Dear compatriots,

1. Stakes of the mobilization about Haiti

1.1 An all-out diplomacy

The current mobilization of the International Community (IC) about Haiti concerns all of us. It must not in any way leave us unmoved. Its bilateral and multilateral diplomacy on the issue has been unfolding at top level; it turns out to be intense, massive and rapid. Let us remind some of its high moments: meeting of president René Préval in Washington with State Secretary Hillary Clinton, congressmen, World Bank and IMF’s officials (February 2-6), discussions between president Barack Obama in Canada with the Canadian Governor and the Prime Minister, Michaelle Jean and Stephen Harper (February 19), Harper’s visit to New York to the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon (February 23), visit to Washington of Canada Foreign Affairs minister, Lawrence Cannon, to the State Secretary, Madam Hillary Clinton (February 24), meeting of former president Bill Clinton and UN General-Secretary Ban Ki-Moon in Port-au-Prince with Haitian authorities (Mars 9), visit of a UN Security Council shift delegation to Haiti the same day as Clinton and Ki-Moon departure (March10) and including, among others, the US ambassador to UN, Madam Susan Rice, meeting between secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon and president Obama at the White House this very March 10), presentation by Paul Collier of his report to the Haitian government and some other important of the Class (March 12), visit to Haitian officials and entrepreneurs of a Commonwealth of Massachusetts’s delegation of scholars and businessmen headed by madam Marie St-Fleur, representative of this state representative Marie St-Fleur (March18). On top of that there are probably numerous underground or less visible moves of experts, technicians, businessmen, politicians working relentlessly on our fate and producing decisive documents like this report prepared by the economist Paul Collier on behalf of Ban Ki-Moon. Quite obviously, our Haiti is, for better or for worse, a central stake, and something very important is about to be decided for us. Should we once again let history be written for us without taking the commitment to undertake action, and without actually getting involved in a patriotic and constructive action in order to write it also by ourselves?
 
Anyway, our future and the future of the next generations of Haitians will greatly depend on the current maneuvers, decisions and actions of the IC relating to our country. To tell the truth, to let the events unfold without us, it is clearly to make ourselves responsible for our tomorrow woes. For the same reason, we will be guilty in the eyes of our children and grand-children. For, with or without us, some plan will be implemented; some new orientation will be given to our life and country.

Of course, it is commonplace in Haiti and in our brain to blame the international (especially the white) for our woes; it is a classic reflex in us to accuse it of permanent conspiracy against Haiti. Meanwhile, in reality, and in shameful contrast, we abandon ourselves, deliberately, feet, hands and spirit enslaved, to its goodwill and generosity, expecting, blindly and insatiably, to benefit from some political and economic miracle of its own in order to achieve our development.
Faced with the series of harmful mistakes of our elders and of our own in our recent international exchanges, we are today under the obligation to carry out a Pacific Revolution in ourselves in order to reject this central, but erroneous and unproductive paradigm of absolute responsibility of the international. It is up to us to rise up to the rules of the game of the bilateral and multilateral International Relations (IR); in short, we have to put into practice International Policy (IP) to introduce in Haiti socioeconomic life the central missing link. This link is made up of two distinct segments solidly united; one is the obligation for the players to regularly explain themselves to the Nation to be held accountable, and the other is the obligation to introduce and give due weight to the national contribution in any issue regarding our country.

Luc Rémy
luckyten1017@yahoo.com
March 29, 2009
United States of America

   

Dear compatriots,

1.2. To Explain oneself to be held accountable and national contribution: two central pillars

To explain oneself to be held accountable is to use public or private national funds, and funds allocated by the IC to actually create wealth, jobs and provide adequate and quality service to everybody, without any consideration of color, religion, sex, residence, wealth, education, etc. It is to avoid doing almost exclusively extravert or abroad-oriented business in a mercantile spirit flouting the country deep poverty and the Nation reiterated calls for service. In this sense, to explain themselves to be accountable is, for services providers, to give to taxpayers, customers and service seekers total, evident or tangible satisfaction, and, subsequently, concerns both the government and the private sector. In terms of public administration, to explain oneself to be accountable is to provide, concerning the use of public funds, written justifications easily verifiable by qualified and authorized auditors. In any way, to make oneself accountable is to show transparency, a high sense of public service and responsibility toward the Haitian governed and customers in order to build up Haiti on peace, aesthetics, greatness, solidity and durability.

To introduce the national contribution is to assert oneself, to express oneself in full clarity and without “marronage” (disguise), in order to defend our values, admit our weaknesses, make known our real needs, claims, main options, capacities, contribution, commitment, firm will to participate and take responsibility for ourselves. To state the national contribution is to claim and take, for the national public and private sector, an always more active and larger share in the decision-making and the carrying out of the tasks. To provide with national contribution is, in fact, to affirm the public and private national leadership, individual or collective, by managing, analyzing, controlling, assessing, correcting, cutting off, adding, coordinating, by shifting if needed, by carrying out and having carried out any plan elaborated for Haiti. Our constructive action, from start to finish, will have an influence upon the IC; it will make it change its traditional perception about us; it will finally lead it to take us seriously, and very seriously. All this will increase our leverage and contribute to change for the best the traditional rules of game of exclusion or non active participation of the national forces. We will thus strengthen the Haitian diplomacy and foreign relations, with more and more growing and important gains for the Haitian State, private and public enterprises, organized groups and citizens. The emerging of a Haiti of progress, peace, social balance and carrying real weight in the IR goes through there.
 
In the absence of this link called accountability toward the Nation and real national contribution, any effort of the IC in Haiti will very probably be similar to a fools’ game, always on behalf of the Haitian people, but always without any substantial and durable benefit for this people. In this framework, a fraction of the government team, NGOs, powerful individuals and private small groups will always get for themselves the meanest portion of such or such project elaborated for Haiti; but the lion’s share will always stay or return abroad. Some names will probably be added, maybe secretly, to the list of Haitian and foreigners involved in such or such project for Haiti, but the country will not be better. Collective woes (natural catastrophes or catastrophes provoked by our collective abdication) will worsen or tragically strike the entire Haitian community, the weak and the powerful, the poor and the wealthy.
 

1.3 Reminder of the importance of the diplomatic action and International politics diplomatic

Subsequently, let us take care not to trivialize the diplomatic waltz around Haiti. In international policy, as well as by the way in domestic policy, everything is meaningful: the deeds, what is said and what is left unsaid, the gestures, the symbols…Let us constantly recall the fundamentals and goals of the IP: the pursuit and defense of State, organizations, private groups, enterprises’ interests, etc. These interests are of all kind, material, non material, cultural, moral, affective, religious, political, military, geographical, economic, racial, linguistic, etc.  Let us not forget the methods and means of the IP: charm or seduction, persuasion, deception, lie, propaganda, denunciation, publishing of embarrassing or compromising news or notes, illusory or real offers of diverse advantages, suspension of aid or services, breach of contracts, corrupting of negotiators and/or leaders, dividing of the opposing camp, threat of diverse sanctions, show of force, embargo, blockade, use of military force, etc. In this game of influence and sweet or violent pressures, gains depend almost exclusively on:

a) our capacity to identify our superior interests
b) our capacity and will to defend them
c) abilities and means invested to defend such interests
d) the environment of the negotiation process
e) the capacity of the actors to put pressure on the adversary or to resist its own
f) the media role
g) the action of citizens, organized groups and civil society
h) the players’ ability to make felt, sometimes, on the “negotiation table”, the weight or involvement of external support or pressure forces. These forces may be professional pressure groups, enterprises, the military, States, allies, an entire nation, etc.

   

2. Current paradigm of Haiti International Relations (IR): an accumulation of tragic efforts and failures

2.1 The Class’s compromised work

To abridge, let us call The Class the group of powerful Haitians and foreigners, international organizations and countries making constantly decisions for Haiti. Class stands for State Traditional Class of National and Foreign Decision-makers on behalf of Haiti and the Haitian Nation. Above the Haitian constitution and laws, the Class has not usually been bound by any accountability principles and as a matter of fact has never been held accountable to the Nation.

For these some last 20 years, the Class has enormously invested in Haiti in diverse resources and goodwill: aid, “donations”, technical assistance, elections observation missions, endless diplomatic waltzes, military interventions, United Nations and/or OAS’s special missions, etc. Between 1993 and 2009, the IC has sent to Haiti, among others, (9) nine imposing civil missions or special armed forces: MICIVIH (1993-1995), UNMIH (September 1993-June 1996) the Multinational Force (September 1994-March 1995), la  UNSMIH  (June 1996-July 1997), UNTMIH (August-November 1997), MIPONUH (December 1997- March 2000), MICAH (March 2000-February 2001), the Multinational Interim Force (February-June 2004), MINUSTAH (June 2004 to now). Within less than 10 years, between October 1994 and February 2004, the IC has offered to Haiti two interventions of the world most powerful army, the USA’s one, and one of the French army.

The Class’s local wing has not been either inactive: it has taken on high responsibilities in the Government and has fully cooperated with its foreign counterpart. Within only 23 years, more than 20 heads of State (30 or so by counting separately the different members of CNG I (National Council of Government), CNG II and CNG III) have occupied the supreme power. For the same period, more than 15 Prime Ministers Ministers have been at the bedside of the Sick.

All kind of formulas has been tested: exclusively male presidential College (National Council of Government, initially of 6 members), presidency of a woman (Ertha P. Trouillot) flanked by a “State Council” in addition to her cabinet, exclusively military male presidency (Namphy, Avril), or exclusively civil (Manigat, Aristide, Nérette, Jonassaint, Préval, Boniface), or both civil and military (Henry Namphy, William Régala, Prosper Avril, Max Valès, Alix Cinéas, Gérard Gourgue). The Class has tried out the monocephalic Executive, the bi-cephalous one and even the multi-cephalous one. Within less than 4 years, between November 1987 and September 1991, it has held three presidential elections and has also carried three coups against them, one in the very polling stations (1987) and the two other against the presidents in power (June 1988 and September 1991). The Class has recycled some of the State highest ranking leaders (Namphy I and II, Avril I and II, Préval I, II and III, Aristide I, II and III, Alexis I, II and III). It has even managed the tour de force to simultaneously put in power two presidents, one in Haiti, the other in exile (Aristide vs Nérette, then Bazin and finally Jonassaint). It has produced a Prime Minister-President (Bazin) and two Presidents-Prime Ministers (Emile Jonassaint, and René Préval from the departure PM Rosny Smarth in 1997 to the takeover by PM Alexis in 1999).

The Class has found the national army very high-spending and responsible for all the country’s woes and has destroyed it; it has decided the modernization of the Haitian National Police in order to make it quite different from the former Haitian Police and from the destroyed Army, and in order to ensure both the security and defense of the Nation. And to attempt to permanently break with the idea of a “useless” and costly Haitian national army, it has kept or recycled in the country armed forces from almost 70 foreign States, consuming on behalf of Haiti, and by mission, an average of $500 millions¹. And for only the fiscal year 2008-2009, the MINUSTAH budget «amounts to $601 580 100, that is, 27.3% of the Haitian State’s budget proposal for the same year»². At the same time, short of solutions in the face of the crisis on the ground, the IC has appealed for «an increased regional effort to help Haiti counter the transnational criminal groups basing operations in the country.³»

Faced with all our cities and towns and public services under-managed and lacking cruelly of human resources, and faced with our very high national unemployment rate, it has found the State a real “mammoth” and has decided to “skim it down”; and, as a matter of fact, it has “reformed the public Administration”, leading to “voluntary departure” or “anticipated retirement” a lot of public servants, among the most experienced, competent and more or less respectful of the administrative principles. For lack of a program, even minimal, of jobs creation, and without setting a sound framework for the starting-up, running and development of the private enterprises and for the consumers the protection, it has declared the “Haitian State bad manager”, the public enterprises “ill-managed“, and has privatized or shut down most of them (Minoterie, Ciment d’Haïti, Usines sucrières, Loterie de l’Etat Haïtien, Magasin de l’Etat, Cimenterie d’Haïti, etc.).

With such reasoning, it has declared the “Haitian State incapable to absorb international funds” allocated to Haiti and has entrusted the management of these funds to a myriad of disparate NGOs seeking their private interests but not the General Interest, and run in the absence of all kind of oversight and adequate and serious legislation. Avoiding approaching Haiti as a nation with its own specificities but treating it as a capitalist economy perfect model, the Class has literally immersed the country in the neo-liberalism, this neo-liberalism totally laid bare today by an untenable and unprecedented level of financial fraud, corruption, disparity of salary, social inequality and imbalance and abdication of  the authorities.

1. According to president Préval mentioned in “Haitian President Appeals for Emergency Aid”: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/06/AR2009020603309.html
    
2. Pierre Montès: //Haïti/Économie/Réflexions sur le projet de budget 2008-2009:
   http://jfjpm.blogspot.com/2009/01/haticonomierflexions-sur-le-projet-de.html
    
3. UPI: MINUSTAH calls for regional support
   http://www.lenouvelliste.com/articles.print/1/68116
   

   

2.2. The unacceptable track record of the Class

The entire Class admits the failure of Haiti, despite this active and massive presence of the International Community. The divergence between its national wing and its foreign wing lies only in the imputation of the responsibilities, that is, the determination of the blameful and guilty. Elegantly, the international wing of the Class manages, on one hand, to regularly give itself merit certificates for its achievements in the country, and on the other hand, to present Haiti as a corrupt and ungoverned failed State ravaged by drug-trafficking, kidnapping, unemployment and poverty, and representing a threat to international peace. To put it plainly, the international wing squarely distances itself from the Haitian wing in front of the failure to assume. It puts the responsibility of this failure on its Haitian counterparts.

However, the Republic of Haiti is technically, and in fact, under literal control, not to say under occupation, of the IC. Under the setting of an apparently independent Haitian State, the international wing of the Class has the effectiveness of control, decision and action over the entire State apparatus: police, military, administration, management of funds loaned to Haiti, definition of priorities, elaboration of projects, making of important deals, determination of bad or good managers of international funds invested in Haiti, etc.¹

All things considered, the international wing is right to differentiate itself from the Haitian players unable to take on their responsibilities, and for at least two reasons: first, it has never stopped playing the classic rules of game of the IR with Haiti; it has even shown and keeps showing a lot of sympathy toward us in our woes and failures; second, it has had and will always have the possibility to pull through without damage. The IC is indeed an indestructible tool, with variable geometry, or more exactly, a shapeless mass, without unity of place, time, action, emotion or fate. But it is not the same for the Haitian Nation and State. Passivity and indecision will lead us one day to insurmountable and suicidal humiliations and catastrophes, or more tragically, to the destruction of the Haitian Nation. 

Without pretending to present an exhaustive picture of the failure of the Class’s big means expended in the country, let us remind some indicators. After some 15 years of uninterrupted, massive and active presence in Haiti, the International Community has not managed to promote Haiti from its status of “threat to international peace and security” (according to the terms of Chapter VII of the UN Charter) to a status of normal State. On the contrary, the sources of threat against domestic and external peace have considerably increased in the country. National borders have become extremely porous and open to all kind of criminal and destabilizing activities. Within the country, insecurity has triumphed, fed, among others, by poverty, drug-trafficking, unemployment, corruption, absence of plan of action, justice and service, non execution of programs and non-enforcement of the norms, laws and constitution. And it takes on very various forms: robbery, rape, kidnapping, assassinations, etc. In terms of foreign exchanges, the country has been practically put in quarantine, for some powerful members of the IC such as the US have warned their citizens against traveling to Haiti².

Economically speaking, everything is on the decline or has stagnated at the expense of the great majority of Haitians. The country is forced today to import at the highest price possible vital commodities of our traditional national production, in the past very cheap and within everyone’s means: lemon, coconut, corn flour, rice, flour, plantain, etc. And yet, the Haitian still lives, on average, with only about U$250 per year and U$0.70 per day.  Our «per capita GDP […] is 1/5th the average for the Latin America and Caribbean region as a whole and 40% lower than the second poorest country in the hemisphere, Nicaragua.  Haiti has been poor for many years.  Real per capita income in Haiti has actually fallen over the past four decades³.” Infant mortality, illiteracy and other natural or made-man scourges rates keep being grave challenges beyond our present efforts. Drinkable water is still a rare resource for more than 50% of the Haitians; and our contaminated or infectious water used by about 55% of the population keeps tragically contributing to chronic malnutrition and death among a lot of our children.
 
Would Haiti become our Raft of the Medusa?

Anyway, such a track record is unacceptable, for both Haiti and the IC. The foreign wing of the Class knows it well: in this time of all dangers such as drug-trafficking, international terrorism, increasing of natural catastrophes in Haiti, and especially the international financial crisis, to keep using Haiti as a bottomless pit or looking upon Her as a nation of deprived and pariahs becomes unacceptable and risky. Sooner or later, the IC could well be held accountable, before History, even only morally speaking. Haitian authorities could also have to explain themselves to the Nation for their action or inaction. More concretely, more precise obligations of results and more restrictive conditions could be imposed on the players and the Class, on international missions, on their projects, and on their way of making deals and using Haitian public funds.

In this sense, the elaboration of the Collier Report, in the current international situation, is meaningful: first, it is a hurried effort of the IC meant to improve its business card in the Haitian issue; and for this reason, it then appears to us like an attempt of concrete and punctual response to the Haitian crisis recently worsened by 4 devastating storms. But it is also for the IC a way to take advantage of the numerous economic assets offered by Haiti. But, obviously, it is is, once again, an essentially economic answer to a global problem with very diverse causes. Subsequently, in the absence of the indispensable national contribution, this plan will not really bear fruit to the Haitian Nation.

At this tragic turning point of Haiti facing all kind of perils and likely to export some of them, the Class has a serious moral, political and economic dilemma to solve: either to persist in imposing, (by its external fringe) and in accepting passively (by its Haitian component) repeated failure models, or to change the paradigm. The entire international community is capable of the second option.

The Gordian knot to undo lies inexorably in the Haitian wing of the Class.  The initiative for a well thought action is its. It is up to it to wake up out its torpor, not to say its lethargy, in order to conceive and set up immediately the new Haiti’s International Relations paradigm for a real Haitian International Policy (IP) or Foreign Policy (FP), and for a sound and fruitful international cooperation for the Nation.

1. President Préval has well proven this fact by going to request desperately by himself a small $100 millions expedient aid from Madam Clinton to support the national budget and by asking her to stop providing aid to the Haitian State through NGOs, but through his very government, better managed, according to him. Irony or revenge of History: yesterday, Mr. Aristide paid by a successful armed movement, the one of Guy Philippe, for his destruction of the Haitian Army; today, Mr. Préval is bearing the cost of his “everything-private” policy. See “Haitian President Appeals for Emergency Aid”: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/06/AR2009020603309.html
    
2. United State Department of State: Travel Warning, January 28, 2009-04-02                                    http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_917.html
    
3. Taylor Griffin: Under Secretary of Treasury for International Affairs: Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, July 15, 2003
   http://foreign.senate.gov/testimony/2003/TaylorTestimony030715.pdf

Luc Rémy
luckyten1017@yahoo.com
March 29, 2009
United States of America

   

3. Avenues for the new Haiti International Relations paradigm

3.1. Cultural, affective and historical foundations of the new indispensable paradigm

Elites of My Country,
Let us remind the following truths. It is first to the Haitian Nation, the only victim of and witness to Her suffering, the main producer of Her day-to-day life and aspirations, to understand Herself and to make Herself understood. She is understood only through Her own efforts to make Herself understood, inside and abroad. She can not in any way fulfill Her historic missions by leaving to the Other to mother Her or even to substitute for Her. How to ask, for example, to the foreigner giving us assistance, to show, and permanently, a sense of unselfishness, self-sacrifice and duty in his mission in Haiti? Any force can impose on him such feelings on behalf of a foreign country, and more specifically in our favor. In him, they can be but the exception, casual, and are called solidarity, or even well understood personal interests abroad; in us Haitians, they must be the rule, the permanent motives of our reflexes, and are called patriotism, the Nation’s nourishing sap or the guarantee of respect for the Haitian in the world. Rooted in our past, present and future common property, namely our land, culture, glory and setbacks memory, and our collective soul, aspirations and dreams, such feelings are and remain national’s virtues and attributes. The Other can provide easily but financial and technical contributions. At best, the Other will propose development plans, hold training seminars and call for a better and more important involvement of the Haitian Elites in the management and development of the Country. By the way, numerous foreign diplomats and interlocutors have never stopped, for many years, calling on us to give up the babying and take responsibility for ourselves.  And on this March12, once again, in his presentation of his report at Montana Hotel, Mr. Collier also, came back, in a euphemism, of course, to this permanent feature of mothering by evoking “the lack of self-confidence of the Haitian¹. But, at worst, faced with our abdications as Haitians, foreigners may insult or ridicule us by calling us “Comedians”, “Morally Repugnant Elite (MRE)”, or even individuals with "one chromosome too few, the one for consensus and compromise, and one chromosome too many, the one for conflict and discord²."

In order to properly react in the current situation, we have to well understand it. For about 25 years, Haiti has been through a deep superstructure crisis. And all the Country’s other crises, sectional and punctual, follow from this mega crisis. This mega crisis, essentially intellectual, turns out to be a crisis of legibility, understanding and interpretation of the Haitian society, and of the historic and social fact of the Haitian Man, addressed to Haiti’s Elites, all colors and groups taken into account.

Around Haiti’s two hundred years of independence, this crisis has been developing and has expressed itself as a tumultuous and murky, and sometime also troubling reawakening of the National Historic Consciousness in search of an organizing Thought, Her historic Unity, Her Liberation, Her Blooming and the Taking of Responsibility for Herself, through the leadership of Her Elites. To put it plainly, this “Consciousness or Identity Crisis” has been an imperative appeal to repeat Dessalines and Pétion’s 1803 alliance according to today’s needs, that is, corrected and upgraded. To refuse to answer this historic call for profound qualitative and quantitative changes in Haiti and for all the Haitians is to keep contributing to the Nation destruction and, subsequently, to mortgage our children and future generations’ legacy.

3.2. The essential Haitian Pacific Revolution (PR)

The best therapy applicable to this well topical mega crisis is a PR. This means a methodological break in the way of thinking, saying and acting, within the framework of a well conceived national project, centered on the citizens taking part and managed with patriotism, leadership, discipline, order, aesthetics, know-how, honesty, genuineness, unselfishness, abnegation, team spirit, with in mind, deep-seated, grandiose and durable democratic outcomes.

Anyway, the important to us today is to conceive differently our role vis-à-vis Haiti.

On a personal and interpersonal plane, it is to give up our quarrels over nothing or our infighting over futilities, our ill-grounded pretensions and our contempt for the Nation and collective well-being. To carry out the methodological break is to accept also to master our incompressible age-old practice consisting in snatching or wanting to snatch everything from the Homeland without ever paying Her anything back. It is to stop being false and artificial, to fool ourselves and others and to always put in jeopardy the others and ourselves. In short, it is to look for an extra lucidity and wisdom in order to contain our irresponsible drives and understand the danger, for all of us and for the future, to always want everything for ourselves and nothing for the others, nothing for the Country.

Politically speaking, it is to lessen our individualism and selfishness, and to give up our stunt double policy, through the Class, in order to elect our leaders through serious elections and the basis of merit and competency, and to manage our national and local, political and administrative structures with principle, competency and accountability; it is also to use all kind of smart and legal accompaniment by the civil society and the private sector in order to prevent these leaders from wasting their mandate in delaying tactics, inaction, corruption and unnecessary expenditures. In short, it is to give up our refusal to assume our responsibilities in order to face courageously, and according to our abilities, our duties of citizens and patriots.

This revolution can be but national; it only contains the genuine seed of democracy, serious elections, economic progress and rehabilitation of our Elites and the Republic of Haiti. The USA knows it; the group of States called Friends of Haiti knows; the entire IC knows it. It is up to us Haitians to teach it to us and draw from it the necessary conclusions, that is, to trigger off right away and well manage this PR.

3.3. The Pacific Revolution: a call coming also from the International Community

The state of emergency, or rather of priority, declared by the IC on behalf of Haiti has offered us a golden opportunity to get under way and successfully manage this PR. Despite the international financial crisis, the world’s situation as a whole seems particularly favorable to us. The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, has solemnly declared Haiti his priority.³ He has even proposed to speak in favor of an exceptional sum of money for the Country. But he has also reminded the sine qua non condition of progress in Haiti: « Get out Haiti of the rut will depend on the will of all the Haitians, including the Government, the Parliament, the political parties, the civil society and Diaspora, with the support of their partners, to take advantage of the opportunities offered⁴ “. During the April 6 2009 Security Council on Haiti, this same sine qua non was unanimously reminded. The Security Council, in its entirety, urged ”the institutions of Haiti to intensify their efforts to meet the Haitian population’s basic needs, and to work together to promote dialogue, the rule of law and good governance.” And all the speakers, about 40 representatives of States, institutions and organisms of the UN system, recalled also somehow or other, the key importance of a firm involvement from the Haitian players. Ambassador Liu Zhenmin from China, for example, urged “the Government, Parliament, the private sector and civil society to intensify dialogue among themselves and strive for long-term stability and development”.  The representative of Japan, Ambassador Yukio Takasu, reminded or taught us: “To achieve sustainable development, the Government of Haiti must demonstrate a clear vision of self-development and the will to take ownership […] It should make its development strategy a top priority”. The Costa Rican Ambassador Jorge Urbina re-taught us the inescapable Truth: “The political, economic and cultural elites of Haiti have the primary obligation of leading their nation to a higher level of progress.  Parliamentary authorities and political parties must comply with their responsibilities to build a political and institutional environment⁵” capable of promoting “modernization and development”. The USA Ambassador, Susan Rice, found also an exact formula to recall the responsibility inherent to the Haitians in any project aimed at improving the situation of their Country. She underscored this: “Haiti will ultimately choose its own way, but we must all do our part to help the Haitian people succeed⁶”.Moreover, between UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, and USA president, Barack Obama, there seems to be a strong comprehension and a remarkable positive complicity concerning Haiti. In this respect, we need to remind their tête-à-tête in Washington on the case of Haiti, immediately after the Secretary-General comeback from Haiti. On this March 10, indeed, they were anxious to take stock of the situation of the Country. This diplomatic gesture spoke volume; the Haitian diplomacy and Elites may well have not grasped its meaning.

Obviously, Haiti and the IC are going through an unprecedented watershed. Genuine windows of opportunity can be opened to our Country: everything depends on us.  We need to finally answer today this call for a PR coming from both the Haitian Nation and the IC. Because of the overwhelming weight of the IC on us, we need to take very practical and decisive actions to alleviate this burden and turn it into a really productive force for the Country, instead of keeping simply blaming the International. We rather have to take very seriously both the IC’s authorities and the whole IC; and they need to be taken at their words. Let us not boil down their momentum and enthusiasm for Haiti to the only last April 14 Washington summit, despite the meager outcomes of this forum of lenders/donors. For, the current government, by its very bad management and its grave diplomatic mistakes, has completely ruined our credit and bargaining power on the international stage. Let us count on the medium term; let us keep giving  the IC’s officials the presumption of good faith and let us constantly put this good faith to the test by smartly pushing them to fully honor their commitments toward Haiti and help us materialize our collective vision as a People. This is the fundamental axis of the new diplomatic strategy to immediately adopt by Haiti.

Without this imperative option of a dynamic, enlightened, competent, patient and technically well-equipped Haitian Diplomacy shielded from disastrous influences of any State power struck by all kinds of decay, our Country will remain the laughing stock and easy prey of the international relations world. By implementing it, we will make our Nation and ourselves strong, respectable, efficient and useful to ourselves and others.

Let us thus develop this new diplomatic school of thought through our views, media, schools, universities and research centers, the private sector, the civil society, the Government, the Parliament and the Judiciary. Let us train right away in diplomacy top level professionals able to help and advise these above-mentioned structures or institutions. Let us modernize our diplomatic services. Let us stop accusing each other. Let us rather start making collectively clear, concrete, progressive and achievable proposals to the authorities; let us also put collectively pressure on them to bring them to meet the People’s aspirations for dignity and well-being.

1. Cyprien L. Gary: Un agenda à court terme pour soulager le pays, Port-au-Prince, Haïti, 13 mars 2009
   http://www.lenouvelliste.com/articles.print/1/68116 
    
   
2. Howard W. French: U.S. Sanctions Against Haiti Seem Ineffective, New York Times, April 26, 1992
   http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/26/world/us-sanctions-against-haiti-seem-ineffective.html
    
3. Secretary-General's remarks to the press at Palais National, Port au Prince, Haiti, 9 March 2009
   http://www.un.org/apps/sg/offthecuff.asp?nid=1274
    
4. Radio Kiskeya: Ban Ki-moon endosse l’habit de porte-parole d’Haïti, Port-au-Prince, 31 mars 2009
   http://www.radiokiskeya.com/spip.php?article5791
    
5. Security Council S/C 9628, 6101st Meeting, Department of Public Information, April 6 2009
   http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2009/sc9628.doc.htm
    
6. Statement by Ambassador Susan E. Rice on Haiti: U. S. Mission to  The United States, April 6, 2009
   http://www.usunnewyork.usmission.gov/press_releases/20090406_070.html

Luc Rémy
luckyten1017@yahoo.com
April 17, 2009
United States of America

   

4) Toward defining a strategy to trigger off and successfully manage the Pacific Revolution

4.1The fruits of inaction: triumph of the status quo in the 2010 elections and formalization of the trusteeship on Haiti

The premise for action is the following : the current national and international situation (new president in the White House, neo-liberalism worldwide crisis, expansion of international criminal and terrorist networks…) and all the important recent and coming events concerning Haiti (Collier Plan, senatorial elections of April 19 and June 21, Government’s deplorable diplomatic performance in Washington, at the America summit and in Santo Domingo, appointment of former president Bill Clinton as UN Special Envoy in Haiti, ecological disaster, cyclonic seasons, 2010 legislative and presidential elections…) are powerful SOS in favor of the Pacific Revolution essential today to Haiti. And the Haitians, joined together by a unifying national project, are capable of triggering off and successfully managing this revolution. Conversely, our refusal (by carelessness, lack of political principle or awareness, by political calculation or immediate economic interests) to recognize the seriousness of the situation and get involved collectively in order to build up the collective leadership able to change immediately the course of history will lead us in 2010 to a new presidential coup d’état, through the ballot box, similar to the 2006 one, and to the repeat, during the coming years, of the current disastrous governmental experience. All this will be done in the name of democracy and, even with some passing embarrassment, the International Community will proclaim victory of democracy and will accept the “fait accompli”, but the shame and the woes of the Haitians and of the Haitian Nation will be worsening. Moreover, the International Community, somehow overtaken by the confusion of the Haitian crisis is firmly moving forward toward the carrying out of a new very risqué test in this highly prized testing ground named Haiti: the putting of Haiti under formal trusteeship. And this new infamy, in the absence of a clear, unifying and operational, can very well be materialized soon, maybe even before the 2010 elections. The appointment of former president Bill Clinton as UN special Envoy represents, in this respect, a clear caveat to all of us.

And however, - the International Community knows it- there is no guarantee of success for this new adventure. The observations of Don Bonhing, reporter on Haiti for the Miami Herald from the mid-1960s until 2000, and zealous supporter of this trusteeship show the adventurism aspect of the project; to the hypothetical (in his opinion) functioning of an independent Haitian state, “alternative options -- including a period of international governance--need to be seriously contemplated to stem nearly two decades of unremitting political, economic and social deterioration. The history of such missions (called mandates, protectorates, trusteeships or, most recently, transitional administrations) has not been particularly auspicious, but […] nothing else has succeeded in Haiti¹.”

 

 4.2 Concerted action start or a three-movement symphony

In these conditions, whining, inveighing and expecting the salvation via miracles are not, once again, options. And our national motto, “strength through unity”, represents today still the best method for action. This approach through unity is a little bit similar to a three-movement symphony. The first movement is called consultation or the initiatives takers dialog, the second the quest for operational options and the determination of a National Plan and the third the permanent mobilization of the Haitian society around the Plan for its gradual implementation.

4.2.1 Initiatives takers dialog

This historical stage, inescapable, is the most difficult for it is, on one side, the one of learning new reactions and gestures, going beyond our unconscious egocentric reflexes, our ideological intolerances, our unilateral practices or our collective carelessness and, on the other hand, the one of concession, outward-looking attitude toward the other and the others in order to construct a collective modus vivendi and modus operandi. At this stage, the start of initiative does not belong to any specific person: any Haitian citizen, black, mulatto or white, can, a priori, have a go at it, either to trigger off by himself the dialog either to encourage another or others to do so. The important is not to lose sight of two fundamental facts: first, someone does not become “the leader” by initiating the dialog or inviting others to do so; then, by doing the first step, someone does not disqualify anybody else and will not prevent anybody else from playing important roles in the process. Potentially, Haiti has important places and roles for every Haitian; only our individual or clan debarment mindset and our submission to defeatism can make lose almost everything to almost everybody.  However, a set of qualities (dialog, listening, planning, coordination, discipline, responsibility) and resources (time, availability, logistical means) are necessary to any player or group of players willing to offer his/their services. In other words, contempt, mistrust or even hatred vis-à-vis the initiator (or vis-à-vis the project) motivated, by example, by the fear to fail his dream to become the “rising star” of the Haitian politics, or conversely, to have to give up his already well established conviction of being the “great political figure” or even the “future president” of Haiti, are feelings to repress, for counterproductive. In the same way, the old noiristes  and mulâtristes² clichés and reflexes have to be tossed in the scrapheap of history, for they degrade and belittle their advocates, and all the Haitians can and must work together to build the great Haitian Nation. You must rather think and work enthusiastically and passionately for the success of the project by merely saying to yourself: "In the great deeds, you must only think about well doing, and let glory come after virtue "³.   

This initial action is meant to gather an original group of players, establish a kind of temporary collective leadership in order to connect citizens around the project , favor groups reflection, produce foundation documents, widen gradually the support base of the project and end up to make it little by little the project of everybody and the project of the Nation.

Collective and concerted political efforts to introduce important changes in Haiti have been numerous, especially for some these last 30 years. Their big common feature has always been their failure at the dialog stage or their incapacity to involve the majority of the Haitian and go beyond pious hopes, or the toppling of a government. Democratic Convergence, other political parties, the 184 Group and the GNB provide the most recent illustrations of collective actions marked by fruitless or unfinished undertakings. 

One of the unifying approaches could be today to start off the dialog with the political parties and the 184 Group’s respective experience. In that case, the new initiators of action- these terms are not the opposite of old initiators- could first look together into the weaknesses or their experience in order to eliminate them or prevent their repeat; they could then consider together the contributions to introduce in the framework to strengthen the project, make it really systematic, national, operational, and have it supported by an imposing majority of the Haitian society.

Without any intention to diminish their merit or to harm the political parties and the 184 Group’s players, there is good reason to already make the following observations.

Some flaws of most of our political parties

Among the weaknesses making the political parties not too much effective, let us point out:

• their atomization; they are about 80;
   
• their personification or their identification with their leaders and not with a program or a vision of society;
   
• the irremovability of their historical leaders;
   
• their lack of contact and connection with the citizens;
   
• Their difficulty getting modernized and attracting young and new human resources;
   
• Their strong propensity to look for the source of power and power legitimacy abroad or in the thaumaturgy, but not in the national people;
   
• Their great tendency to look for alliances and rapprochement with governments at the expense of the expectations and interests of almost the whole society;
   
• Their incapacity or their lack of will to express or make carry out by governments the registers of grievances of the overwhelming majority of the Haitians;
   
• Their lack of financial means;
   
• Their minimalist aspirations characterized by their tendency to look for and get satisfied with ministerial portfolios (1 to 3) or an inferior representation, instead of seeking the power conquest and the application of their vision of society by expressing with conviction and clarity the People’s aspirations;
   
• Their way of functioning based on a family-managed model;
   
• The discrepancy between their declared ideology and their practices on the field;
   
• Their little or their lack of interest for the great Haitian visionaries or theoreticians (Louis-Joseph Janvier, Anténor Firmin, Boyer Bazelais, Edmond Paul, Dantès Bellegarde, Price Mars…);
   
• Their lack of clarity relatively to their stances on great national matters: educative issue, agrarian issue, foreign policy vision, presence of foreign troops on national soil, national development model…

Some weaknesses of the 184 Group project

Among the weaknesses of the 184 Group project, let us mention:

• The exclusive and fallacious character of the group denomination: of course, civil society sectors had taken the initiative of action, but referring to “Civil Society Group” (with one of its elements named “Civil Society Initiative”) is to pretend to represent the entire society and speak on its behalf; it is also to send the message of exclusion of the political parties (also private structures) and public authorities; in the same way, to quantify the entity by calling it 184+ Group, far from producing an impression of force and cohesion, had rather given of it an image of patchwork and bluff, and then of fragility. This image had widened with the presence within the group of associations very little or not at all representative nationwide or even locally.
   
• Its apparently occasional and exclusively electioneering expression: instead of being built on a register of permanent and institutional national legacy to introduce in the State and to be managed by successive governments and the whole society, and beyond electoral terms, this experience had rather looked a punctual answer, a simple movement to overthrow an odious government and allow the holding, any old how, of presidential election. The most convincing evidence of this is the putting on the back burner of the 184 Group, on Aristide downfall and Boniface and Latortue taking over. To re-launch today the Group activities without a totally rethought strategy would increase, at its expense, the suspicions of an approach merely electioneering and partisan disguised behind a so-called New Social Contract project.  
                                  
• The lack of sincerity, conviction and follow-up in the running of the project. The official and solemn presentation of the 12-sheet New Social Contract (NSC) on Flag Square, Arcahaie, on November 13, 2005, seemed to express the players’ satisfaction to have well achieved their mission and to have laid down their arms, without even one skirmish with the new government. In this respect, the incident of the national flag sewn up on this day by PM Gérard Latortue et Mr. Michel Brunache, Head of personal staff and representative of President Alexandre Boniface, is highly symbolic: « they could not hoist the flag due to a little technical problem.⁴» In the eyes of the observers, the 184 Group leaders have simply boiled down the NSC to a museum or archives piece only meant to witness the end of their fight. Yet, in this new environment relatively less hostile to the group, efforts had to be kept and even intensified; they should negotiate with the government and vigilantly engage it on the project; they should have given priority to actually laying the New Social Contract foundation but not to immediately holding unconditional elections. The Transitional Government program should have come out from the NSC. They should have also, for example, elaborated, together with the Government, a 20 or 25-year Global Development Plan (GDP) or National Development Plan (NDP) and managed to make it the hub of all the coming electoral campaigns. But the 184 Group’s Leadership’s agenda was not that ambitious; it was not national. In reality, any efforts have not been made, from 2004 to now, to revise, augment and popularize the NSC, and really make it the expression of our collective aspirations as a Nation. Obviously, the 184 Group project has not been run with sincerity, conviction and follow-up spirit.

Anyway, beyond their past mistakes, political parties, 184 Group, and also other experiences such as peasants, students, teachers and GNB’s movements remain a very rich reference framework to exploit today in order to trigger off and successfully run the Pacific Revolution essential to Haiti.

4.2.2 Quest for operational options and determination of a strategic vision and a Global Development Plan (GDP)

At this stage, it is about putting on the table the contribution provided by the different sectors involved in the project, analyze and discuss them, dismiss, after much thought, the not wanted elements and get so a vision of society. This   vision provides the matrix for restructuring and modernization plans of the country. These plans can be biennial, triennial, quadrennial or quinquennial, according to needs. They will be cooperatively worked out by experts chosen for their competence.   

Our today wait-and-see policy will be suicidal to us tomorrow. It is then eminently important to us to seriously and collectively plan the political action between today and the 2010 general elections. Timing for action is fundamental today to successfully face, among others, the following possible scenarios:

• For any reason, Mr. Préval does not finish  his term;

• Mr. Préval has been planning, according to his habit, to fuel confusion, lack of interest and uncertainties around the 2010 elections in order to come to his last coup through the ballot box, put his protégé into power and open thus the prospect of some 20 other disastrous years for the country;

• The international community, short of solutions to the Haitian crisis, but determined to  act, at any rate, is getting ready to reinforce and prolong the international governance on Haiti, without any guarantee to be able to really stamp out the crisis and bring Haiti back to its sovereignty; this scenario also could let us drift for some other twenty years;

• The international community has been planning to impose on us the Republic President, according to its own criteria and a method already successfully tried out in 2006; the negative consequences of such a non desirable possibility are immeasurable;

• The international community, faced with our incapacity to propose and implement a viable political and economic alternative, imposes on us a mini economic plan and orient thus the country toward an economic patchwork, high-spending, without multiplier effects, without real creation of national wealth, and then very likely to hinder for long our political, economic and social take-off…

4.2.3 Permanent mobilization around the Vision of Society and the Global Development Plan (GDP)

It is here about giving top priority to these two change tools (Vision of Society and GDP), declare and maintain a permanent activity to popularize them and get them full support from the Haitian society. This mobilization includes also organized and sustained efforts to make them the hub of the electoral campaigns, to get them adopted and executed by the candidates, the elected and the entire society. Following through, criticizing, controlling and proposing updates are also part of the mobilization. This takes diverse forms (news conferences, lectures, brochures, books, debates, sit-in, marches) and occurs in Medias, churches, schools, universities, associations, Government, public squares, clubs and others…

1. An international protectorate could bring stability to Haiti
    
2. The noiristes advocate “everything by and for the blacks” and the mulâtristes “everything by and for the mulattos”.
    
3. Oraison funèbre de Louis de Bourbon, prince de Condé (1687), dans Œuvres complètes, Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, éd. Outhenin-Chalandre fils, 1836, t. II, p. 631
    
4. Publication officielle du Nouveau Contrat Social

Luckyten1017@yahoo.com
Luc Rémy
May 31, 2009
USA

   

5) LET US GET BACK TO THE LETTER TO THE HAITIAN ELITES

Elites of My Country,
A tremendous interplay of evil and uncontrollable historical quirks has established this huge lag between the current and the precedent portions of this Letter to the Haitian Elites started at the end of last March. Fortunately, this gap is in the time but not in the vision: it does not affect at all the coherence of this epistolary project essentially made of exhortations to collective patriotic actions,   and strategic proposals and recommendations for Haiti.

To tell the truth, during this whole suspension of the work, we had been keenly expecting to not have to comeback to nor finish it; we had been rather dreaming, maybe beatifically, of the surge, in the meantime, of some dynamic and unifying leadership making futile our approach and groundless our advice and recommendations as a private citizen wounded by the spectacle of the continuous physical and moral drift of our Nation.

We had been boldly dreaming, for 2009, of the setting-up of some unifying political beacons, of a germination of political arrangements boldly promising, of an impressive national political landscape reshaping, and of a serious tactical and strategic assets pooling of organized groups, diverse institutions, and field (or newly come) women and men of the Haitian politics. To our mind, 2009 could have been (and still can be, even being drawing to a close), the beginning of the macro-planning in the Haitian politics, to give structure to both the State and the political Landscape; the elaboration and the promotion of one or two national plans, before  the very campaign launching by any candidate for the presidency, the mobilization of numerous players for the building and strengthening of an imposing political platform, serious negotiations between parties (and also possible independent candidates) to limit to at most two or three  key figures the presidential candidates list, a profound collective dialog with the President of  the Republic and his government in order to bring, or rather persuade them to establish in this very moment, the definitive formation of the Electoral Council for  the 2010 elections, and also the organizational structures and calendar of these elections, all this has seemed to us the Haitian political players’ mission for these last 8 months and these some 4 coming ones.

Nothing of this has been carried out yet¹: our dream has survived to our unavailability; time has not killed our hopes, and this forces us now to get back into harness in order to conclude our remarks and proposals, continue our contribution to cheering up our compatriots and prod them into smart actions, meaning, socially and economically fair and progressive, politically integrated and liberating. That’s our way of keeping on having faith in Haiti’ future and resilience.

Getting back to the project, we are making it our duty to remind everybody, once again, the stakes of the current situation for Haiti: the inescapable necessity of immediate taking on responsibility for Haiti by Herself. This mission will come true (with the help of an individual or collective emergent leadership) by an immediate collective awakening of Haitian compatriots living in Haiti or abroad, and the actual and permanent masses involvement in the national political activity. And this awakening itself can materialize, in the present situation (2009-2011), through, among others, mobilization, consultation, organization and planning meant to conceive and deal with the 2010 general elections as central strategic stakes of the Vision of Society and Global Development Plan (GDP), in the framework of the patriotic and democratic fight for the national Independence recovery and the advent of an era of genuine, substantial and sustainable social and economic progress. This collective action permanence about this target will have the advantage of: 

1. preventing the atomization and dispersion of the country’s urban and peasant progressive forces (and also diverse electoral forces);
    
2. clarifying very early the great elections stakes for the country and the voters;
    
3. allowing the great or fundamental issues to have, very early before the launching of the electoral campaign, a national but not partisan resonance;
    
4.  having Haiti’s political parties and male and female politicians taken seriously, within the country and abroad;
    
5. preventing or reducing the risks of vote-rigging and a presidential coup through ballots by retrograde groups favorable to status quo;
    
6. preventing the election of a demagogue or an incompetent or the victory of a reactionary platform without a purpose for Haiti, without autonomy of responsibility or capability to embody the Vision of Society nor conduct the carrying out of the Global Development Plan (GDP);
    
7. making quasi inescapable the electoral victory of the platform with the best proposals for the betterment of Haiti and able to carry them out, through its candidates;
    
8. allowing the country, as of 2010, to put an end to the political improvisations and sacrileges and the institutional patchwork and enter an era of leaders respectful of the national independence, concerned about public Good and Haitian People’s greatness, and fully accountable before the nation;
    
9. clarifying and making transparent the national political landscape, and strengthening the national democratic debate;
    
10.  making easier and strengthening the cohesion of the political platform made of progressive social forces, and allowing it to be a symbol and  a genuine change catalyst , in power or in the opposition ;

Such considerations concerning collective mobilization for democratic political change and social and economic progress in Haiti lead us to broach straight the crucial and central issue of the setting up of on a Haitian Strategic Agenda for the next 25-30 years. 

6) TOWARD ESTABLISHING A HAITIAN STRATEGIC AGENDA TO TRIGGER OFF AND SUCCESSFULLY MANAGE THE PACIFIC REVOLUTION

The essence of a strategic agenda

By taking into account the current national and international situation and appropriate historical, sociological, economic and geographic factors, a National Strategic Agenda will include, among others, the actions or elements:

• a geopolitical and geostrategic vision and conviction of Haiti;
   
• triggering off the political will to act well and collectively; the establishing of this starter or trigger of collective or team action goes  inevitably through the emergence of a capable and responsible leadership ( points 2 and 4.2  of the third part of the present letter suggest an outline of this strategic model);
   
• a code of good practice;
   
• seeking, obtaining and keeping alive a strong popular support to the National Agenda;
   
• establishing an initiative and follow-up and coordination board with  public authorities and other sectors;
   
• determining the short and mid term strategic and tactical priorities and concentration or focalization on such goals;
   
• determining  the long term priorities;
   
• indication of ways and means; a national agenda prepared with seriousness and responsibility will authorize us to seek and get more than $8 billions from the international; to this should be added national contributions (also countable in billions of dollars) to draw from the creation of new wealth, a better management of public finances and a rational exploitation of our mineral and non mineral natural resources;
   
• patterns to face imponderable or adjust the plans …

7) SOME ESSENTIAL AND PRIORITY PROPOSALS TO INTRODUCE IN THE NATIONAL STRATEGIC AGENDA

1. put formally in the record the inescapable obligation for the Haitian elites to assume, they also,  their historic missions and responsibilities;
    
2. create this starter/trigger of this political and moral Will  to really change Haiti (must come forward one men/woman, or a group of men and women or one party/a group of parties or organizations with a firm and unwavering will and with a grandiose vision)
    
3. convoke a kind of mini political, but especially technical national convention meant to sharing a Vision for Haiti and a great collective Design for the People;
    
4. develop and strengthen the idea of an Haiti made great by a competent and strong Diplomacy, effective and stable Institutions, a national and vibrant Market, a creative and integrated Private Sector investing in the whole country and competitive on a regional and international basis, an open partnership between the public and private sectors, an excellent educative system, the respect of democratic principles and of our public and private institutions and organizations,  the insertion of the whole countryside in the system beneficiary of public and private services, etc.
    
5. bring out a collective, dynamic, competent and respectable leadership, through phone calls, meetings, production of ideas and documents, negotiations, informed compromises, the mini national congress (suggested in c) and follow-up consultations consecutive to these different activities;
    
6. developing dialog with the current national and local public authorities about the national Agenda and defined action axes;
    
7. dialog and discuss with the current President of the Republic and his government to gain their support to the National Agenda, have it translated into Public Policy, and avoid any delaying tactics and distraction in its implementation as a government plan or program;
    
8. orchestrate an awareness campaign on the priority goals;
    
9. back up smartly the government in its carrying out of the priority program;
    
10. defining the priority and strategic axes of national development; the top priorities axis comprises, among others, for the short and mid terms, or 1 to 5 years, the following tasks:
     
    • serious preparation and organization of the 2010 elections;
    • implementation of a strong program of fight against corruption and crime;
    • implementation of a vast and healthy agricultural program meant, among others, to reduce unemployment, reach food self-sufficiency, supply our school and hospital cafeterias system, guarantee a sound food canning industry, fight erosion, recreate our plant cover, develop farming education and product a lot for local consumption and exportation;
    • creation of a national cafeterias network to solve the alarming malnutrition problem in our private and public schools and universities, and also create a lot of jobs, from a public/private farming and food production system involving students, parents and other participants and using private and/or State land; 
    • modernization of the Customs and Tax Services to promote fiscal justice and increase local and national tax revenues;
    • building, equipping and bringing into service of two major and decent national jails;
    • immediate activation of the functioning mechanism of the Judiciary to make apply strictly and equally the laws and establish legality and justice in the country;
    • establishing appropriate mechanisms guaranteeing actual penal accountability  for people in charge of public moneys within the very government, within private organizations or in the private sector handling public funds provided by the Haitian State or international authorities;
    • actual taking over of the Haitian national Police by the Haitian State and establishment of an adapted security plan intended to put it in condition  to  combat robbery, corruption, kidnapping, drug-trafficking, and all kind of crimes, and create suitable conditions to investments and normal unfolding of social life;
    • restoration of the Armed Forces of Haiti on the basis of a plan of formation and training, and deployment and operation through the national territory, including our territorial waters, our exclusive economic zone, our islands and our air space;
    • reopening of the Military Academy with the support of Haitian and foreign technicians and introduction of formation programs based on our history, values and needs and the universal great principles and techniques of  defense;
    •  planned sending back home of the international police and army forces based in the country;
    • counting or making duly the census of the Haitian living in the country and abroad and the setting up of the personalized national identity card mandatory for all Haitians and all foreigners residing in Haiti;
    • numbering all the country’s houses in accordance with town planning norms;
    • merger and modernization of State Post and Telecommunications services to ensure effective and quality services to all economic agents operating on the national territory or having exchanges with Haiti;
    •  creating an accurate data bank on high level Haitian human resources available in Haiti and abroad (farmers, agronomists, economists, geographers, engineers, geologists, linguists, polyglots, teachers, physicians, nurses, chemists, oceanographers, cartographers, fishermen, pharmacists, pilots, town planners,  architects, sailors, designers …)
    • setting up, from the above-mentioned data bank, an adapted, accelerated but in depth multi-sectional vast technical formation program  (Justice, Criminal Law, Diplomacy and Public Administration, Public International Law, Corporate Law, Tax Law, Employment Law, Commercial Negotiation, Customs Code, Investments Code, Pisciculture and Fishing, Energy, Geology et and Natural Resources (with in view the rational and profitable exploitation of our gold, copper, silver, bauxite, iridium, halieutic products, undersea metallic nodules…), Foreign Languages, etc.
    • establishing a national energetic cover to make possible investments and the setting up of enterprises through the whole country;
    • construction of priority road infrastructures and other basic infrastructures in order to bring down unemployment, make easier investments, and public and private interventions through the national territory;
    • drawing up of Republic of Haiti’s cadastral map (to determine the land status, identify the public or private owners and make possible a rational and safe exploitation and management of the national territory;
    • shutting down of State services created by thoughtlessness, useless and high-spending administrative fissiparousness or dual structure, in order to save money and make easier the coordination and stimulation of the administrative work (Women’s Condition Ministry/Social Affairs, Ministry for Haitians Living Abroad/Foreign Affairs Ministry, Post/Telecommunications, etc…). the government will take the necessary steps to fit the civil servants and employees of these services in other public institutions, according to priorities;
    • modernization of the Haitian embassies and consulates services in order to put them in condition to better defend Haiti’s interests and serve, in any cases (Haitian products promotion, voting from abroad on occasion of national elections, assistance to compatriots facing difficulties and searching for help, taxpayers and customers service, etc.), Haitian citizens and enterprises, and also foreign citizens and enterprises getting in touch with Haiti;
    • establishment of the pro forma invoice of the short and mid terms priority goals, and also of other goals, and funds needed for the implementation of the different points of the current emergency plan;
    • sources identification of the Haitian or foreign funds necessary  to carrying out the National Agenda and competent and responsible  negotiation with the providers or providers;
    • specification of the necessity and obligation for the Haitian players to regularly give the Nation an account of their activities and always have the Haitian contribution taken account of in any issue regarding Haiti as a matter of priority.

Luc Rémy
September 4, 2009
United States of America

1. Between the writing  down of this idea and today, a slight change has been noticed with the formation of ADRENA, ADEBHA, GREH, MNP-28 and RDNP coalition, the  Miami “Haitian Diaspora Unity Congress” (August 6-9, 2009),  the Santo Domingo “Patriotic Meeting for A National Rescue Strategy” (August 28-30, 2009). We encourage the initiators of these steps to deepen them, to rally big, give top priority to the National Agenda and prevent, in the future, the happening again of their initial errors linked either to the place symbolism or the Haitian State embodiment symbolism…