What Accountability?

"Haiti is a crazy, crazy place" I've repeated more than once witnessing the general dysfunction I find everywhere here in Haiti. The havoc wrought by the earthquake is only the most recent, dramatic demonstration of many disadvantages Haitians courageously face on a daily basis. Haiti has definitvely claimed status as the poorest country in the western hemisphere, with their largest source of income coming from the diaspora who send money home to family in Hait. Only 50% of elementary school children attend school, with most of these school being privately run and public school teachers who don't get paid.

How did the country get this way? There is no simple answer for this. Is it the history steeped in slavery, the oppressive dictator Duvalier (Papa Doc), the instability caused by a subsequent weak government and violence, or the meddling external foreign powers who feel they know what's best for the country, with disastrous consequences? (Bill Clinton has public apologized recently for pressure he placed on Haiti in the mid 1990s to remove tariffs on US rice, creating a crisis in Haitian food self-sufficiency.)

We can't change the past, but can we get it right this time? Accountability is a really big issue here. What are the international relief agencies doing with the money that is being poured into the country? Six months after the earthquake, Haitians are wondering when they'll get to see some of this money. I sense this guarded cynicism in the eyes of those I meet on the street when being greeted by a "blanc". Is disaster relief really only self serving big business for well off countries who can provide employment to their own workers sent to Haiti and increased economic activity to provide supplies purchased from back home?

I never realized how important accountability really was here in Haiti, when I decided to write a blog on this topic. There is so many facets of accountability to explore .....