Over the past year and especially in recent months, there
have been a series of nationwide strikes against the
Haitian government’s plans to privatize public enterprises
and to implement the structural adjustment program
that the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund are prescribing for Haiti. What’s going on?
In January, dozens of groups organized a strike
against the economic reforms. Hundreds of thou-
sands of people all over the country did not go to
work. What is going on? These strikes are an expression
of the Haitian people’s frustration with the current eco-
nomic and political situation. The cost of living has gone
up. Inflation is high. Unemployment is very high. And
the Haitian people do not see the government working to
help them. They see that important decisions are being
made high up, excluding the grassroots groups and
ignoring the will of the majority of people. Because they
are excluded from the political and economic process,
Haitians are forced to carry their battle into the streets.
It is a last resort, but they will not give up because they
have no other choice.
Most Haitians know that you cannot make decisions
for long without involving the grassroots. The authori-
ties become progressively weaker as they lose legiti-
macy and credibility. Today in Haiti the authorities are
weak indeed.
Many people outside of Haiti would be confused to hear
that. The international community has spent over a bil-
lion dollars on Haitian democracy since the restoration of
civilian rule, and the government has been in the inter-
national spotlight.
Yet the democracy that was restored to Haiti is not
very democratic after all. The government is not work-
ing as it should for the majority of people. If the gov-
ernment were doing what it is supposed to be doing for
the people, perhaps things in Haiti would be more calm.
For example, if you have enough financial resources as
a government, you create jobs. Creating jobs may
change the behavior of people at the grassroots level. If
you have the financial resources to build roads, feed the
hungry, and to otherwise alleviate the burden of poverty,
then do it. As people see more food and more jobs, those
who are now frustrated will be appeased. That will make
a difference. If you have the possibility of making the
justice system work, without dialogue, then do it. As
people see the light of justice throughout the land,
through the legal system, they will be placated. But this
VOL XXXI, No 1 JULY/AUG 199735 VOL XXXI, No 1 JULY/AUG 1997 35VOICES ON THE LEFT
is not what is happening in Haiti. The judicial system is
corrupt. There are no financial resources invested in
social welfare. The system does not address the needs of
the people. People today live on less than they did 30
years ago. And so, we need to change the system.
We need to talk about democratizing democracy. In
Haiti, we have no financial resources; we have only the
human being as a resource. Human beings are our capi-
tal. We must learn how to manage this capital, how to
best develop it. In other words, we need to learn how to
better value the human being. To do so, we must start
with dialogue, a dialogue which includes not just the top
tiers, but all sectors of society.
What sort of economic plan “better values the human
being”?
The majority of the grassroots supports an economic
plan different from the one Haiti is currently following.
They know about their dignity. They are not dumb. Their
plan values human workers by paying them a livable
wage, and it values human beings by providing them
what they need to live. The Haitian people discovered a
few years ago, after the end of the Duvalier dictatorship
in 1986, that their rules could be respected and that their
plans could be implemented. In the free elections held in
1990, the people learned they could share some power.
For the first time, they felt part of a process in which peo-
ple were not dictating to them what to do and how to do
it. After that, they refused to settle for less. Haitians
began to see that there was a route that worked, a way in
which government could work for them, rather than
plague them, and that they could live securely-and
even spend their lives moving ahead. They felt that they
were part of that process.
Years later, they realized that certain forces wanted to
impose “a plan” in Haiti. They called it “the American
Plan.” By that they meant the economic plan of privati-
zation and austerity measures that is
being imposed on Haiti today. And
while they did not have the power to
reject the plans that were being sug- After t
gested, imposed and now imple-
mented-plans which were not their elections, t
own-they could at least understand people d what was happening.
What economic and political goals are th
you pursuing, now that you are no they coL longer president?
We opened the Aristide Foundation power. A
for Democracy on March 8, 1996. The they refuse Foundation is a place where people
can gather to talk, organize and plan. It for is a place where people can come on a
h
h
is
a
II
Lf
lE
daily basis to discuss virtually anything on an informal
basis, but we have also had large meetings and confer-
ences here. Last year, for example, 60 grassroots groups
held a meeting to discuss privatization.
Last July, we began a poor people’s bank. It is very
difficult for poor Haitians to get loans, and loan sharks
can charge 20% a month interest. We decided to initiate
a poor people’s cooperative that would provide loans at
1% interest a month to its members. To join, people were
required to deposit a small minimum amount of money
and they were required to attend four training sessions
informing them about how the cooperative works.
We expected a lot of people to come, but we were not
prepared for what happened. In less than two weeks,
12,000 people signed up. It was an overwhelming
turnout, impossible to fathom handling. But how could
we turn peasants away? We knew it would not be easy to
manage such a large group, but we decided that we
could not turn them away. At the same time we knew we
would be learning by trial and error as we went along.
So far, we have made loans of 6 million gourdes to
women and men, but mostly to women.
Soon after starting the bank, we found that many of
those who took out loans were not able to repay them
due to the dire poverty that they face. In fact, most of
them could not repay their loans. We had to find a way
to encourage them to find ways to pay the bank back.
Then we realized that the best way to do this was to
stop giving loans to just one person, and instead, give
them to groups of people, following the model of the
very successful Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. Are you
familiar with the story of the Grameen Bank? After 18
years of work, 46% of the women borrowing from the
Grameen Bank crossed above the poverty line, while in
Bangladesh as a whole, only 4% crossed the line during
that same period. Our ultimate goal is to allow people to
raise themselves out of misery. We asked the 12,000
members of the cooperative to organize
themselves in groups of five. Within
each group, only one member can take
e free out a loan at a time, and a second per-
son cannot take a loan until the first has ie Haitian begun payment on hers. The group
covered members decide among themselves whether a proposed project is worthy of
It a loan, and whether or not a member
could repay it. They must be responsi-
d share ble to each other.
ter that The Foundation is currently subsidizing
d to settle these activities. But before, you talked
about helping people become self-suffi-
!SS. cient. How can these subsidized activi-
ties ever become self-sustaining?
NACTIA REPORT ON THE AMERICASVOICES ON THE LEFT
From our experience we can
prove that these ventures can The stl become more efficient and more
and more self-sustaining; but can of wom
they become totally self-sustain- immedia
ing? That is a good question, but
maybe that is not the essential In Haiti, question. We can decide to lose
money in some areas when we sell represent al
to certain sectors and make profits
in another. It’s a matter of balance. money get
Governments make these types of small co decisions all the time. The
Foundation is not a charity organi- and 90% C zation; it is a non-profit organiza-
tion that can decide where it wants in fac
to invest. This is not a place where
people beg for a few cents each
day. We do not have to sell our dignity. But on the other
hand, the foundation does not need to make a profit.
We are only trying to make enough to continue our
activities.
We are working to find ways to be profitable, but we
have to balance this against people’s needs. For instance, we know that Haitian farmers cultivate food such as rice
and corn, and yet we decided to provide subsidized rice
and corn to the cooperative members anyway. That may
not be good for the farmers, but it is good for the con-
sumers. Nonetheless, we know that the ultimate solution
to this conflict will come from supporting national pro-
duction.
How can the Foundation promote national production?
Two weeks ago, for example, we had two days of train-
ing for local-level church leaders from different depart-
ments of the country. This was one of many meetings we
have had. We are trying to educate people about how they
can invest and make their own small capital grow. After
the end of our meeting, the foundation signed an agree-
ment that allows them to borrow money at a low rate in
order to invest it in the zones in which they live, to grow
more beans, rice and potatoes, or whatever. They will
repay us in produce, which they will sell to us at a very
good price. This will encourage their own local produc-
tion, and it will also allow us to provide these products
to our coop members at a good price. This is an exam-
ple of how we can stimulate local production with an
eye toward encouraging national production.
This is symbolic as well. Our vision is not a matter of
buying food from other countries and selling it at a
lower price but of supporting our own agricultural
industry; in other words, our national production. What
we are doing may seem insignificant to you, but by
doing this we can push the government to do more.
ruggle
en is an
+ …. IL
n
n ,1
re
Have the traditional powers that con-
trol the economy indicated that they
oppose your project? Are they threat-
ened by the Foundation, the way they
were by your presidency?
;u 3auc. No, because of the fact that we do
women not make a profit, and because our
work embraces a small percentage
nost all the of the entire market. It is not a real
danger to them-to the real elite. At erated by least so far so good. If we reach a
imerce market of, say, 200,000 people, it’s nothing to them. In fact, it is even
f workers good for them, because what we
represent politically means a lot for
ories. economic policy. It’s a fig leaf, an
example of freedom; it’s symbolic
of the democracy that they need to
showcase. For this reason they have to deal with us.
They need us as much as we need them.
You have recently criticized the policies of current
President Rene Preval. Is the Aristide Foundation doing
the job that Preval’s government ought to be doing by
setting up a parallel organization, rather than one which
works with the government? Are you distracting Haitians
from the real issues? How is creating the Aristide
Foundation not the same thing as doing the govern-
ment’s job?
I like your question. Are we encouraging people to sit,
when they should be standing up against this? We are
aware that there is a contradiction between what we are
doing and what the people ought to be doing. The foun-
dation is not the government. We have no intention or
possibility of replacing the government. But we are
doing the little we can, wishing and pushing the govern-
ment to do more. Ultimately, it is the government that
has to do this. The government is the only institution that
can assume this great responsibility.
What we do at the foundation is not meant to dis-
suade people from demanding that the government work
in their interest. But we are attempting to provide a base
from which people can work and organize, as was the
case with the taxi and truck drivers’ strikes in February.
The point is to respect the human being, because people
are our number one resource.
You said earlier that you place a special importance on
women, and that you even inaugurated the foundation
on International Women’s Day March 8, last year Can
you tell us more about this?
In our society, as in many countries, sexual equality is
not a reality. By working with women, we are empower-
ing the struggle of women. We see this as one way of
making more men understand the necessity of working
together on these issues. This has always been a top
priority of mine. When I was president, we created the
first ministry of women in Haiti’s history. We located it
in a powerful place-the central square, in the former
headquarters of the army, directly across from the
palace. This is a symbolic thing, yet it is not enough to
bring about equality. So we have to work to make this
necessity clearer and stronger to men. Some of those in
the Parliament, who were elected because of the work
of women, are now opposing these activities.
Why the emphasis on women, in a country that has so
many more immediate issues to grapple with?
The struggle of women is an immediate issue. At
the international level, informal labor represents $16
trillion for the global economy annually, according to
the UNDP. Women’s labor accounts for $11 trillion
of that. In Haiti, women are even more important eco-
nomically than in other places on the globe. They rep-
resent almost all of the money generated by small
commerce. They represent 90% of workers in facto-
ries. And they represent the vast majority of heads of
households. At the cooperative bank, most of the
loans we make are to women. This is also true of other
poor people’s banks, like the Grameen Bank in
Bangladesh. Women are much more responsible in
paying off their loans. The way they manage their
loans money here at the bank reflects the way they
manage their households.
You are no longer a priest, but can you comment on
how your faith has shaped your political views?
Today, much of the world is rooted in materialism;
it is flat, without spiritual energy. Liberation
Theology shows us how to dream, but with our feet
on the ground. Liberation Theology, for many
Christians, provided a way to rise, spiritually and lit-
erally above misery. We don’t talk about Liberation
Theology as something to replace politics or eco-
nomics; rather, we seek a complementary vision that
comes from the theology of liberation that helps us
keep ourselves ethically grounded, and this practice
becomes part of our community experience,
providing us with guidelines. By realistic dreaming,
I think we can try to put human beings at the center
of any social, economic or political program.
Investing in people can create a new climate, and
help people see and cultivate love within their own
human contexts-not just money, but human values,
like human rights, living wages and justice. If we do
that, and fight to implement it, I think the future will
be different.
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