(The second of two parts)
By Isabeau Doucet
http://www.haiti-liberte.com/front%20cover%20news%20of%20the%20week%20en...
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“Nou bouke ap domi sou fatra” ( We’re tired of sleeping on garbage.)
Sign made by residents of Cité Soleil’s Camp Immaculée
On Aug. 16 in Port-au-Prince’s Carrefour district, all 210 families of Camp Napoleon were forcibly evicted by the landlord. Another eight camps in the area comprising about 15,000 families are faced with imminent expulsion, according to Suze Jean, an activist working to organize all eight camps.
In Carrefour 36, Pastor Eddy François of the Evangelical Mission for Social Action of the Last Hour, is trying to evict 350 families. He regularly threatens camp residents. “If you don’t leave immediately, the Holy Ghost will throw rocks at you” is one of his threats. “If you don’t leave by Aug. 29, the ground beneath you will shake” is another.
On Aug. 12, the internally displaced people (IDP) of about a dozen camps threatened with forced expulsion marked the 7th month since the earthquake with a demonstration in front of the ruined National Palace. Though authorities didn’t grant the IDPs a permit and blocked all traffic in front of the Palace, about 100 people managed to demonstrate there for a moratorium on forced expulsions and an end to violations of their human rights as defined under Haitian and international laws. Protestors also called on the Haitian government to immediately verify land ownership titles and appropriate all empty lands held by big landowners.
This was the first collective action by residents of different camps who are threatened with or victims of forced expulsion, but not the last. On Aug. 27 at noon, imperiled camp residents all over Port-au-Prince will beat pots and pans, or “bat tenèb.” “We have found that in several camps the local mayor’s office hires thugs to pressure and threaten the victims,” said Sanon Reyneld of FRAKKA (The Reflection and Action Force for Housing), “Meanwhile, big landowners have used corrupt justices of the peace as well as bribed policemen to force people emptyhanded onto the streets.” The UN Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH) claimed in a Jul. 29 press conference that camps are growing, not disappearing. But Mark Schuller, an Anthropology professor of CUNY’s York College, has found that 20% of camps officially registered by the International Organization on Migration (IOM) since May have disappeared.
In fact, both findings are true as smaller “phantom” camps dissolve to become integrated into larger or planned camps, which sometimes offer more infrastructure. This has led some UN and NGO workers to suggest that camps are growing because they are desirable places to live, a logic that carries a strong whiff of foreign-humanitarians- fear-being-outsmarted-bycunning- Haitians. The foreign aid workers make statements like “we’re here to do disaster relief, not lift the Haitians out of poverty,” or “people are better off now than they were before the earthquake,” or “people are faking” their need for aid, or “people are renting out their intact houses at thrice the price” in order to freeload off humanitarian aid in camps. The UN and NGOs feel that they must not make camps desirable places to live for fear that IDPs won’t want to return home.
“What home?” asked one exasperated camp resident. “We’re being evicted from trash houses onto the street.” Conditions in most Haitian camps do not even begin to meet the SPHERE standards (The Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response), or the minimum standards for food and nutrition security in line with the principles and rights embodied in the Humanitarian Charter. According to Schuller’s findings, 30% don’t have water and the average number of people per toilet is 500. In cases of forced expulsions, these same NGOs, as well as IOM, are collaborating with property owners by withholding aid, without any instruction from the state or knowledge of Haitian law.
While Article 36 of the 1987 Constitution recognize the right to private property, Article 22 declares: “The state recognizes the right of all citizens to decent housing, education, food and social security.” According to Mario Joseph, “the state has the right to declare private property for social and housing purposes under the 8th of July 1921 Decree on the Recognition of Public Interest.” Furthermore, “the failure of the state to protect IDP Haitian citizens in this post-disaster climate constitutes a grave human rights violation,” Joseph said. “The state must immediately verify all land ownership claims and be transparent about what is private and what is state-owned. Pending this, it must halt forced expulsions and negotiate with so-called land owners.” However, there is still no transparency and forced expulsions continue, “discriminating against the poorest and most vulnerable” Joseph said. While not recognizing the legitimacy of Haiti’s State of Emergency Law, passed on Apr. 15, Joseph noted that it contains legal mechanisms needed to expropriate private property by eminent domain.
Haiti’s ruling class instituted a semi-feudal land system shortly after the Republic’s birth in 1804, putting a stranglehold on land distribution. Founding father Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared all land to be commons in 1803, but his verification of deeds and confiscation of estates illegally occupied by powerful elites got him assassinated in 1806. As Peter Hallward writes in his book Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment, “Around 75% of the arable land is held by just 5% of is inhabitants. A tiny transnational clique of wealthy and well connected families continues to dominate the economy, the media, the universities and professions, along with what remains of the state.”
“Haiti is the most privatized country in the world,” added longtime political activist, Patrick Elie. “Almost everything that could be privatized here has been. The surest was to get rich quick was to think of an area that should be state run, and privatize it. The only reason prisons have not been privatized is because it is not yet profitable for them to do so.”
Since the Duvalier dictatorship fell in 1986, most of Haiti’s state enterprises have been privatized including the state telephone company, the fl our, cement and essential oils plants, the port authority and airport, as well as public schools, hospitals, and two state banks.
“One must never say things can’t get worse, that the country can’t sink lower” Elie warned. NGOs and charities, of which Haiti already had the highest number per capita in the world before the earthquake, undertake short-term projects with little or no coordination with the government or between each other, and little accountability to or input from civil society. Generously funded foreign agencies undermine the work of Haitians, diverting funds away from the government, atrophying its most basic ability to function like a State.“The government is currently on an artificial life support system by the name of Provisional Electoral Council and the Interim Commission on Reconstruction of Haiti (CIRH),” said Mario Joseph. “It cannot be revived, it must be unplugged and reborn.” Like revolutions, catastrophes can sometimes present a unique opportunity to reorganize social relations and balance class inequalities.
The land rights confusion caused by the earthquake could go two ways. There could be a disastercatalyzed exacerbation of primitive accumulation, as was the case in New Orleans, and as is already being seen in neighborhoods of downtown Port-au-Prince, where Digicel is coveting and purchasing property by shady means. “The downtown area is going to be the centre piece of “The government should halt any transaction by decree and protect what is left of the city’s heritage from this speculative looting.” On the other hand, “this could be the opportunity Haiti needs to finally force the government to be transparent about land ownership,” said Joseph. “There is no other way forward.” Elie adds that “the burden of proof must be on those who claim ownership to land; they must be forced to prove when and for how much they purchased the property and how much they have been paying in taxes since. This should form the basis for any government compensation for land appropriated under Eminent Domain.”
Many government records were destroyed when ministries collapsed in the earthquake, and fi les that have been retrieved are out of order. But according to Joseph, this poses no legal obstacle to land reform. “People who go on about the insurmountable technical legal problems are poisoning our spirits,” he said. “The law is perfectly clear. There is a problem of political will and a problem of exclusion. The poor have been excluded from their land for years, and are now excluded from the process determining their rights to lodgings.” Donor countries and aid agencies must respect Haitian and international law or they will exacerbate the crisis. “Helping to strengthen Haiti’s judicial system so that it delivers justice to the poor must be one of the top priorities of reconstruction,” said Nicole Phillips of the IJDH. “Otherwise, Haiti’s functional lawlessness will undermine foreign aid programs and any attempts to protect human rights.”
Call to action: BAI/IJDH are calling for a moratorium on forced evictions, an independent monitoring system and genuine community consultation. The petition can be found here: http://www. change.org/haitijustice/petitions/view/ stop_forced_evictions_of_haitis_earthquake_ victims.
