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Jacqui Labrom

A few notes on the dismissal of Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis

By Michael Deibert

http://www.alterpresse.org/spip.php?article8949

It was said that during the reign of Jean-Jacques Dessalines -
liberation icon, military dictator and “emperor” who ruled Haiti from1804 until 1806 - a certain level of corruption was tolerated anddismissed with the phase plumez la poule, mais ne la faites pas crier.Pluck the chicken, but make sure it doesn’t squawk. That tradition ofcorruption has been a woeful constant in Haiti’s political life sinceDessalines was assassinated over 200 years ago.

Another chapter in the disregard for honesty and transparency that
infuses the marrow of Haiti’s political class was written last week
with the ouster of Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis by aparliament dominated by the allies of Haitian President René Préval,
who appointed Pierre-Louis to the position a little over one year ago.

Since she assumed office in September 2008, Pierre-Louis was probably
more responsible than any other single individual in beginning to
restore some level of confidence in Haiti’s government and inencouraging the stirrings of international investment in a nation ofindustrious but desperately poor people all-too-often written off as
an economic basket case. During her tenure, the World Bank, theInternational Monetary Fund and the the Inter-American Development
Bank collectively canceled $1.2 billion of Haiti’s debt, while thelatter institution approved an additional $120 million in grants to
aid Haiti to improve such sectors as infrastructure, basic services
and disaster prevention.

Having previously led FOKAL, a civil society group supported bybusinessman and philanthropist George Soros’ Open Society Institute,Pierre-Louis was well-regarded both at home and abroad for her
personal incorruptibility, and displayed a surprisingly adroit
political touch on the international diplomatic stage.

That being the case, one might then ask why Haiti's senate, dominated
by partisans of Préval’s LESPWA political current, chose this moment
to oust Pierre-Louis under the almost-laughable rationale that, in heryear in office, she had not solved the problems caused by two
centuries of what Haitian writer Frédéric Marcelin in 1904 called“civil strife, fratricidal slaughters, social miseries, economicignorance and idolatrous militarism.”

With the ouster of Pierre-Louis spearheaded by such LESPWA stalwarts
as Senators Joseph Lambert and Jean Hector Anacasis, and with RenéPréval himself remaining publicly silent as the plot to remove his
Prime Minister came to its inevitable and absurd conclusion, there
appears to be an explanation as simple as it is depressing for
removing Pierre-Louis at a moment when Haiti finally appeared to begaining some international credibility: The Prime Minister was
standing in the way of some powerful people making quite a lot of
money.

Government insiders speak darkly about millions of dollars in aid
money being siphoned off via the Centre National des Equipements, a
body established by the Préval government to aid in Haiti’s efforts atreconstruction after a trio of hurricanes killed at least 600 people
last year and further devastated the country's already fragileinfrastructure. The machinations of the Groupe de Bourdon, a cabal ofallegedly corrupt businessmen with firm roots in Haiti’s elite who
have the president’s ear, are also mentioned as culprits. Many of theleaders of the drive to oust Pierre-Louis in Haiti’s senate are alsoindividuals around whom allegations of corruption - and worse - haveswirled for many years.

Pierre-Louis’ assertion to me when I interviewed her in Haiti this
past summer that “chaos is good for a few sectors” and that Haiti'spolitical system would reject anyone who would not allow themselves to
be corrupted now appears to have been prophetic [1].

After his return to office in 2006, René Préval succeeded, against allthe odds, in bringing relative peace to Haiti after years of
bloodshed, something for which he should be lauded in no uncertain
terms. However, the weight of corruption, along with a tradition ofimpunity, is continuing to strangle Haiti under his watch, and the
ouster of Michèle Pierre-Louis is a worrying sign for Haitians who
have long sought in vain for decent leaders who would build a
government responsive to the nation’s poor majority.

The fact that Pierre-Louis’ replacement, Jean Max Bellerive, served inthe personal cabinets of both Jean-Marie Chérestal and Yvon Neptune,Prime Ministers during the 2001-2004 tenure of Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
an era that was marked by both widespread corruption and politicalviolence, is cause for further concern. Bellerive has more than once
been described to me with the rather nasty Kreyol phrase se yon ti
poul ki mare nan pye tab yo, an allusion to someone who essentially
does whatever they are told.

So the forces of disorder have won this latest round in Haiti. No
doubt Haiti’s parliamentarians and perhaps even Préval himself arecongratulating themselves at their cleverness, with the country’scorrupt bourgeois no doubt equally thrilled to now have a government
with a popular base that will more or less allow them to continueunmolested with their nefarious activities.

But, as Haiti’s politicians strut around in expensive suits and travelover decaying roads in SUVs with impressive armed escorts, they seem
not to realize that they should take no pride to occupy the position
that they occupy with their country in such a state, a fact that
remains equally true for many of Haiti’s economic elites.

Since the deployment of an international peacekeeping mission in Haiti
in February 2004, almost 50 members of the United Nations mission in
the country and thousands of Haitian civilians have lost their lives
to political violence, criminal banditry and environmental
catastrophes whose severity is directly linked to the inability of thecountry’s political class to create some semblance of a state to serveits people. This despite the presence of 7 UN missions to Haiti over
the last two decades. Haiti’s long-suffering people deserve better
than the country successive generations of leaders have bequeathed tothem.

In his finest novel, 1955’s Compere General Soleil, Haiti greatestnovelist, Jacques Stephen Alexis (who would be slain by agents of
dictator François Duvalier in 1961), wrote of the journey of a pair ofHaitians home from near-slavery in the neighboring Dominican Republic
that “the closer they came to the promised land, the more they felt
the net tightening around them.”

The net of corruption has been tightening around Haiti for far too
long, and one hopes that those remaining honest people in Haiti’spolitical and business sectors, and Haiti’s genuine friends abroad,
may find the tools to cut free that confining web that has succeeded
in almost choking the life of the country that once taught the world
so much about freedom.


Michael Deibert is the author of Notes from the Last Testament: TheStruggle for Haiti. His blog can be read atwww.michaeldeibert.blogspot.com


[1] "The Elites Are Like a Huge Elephant Sitting on Haiti," MichaelDeibert interviews Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis, 3 July2009, Inter Press Service
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47515



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