T&T: Woulda, coulda, shoulda, Caricom on Haiti

The Caribbean Community of Nations (CARICOM) should lobby for international peace-keeping forces in Haiti to be under the direct control of the United Nations as well as insist on its having an input into needed planning for the social and economic reconstruction of the CARICOM Member State. The stepping down of Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in the wake of a well orchestrated armed revolt against his authority, should not mean that the United States of America should be the dominant factor in the Haitian equation. Instead the United Nations should be in control, and CARICOM invited to play a not insignificant role in the drafting and executing of a social and economic development programme for Haiti.

Any such programme should not be left up to the United States, which following on its military intervention in Haiti from 1915 to 1934, had a questionable record of dismissive treatment of that country as a virtual US protectorate. And while the United States improved hospital services and major roadways, largely from self interest, it did nothing to stimulate Haitian investment, build a strong and stable middle class and disinterestedly strengthen the country’s economy. Instead, successive US Administrations exhibited a bias in favour of foreign investment, with the emphasis on American investment, at the expense of the Haitian people who remained poor. This was in sharp contrast to the post World War II Marshall Aid Plan, in which the US initiated and financed a reconstruction programme for European industrial and agricultural growth. Of interest is that beneficiaries included not only countries which had fought alongside the US in the war, but against it.

Caricom could have had more of a role had they been willing to move quickly in response to events. Too much palaver is not a good thing when lives are being lost on the ground. I wish the Caribbean media and the Caribbean, as a whole, would get over this love affair with the U.N. The U.N. only has relevance because GWB didn't wipe them off the table after the invasion of Iraq. The guy's done more to make the U.N. look good than Kofi 'Yadda-Yadda' Annan and the band of jesters that is the deliberative body.