Haiti in search of an alte
The great merit of Jean-Bertrand Aristide after his return to Haiti was to show tenacity
* Nicaragua/Haiti image as a party that is for democratic rights. It is the main opposition political force in the country. In contrast to 1990, when the FSLN was totally unprepared to lose, the Sandinistas have gone through a split in its ranks and a process of political re-evaluation and in pursuing his project of dismantling the army. On the other hand, he allowed reorientation. Today it is prepared to be an opposition party, which defends the interests corruption and cynicism to grow around him. Arthur Mahon reports that, deprived of the vast majority of the population and it of the prestige of Aristide, his successors are sliding into stagnation. has an economic program to counter the neoliberal economic model Alemán will support.
Following the CSE proclamation of Aleman as president elect, Daniel Ortega explained in a TV interview that the FLN recognizes the "legality" of the elections but not its Ortega has outlined a that, he says, could provide the basis for the country's genuine reconciliation. These are based on a "minimum agenda." In addition, Ortega has called for the CSE magistrates to resign in the face of incompetence and fraud.
3. The fight to defend the gains of the Sandinista revolution - particularly legalizing the land reform - will continue. even with the election of Alemán.
The Sandinista land reform is still in place, although the neoliberal economic model does not allow the small- and medium-sized producers access to credit. That was a major problem under the Chamorro government and that will not be adequately addressed by Alemán either.
In so far as the poor voted for Alemán, he represented for them the possibility of returning to a time "when there was plenty of work and even if you only had four cordobas, it was still worth the same when you woke up the next morning.... " They don't want Somocismo without Somoza. But given his financial backers, it doesn't look like Alemán will have the flexibility to govern that he desperately needs. * Note This article is exerpted from Against the Current, January/February 1997. Dianne Feeley is a member of the U.S. revolutionary organization Solidarity. In 1984, just before Nicaragua's first democratic elections were held, she spent a month working in Managua as part of a tree-planting brigade. She would like to gratefully acknowledge (and recomend) the following sources: • Barricada Internacional (English-language monthly), envio (a monthly published in Nicaragua) • Stephen Marks articles in Green Left Weekly • Nicaragua Monitor (published by the Nicaragua Network Education Fund, particularly the article "Stability Threatened by Electoral Fraud" by Lisa Zimmerman in the November 1996 issue, #63). US Labor Party Founding Convention on video * Labor Beat, 37 Ashland, Chicago IL 60607, USA. 26 minutes. $25.00 (outside US $30.00) 12 International Viewpoint
When he assumed his functions on February 7th, 1996 the new president of the republic, René Preval, had to confront colossal problems. Even the legacy of Aristide was heavy to bear. For example, one of the reasons for the criminal behaviour of numerous members of the new police force is that Aristide had placed in charge of it some figures who, although perhaps loyal, were also implicated in a number of corrupt
The government formed after Preval's assumption of power thus had a considerable job to do. It has not shown itself capable of meeting its responsibilities. After several weeks of negotiations Preval named as prime minister Rosny Smarth, a leader of the Lavalas Political Organisation [OPL], which enjoys a parliamentary majority. The government has striven to find an impossible consensus between popular interests and those of the bourgeoisie.
One of the great defeats suffered by the government has been its inability to resolve the question of justice. The report of the "Truth and Justice" Commission has still not been published. The United States has still not given back the archives confiscated during the military intervention. The trial of two notorious criminals of the old regime ended in their acquittal. The situation of paralysis is such that Preval has pronounced himself in favour of a closure of the Ministry of Justice "for restructuring".
But it is in the economic field that the government has suffered the most criticism. It is in the process of implementing a neoliberal austerity programme. A whole string of negative factors underlie this policy: • Three years of dictatorship have left the country in a catastrophic situation. The economic policy followed by Aristide after his return, with its expenses and undelivered promises, has hardly improved things. • The Bretton Woods institutions and the principal "donor" countries have continued to exert an intolerable blackmail. • The composition of the government does not render it able to negotiate seriously with the international financial institutions. In reality, the majority of ministers undoubtedly share the ideology of those institutions. Aristide's old organisation, the Lavalas Political Organisation (OPL) has some ministers, but doesn't have a coherent alternative to the neo-liberal plan. • The left and the popular movement is dispersed, heterogeneous and disorientated. It has been weakened, yesterday by repression and today by the participation of some of its leaders in the state structures. Though the struggle against the adoption of a structural adjustment plan allowed some progress to be made in regrouping and "rearming" the left.
A great part of the population has shown itself hostile to the privatisation projects. But it is concerned above all with the everyday struggle to survive. The masses are disillusioned, and increasingly uninterested in political questions.
Rather than seeking money where it is, the government has surrendered to the directives of the International Monetary Fund. 10% Turnover Tax (TCA, a value added tax) has been extended to basic products like flour, oil and sugar.
Public finances are drained, but very little effort has been put into rectifying the situation on the income side. The unit which was supposed to combat tax evasion and fraud by the big companies has achieved little and large scale evasion continues. Haiti needs tax reform, which should involve the elimination of the TCA, a socially unjust tax, and its replacement by higher import duties, taxes on luxury consumption goods and a tax on higher incomes and wealth.
The government has abandoned the key instruments of development policy, by promising to the International Monetary Fund that Haiti will maintain freedom of trade and exchange. On the latter point, liberalisation is proceeding apace; since the return to constitutional order, quantitative restrictions on imports have been eliminated and import duties reduced; last May the maximum custom tariff was reduced from 15% to 10%. The proclaimed long term objective is a new reduction, although, with this 10% maximum, Haiti, the weakest economy on the continent, is already the country most open to competition from
Since 1986, the liberalisation of foreign trade has thrown hundreds of thousands of rice and bean growers, artisans and workers out of work. Such a policy will transform Haiti into a drip-feed market for the maximum benefit of foreign enterprises, in particular those of the United States and the neighbouring Dominican Republic.
Because of its small size, its economic backwardness, its technological handicaps and the ease of commercial transactions in the current world economy, Haiti needs a policy of selective protection of its products It also needs antidumping laws and controls on imports and exports through public trading companies. This is the only way to avoid the exploitation of producers and consumers.
Only public initiatives, whether taken by the state or other collectivities, responding to a democratically developed, executed and
RAPID MODERNIZATION OF THE COUNTRYSIDE.
native
controlled development policy, can allow Haiti to progress. The unmodified dynamic of the market economy, greased by the profit motive, ignoring the needs of the people and the environment, offers no future. Haiti does not need a 'minimal' state in the service of profit but an 'optimal' state capable of taking the initiative.
The incomes policy which is being overseen by the IMF reflects the same class priorities. "The principle comparative advantage of Haiti continues to be low labour costs" says the World Bank.! In these conditions, maintaining the lowest possible labour costs, competing with dozens of other countries to whom the Bank says the same thing, becomes a priority objective.
The minimum wage, fixed at 36 Gourdes, or around $2.40 per day, at the time of Aristide's return, made Haiti the most attractive country in the region for subcontracted assembly operations. These currently employ around 20,000 workers). The minimum wage is even lower now than in 1986, the year the Duvalier dictatorship fell. The minimum hourly wage has fallen by 30 cents, but even this minimum is not respected in half of the fifty assembly factories working for export. For example, a worker making Walt Disney pyjamas will earn 7 cents, while the pyjamas are sold at $11.97 in Wal-Mart shops in the United States.? Doubling or eventripling Haiti's minimum wage would not significantly affect the profit margin of exporting companies.
And yet, the government has embarked on a policy of wage restraint! The structural adjustment program drawn up in Washington envisages a three year wage freeze, combined with an increase in petrol prices and increased taxes on consumption. The government made a commitment to the IMF to reduce the number of civil servants by 2,500 and to suppress 4,500 phantom posts, that Aristide had tolerated or created, all before September 1996. By March 1997, 2,500 supplementary posts are to be sup durable and properly paid jobs, this pressed. In the absence of the creation of "slimming down" will have cumulative social, economic and political effects in the capital.
A programme for agrarian reform, essential from the point of view of both justice and productivity in the countryside, has not been developed, despite the creation of an Institution of Agrarian Reform more than a year ago. Worse, the government has made a commitment to the IMF not to use the state budget to grant credit to farmers Given the extortionate interest rates which strangle these peasants, the future of agrarian reform is grim indeed.
Even if it stops short ofattacking poverty and reducing the rate of exploitation, in the factories and in the countryside, the government could at least act to introduce tax reform, the control of commercial transactions, or ensure the provision of free or
EL FistOR cheap essential services for the masses. But it is proceeding in the opposite direction.
An austerity policy is also being implemented in education. In a framework document prepared by the Haitian authorities together with "experts" from the IMF and the
World Bank, the colonised Ministry of Education includes among its objectives "the introduction of an educational system which is open and accessible, but fee paying" 3 In July 1996, the ministry announced the closure of several schools and the halting of work on new ones. But everyone knows that just putting an end to the plundering and corruption in several, not all of the country's ministries would be enough to find the money necessary for national education.
Privatisations is the centrepiece of the structural adjustment programme. The seven most important public enterprises and two banks are affected. After some months of polemic, in September Parliament voted for an amended version of the "modernisation of the public sector" law. Though, presumably for fear of criticism, nearly half the deputies did not turn up to vote. In any case, the government had already entered into some commitments without waiting for the "formal" parliamentary vote. It has selected a majority buyer for the national cement company. The government proposes the transformation of the airports at Port-au Prince and Cap Haitien into lucrative private concessions. It is committed to rapidly handing the port in the capital, Port-au-
January 1997#284 13
* Haiti Prince, to a private contractor: It is committed to ceding majority control in the telecommunications and electricity companies (Teleco and EDH), before September 1997. and it will increase the electric tariff, already very high, by 15% by the end of 1996. The two public banks are to pass into private control by mid-1997. The water company is also to be privatised.
Companies which invest in these mixed capital enterprises will be exonerated from tax on profits for three years. Article 13 of the privatisations law even stipulates that in these semi-state enterprises the state will never hold more than 50% of shares. and even where it controls 50%, the state will only exercise a minority vote in the board of directors.
the government has repeatedly stressed that the privatisation law envisages the distribution of a part of the dividends and income of these mixed-capital utilities to the municipalities and rural sections (districts). This may provide some support for the political and administrative decentralisation, measures envisaged in the constitution. Assuming, of course, that there will be dividends! After all, it will be the private partner who controls the management of the new utilities. The siphoning-off of profits thought over-billing and biased choice of suppliers and sub-contractors could well reduce these dividends to next to nothing.
Préval and the members of his government have often argued that privatisation is essential, because the poor management of the public enterprises is a burden on the state budget. But this argument is unacceptable, for several reasons. • the detailed accounts remain hidden from the Haitian people, and even their elected representatives. The study by SFI, a financial investment society affiliated to the World Bank, which was asked to evaluate the real condition of these enterprises, remains secret, more than a year after it was submitted. Why the successive governments kept it secret? Presumably because some public enterprises are strongly in debt, but at the same time they have unpaid credit in the state and private sector. Credit which the government is un14 International Viewpoint willing to call in. • True, the state budget is deeply in deficit, which has lead to a great dependency on foreign "funders". But the public sector enterprises as a whole are profitable to the state. More precisely, the profits of the telecommunications company Teleco compensate fully for the losses of all the other state-owned enterprises. Teleco profits in 1995 were about $42 m. "Housecleaning" at the electricity company Electricité d' Haiti (EDH) during the first seven months of Aristide's government made it possible to project annual profits of about $1.5 million. • Some of the "lossmaking" enterprises clearly have a mission of public service. The privatisation of electricity and telecommunications will hit the poorer and rural regions, and hinder their development. • the Haitian government must give itself the means of managing its public enterprises with honesty and competence. This will require a profound reform of the public sector. By declaring itself incapable of producing and distributing water or electricity, the government resigns in advance, faced as it is with very much more complex tasks, like agrarian reform. Debt, debt, debt
Now that parliament has voted through laws giving a green light to the structural adjustment plan, foreign loans which have been frozen for some months will presumably be freed. But who is going to use them, and for what? What part will go to public investments? We fear that, that, in their obsession with marginalising the Haitian state, the "funders" will seek to channel as much finance as possible through their own contacts. And then, of course, there is all the money "for Haiti" which will go straight back to the companies and experts of the "funder" countries.
Part of the IMF structural adjustment loans and other multilateral and bilateral loans which should follow are earmarked for the repayment of previous loans. Foreign debt was 33% of GDP at the end of September 1995, but will rise to 44% by September 1999. According to IMF figures, in 1995-6, debt servicing already represented 22% of Haiti's export income.
Some leaders of the democratic movement have often said that their objective was to make Haiti a "normal country". This expression would be correct if it expressed simply a will to respond to the elementary demands of the Haitian people, both political (the conquest of democratic rights denied since slavery times) and economic (the conquest of extreme poverty. But the underlying idea is all too often that the road to political stabilisation and economic development should be based on the system in
Haiti's neighbours, like the Dominican
Republic. In other words, the creation of a "modern" capitalist society, on the ashes of the social formation inherited from
Duvalierism. But in Haiti the need for a break with the past of political oppression and economic exploitation are so strong, and the economic backwardness so deep, that such a project is simply not viable.
The current neoliberal project seeks to liberate the energies and dynamic of private accumulation. But what is being verified and confirmed in Haiti (and what more and more countries are discovering in the context of the globalisation of capital is that profits have been raised by neo-liberal polices, but they are either invested elsewhere, or serve to increase the consumption of those who possess capital. Meanwhile, inequality grows. To expect that the liberalisation of foreign trade and internal deregulation will stimulate investment and domestic incomes is a great illusion, especially in Haiti where the ruling class already has one foot abroad. Crystal ball
How will Haiti enter the 21st century? One possibility is under quasi-total international economic tutelage. imposed against the will of the people, through corruption of its representatives, and through direct repression. By engaging itself on the road of this modernisation', the government will kill the hope of democratic change, and risk major confrontations. Alternatively, we may see a chaotic situation, which could be exploited by the partisans of a strong hand;
There is, of course, another possible future. The implementation of deep, far-reaching reforms, based on the interests of the oppressed, could subvert the power of the oligarchy and imperialism. This could not be done without the revival of the popular movement, and at the very least, without significant changes in the composition of the
Unfortunately, this last hypothesis is the least likely, and no one can exclude another coup in the years to come. Certainly the neoDuvalierist networks are raising their heads again. In recent months, they have multiplied their assassinations and intimidation. For some analysts, this new upsurge of violence was linked to the approach of the US presidential elections, the Republican party seeking to show that Clinton's Haitian policy is a fiasco. In any case, this tense situation will doubtless serve as a justification for the United Nations Security Council to prolong the mandate of UN forces, for a third time since they were supposed to quit Haiti last
There are currently no US soldiers in this force, but Washington has several hundred soldiers in Haiti, in various missions, and it is more than symbolic that, since September 1996, the protection of President Préval has been assured by US State Department security agents, while a purge is carried out within his own security service. *
Notes
1. Draft strategy paper of the World Bank group for Haiti. Washington, 11 April 1996.
2. National Labor Committee, New York, 30 January
1996. For information on the Disney/Haiti Justice
Campaign, see last month's issue of IV, or e PO Box
755, Fort Washington Station, New York, NY 10001,
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