Gambling everything, thousands of Haitians have made their way across the Americas to reach small towns in the Brazilian Amazon over the past year in a desperate search for work, including a surge of hundreds arriving in recent days amid fears that Brazil’s government could slow the influx before it overwhelms the authorities here…Companies like Fibratec, a swimming pool manufacturer in southern Santa Catarina State, have even sent managers all the way here to hire dozens of Haitians.
The excellent article is here. Via Carl-Henri Prophete, here is another story, of an Irish billionaire working to build up Haiti:
Digicel, on the other hand, is the country’s largest employer and taxpayer. The privately held company has invested $600 million in Haiti, making it by far the country’s largest foreign investor ever, and it has democratized communications with its strategy of selling low-price cellphones and services to the masses.
Mr. O’Brien has profited extensively from Haiti, which is Digicel’s largest market and accounts for roughly one-third of its 11.1 million subscribers.
…Digicel, for instance, has put up street signs in parts of Port-au-Prince, serving as reminders of the company’s role in public life as much as guides for navigating the city.
Most mornings, people crowd around the reception desk of Digicel’s office building, not to complain about the firm’s services but to see the mayor and other city officials whose offices are on the sixth floor since the earthquake.
The company provides the space rent-free, Mayor Jean-Yves Jason said, and gave the city computers and furniture. “We have plans to build a new city hall in downtown Port-au-Prince, but we are so comfortable here it is easy to delay,” Mr. Jason joked.
The article gives some other stories of growing foreign investment in Haiti. Here is Twitter and the Haitian earthquake response. Also via Carl-Henri, here is a Le Monde article on the Haitian elite, and here is their excellent slide show.
I have been reading and enjoying Laurent Dubois’s new Haiti: The Aftershocks of History, one of the very best books on the history of the country. In 1914-15, about eighty percent of the government’s revenue went to debt service. It is one of those rare books where you can know a lot about the topic, and yet still learn something interesting on virtually every page.
Here’s a related question I’d like to see explored: why don’t we collectively declare some places on earth as “effectively uninhabitable” or some such designation, and try to mass relocate people? Is it really better to keep throwing lives, effort, and funds at places which will just be leveled by the next tsunami, earthquake, or volcano eruption? Even if Haiti were a country with modern infrastructure, would it really be a safe place to live? Until we can come up with natural-disaster proof cities (and all that entails) are some places better off abandoned?
At some point in the past, some trader or pioneer puts down a settlement, either because it was safe at the time, they weren’t planning on sticking around that long, or simply didn’t care. The people who came to populate it are “stuck” with it without external intervention. Should places like Haiti, Nauru, some parts of Indonesia and the Philippines really be considered “fit for human living?”
“Even if Haiti were a country with modern infrastructure, would it really be a safe place to live?” Yes, I think it would. The reason natural disasters take such a toll on Haiti is because of its poverty. The 2010 earthquake was only 7.0 magnitude; the damage wouldn’t have been nearly as catastrophic in a developed city. Florida is also very prone to hurricanes, but according to Wikipedia there are only 69 direct deaths from hurricanes in Florida since 2000.
If Haiti were well-developed, it would be a very desirable place to live, with a tropical climate, natural beauty, and fertile farmland. Natural disasters would be a small factor in comparison.
Would you say that the Dominican Republic is effectively uninhabitable, too?
Hmm, let’s see. Mount Tambora, Krakatoa, December 26 2004 (and 1833 and 1861). Does Lake Toba count? OK, you’ve convinced me: we need to evacuate Indonesia.
Oops: it’s the fourth most populous country in the world. Probably not by accident: volcanic soil is very fertile.
So where are we going to put 237 million people?
The problem is not that Haiti is ungovernable, it’s that Haitians are ungovernable.
Its the Haitians when in the Haitian system that are ungovernable.
It’s worth noting that Haitians would like to emigrate from their homeland to various destinations–Florida, New York, and Québec stand out, North America and France more broadly–but restrictions prevent them from moving there. This is certainly a pity from the Haitian perspective, since remittances play a critical role in subsidizing consumption and arguably large-scale emigration would ease pressure on the labour market.
Istanbul, San Fran, the entire Japan, Sahel … are you gonna move all these people into Toronto or Stockholm? (They probably wouldn’t want to go to Kazakhstan.) And what about the natives of the target places, do they have no say in whom they want to share their country with?
their excellent slide show.
A mulatto elite.
The slideshow picture in which a young woman is in a hair salon being attended to by three employees at the same time reminds me of the Cowardly Lion in the “makeover” scene in The Wizard of Oz.
“Most mornings, people crowd around the reception desk of Digicel’s office building, not to complain about the firm’s services but to see the mayor and other city officials whose offices are on the sixth floor since the earthquake.”
Digicel seems to be playing the long game, ready to extract rent when it becomes available.
It’s easier to pass envelopes full of dollars when in the same building.
This struck me as a bit much. It seems that Digicel is jumping from rent seeker to the landlord. This reminds me of a typical cyperpunk setting with the large corporations directly controlling the government. But perhaps that’s more efficient than the US’s current crony capitalism model.
Because it is poor, it has been deforested(poor people burn firewood), because it is deforested and mountainous the soil has been washed away. So it will remain poor.
Also, the article was in FRENCH.
Oh right, that must explain why the Dominican Republic is similarly poor. Oh wait- it isn’t.
At some level, those factors do explain the differences between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Haiti suffered much more deforestation, is more mountainous, and receives less rain than the Dominican Republic.
Yes, you’re right. It is much richer than Haiti(it is poor, but not similarly poor). Maybe it is because it is not a mountainous. maybe it has never been so overpopulated.* Population of each country slightly under 10 million, area of DR is nearly double that of Haiti so the ecosystem is not so stressed as in Haiti. The government of DR historically has not been very good but much better than Haiti. Or maybe it is the literacy rate (90% DR 62% Haiti). I don’t know why this should be so, but IT IS. DR might someday be rich(or at least not so poor) but outlook for Haiti is much more grim.
* When Trujillo was dictator of DR he conducted several mass slaughters of Haitians who had moved over the boundary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsley_Massacre
Or maybe it’s this(from the link above).
In the end, American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Haitian President Sténio Vincent sought reparations of $750,000, of which only $525,000 (US$ 8,031,279.07 in 2012) were ever paid: 30 dollars per victim, of which only 2 cents were given to survivors, due to corruption in the Haitian bureaucracy.
Digicel becomes monopoly? Is Mr. O’Brien a benevolent tyrant?
Digicel this week received regulatory clearance in Jamaica to acquire the local operation of its rival Claro, which is owned by wealthy Mexican entrepreneur Carlos Slim.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2011/0902/1224303345503.html
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