Haitian Village: News

No news is good news for Haiti

By DARRELL LAURANT
Published: January 17, 2010
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Although he was more than 1,300 miles away from Tuesday’s Haitian earthquake, Vladimir David was still feeling the emotional aftershock on Wednesday.
“I have brothers and sisters there, and the uncle who raised me,” said the Haitian native and Lynchburg resident. “Some of them I’ve been able to reach, and some of them I haven’t.”
He believed his closest family members were outside the range of the main 7.0 quake, which originated just 10 miles west of the capital city of Port-au-Prince. But he also heard about a young female relative injured when section of a wall fell on her leg.
Based on photographs and video taken of the scene, it looked pretty much as if the buildings and houses of Port-au-Prince had been a table setting, and someone had violently jerked the tablecloth out from under them.
It’s a difficult thing to comprehend, based on the normal pattern of natural disasters. When you’re homeless, you go to a shelter — but what if there aren’t any? When you’re injured, you go to a hospital, unless those buildings were flattened, as well.
“A lot of the people I talked with were outside on their cell phones,” David said. “Even if their houses were still standing, there were cracks in the walls, and they were afraid to go back inside.”
Vladimir Jean-Jacques David has lived in Lynchburg, he said, for “six or seven years.” He discovered it while visiting his father in Hampton, and was attracted to “the peacefulness, the mountains. I grew up in the mountains in Haiti. I tell people here that I’m a hillbilly.”
He worked for Star Tek in Lynchburg, he said, before he was laid off last December. In the aftermath of the quake, he was trying to see a silver lining in that.
“I thought, ‘since I have time on my hands,’” he said, “maybe I could help with the relief effort.”
So he visited Gleaning for the World Wednesday and planned to make connections with some of the Haitian students at Liberty University.
“I’m willing to do pretty much whatever it takes,” he said. “If people want to donate items and can’t get them to the collection points, I can help with that.”
He gave me his phone number, (434) 426-0660.
The Rev. Pat Robertson, bless his heart, said on his television show that the earthquake occurred because Haiti had made a pact with the Devil in 1804 to serve him if he could help them get rid of their French overlords.
“That’s a fact,” Rev. Pat told his viewers.
Of course, it would seem that any divine retribution in 2010 against those plotting with Satan in 1804 would be a bit after the fact. And given Haiti’s subsequent history of poverty, hurricanes and political instability, they might have been better off to keep the French.
David is often reminded of these myths about his native land. Brought up Catholic, he said he’s been invited to a number of other churches in Lynchburg, “because I think they see me as some sort of lost soul who follows voodoo.”
Haiti’s sad post-colonial history, David said, actually began with a European blockade and boycott of the island after that early 19th-century revolt.
“The country never really got past that,” he said. “It used to be one of the more prosperous countries in the Caribbean.”
And now ... this.
“We’re used to hardship as a nation,” David said, “but we’ve never seen it this bad.”
The good news about Tuesday, he added, was that the quake failed to trigger a tsunami.
In Haiti, the term “good news” tends to be relative.

Business, not charity, urged as key to recovery Read more: 'The talent is there'

International businessman Yves Savain says he can look five years down the road in Haiti and see tens of thousands of workers earning $4 or more an hour producing everything from shirts and socks to electronics.

Mr. Savain, who left Haiti as a teenager in 1963, says Haiti's large, willing, low-wage workforce will become a major investment draw if what's left of the Haitian government and the international community come up with an effective long-term recovery plan that doesn't repeat past mistakes.

"I'm very optimistic. The resources are there. The talent is there," said Mr. Savain, president of KeyBridge International, a U.S.-based company that provides moving and logistical support for companies doing business in the Caribbean.

In short, Mr. Savain says, the time has come to produce a plan that finally will replace international "charity" as quickly as possible with income earned from Haitians producing something people want to buy.

"We have to find a way to make it possible for people in Haiti to earn a decent living."

Mr. Savain said he believes up to 70,000 assembly jobs will be created outside Port-au-Prince within five years if companies in China, the U.S. and elsewhere are satisfied the country will soon have stronger infrastructure, including functioning ports, and that government corruption and red tape is being reduced.

"We're talking about setting up in empty spaces," he said. "That's how the Chinese did it. The vast [industrial] zones were created essentially out of open spaces. The Chinese did not put factories in downtown Shanghai."

But Mr. Savain has trouble imagining a major revival of the agriculture sector, and says previous reforestation projects have been failures.

"Its all very well and good to pay small farmers to tend trees and make a little money from other crops," he said. "But at the end of the day, charity has its limits."

Ludovic Comeau Jr., a former senior economist with Haiti's central bank, supports the idea of pursuing light, labour-intensive manufacturing businesses as a fast way to create jobs.

"We must not make Port-au-Prince the promised land," said Mr. Comeau, proposing economic poles or zones inside or near Haiti's other towns and cities to house stores, schools and health-care facilities.

The pitch is a cautious echo of a push in the 1980s by banks and donors to turn Haiti -- where women once stitched baseballs for 10¢ apiece -- into the "Taiwan of the Caribbean."

The idea of making Haiti a cheap-labour assembly zone enjoyed modest success. Plants for electronics, garments and sporting goods sprang up mostly in Port-au-Prince, creating more than 60,000 jobs at the peak.

By last year, however, the number of jobs had shrunk to fewer than 25,000, a decline traced to competition from Asia, political and social instability in Haiti and inadequate services for everything from electricity to roads and ports.

Wyclef Jean Adds 'Haitian Influence' To 'We Are The World' Remake 'Clef and Haitian actor Jimmy Jean-Louis say participating in benefit is bittersweet.

Wyclef Jean has been active in raising money and delivering aid to his home country of Haiti after last month's devastating earthquake. So, when he got the call that Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie would be remaking the 1985 charity single "We Are the World," to benefit Haiti, he knew he had to get onboard. Wyclef Jean has been active in raising money and delivering aid to his home country of Haiti after last month's devastating earthquake. So, when he got the call that Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie would be remaking the 1985 charity single "We Are the World," to benefit Haiti, he knew he had to get onboard.

"I'm gonna go put some Haitian-influence sounds on it," Jean told reporters on Monday, when more than 80 artists gathered to record the song. The former Fugees leader said he was excited about working with Jones and Richie. "Being a Haitian, growing up in America, getting the chance to experience the American dream ... I follow after the blueprint of Quincy Jones. And Lionel Richie, the first time I heard 'All Night Long,' I was working at Burger King, barely spoke English, but I knew [it]. So, what's going on inside is I feel like a kid in a candy store."

'Clef continued that despite the risks of remaking an iconic song like "We Are the World," he knows that fans will be pleased with the artists involved and the cause it will benefit. "I know when you have a classic, you don't want to touch it," he said. "You want to stay away from it, but being that we grew up with that record, and we love it so much, it's incredible to just see every kid, every genre just walking in and singing that song."

"Heroes" star and Haiti native Jimmy Jean-Louis said he was honored to be a part of the track but is still saddened by the event behind its re-recording. "I was in Haiti to visit my parents and my friends and family, and what I saw there was just devastating, so I'm happy the world is coming together so we can rebuild Haiti," he said.

"And of course I was around 25 years ago, and I never thought I'd be able to be a part of such a group. I always said to myself, 'One day I might be able to be on one of those songs,' but I never thought it would be this one," Jean-Louis continued. "So, I'm very happy to be here, but very sad deep inside, because my country is completely gone. And hopefully, this is a great start to rebuild my nation."