THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 14, 1995 TAG: 9510130631
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: HAITI: A YEAR OF STARTING OVER
SOURCE: BY FRANCIE LATOUR, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
Imagine if tomorrow, the Swedish government decided it wasn't pleased with the state of violence in America and sent troops in to take over.
Imagine if for 16 months or 16 years, every time you bought stamps at the post office or picked up your Social Security check, the framed portrait of a foreign president smiled at you.
If you can't imagine it, Father Philippe Joseph said, then you can't understand the experience of invasion and the harsh legacy of economic dependence it leaves behind.
``Invasion is like being put in prison,'' said Joseph, who helps run a peasant cooperative in the southern mountain village of Fondwa. ``And the person who put you in prison is the only person who has the key to make you free.''
About $847 million has poured into Haiti in the past year, according to the United States Agency for International Development. Many Haitians, though, say they have never seen the fruits of those funds.
Foreign aid experts say the gap between the figures and the perceptions merely reflect the extent of Haiti's poverty and the enormous amount it will cost to fix it.
But some observers say the buildup of a wieldy foreign aid machine has lost sight of Haiti's internal goals and become a self-perpetuating bureaucracy.
``The mind-blowing question really is, given the amount of aid, how can Haiti still be in such a mess?'' said Rachel Neild, a senior associate at the Washington Office on Latin America.
``Half of the money on Haiti from the international community is being spent on just being an international community,'' Neild said. ``The business of development is something people complain about a lot.''
When President Jean-Bertrand Aristide returned to power one year ago, the United States and other international donors pledged an aid package of $1.2 billion over three years, said USAID spokesman Russell Porter.
Much of the aid, Porter said, has gone to pay past debts owed to foreign lenders and rebuild ministries that were ransacked by the de facto leaders who took everything from photocopiers to desks to light bulbs before Aristide's return. Even more has gone toward public infrastructure, agriculture projects and judicial reform. The money for these recovery and infrastructure projects is channeled through at least 2,000 private relief organizations and consultants, who are contracted by USAID.
The foreign presence has re-opened a deep wound among Haitians, who still remember the first U.S. occupation.
Father Joseph said foreign donors who don't understand Haitians' values or goals inevitably impose solutions that either miss the target or undermine efforts by Haitians to solve their own problems.
Joseph's peasant cooperative spent nine years rebuilding its community by planting trees and consolidating land. In six months, it lost two agronomists to a nearby USAID project.
``If you really want to help me,'' Joseph said, ``you come to my house, you pull up a chair and you listen . . . You don't come like a big shoe and make your imprint on a community that has been working so hard to change.'' - Francie Latour MEMO: [For a related story, see page A1 for this date.]
ILLUSTRATION: U.S. INTERESTS IN HAITI
First occupation: The United States first occupied Haiti in 1915,
after the assassination of President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam by
Haitian mobs. The invasion was to bring order to its ``amicable
neighbor.'' U.S. forces occupied the country until 1934.
Operation Uphold Democracy: On Sept. 19, 1994, U.S. forces
deployed 21,000 troops to force out a military regime and restore to
office the elected president. The Hampton Roads' military
deployment included about 1,400 troops from Fort Eustis and Fort
Story, the aircraft carriers Eisenhower and America and a dozen
other amphibious and surface forces ships.
Continuing U.N presence: 2,400 U.S. troops, working under United
Nations flag.
Continuing aid: United States and other international donors
pledges an aid package of $1.2 billion over three years. About $847
million has been delivered so far.
SOURCES: United States Agency for International Development, CIA
World Factbook 1995
KEYWORDS: HAITI by CNB