LETTER FROM AMBASSADOR REGINALD DUMAS TO WORLD BANK PRESIDENT ROBERT ZOELLICK ON THE CANCELLATION OF HAITI’S DEBT

COMMENTARY ARCHIVES, 16 Nov 2008

Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network

Dear President Zoellick

I take the liberty of writing you on the subject of Haiti, a country in which I have had a particular interest since my stint there in 2004 as the Special Adviser of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

You are quoted as saying on October 22, at the end of your recent visit to Haiti, that the country could have its World Bank debt cancelled by mid-2009 if it met certain conditions such as addressing corruption and increasing public investment.

Assuming you were correctly reported, I am not sure what you meant by “increasing public investment”. If it was that the government should spend more on infrastructure and basic social services, I wonder how that would be possible in the current situation. Already impoverished, Haiti, as you have seen for yourself, is trying to come to terms with the devastation wrought by four hurricanes in rapid succession (which caused nearly $1 billion in damage) as well as having to make annual debt payments of, I am told, over $60 million. That figure is, as you know, greater than the total amount recently approved by the Bank for storm and food relief.

The issue of corruption is a crucial one, and Haiti has been placed at no.177 of 180 countries on the 2008 Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perceptions Index. As the person who several years ago first invited TI to my country, Trinidad and Tobago, and co-founded the local TI chapter, I well understand the need for relentless struggle against corrupt activity. But proper understanding must always reflect reality. In that connection, there are two relevant issues to consider.

First, corruption in a country as economically disadvantaged as Haiti is as inevitable as the day follows the night. This does not make it acceptable, of course – corruption is ethically abhorrent and takes a terrible toll on socio-economic development. It does however point to the view that attacking surface corruption per se is by no means enough. One has above all to deal with the root causes of corruption in tandem with the effects, and this is where the importance of peacebuilding, as distinct from the traditional UN focus on peacekeeping, becomes clearly evident.

You already know that the Haitian people have paid a heavy price over the more than two centuries of their independent existence because of natural disasters, yes, but principally because of domestic despotism and greed (particularly in the Duvalier régimes) and of foreign intervention, the two frequently working together. It is therefore far more beneficial now to all concerned to assist and support the country in the long and painful task of national construction than to set conditions it cannot possibly fulfil on its own. A first step on this issue of corruption might be to have TI visit Haiti for discussions with government, political parties and civil society.

Second, I have always found it odd that corruption, which exists everywhere, is so easily ascribed to aid-recipient countries. Bribery and corruption is, after all, a two-way street: if it is wrong to accept a bribe, it is equally wrong to offer one, especially when the offeror recognises, and deliberately sets out to exploit, the venality and/or vulnerability of the offeree. Indeed, that could be thought even more morally reprehensible than the acceptance of the offer.

And who makes these offers? In general, companies and organisations from developed countries, which have cynically argued over time that bribes enhance efficiency because things get done more quickly, and which, having got their way, then blithely accuse their bribe recipients of corruption. In this connection, you may recall the terms of the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and wish to examine how the signatories to the document, the World Bank included, have gone about their commitments.

You are also quoted, Mr President, as saying on October 22 that you felt Haiti was at a “tipping point (and that things) could go either way.” My understanding of the phrase “tipping point” is that things can go only one way: over and down. If, as you rightly said on October 22, “we have to deal with the immediate needs (of Haiti and) the social instability,” then a debt cancellation by mid-2009 – and it is only a possible debt cancellation – would clearly be far too late. Haiti by then would in essence have declined to the point of collapse; the tipping point will have been reached. The geo-political implications of that decline, taken against the background of the spreading world recession (which among other factors has already begun adversely to affect remittances to Haiti from the diaspora, and thus the Haitian economy), are too disturbing to contemplate.

If I may, Mr President, I should like to contrast your Bank’s attitude towards Haiti with its behaviour, and that of the Paris Club, towards the South Asian countries struck by a tsunami in late December 2004. Within four days of the tsunami, the Bank announced an “initial contribution” of $250 million for emergency reconstruction; I do not recall any mention of outstanding debt service payments. For its part, the Paris Club offered a moratorium on such payments.

Haiti is in much worse socio-economic shape than those Asian countries. I accept that a number of its deficiencies are of its own making – or, more precisely, of the making of many of its governments over time. But the stop-start, uncoordinated, not infrequently meddlesome actions of the international community throughout the decades have helped aggravate those deficiencies and create new ones. If the country is to be given “a chance to build” – your reported words on October 22 – there must be a radically different approach by Haitians and non-Haitians alike. Another “lessons learned” report is emphatically not what the country needs.

An excellent start towards rehabilitation and progress would be the urgent cancellation of the country’s debt. I join others who feel strongly that such cancellation should be unconditional. You will for instance have recently received an open letter on this subject from a number of Caribbean organisations. I support their position.

What is and always must be of the highest priority is the welfare of the Haitian people. It therefore does no one any good at all if the impression is given that more emphasis is being placed on strict adherence to conditionalities than on concern for that welfare, especially when the country’s current condition is so manifestly desperate. It does no one any good at all if the plight of the Haitian people – which, on the whole, they did not create and for which they consequently ought not to be penalised – is made worse by a sterile insistence on bureaucratic form over the grinding realities of substance.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,
Reginald Dumas
Bacolet Gardens
Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago
October 28, 2008

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 16 Nov 2008.

Anticopyright: Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgement and link to the source, TMS: LETTER FROM AMBASSADOR REGINALD DUMAS TO WORLD BANK PRESIDENT ROBERT ZOELLICK ON THE CANCELLATION OF HAITI’S DEBT, is included. Thank you.

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