You may hear any of the following objections in your conversations with Congression staff. We have provided some responses for you to consider.

"Haiti has been approved for debt relief by the World Bank, IMF, and IDB."

That is true. However, these institutions are demanding that Haiti wait at least two and half to three years before this cancellation will be realized... and there are conditionalities attached that are potentially more damaging than the original debt.

"I agree that Haiti needs debt cancellation. But I also agree that Haiti needs to demonstrate good governance and fiscal discipline, part of the HIPC process."

HIPC will do little to insure good governance. It is the role of an active civil society making demands through democratic processes to hold a government accountable. If the international community is interested in good governance it must respect and support Haiti's democracy as the first step. It has failed to do this thus far.

The HIPC process also directly undermines democracy in Haiti, by keeping the control of the decisions over how Haiti is to reduce poverty. The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper is supposed to be a participative process. Given Haiti's extreme inequality and social exclusion, a true democratic process including ALL sectors of Haiti's civil society, will likely generate strategies that run counter to neoliberal plans of the World Bank and IMF, for example (e.g., privatization, reduction in social spending, etc.). These same institutions are the ones that must endorse the outcome of this process, but everywhere, including Haiti, they use this influence to make further neoliberal advances.

"How can we be sure that savings from debt cancellation will go to health care and education?"

Same as above.

If ALL sectors of Haiti's civil society participate in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, they will push for these and other measures that they have been discussing and advocating for since at least the 1990 elections: land reform, educational reform, equitable distribution of resources, and more social spending for education and health care. Cutting the policy strings attached to the HIPC process will empower civil society to make these demands.

"True, Haiti's economy has declined over the past 25 years, but it's because of corruption. Wasn't Haiti named the most corrupt country in 2005 and 2006 by Transparency International?"

Since 1980 Haiti's economy has been in a steep decline, largely due to international pressure for liberalization policies and less directly tied to corruption.

As even the World Bank noted in their 1998 report on post-conflict societies, the problem of corruption in Haiti is private sector corruption -criminal activity, corrupt business practices, etc... Structural adjustment actually encourages corruption by weakening the capacity of the government to do its job -i.e. regulate!

Transparency International publishes the results of polls that indicate countries that business leaders consider corrupt - in other words, there is no objective basis for such a determination by TI or anybody else for that matter. TI's "Corruption Perception Index" more precisely measures the social distance and tension between a country's business elite and the government. Haiti's business elite have historically and notoriously maintained their dominant business positions within key industries (most are monopoly or cartel run) by maintaining Haiti's reputation as a violent and chaotic business climate, effectively discouraging foreign investors (and competitors) from entering Haitian markets. It is worth noting, however, that the government in power when this poll was done was appointed by the U.S. government (not elected by the people of Haiti), and received millions of dollars in unaccounted grants and loans anyway.

"Haiti would develop if not for the violence."

The single greatest cause of violence in Haiti (and most places) is grinding poverty and the lack of opportunity for young people to go to school, or work. This poverty is directly tied to policies enacted in the past such as rapid trade liberalization which led to foreign dumping of rice, destroying national rice production and sustainable livelihoods for 70% of Haiti's rural population and fueling a rural exodus; the "Kreyòl pig" fiasco whereby USAID eliminated the black Haitian creole pigs, a 500 year-old mainstay for most rural families dependent on this hardy, disease-resistant animal replaced by American high-maintenance pink pigs; the creation of a low-wage export processing sector which pulled people into Pòtoprens's growing shantytowns to house the workers; aid programs that serve the educated elite while excluding Haiti's poor majority; centralization of power and resources in Pòtoprens; chronic underfunding of education originating with Haiti's ‘independence debt' payments to France in 1825 effectively closed rural schools to make those payments for the next 100 years.

"The language of the Jubilee Act (not yet proposed in Congress) requires that Haiti have an elected government in order to receive debt cancellation"

Haiti has an elected government.

"I support the development of Haiti. I proudly voted for the HOPE Act, that passed in the last Congress."

The HOPE act will provide limited benefit to Haiti unless complimentary policies are also put in to place - such as immediate debt cancellation. The HOPE Act will, at best, provide thousands of needed jobs in Port-au-Prince. However, low wage jobs for low-skilled workers produces a shallow economic impact compared to broad investment, country-wide, in desperately needed health, sanitation and education services allowing all Haitians a chance at a healthy, productive and more highly-skilled future.