28 Dec Ricardo Seitenfus fired by the OAS for speaking his truth

I came across an article in Haiti Libre that caught my eye about the firing of outspoken Ricardo Seitenfus of the OAS. Firing? Whatever could he have done? So i went back a day in the same online news source and found his rather startling comment:

“…if there is evidence of the failure of international aid, it’s Haiti”

So i went on my hunt – who is this Ricardo Seitenfus? And where did he say this? Who has the guts to say out loud what so many have been thinking? To say it without blaming the victim?

A quick search in Google News resulted three pages of articles over the past few days – all in Spanish, Italian, French and Vietnamese. Nothing in English. Except an article on the Centre for Research on Globalization website, The UN Mission in Haiti: OAS official Ricardo Seitenfus speaks out.
So i went back to the source. The original interview is in Le Mond, a Swiss news journal. If you don’t read French, please use either Google Chrome (which automatically translates a page) or Google Translate to paste the paragraphs into. I’m not advocating for Google (so if you have better suggestions, please let me know) – i just sincerely feel that people should read his words. There is a translation of the complete interview on The Still Jaspora Blog.

I was struck by his honesty and forthrightness – but mostly i was struck by his clear and unflinching analysis of the work that his own organization has been doing in Haiti. He lost his position as the Special Representative of the OAS in Haiti within 24 hours of the publication of the article. He knew the risks, and i applaud his courage.

Among his stronger critiques of the treatment of Haiti:

The system of dispute prevention within the UN system is not adapted to the Haitian context. Haiti is not an international threat. We are not experiencing civil war. Haiti is not Iraq or Afghanistan. And yet the Security Council, for lack of an alternative, imposed peacekeepers in 2004 after the departure of President Aristide. We are here in our eighth UN mission since 1990. Since 1986, which saw the departure of Jean–Claude Duvalier, Haiti has been in what I call a low intensity conflict. We are faced with struggles for power among political actors who do not respect the democratic game. But it seems to me that Haiti is essentially paying for its proximity to the United States in the international arena. Haiti has been the subject of negative attention from the international system. It was for the UN to freeze the power and transform the Haitian prisoners in their own island. The anguish of boat people largely explain the decisions of the international arena vis–à-vis Haiti. We want them to stay home at any price.

His is a clear indictment of the treatment of Haiti – it’s punishment for being so close to the U.S. – for refusing to play by international rules…he goes on to say:

For two hundred years, the presence of foreign troops has alternated with that of dictators. It is force that defines international relations with Haiti and never dialogue. The original sin of Haiti, on the world stage is its freedom. Haitians committed an unacceptable act in 1804: a crime of lese–majeste for a troubled world. The West was then a world of colonialism, slavery and racism basing its wealth on the exploitation of conquered lands. So the Haitian revolutionary model scares superpowers. The United States did not recognize Haiti’s independence in 1865. And France required payment of a ransom to accept this freedom. From the beginning, independence was compromised and hampered the development of the country. The world has never known how to deal with Haiti, so it ended up ignoring it. Thus began two hundred years of solitude on the international stage. Today, the UN applied blindly Chapter 7 of its charter, it deploys its troops to impose its peace operation. It solves nothing, it worsens. We want to make Haiti a capitalist country, an export platform for U.S. market – which is absurd. Haiti must return to what it is, that is to say, a predominantly agricultural country still fundamentally imbued customary law. The country is continually described in terms of its violence. But without a state, the level of violence reaches yet a fraction of that of Latin America. There are elements in this society that have prevented the violence from spreading beyond measure.

He’s right – i can’t imagine any other place in the world where this much violence could be inflicted from the outside and from on top without a massive implosion of civil war. But he is not insisting a “return to the pastoral” – his is not a romantic idealization of some distant past agrarian society. Rather, he goes on:

There is a part of Haiti that is modern, urban and touring abroad. An estimated 4 million Haitians live outside the borders. This is an open country in the world. I do not dream of returning to the sixteenth century, an agrarian society. But Haiti lives under the influence of international NGOs, charity universal. Over 90% of education and health are in private hands. The country has no public resources to be able to operate in a minimal state system. The UN fails to take account of cultural traits. The peace keeping operation is based ont he assumption that the economy is the real challenge facing the country. The problem is socio-economic development. When the unemployment rate reached 80%, it became unbearable to deploy a stabilization mission. There is nothing to stabilize and everything to build.

Build. It always comes back to building. Clinton and his fellows speak of the clean slate, the rebuildig of Haiti – but what about simply starting to build? Simply allowing the people to build their own country? Following the earthquake, there opened a moment in the Post-Washington Consensus to really, truly follow through on it’s first mandate – rebuilding civil society and democracy. There is no hope for even the free market without the basic infrastructure to have a state, to allow the people to negotiate their own future.

Emergency aid is effective. But when it becomes structural when it replaces the state in all its missions, it leads to a collective lack of responsibility. If there is evidence of the failure of international aid, is Haiti. The country became a Mecca. The earthquake of 12 January and the cholera epidemic only accentuate this phenomenon. The international community has the feeling of having to repeat every day that it ended the previous day. Fatigue of Haiti begins to emerge. This small nation has surprised the world conscience to disasters increasingly huge. I hope that in the plight of 12 January, the world would understand that he had gone wrong with Haiti. Unfortunately, it has reinforced the same policy. Instead of taking stock, we sent more soldiers. We must build roads, erect dams, participate in the organization of the State, the judicial system. The UN says it has no mandate for that. Its mandate in Haiti is to keep the peace of the cemetery.

Have i piqued your interest enough? I could go on, but i really shouldn’t. It’s well worth the extra step or two it may take to read the rest of the interview. He touches on the greed of NGOs and rebuilders, the lack of experience of many of the field workers, the mistakes being made, etc. “Il est inacceptable du point de vue moral de considérer Haïti comme un laboratoire” (It is unacceptable from the moral standpoint to consider Haiti as a laboratory), he declares. I couldn’t agree more.