Model Underdevelopment
Hooper, Micheal
A MONTH AFTER DUVALIER'S FALL, THE Catholic Church called for a massive literacy campaign, aiming to reach two million adults over the next five years. Numerous radio stations...
...While the eradication program was completed by late 1983, the great majority of peasants who lost their pigs never received any of the partial compensation provided to the Haitian government by international agencies and the U.S...
...Author's interview, February 19, 1987...
...This was particularly embarrassing in light of the finance minister's highly publicized campaign against corruption...
...AID, is based on agribusiness and assembly industry exports to developed countries, mainly the United States...
...This may fill part of the gap, yet can never address the problem of malnutrition...
...These weekly or monthly payments were listed either to the Duvaliers or to front accounts like "Social Projects of the President-for-Life" or "Social Projects of the Guardian of the Revolution...
...2 8 T HE KEY FIGURE IN CNG ECONOMIC policy-making is Finance Minister Leslie Delatour...
...the state flour mill...
...support rising from $54 million in 1985 to $110 million for fiscal year 1987...
...Those displaced farmers who do remain in Haiti are key actors in the U.S...
...On March 19 of this year, amid much fanfare, the Duvaliers' assets in the United States were frozen...
...AID, Haiti Action Plan, 1987-88, p. 4 6 . 15...
...AID, Country Development Strategy Assessment, 1984...
...In a 1985 "Strategy Statement" the World Bank was upbeat about Haiti's growth potential...
...16, 1987...
...Author's interview, February 12, 1987...
...New York Times, April 7, 1986...
...Caribbean Basin Initiative...
...origin (estimated at $267 million in 1986) and more than half of Haiti's exports are to the United States...
...AID, Haiti Action Plan, 1985, p. 3 . World Bank, Policy Proposals, p.5...
...5. Robert Debs Heinl and Nancy Gordon Heinl, Written in Blood (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), pp...
...AID, Country Development Strategy Statement, Haiti, 1982 p. 8 9 . 13...
...4. 11...
...has significant security interests in Haiti which shares the windward passage to the Caribbean sea and the Panama Canal with Cuba...
...59.8 million went to finance minister Franz Merceron, and $109.1 million to Jean Sambour, Michble's fashion consultant...
...Agence France-Presse, August 4, 1987...
...Author's interview, Feb...
...But due to the rising cost of living, between 1981 and 1986 real earnings decreased 20%.27 To dampen workers' calls for higher wages and recognition of trade unions, the government has claimed that 14,000 jobs have been lost due to such unreasonable demands...
...comparative advantage in a number of crops...
...large farms (100-300 hectares) number about 1,000...
...Clearly, the CNG and its friends in U.S...
...Author's interview, February 23, 1987...
...Labeled Haiti's own "Chicago boy" in reference to his cold-bath approach, Delatour is rapidly becoming as unpopular with the anti-Duvalierist forces-for slashing state expenditures and dismantling some state-owned industries-as with the Duvalierist Right-for eliminating opportunities for graft...
...AID and government policies-Haiti's food situation is reaching crisis proportions...
...market...
...Each used a slightly different "siphoning" technique...
...Almost 80% of the population is Illiterate Wages were officially increased to $3 per day in 1985 and some assembly workers earn $5-$7 per day...
...pork industry, or was actually necessary for Haiti...
...4. World Bank, Latin America and Caribbean Regional Office, Memorandum on the Haitian Economy, May 13, 1981, p. 6 . 5. World Bank, Policy Proposals, p. 11...
...Carlo A. Desinor, Daniel (Port-au-Prince, 1986), pp...
...Fingers in the Till 1. Author's interview, Commission of Inquiry on Public Finance, Port-au-Prince, May 14, 1986...
...Ibid., p.5...
...Allan Ebert, "Haiti and the AIFLD," The National Reporter (Washington, D.C...
...food donations continue to be sold for profit on the open market...
...World Bank, Policy Proposals, p.5...
...Author's interview with social democrat leader Serge Gilles, May 4, 1986...
...6. David Nicholls, From Dessalines to Duvalier (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 190...
...New York Times, March 30, 1987...
...Some of the controversy around Delatour is due to his brash personality and nonchalance in the face of charges that he is no more than a tool for U.S...
...Haiti has also witnessed a massive brain drain, with more Haitian nurses and physicians practicing in Montreal, where the Haitian community numbers about 40,000, than in all of Haiti...
...1987...
...The Paths to Democracy," Remarks of the Honorable Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, to Washington World Affairs Council, National Press Club, Washington D.C., June 30, 1987...
...Author's interview, February 14, 1987...
...See John Cavanagh and Joy Hackel, "Multinational Subcontracting in the Caribbean Basin," Report on the Americas, May/June 1984, Vol...
...9. New York Times, May 15, 1986...
...2. Affidavit of Justice Minister Frangois St...
...Michael S. Hooper, Duvalierism Since Duvalier, (New York: National Coalition for Haitian Refugees & Americas Watch, 1986...
...Widespread nationalist sentiHaiti has "untapped agricultural possibilities" MAY/JUNE 1987 37Haiti ment-a product of the anti-Duvalier movement's success-would seem to make such an attempt feasible...
...Sixty percent of all teachers work in urban areas, the majority in Port-au-Prince, while student-teacher ratios in the countryside reach 60 to 1 or worse...
...Liberation August 14, 1987...
...But even the World Bank admits that the "assembly REPORT ON THE AMERICAS Dl L 6 Findustry is largely outside the Haitian economy: it provides employment but purchases few Haitian inputs and makes almost no fiscal contribution...
...Between 1982 and 1985, finance minister Franz Merceron, for example, authorized payments to the Duvaliers exceeding $22 million...
...Most assembly firms are "shelter operations" in which a Haitian investor or speculator provides workers, plant and equipment (often leased from the United States) and the foreign buyer provides all raw materials and purchases all output...
...2 ' Overall, the number of Haitians residing abroad is estimated to be one million, with more than half of this diaspora now residing in the United States...
...taxpayer, and have no reason to expect they will ever receive replacements...
...Even if transition to export agriculture is successful, AID anticipates a "massive" displacement of peasant farmers and migration to urban centers...
...attitude of the time was expressed by Assistant Secretary of State Alvey A. Adee in 1888 when he called Haiti "a public nuisance at our doors...
...AID/World Bank development model, as a cheap labor force for the assembly industry.z Manufactured goods-with clothing, electronics and baseballs leading the way-now rival agricultural exports in value...
...Even in the unlikely event that this top-down approach could convert Haiti into the "Taiwan of the Caribbean," the pressures to maintain the country's comparative advantage--a poorly paid and malleable workforce-would keep the References Up by the Roots 1. David Nicholls, Haiti in Caribbean Context (London: Macmillan, 1985), pp...
...Ibid., p. 12...
...Between 1983 and 1985 alone a total of almost $40 million in hard currency was removed from the central bank, which the Duvaliers left with just slightly over $1 million.E MSH REPORT ON THE AMERICAS C n 36have collapsed...
...9. Michael S. Hooper, "Haiti," in Latin America and the Caribbean, A Contemporary Perspective, (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1985), p.822...
...Author's interview with Bourjolly, February 12, 1987...
...He has slashed spending in several departments and closed the state edible oils processing plant (ENAOL) and one of the country's largest sugar refineries, Darbonne...
...9. Author's interview with editor of leading Haitian daily newspaper, Port-au-Prince, February 1987...
...Bishop Frangois Gayot of Cap Haitien has complained to the Bishop of Quimper, France, that one of his priests is involved in a French project--"Books for Haiti"-which has shipped to Haiti several hundred thousand donated secondhand books on all subjects for general distribution...
...Yet much of the opposition to him is quite substantive...
...According to plans laid out in 1982, "AID proposes to shift 30% of all cultivated land from the production of food for local consumption to the production of export crops...
...1987...
...Author's interview with government minister, Feb...
...programs such as Food for Work and Food for Peace, which, by bringing wheat in at concessionary prices, make it less profitable to grow cereals locally as they can easily be replaced with subsidized imports...
...7. World Bank, Policy Proposals, p.8...
...The Regie also paid wages to a variety of "employees" who then signed the checks over to the President-for-Life...
...Washington Post, May 17, 1986...
...few have horses or oxen to haul a cart...
...House of Representatives, Section 203 of Foreign Assistance Act, "Promoting Democracy in Haiti," September 25, 1986...
...EIGHT QUASI-GOVERNMENTAL ENTERPRISES -- completely dominated by the Duvaliers-provided the best opportunities for embezzlement...
...the state lottery...
...Whether the young and diverse mass movement can force a change, remains to be seen...
...3. Author's interview with members of the Haitian Bar Association, Port-au-Prince, July-August 1987...
...3. Ibid., p.4...
...even government employees often earn less...
...Despite this flurry of grassroots activity, the possibility of renewed public confidence in government development efforts has been stymied by the CNG's failure to stop the mismanagement of public monies...
...p USHED OFF THE LAND BY HUNGER, Haitians have migrated to the cities en masse...
...Sabine Vogel, "Que Dieu Sauve Haiti...
...AID), in 1985 the average Haitian consumed 20% fewer calories than levels recommended by the United Nations and 30% less protein...
...Haitians need jobs and the assembly industry provides them," says Finance Minister Delatour...
...Recently disclosed cancelled checks and bank transactions show that Jean-Claude, Michble and their agents alone lifted more that $505 million from public monies and treasury revenues.' The system was shockingly simple, although more sophisticated schemes are constantly coming to light...
...economic assistance this past year to produce a little breathing room for an economy that otherwise would MAY/JUNE 1987 35Repoir ot Am4eas Haiti I as "expenses" or as "profits," and checks made out g:A Crowds ransacked Michble's house after she fled D E SIPHONAGE, THE "SIPHONING OFF" OF public monies by the Duvaliers and their close associates had a devastating impact on the Haitian economy...
...As these tariffs had made many consumer staples produced in Haiti far more expensive than in the United States, Delatour's action and laissez-faire approach to the contraband now flooding the Haitian market has resulted in a notable reduction in the cost of some basic goods...
...Dupuy is believed to have access to a large U.S...
...Since 1970 at least 25,000 Haitians per year have left for other countries, mainly the United States and the Dominican Republic...
...2. Amy Wilentz, "Voodoo in Haiti Today," Grand Street (New York), February 1987...
...Perhaps the CNG's most meaningful effort at economic recovery has been its attempt to repatriate some of the $800 million stolen from the public treasury by the Duvaliers and a small coterie of former public officials and friends [see box...
...A rapidly expanding population has increased demand, while agricultural productivity has seriously declined.' 4 Food imports have risen steadily over the years, to $89 million today (up from $62 million in 1984) constituting some 20% of total imports...
...Los Angeles Times, March 7, 1986...
...2 Washington's experts were surprisingly candid about the consequences of their development plans for the Hemisphere's poorest nation...
...investors...
...A I# . cement company...
...In addition, the Duvaliers charged 93 cents per sack of flour donated or subsidized by U.S...
...Haitian cane growers, mostly peasants, have been particularly hurt, as they have nowhere to sell their crop...
...456-459...
...Ibid., p.4 7 . 16...
...7. Bernard Diederich and Al Burt, Papa Doc (London: Penguin, 1972), p. 97...
...From early 1981 to late 1985, it is estimated that over $4 million was siphoned from the public treasury in this fashion...
...3. Author's interview, Commission on Public Finance, May 20, 1987...
...Numerous radio stations spontaneously offered their equipment, and today thousands of volunteers in slums and villages across the country are teaching the poor to read and write Creole...
...banking fortune through family ties...
...AID will not solve Haiti's crushing poverty...
...The Duvaliers and favored agents skimmed funds from the treasury and a number of quasi-governmental entities Payments were made into their irregular, non-fiscalized accounts...
...Author's interview, February 19, 1987...
...Josh DeWind and David Kinley, Aiding Migration: The Impact of International Development Assistace on Haiti, (New York: Immigration Research Program, Center for Social Sciences, Columbia University, 1986) p. 7 9 . 23...
...Delatour has nonetheless made many changes in 10 months in office...
...An impoverished Haitian peasant could never afford such luxuries for himself, let alone for his pigs...
...Ibid., p.17 2 . 14...
...2. Press Advisory of the High Command of the Armed Forces of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, July 30, 1987...
...The reluctance of both Haitian and U.S...
...Author's interview, Feb...
...1987...
...The checks were then endorsed by Jean-Claude or Michele and deposited in private bank accounts or used to purchase dollars...
...A few peasant uprisings over land seizures had occurred during the Duvalier years, notably in the Artibonite village of Bocozelle in March 1975, when six people were killed in a clash with the Army's anti-subversion troops, the Leopards...
...and the state car insurance company...
...Haiti could enjoy a better place in the world than 1983 per capita GNP of U.S...
...While the government officially gave in to the demand, little substantive action has followed...
...4. The U.S...
...Clearly the Duvaliers' flight created new opportunities to tackle the country's overwhelming economic difficulties...
...AID did provide 500 Iowa breeding stock, avHuman resources: Haiti's biggest capital owedly to aid those farmers and peasants who suffered the greatest losses...
...3. Nicholls, Caribbean Context, pp...
...And courier Auguste Douyon made off with $120 million...
...The pattern of corruption for the other quasi-governmental entities was equally efficient, with various "charitable institutions" taking turns laundering the funds...
...Author's interview, February 14, 1987...
...3 0 ACCORDING TO THE WASHINGTON POST, Delatour discovered early this year that some employees of his ministry were erasing funds from checks and then redepositing them, netting over $400,000 per month...
...Over 60% of the medical supplies of the country's main hospital are sold off by corrupt administrators while patients go without penicillin, sterile syringes and even sterile gauze...
...World Bank, Public Expenditures Review, p.11...
...Haiti seemed ready to mobilize human resources-its biggest capital-to rebuild the economic infrastructure so badly neglected during the dictatorship...
...175-182...
...In 1970, assembly workers earned $1 per day...
...He is despised by many for continuing to serve a military junta that has little remaining credibility...
...8. Associated Press, July 25, 1987 18:33EDT...
...the Haitian community in New York City provided more than $150,000...
...First, the U.S...
...In the countryside, wages average only a little more than half the official minimum of $2.64 per day...
...Summer 1986...
...authorities to comply with peasants' demands for the importation of "black pigs" from Jamaica and Martinique, more suitable to the environment and to scavenging for food, has become a powerful focus of anti-government feeling...
...2. World Bank, Haiti, Policy Proposals for Growth, Rpt...
...World Bank, Haiti, Strategy Paper, November 1985, p.3...
...As yet little headway has been made in ending the systematic fraud fostered by the dictator's example...
...3 2 The World Bank recently reported that some 57,000 salary checks were issued by the government in April 1986, when there were only 32,500 public employees, the difference being phantom employees who receive what are known as "zombie checks...
...World Bank, Policy Proposals, p.74...
...Author's interview, May 2, 1986...
...Washington Post, Feb.4,1987...
...Yet assembly plants have absorbed a minimal portion of the workforce, employing about 40,000 workers, while some 39,000 new workers enter the labor market every year.' 6 Moreover, assembly industry operations require a politically stable environment and a docile labor force...
...Author's interview, Feb...
...6 The educational system has been virtually privatized through neglect, and now consists mainly of Church-run schools...
...Author's interview, March 31, 1986...
...If not transferred directly to the Duvaliers, the money would be assigned to fronts such as the Michele Bennett Duvalier Foundation, the Michele Duvalier Hospital (Bon Repos) or "Cultural Activities...
...8. International Monetary Fund, Haiti, Recent Economic Developments, p.49...
...World Bank, Policy Proposals, pp...
...Assembly industry exports for 1980 to 1984 averaged $53.9 million yearly, while coffeea major export crop-earned $53.2 million...
...The largest amounts went to fictitious projects like the Michele Bennett Foundation, the Bon Repos Infant and Maternal Health Hospital-her pet charity, which in fact received little money-or directly to the president or first lady.z The Bank of the Republic of Haiti or the National Bank of Credit was then coerced into cashing the checks or converting them into dollars for transfer to foreign accounts...
...Le Monde, (Paris), April 9, 1986...
...Author's interview, February 14, 1987...
...Author's interview with government minister, Feb...
...Konakom press conference, Port-au-Prince, July 10, 1987...
...Haiti is strategically located only 700 miles from Florida and the existence of a non-hostile government and populace in Haiti is a fundamental security interest...
...One such employee, Hemlock Lamotte, was paid over $6.8 million over a four-year period...
...The country's second largest city, Cap-Haitien, has 80,000 residents, and Les Cayes 50,000...
...World Bank, Policy Proposals, p.1 2 . 18...
...And the continued dependence of even fifth and sixth generation pigs on grain feed makes them unaffordable to most...
...All eight were headed by Duvalier-appointees and each had its own accounting procedure, independent of the public budget or the Ministry of Finance...
...Liberation (Paris), February 14, 1986...
...Haiti-Progrds (New York), January 21, 1987...
...In addition to his salary, $2.4 million expense account and $2 million supplementary account, Jean-Claude stole $120.5 million, and Michele $94.6 mil- lion from 1981-1985...
...U.S...
...While few doubt that these state enterprises were inefficient and provided golden opportunities for graft, public opposition to their closing has been vociferous, as it has caused both a direct and derivative loss in employment while increasing dependence on imports...
...Prior to their departure, the Duvaliers had begun to monopolize spoils once more equitably distributed among a larger retinue...
...Hooper, Duvalierism, p. 49...
...8. Wall Street Journal, April 18, 1986...
...The Monkey's Tail Still Strong 1. Author's Interviews with Center for Defense of Public Liberties, Mobile Institute for Democratic Education and League of Former Political Prisoners (human rights organizations), Portau-Prince, July 24-August 1, 1987...
...AID, with total U.S...
...HE END OF THE DUVALIER DYNASTY HAS provided an opportunity for trying new development approaches in the poorest country of the Western Hemisphere, especially those based on mass participation in self-help schemes...
...Haiti continues to import almost twice as much as it exports, with the deficit exceeding $160 million in 1985.7 Disaster has been averted only because of the substantial amounts of money sent home by Haitians living abroad, about $125 million yearly...
...The value of one of the country's largest foreign exchange earners, coffee, continues to plummet, down another $6 million in 1985...
...Farmworkers earn an average of $1.45 per day, far below the government-mandated minimum...
...The report also confirms that influential employees are not expected to perform on the job...
...The loss of pigs, often the Haitian peasant's only savings and insurance providing at least 50% of the protein consumed annually, was a harsh blow to the already fragile peasant economy...
...Sharecroppers lack the means to invest in the land, and are typically limited to technology such *One hectare= 2.4 acres...
...U charged...
...The Regie du Tabac collected all taxes on the sale of basic commodities, depositing over $30 million in the Duvaliers' private accounts between 1978 and 1984...
...It has untapped agricultural possibilities...
...3 Ninety percent of the population earned less than $150 in 1985.4 Fewer than 20% of full-time workers actually receive the official urban minimum wage of $3.00 per day...
...Bringing Down Baby 1. The Guardian, (London) January 25, 1986...
...Large quantities of U.S...
...Geo (Paris), December 1986...
...183-186...
...Food imports have also been encouraged by U.S...
...13 Haiti has the capacity to meet its own needs for rice, vegetables and many cereals, yet-in large part due to U.S...
...5. Quoted in Michael S. Hooper, Duvalierism Without Duvalier, (New York: National Coalition for Haitian Refugees and Americas Watch, October 1986) p. 19...
...In the women's underwear industry, for example, all inputs are flown in from the United States, most managers are foreigners and none of the products are even available in Haiti...
...the remaining 55% are wage laborers or sharecroppers...
...One Haitian child dies every five minutes from malnutrition, dehydration and diarrhea.' According to the United States Agency for International Development (U.S...
...In the four years before their flight, Jean-Claude and his entourage stole much more than the annual national budget from the Hemisphere's poorest nation...
...5601-HA, June 1985, p. 11...
...The infant mortality rate--135 per 1,000 births-is the Hemisphere's highest, while average life expectancy is just 53 years...
...I T WOULD BE DIFFICULT TO EXAGGERATE the depth of Haiti's poverty...
...Author's interview, February 14, 1987...
...7. Estimates on the number of Macoutes vary from 9,00040,000...
...Author's interview, February 10, 1987...
...Greg Chamberlain, "Haitian Media Contribute to Duvalier's Fall," Media Development (London), 1986, No...
...4. Author's interview with Robert Duval, president, League of Former Political Prisoners, Port-au-Prince, May 1986...
...However, many agronomists believe this plan will result in agribusiness producers gaining control of the pork market...
...But the Duvaliers did not stop at skimming profits off state-owned businesses...
...In recent years, almost 50% of all imports into Haiti have been of U.S...
...2 4 In addition, the government provides the basic infrastructure necessary for efficient operations: roads, low-cost energy and telecommunication services and even buildings...
...TELECO, 11 WA LjUl Lfij qn .. f.t I'UU...
...ii and 5. 27...
...Due largely to nepotism, the telecommunications company has five times the number of necessary staff, and the Port-auPrince water works more than twice as many employees per 1,000 connections as the average for Latin America and the Caribbean...
...In rural areas-where 75% of the population lives-these deficiences climb to 40% for calories and 50% for protein...
...Fleur on Investigations of Public Finance, January 16, 1987...
...Another $75,000 was collected to rebuild Radio Haiti Inter, destroyed by Duvalier's security forces in 1980...
...the gambling commission...
...The largest bilateral contributor has consistently been U.S...
...Questions persist as to whether the program, which destroyed almost all of Haiti's one million native pigs, was primarily intended to protect the U.S...
...The government has offered "tax holidays" to prospective assembly industry investors for periods generally no less than 10 years through an elaborate system of loopholes and kickbacks which continue even after the "holiday" is over...
...Le Monde Diplomatique (Paris) August, 1987...
...Author's interview, July 26, 1986...
...The finance minister has slashed taxes on the production of coffee and basic commodities, begun to reform the income tax system and has reduced many of the tariffs that favored national consumer goods industries...
...MAY/JUNE 1987 33Reot404 Oi Ame-ris Haiti as the machete and the hoe...
...480 Food for Peace Program...
...These "taxes" went into a special account from which the Duvaliers would order checks made out to "Public Works of the President-for-Life...
...Dozens of neighborhood committees are flourishing in the poorest areas of Port-au-Prince, organizing clean-ups to improve sanitation and tapping into water lines that previously bypassed their communities...
...some never show up...
...Haitian security forces have always been available to place severe restrictions on labor organizing and to guarantee low wages...
...taxpayers under the P.L...
...Haiti's inequitable distribution of wealth is dramatically illustrated by its virtually feudal patterns of land ownership, exacerbated by the existence of large tracts of underutilized land...
...Wheat imports increased 11% per year from 1970 to 1983, and by 1984 constituted 32% of grain consumption.' 6 These percentages are believed to have increased considerably since...
...Author's interview, February 10, 1987...
...6. U.S...
...Author's interview with human rights groups, Port-auPrince, July 25, 1987...
...Almost 80% of the population is illiterate, and most of the 18,000 children ready to enter school each year cannot be accommodated for lack of facilities, teachers and support funds...
...Pervasive official corruption has continued to siphon 'off scarce public funds and foreign assistance into extrabudgetary expenditures for the elite, feeding the inequality that is responsible for so much of Haiti's political instability...
...Haiti's total arable area is approximately 875,000 hectares,* of which 60% are small holdings under one hectare...
...Many peasants are relegated to poor plots on steep hillsides where primitive techniques yield liitle and greatly increase soil erosion...
...38 REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 38 REPORT ON THE AMERICASModel Underdevelopment 1. UNICEF report cited in Miami Herald, April 25, 1987...
...It is close to the North American market, especially attractive since the advent of the U.S...
...And, on the basis of increased international aid and reductions in other departments, Delatour has actually increased the education budget by 11% over last year's...
...2. Miami Herald, December 23, 1985...
...Other than accelerating the crisis in agriculture, the government has shown no sign that it intends to undertake any coherent development plan, much less one that would buck foreign economic interests...
...T HE MOST DRAMATIC ISSUE IN THE countryside today centers on the devastating effects of an international program to eradicate and replenish the entire pig population following the detection of African Swine Fever in 1981...
...Ibid., Annex 1, p.3...
...And his frequent backsliding into neoconservative rhetoric when confronted by Haiti's very immediate economic crisis indicates to many his lack of a concrete strategy for development...
...But international lending agencies have fixed their gaze on developing Haiti's export potential, channelling resources into agribusiness and assembly plants to compete for the U.S...
...New York Times, November 16, 1986...
...On the sensitive eve of the first anniversary of Duvalier's fall, thousands of peasants threatened to slaughter the Iowa pigs if "black pigs" were not brought in quickly...
...Industry as a whole can take advantage of the factors that have so attracted the largely foreign assembly firms: productive low-cost labor, proximity to the United States, functioning basic infrastructure, pro-business atmosphere, and political stability.' 0 Haiti's "attractiveness" and "untapped possibilities" have not been lost on Washington, which also recognizes the island's strategic military importance...
...1987...
...These included: the Regie du Tabac...
...Port-au-Prince grew from 150,000 in 1950 to 720,000 in 1982.2 It is safe to estimate that the capital now houses one million people, with the outlying slums of Citd Soleil (formerly Cit6 Simone, after Papa Doc's wife), La Saline, Carrefour, Martissant and Bizoton absorbing the biggest influx...
...By that year, the balance of payments deficit had reached $25 million while total debt was estimated at $519 million and $833 million by August 1987.8 T O THE DEGREE THAT IT HAS ACTED AT all, the CNG, like its predecessor, has followed the recommendations of the World Bank and other agencies, whose investment funds have long been the mainstay of the Haitian economy...
...AID anticipates that such a drastic reorientation of agriculture will cause a decline in income and nutritional status, especially for small farmers and peasants...
...7 Many major landowners live in the capital, doing little to encourage increased output...
...And illegally imported goods such as cigarettes, sugar, flour and rice are blatantly hawked in streets and markets...
...Le Monde, August 9, 1987...
...The project, headed by PUCH's deputy leader, Max Bourjolly, was communist-controlled, he benefits of such growth from trickling down to the poor...
...While the half of 1% of the population who earn 46% of the national income continues to jockey for political access to even greater wealth, nearly all Haitians remain trapped in unimaginable misery...
...3 The World Bank team was unable to trace almost one-fifth of the budgeted government spending, while 22% percent of the money spent was not budgeted...
...Author's interview with agronomist Jean Jacques Honorat, March 1987...
...An additional charge of 93 cents was levied on each bag of flour ground by Minoterie d'Haiti, the state flour mill...
...About 45% of the agricultural labor force are independent farmers and peasants...
...8 The pink and plump Iowa pigs demanded constant and meticulous care: special pens, vitamin- and protein-laced feed, cool cement floors, clean water and constant fine showers to withstand Haiti's environment.' 9 Dubbed "four-legged kings," they were only allowed visitors who wore disinfected boots and overalls...
...2 9 Nevertheless, the short-term benefits from these policies have combined with a virtual doubling of U.S...
...2 At least one-third of the children under five suffer chronic malnutrition, which along Hunger has pushed Haitians to the cities with gastroenteritis accounts for 90% of child deaths...
...They often resorted to crude political pressure, forcing ministers to write checks for their "special projects...
...168-169...
...Yet even this task has been poorly coordinated, with some of it handled by the governmental Commission of Inquiry and the more detailed and successful work by a U.S.-based law firm, and to date nothing has been returned...
...While Delatour concedes that opening up the borders to consumer goods from the Dominican Republic and Miami has also resulted in a massive increase in food imports, he ignores the long-term effects on local peasant economies, urban migration and overall dependency...
...6. Author's interview with Col...
...On IMF recommendation, the government has also raised taxes on consumer goods, further undermining the standard of living.' The development strategy for Haiti encouraged by the World Bank and U.S...
...320 would indicate...
...Between 1978 and 1984, the Regie issued checks worth an average of $109,500 per month to non-existant social agencies...
...This vast internal migration has also been accompanied by an equally vast migration overseas...
...5 Like other underdeveloped nations, Haiti is continuously underdeveloping, as is reflected in the tradition32REPORT ON THE AMERICAS I 32 REPORT ON THE AMERICASally minuscule state expenditures on public education, health and agricultural extension services, the lowest in the hemisphere...
...When the Church launched an appeal to help rebuild schools damaged during the mass demonstrations to oust Duvalier, Haitians at home and abroad responded with $600,000 in small donations...
...18, no.3...
...Williams Regala, Port-auPrince, May 19, 1986...
...The International Monetary Fund, which assigns primary importance to keeping the country solvent so as to meet external debt and balance-of-payments requirements, has mandated severe budget cuts, by which the government's meager contribution to development has declined to nearly nothing...
Vol. 21 • May 1987 • No. 3
