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How to create the Haitian nation
By Jean H Charles MSW, JD
Posted: Sep 1, 2007 15:47 UTC
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BROOKLYN, NY, U.S.A. - The people of Haiti have a choice, they can face the challenge of accomplishing the task of creating, in 2007, the nation that they set themselves to create in 1804 or they can go back into the conditions of squalor they have been living in for the past two hundred years.
They have today a window of opportunity in the form of:
• The new government of reconciliation
• The cooperation of the international community.
• The Diaspora well educated and well off, ready to invest into the reconstruction of Haiti.
• The Haitian elite at last have understood the rural peasants as well as the marginal of the shantytowns have the right to a decent school, reasonable health care, comfortable habitat and access to jobs.
• Last, but not least, the frustration of the underclass for the demagogic and the messianic solution à la Duvalier and à la Aristide.
According to Ernest Renan a French philosopher, to create a nation one needs:
• A recognized and accepted geographical boundary.
• A people that glows in the same historical vision of the past
• In addition, engage in a shared and common aspiration in the future.
Haitians have a clear understanding of their boundaries, they share the same proud vision of their glorious past, but it is clear they do not partake in the same vision of the future. The rural classes do not belong per se to the making of the nation. Rural Haiti is a no man’s land where the de facto apartheid system is in full force. The Haitian peasant does not have a decent school; he has no electricity, no roads, no hospitals and no access to the financial market. He has been left on his own for the past 150 years.
In the last 50 years, he has been lured into the city, armed by the populist governments of Duvalier and Aristide and used as macoute attaché or chimère to defend the dictatorial regimes that pay lip service for his welfare.
To create the Haitian nation, the people of Haiti must undertake an Affirmative Action program on behalf of those that Dessalines, the Haitian Founding Father, has been assassinated for: those who have no direct lineage from France. They are the former slaves who took to the mountains after the Declaration of Independence. Through laws, culture change, and an appropriate budget, the Haitian government and civil society must create the infrastructure to empower the rural peasant so he or she will create wealth that will enrich the nation.
This is the major challenge of the new government in the post Aristide era. The international community in general, MINUSTHA in particular should provide the technical assistance to Haiti in reaching that goal.
This plan written some fifteen years ago is as relevant today as it responds to the critical needs in building the new nation of Haiti.
Building the Haitian Nation - Phase I
Rebuilding the rural counties into model villages.
The economic plan for the rural counties will have a final goal to raise the annual revenue of each peasant from the actual figure of $450 per year to a projected income of $10,000 per year scaled over the next five years. The project will reach a maximum of 3 million people spread over the 565 rural counties. Each rural county has an approximate population of 5,000 persons. We must implement the following infrastructure in each village:
1. Budget for salary $5,000.00 per year
2. Budget for construction and utilities $5,000.00 per year
3. Budget for programming $5,000.00 per year
The village will have ten units of development. Each unit will operate from an annual budget that includes salary, construction and programming or $15,000.00 per unit:
1. Administration
2. Education
3. Health and sanitation
4. Agriculture and husbandry
5. Environment, water and energy
6. Roads
7. Economic development, marketing and merchandising
8. Youth, leisure and sport
9. Small industry and arts
10. Habitat
Total cost per village: $150.000.00
Total cost for the rural counties, around: 90 million dollars.
The Process
The process of implementing the rural development of Haiti must have the highest priority attention from the national government. This political will shall be translated into the creation of a separate Ministry of Rural Development. This Ministry shall be empowered to take all necessary actions at the national and international level to improve the welfare of the Haitian peasant.
International Level
The Ministry shall contract with the Homeland Security Department of the United States for a portion of the Budget of Interdiction at Sea for a program of at Home Stabilization. By rooting the Haitian peasant in his catchments area, we will decrease the incentive for the internal migration into a shantytown before negotiating an illegal trip to Florida, Bahamas or the Turks and Caicos.
At the national level
The Ministry of Rural Development shall coordinate with the Ministry of Planning for the adoption by the ONG of a set number of rural counties according to a planned process of development elaborated by the Haitian government.
At the local level
The people of Haiti must be lead to understand that the welfare of each citizen is closely linked to the welfare of those with the weakest link in the national chain of development, i.e. the Haitian peasant. He has been discriminated against during the past two hundred years. An affirmative action project on his behalf is a priority at the national and international level.
Phase II
Program of urbanization of the 140 towns and villages of the republic with an approximate population of 2 million people with an average of 15,000 people per village:
1. Administration (town hall, post office, taxation, court, etc)
2. Hospital
3. Water
4. Habitat
5. Small industry
6. Public park and sport
7. School, technical center and satellite university
8. Energy and communication
9. Sewer and roads
10. Public market.
Total cost: (one million per town) approximately 150 million US dollars.
The process
The Haitian abroad, the Diaspora has created regional organizations to help their brethren from their home village. International organizations and the Haitian government shall empower with technical assistance and funding those entities to make them more suitable to participate in the renaissance of Haiti.
Phase III
Program of urbanization of the 10 most important cities of the Republic of Haiti:
Cape Haitian, Gonaives, Cayes, Port de Paix, Jeremie, Hinche, Jacmel, St Marc, Fort Liberte, Miragoane.
Approximate population: 2 million people or 20,000 per city.
Total cost: 100 million US dollars
Alternatively, ten million per city.
Phase IV
Program of urbanization of Port au Prince, the capital of Haiti,
1 million people
100 million US dollars
PHASE V
Program of repatriation and of social recuperation of the Haitians living in squalid condition in the bateys of the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas and Immokalee, Belle Glade, Pahokee of Florida.
Total cost: 25 million US dollars
Phase VI
Program of literacy of the adults and complete scholarisation of the Haitian youths
Total cost: 50 million US dollars
Phase VII
Program of common market with the Caribbean islands including:
• Reinforcing the Haiti State University to facilitate and exchange with the University of the West Indies.
• Creating a common Caribbean airline
• Building an inter-island ferry
• Marketing and promoting inter island tourism.
• Enhancing and nurturing the Creole culture in Martinique, Guadeloupe, Dominica, St Lucia and Louisiana
Total cost: 100 million US dollars.
Phase VIII
Program of creating six Public Authorities that will provide services and manage facilities that will include:
1. Construction of the large highways linking the north to the south, east and west of the country. Maintenance and tollage. Total incubation cost 150 million US dollars
2. Construction of international airports for the main cities as well as smaller airports in the tourist sites: Chou Chou Bay, Bord de Mer Limonade, Mole St Nicholas, La Tortue, La Gonave, Port Salut, St Jean du Sud, Fort Liberte, Milot. Total cost for incubation 100 million US dollars
3. Construction of the ports and the marinas in the towns and the coastal villages Total cost incubated 100 million US dollars
4. Office for the solicitation and the incubation of industrial and agricultural enterprises. Total cost 75 million US dollars
5. Construction of dams for electricity and agriculture in the valleys of Cul de Sac, North, Leogane and Artibonite. Incubation 75 million US dollars
6. Construction of a network of communication in fiber optic to provide the country in phone, cell, cable and internet services. Incubation 75 million US dollars .
Phase IX
Program for the celebration of the victory of the Black Man against Slavery. Repair and reconstruction of the historical sites. National and international tourism.
Branding Haiti: Haiti is open for business.
50 million US dollar
Phase X
National Center for the scientific research, the promotion of invention in medicine, technology, environment, agriculture etc.
55 million US dollars
Phase XI
The Promotion of Haitian Art as a National Treasure and a means of resource and revenue for the Haitian Artist.
Inter Caribbean and international Art Festival
50 millions US dollars
Phase XII
Create a modern and disciplined police force with a catchments area that include not only the cities, but also the towns and the rural villages. 100 million
Rebuild the Haitian Army as a tool of development 100 million.
Phase XIII
Ameliorate the judicial system while adding court for traffic infraction, protection of the environment and creating a Truth and Justice committee to prosecute the political crimes committed by the former regimes.
80 million US dollars
Phase XIV
Create a sanitary system of health that includes hospitals, and clinics to combat AIDS, and promote population control and public hygiene.
100 million US dollars
Phase XV
Implement the decentralization as per wishes of the Constitution of 1987. Elevate the position of the Delegate to State Governor with wide authority and autonomy to rule the business of their state.
50 million US Dollars
Phase XVI
Promote citizenship education; nurture the sense of morality amongst youngsters to counteract the depravation, the drug culture, and the ravages of fifty years of dictatorial regimes.
25 million
Phase XVII
Maintain the present budget of the Republic.
300 million US dollars
Total expenses: 3 billion US dollars.
Mr. Jean H. Charles Commentaries Home
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