ERADICATION OF CORRUPTION

            Eradication of Corruption: A Punching Bag for Demagogues
                 
                  By Herno Remy
                  [e-mail]
     
      Citizens of both democratic and non-democratic countries have to face demagoguery during election time. Candidates have become prone to demagoguery because it is an easy strategy and an alternative to the hard work that a candidate should invest to be elected. Such a strategy is more rewarding to demagogues in poor countries like Haiti than in rich democracies such as the United States and Canada. Haiti is fertile ground for demagoguery because of the air of desperation that travels across the country. Al Gore, the former vice president and presidential candidate of the United States, put it this way in his book The Assault on Reason: “Poverty has caused the collapse of expectations and made people desperate and then open to demagogic appeals.”
     
      Poor voters find it exciting when candidates make extravagant promises. A candidate who is willing to turn logic upside-down and say what voters want to hear is on the path to victory. Mirlande Manigat, the former first lady and presidential candidate of Haiti, lost the election to Joseph Michell Martelly, the current president, not because Martelly was a nemesis or a popular candidate; instead, Manigat had refused to turn logic upside-down, and that was the root cause of her failure. On the other hand, Martelly, who is a demagogue, did not have any qualms about being irrational in his promises.
The people who voted for Martelly represented only 15% of the 4.7 million registered voters. Therefore, with 716,989 votes, Martelly could not have been that popular. Compared to Aristide in 1990 and Preval in 1994, Martelly had the weakest mandate from the people in 2011. Aristide gathered more than 1 million votes and Preval almost 1 million, while the number of registered voters totaled a mere 3.5 million. Therefore, popularity can be discounted as an explanation of Martelly’s success in the last elections.
     
      While Haiti is fertile ground for demagoguery, it is also a place where landmines are pervasive. Demagogues like President Martelly need to be very careful; it is only a matter of time before he steps on one of these landmines, and a violent explosion will ensue. The frustration of the people and the weakness of the justice system make Haiti a dangerous place for demagoguery. To punish demagogues, Haitians never hesitate to use violence, as this is the only alternative they have at their disposal. If President Martelly has any doubt about such a hideous outcome, he should review the fates of Jean Bertrand Aristide, Jean Claude Duvalier, and others. Aristide and Duvalier were ejected from the country because the Haitian people were fed up with their demagogic, egocentric, and dictatorial behaviors. The lack of confidence in the justice system makes violence and retaliation an appealing alternative to the Haitian people. Although credit must be given to the Haitians for not being especially prone to violence, their passivity and patience are not green lights for demagoguery. The following section debunks Martelly’s demagogic promise that he will eradicate corruption.
                               
                                      Eradicate Corruption     
      Nothing could be more redemptive for Haiti than to finally elect a president who is willing to fiercely combat corruption. Serious corruption, coupled with a lack of vision of the Haitian leaders, represents a significant obstacle to Haiti’s development. Francois Duvalier, Jean Claude Duvalier, and Jean Bertrand Aristide all promised to eradicate corruption, but once they made it to the highest level of government, they became ferocious predators of the Republic’s coffers. It is too early to say the same for Martelly, but the early signs are very disturbing. His fondness for foreign trips, his extravagant cortege, and his desire to do things outside legal channels leave much to be desired.
     
        To show his intolerance for corruption, Francois Duvalier drafted a constitution that called for the death penalty for anyone convicted of embezzling public funds. He caved in to the pressure of his friends to take this clause out of the document because it was considered too drastic. Thus, Duvalier’s antipathy toward corruption was flagrant. However, when he, his family, or his close associates were involved in corruption, he was not so antagonistic toward it. He never hesitated to plunder the public coffers to send his family on shopping sprees all over the world. His bank accounts in the Swiss bank were so fat that they resembled those of a very successful businessman. His love for money blinded him so much that he signed a shameful and inhumane contract with the Dominican Republic in 1966 to send his countrymen in the bateys, a company town where sugar workers live, to work as indentured slaves. According to the London Anti-Slavery Society, he sold approximately 12,000 poor Haitians annually during the life of the contract for $11 each. The list of Duvalier’s peccadilloes and his depraved behavior is long.
     
        When Francois Duvalier died, his son, Jean Claude Duvalier, became the next dictator at the age of 19. Under his bloody leadership, corruption flowed as a mighty stream in Haiti. During his 14 years in power, he changed ministers as if he was changing his clothes. Elizabeth Abbot, the author of The Duvaliers and Their Legacy, reported that Duvalier “went through about three hundred ministers.” Duvalier and his wife, Michele Bennett, had an unwavering craving for fancy and very expensive things. To support their habits, they plundered public coffers. Abbot said that Duvalier spent an estimated $3 million on his wedding; he spent so much on his wedding while the Haitian people were living in abject poverty. The expense of the fireworks alone was staggering; according to Abbot, the price tag was $100,000. Abbott wrote that the Duvalier’s wedding was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for being among the most expensive weddings of the year. Duvalier and his wife’s fondness for lavishness were indisputable.
     
        Jean Bertrand Aristide also promised to eradicate corruption. When he was elected in 1990 for the first time, he was a nightmare for domestic and foreign companies that had refused to pay their taxes for years. He exposed their names on national television and portrayed them as free riders. He visited public institutions at eight o’clock in the morning to catch public servants who had refused to show up to work on time; he also embarrassed those who were getting checks from the government but not coming to work. These undertakings were crucial first steps in combating corruption. However, they were tainted with a witch-hunt, paternalistic, and demagogic mentality that doomed them to failure before they had really begun. After returning from exile in 1994, Aristide became one of the worst corrupt leaders that Haiti had ever known. His close relationship with renowned drug dealers had made it impossible for anyone to believe that he could effectively fight corruption. Seven high-profile members of his government were arrested by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and brought to the United States. Moreover, under his leadership, Haiti was ranked by the World Bank as the world’s second most corrupt country out of 195 countries rated. Considering all of these facts, one can safely say that Aristide was a total farce and another demagogue.
       
        Thus, Martelly is not the first and will not be the last to boldly promise to eradicate corruption. Since 1988, every person who has run for president of Haiti has made the same promises but to no avail. This is not to say that Martelly may not succeed where his predecessors have failed. He needs only to be serious about attacking the problem, and as of now, he is not being serious. He has criticized the previous administration for spending too much on cars and traveling, and has identified $100 million that could be saved by spending less on both. In less than four months as president, he has made seven foreign trips, and Steven Benoit, a senator, has counted 22 cars in his cortege as they were in procession. This is not the change that he promised; this is simply more of the same. The office of the president has illegally authorized a check for 3.5 million gourdes, the Haitian currency, to be paid to the order of Marinio Jeune, one of the president’s friends, to organize La Notre-Dame and Gelée, a traditional festival organized every year in Les Cayes, a town that is in the  southern part of Haiti. Both the president and members of his cabinet know that such a move would be against the law because laws on public finances in Haiti prohibit a check for such a large amount from being written to the order of an individual. However, the office of the president did not have any qualms about asking the agency that is responsible for such activities, which is Le Ministere de la  Planification et à la Coopération Externe, to write this colossal check. The check was written to the order of Jeune while the mayor of Les Cayes was busy looking for revenue to organize the festival. As the mayor, he should never have been bypassed by the central authorities. This is clearly inconsistent with the president’s mantra that he is going to change Haiti; this is simply another instance of corruption perpetrated by his young administration.
       
        Everyone who visits the international airport of Rwanda is greeted by a sign that says, “Investment Yes. Corruption No.” There is no doubt that this is just a sign, and it does not necessarily reflect the behavior of the government officials. Similarly, Martelly’s promise pertaining to the eradication of corruption is not a reflection of his behavior. However, Rwanda is determined to exterminate corruption; it does not only put up a sign but it also severely punishes all those involved in such activities. The president respects the presidency and the prestige that comes with it by not being the direct instigator of corruption. Today corruption is rare in Rwanda; as a result, virtually every Rwandan has health insurance, the country is clean, begging is rare, and homelessness is almost nonexistent. The goal of the government is to lift Rwanda into middle-income range by 2020. This is a non-demagogic approach to corruption. More than 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda in 1994 during a terrible genocide caused by the collision of the Tutsis and the Hutus. Rwanda has experienced the worst trauma that any society could have experienced. If it can overcome such a trauma and put the country on the path of development, I deeply believe that Haitians can do the same. If Martelly does not know where to start with such a daunting undertaking, I am confident that Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, and someone with whom Martelly claims to have developed a cordial relationship, can give him some lessons. He needs to stop being a demagogue, set a goal, have a vision, and put himself to work so that Haiti can be the next Rwanda on the American continent.