimated at US$11 billion. Some 285,000 homes were destroyed, as were the buildings of the Presidency, the Par- liament and the Supreme Court and 15 of the 17 ministries. 2 The grandi- ose, domed, white stucco presidential palace – long a symbol of the “Big Man”, cut-throat, predatory politics that has dominated Haiti from the days of Dessalines and Toussaint L’Ouverture to the more recent ones of the Duvaliers and Jean-Bertrand Aristide – fell on itself, as if in a 2 H EINE AND T HOMPSON poignant reminder that an era had come to an end. A vibrant Caribbean capital with a rich history was transformed into a tent city, where, in im- provised field hospitals, doctors and other medical personnel from all over the world did their best to save the lives and limbs of those who managed to get out from under the rubble. 3 The reasons for such devastation are not difficult to fathom. As far as earthquakes go, 7.0 is way below many others that have hit in the Amer - icas and the rest of the world and caused less mayhem. In the case of Haiti, the lack of proper building codes in an area that had not been hit by a quake of that magnitude in two centuries; the lax enforcement of whatever codes existed in a country where government oversight of rules and regulations is virtually non-existent; and the fact that many bidon- villes are built on the barren, vegetation-denuded hills that surround the Haitian capital, all add up to a recipe for disaster once any natural disas- ter strikes – be they hurricanes, tropical storms or earthquakes. As if to underscore that nature in its fury spares no one, the 12 January Haiti earthquake also caused the largest one-day tragedy in UN history. A total of 102 UN employees from 30 different countries lost their lives that day, the majority of them at the MINUSTAH headquarters in the former Hotel Christopher in Port-au-Prince (MacFarquhar, 2010). Hédi Annabi, the mission head and Special Representative of the Secretary- General, (who was meeting a Chinese delegation in his office at the time of the quake); his deputy, Luiz Carlos da Costa and seven of the mission’s political officers were among the casualties. The latter included Gerard Le Chevallier, an elections expert who played a key role in setting up the 2006 presidential elections and one of the contributors to this book. Over the past two decades, the United Nations has taken a special in- terest in Haiti, often hand in hand with the Organization of American States (OAS). The United Nations first became involved in Haiti in 1990, when it helped organize the 16 December 1990 presidential elections won by Jean-Bertrand Aristide at the helm of the Lavalas Party (Fatton Jr., 2002). After the latter’s ouster in a military coup (one of the 34 coups Haiti has undergone in its independent history) in September 1991, the United Nations returned to Haiti in 1993 in a civilian mission – Mission Civile Internationale en Haïti (MICIVIH). The expulsion of this mission by the military regime was followed by a 1994 UN Security Council- authorized peacekeeping operation designed to restore democracy and bring President Aristide back to power. After withdrawing its unified ci- vilian and military mission (MICAH) in 2000, the United Nations re- turned to Haiti in March 2004 for a mopping-up operation designed to restore law and order. Previously, on 29 February of that year, President Aristide had been forced to flee the country in the face of the threat of a rebel militia descending on the capital from the northern city of Gona- I NTRODUCTION : H AITI ’ S GOVERNANCE CHALLENGES 3 ives (Dupuy, 2005). In June 2004, MINUSTAH (The United Nations Sta- bilization Mission in Haiti) was established by the UN Security Council, and finds itself in Haiti to this day, with some 7,000 soldiers and 2,000 policemen, in addition to civilian personnel (Henry L. Stimson Center, 2007). This is the first UN peacekeeping mission to have a majority of Latin American troops; Brazil, with the largest contingent, has taken the lead, also providing the military commander of the peacekeeping forces (see Biato, Chapter 11, this volume). This long-term, sustained UN commitment to Haiti reflects the concern of the international community in helping Haiti lift itself by its boot- straps. World reaction to the Haitian quake was swift and generous. The United States, Canada and France were among those at the forefront, as were Brazil and Cuba. Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy (in the very first visit to Haiti by a French president), Michelle Bachelet of Chile and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil visited Haiti, as did Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, US First Lady Michelle Obama, former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. At a time when “donor fatigue” is the byword at many international meetings held to raise funds for post-disaster relief, the 31 March 2010 conference held at UN headquarters in New York was a remarkable suc- cess. Although Haitian President René Préval had requested US$4 billion in cooperation for a three-year period (of which 1.3 billion would be used for humanitarian aid in 2010 –2011), the total pledged was more than double that amount, at US$10 billion, with the United States (with US$1.15 billion) and the European Union (with US$1.6 billion) leading the way. Even if there is some slippage, as there tends to be, between pledged funds and those actually disbursed and transferred to the recipi- ent country, this would still constitute a significant sum from which to provide a new impetus to Haitian development – not just for the recon- struction of the old Haiti but for the launch of a new one. As former US president Bill Clinton put it at the New York conference, “Haiti could become the first completely wireless country in the Caribbean. Haiti could become the first completely self-sufficient country in energy.” Are such proposals at all feasible, or even realistic? Haiti as a fragile state This is, after all, a country with a per capita income of US$1,180 dollars, one in which 72 per cent of the population lives on US$2 a day, where the adult illiteracy rate is 55 per cent, where life expectancy for women is 58 years and for men 55, and where the AIDS incidence is 6 per cent. 4 H EINE AND T HOMPSON Haiti is a country where even before the 12 January earthquake, power supply was intermittent at best and the infrastructure in utter disrepair, making transport of goods and people both time-consuming and expen- sive; it is a country where unemployment is estimated to reach 60 per cent, yet where the port of Port-au-Prince has the highest charges in the Caribbean. Does it make sense to talk about a “wireless Haiti” when a regular electricity supply is a scarce commodity? Until recently, Haiti was largely studied and analysed as a unique so- cial formation – its special history as the first black republic; the first in- dependent nation in Latin America and the Caribbean; the land where the first successful slave rebellion in the Americas took place; and as a French- and Creole-speaking nation surrounded by Spanish- and English- speaking ones (Danner, 2009). These factors have given rise to an exten- sive and stimulating social science and historical literature, and to some fine scholarship, much of it emphasizing Haiti’s rich cultural heritage, its religion, its painters and its music (Heinl and Heinl, 1978; James, 1963). In the first decade of the twenty-first century, however, and especially after 9/11, the emergence of the concepts of “fragile” and “failed” states, something that has taken place largely within the field of political science (Rotberg, 2003, 2004), has meant that Haiti suddenly became an alto- gether different unit for analysis. From being studied by a highly special- ized category of Caribbeanists, often anthropologists and historians (see Leyburn, 1966 and Métraux, 1972), who feel more comfortable discussing the distant Haitian past than its conflicted present (as the saying goes, “the owl of Minerva flows at dusk”), it has now become a subject for pol- itical scientists and economists. In the wake of 9/11 (an undertaking masterminded in Central Asia, funded from West Asia and with trial runs in East Africa), the notion that in the post-Cold War era the main threat to Western powers no longer came from a defunct Soviet Union or from a fast-growing China but rather from “ungoverned spaces” across the former Third World gained traction. Somalia, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yemen, and yes, Haiti, were identified, variously, as “failed”, “failing” or “fragile” states, from where all sorts of threats could and did emerge. According to one definition, fragile states are those “where the state power is unable and/or unwilling to deliver core functions to the majority of its people: security, protection of property, basic public services and es- sential infrastructure” (Cammack and Macleod, 2006). Under different circumstances, such conditions (taking place, as Joseph Chamberlain said of Czechoslovakia in the thirties, “in a faraway country of which we know nothing”) might have been of little concern to the Big Powers. During the Cold War, such ostensibly “empty spaces” were quickly occupied by proxies enlisted by either of the two superpowers of the extant bipolar I NTRODUCTION : H AITI ’ S GOVERNANCE CHALLENGES 5 system. Yet, in the age of globalization, the latter’s “dark side” can quickly raise its ugly head. The territory of fragile states can thus become a base for activities such as international terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and the illegal arms trade (Heine and Thakur, 2010). To identify, classify and rank fragile states thus became one of the fastest-growing areas in comparative and international politics. The de- velopment of a wide panoply of indicators to measure degrees and di- mensions of fragility, an important prerequisite for “fixing” fragile states – that is, providing them with the proper “good governance” institutions – was an important part of this exercise (Carment, 2003). Whereas international interventions in Haiti in the 1990s were largely intended to help the country’s transition to democracy and to protect human rights, they later evolved into something much more ambitious. Matters such as the building of the Haitian National Police (HNP), the strengthening of the judiciary and of the penitentiary system, among other tasks since 2004 in which the international community through MI- NUSTAH and other players has been involved, entail a much broader agenda, although progress in these areas has been slow (Mendelson- Forman, 2008). The relationship between the elected government in such fragile states and the international military and civilian missions ostensibly there to fix them is an uneasy one. The public differences that emerged between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Obama administration in April 2010 are an example of these tensions, as were earlier ones between Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Bush administration in 2008. The Préval administration Despite minor questions of emphasis, no such differences have become public in Haiti between the democratically elected government of Presi- dent René Préval and MINUSTAH and Haiti’s leading international partners. The very name of the UN mission indicates that its main objec- tive is the stabilization of Haiti, after 20 rocky years of the region’s most difficult transition to democracy (Fatton Jr., 2002; Heine, 1988). This has also been very much the goal of Préval – a low-key leader and agrono- mist by profession, from the small town of Marmelade, who likes quiet deal-making behind closed doors than being out in front haranguing the crowds, as so many other Haitian party leaders prefer to do (Williams, 2007). By refusing to raise expectations and by lowering the political temperature, Préval is the Haitian head of state who has been longest in office since the end of Duvalierism in 1986. In a country where rule has 6 H EINE AND T HOMPSON alternated between bloodthirsty dictators in office for decades and weak presidents who last a few months, this in itself is an achievement. After the interim government of Prime Minister Gérard Latortue (2004 –2006), with all the limitations of an unelected government and an ex officio prime minister, from 2006 to 2010 the Préval administration made considerable progress. The security situation improved, with a drop in the number of kidnappings; economic activity picked up – in 2007 eco- nomic growth reached 3.8 per cent; and in 2009, with 2.4 per cent growth, Haiti was one of two countries in all the Americas to experience eco- nomic growth. In a country famous for its corruption, Préval’s personal integrity (no one has ever accused him of anything untoward) has pro- vided the role model Haitians have longed for in their president but sel- dom got. This does not mean that Préval, known for his sangfroid when dealing with the daily challenges thrown up by a dysfunctional political system, has not faced difficulties. In February 2008, international food price spikes led to steep increases in local prices (Haiti, as a result of lowering its tariffs in the 1990s, under pressure from the international financial in- stitutions, now imports most of the rice it consumes instead of producing it in the plains of Artibonite, as it did in the past). The ensuing riots led to the fall of the government of Prime Minister Jacques-Édouard Alexis. Later that year, two hurricanes and two tropical storms caused some 800 deaths and over one billion dollars in damages. Given the emergency situation, Parliament, which had been dithering on the confirmation of a new prime minister, approved the appointment to that position of Michèle Pierre Louis, a confidante of President Préval, who had been the long-time head of FOKAL (La Fondation Connaissance et Liberté), a local NGO. It is a measure of how inured the international donor community had become to Haiti’s difficulties that the donor appeal for post-hurricane re- lief on that occasion found few takers. Yet, Préval’s steady hand, which provided continuity and predictability, was starting to pay off. Inter- national investors, lured by former US president Bill Clinton, appointed by the United Nations as a special envoy to Haiti, started to look at busi- ness opportunities there. By 2009, international chains like Best Western were starting to build hotels in Port-au-Prince. It was precisely at that point that the next earthquake struck. A Marshall Plan for Haiti? Much as nature seemed determined to inflict one setback after another on Haiti – we find it difficult to believe that such different natural disas- I NTRODUCTION : H AITI ’ S GOVERNANCE CHALLENGES 7 ters as hurricanes, tropical storms and earthquakes would hit a single country, some of them repeatedly, in the short span of 16 months – in early 2010 the international political stars seemed to be aligning with Haiti, rather than against it. In the United States, by far the biggest and most significant player in Haiti, a sympathetic Obama administration re- sponded, indicating its unwavering commitment to the post-quake Hai- tian relief and reconstruction effort. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has had a long-standing personal interest in Haiti, was equally re- sponsive, and, as mentioned above, many international leaders visited Haiti in the weeks following 12 January. In contrast to the tepid response to the international hurricane relief fund for Haiti set up in 2008, this time the reaction of the international community was enthusiastic and open-ended. The enormity of the death toll and the damage caused by the earthquake jolted many governments, IOs and NGOs into action. It helped that, for the first time in many de - cades, there existed in Haiti a democratically elec