Entrevue de Rene Preval avec le Miami Herald

Q&A with Haitian President René Préval

BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@MiamiHerald.com

Miami Herald reporter Jacqueline Charles conducted an interview with Haitian President René Préval on Oct. 18. The following is a transcript of that interview:

• Q: Your government and U.N. peacekeepers known as MINUSTAH recently launched a program to disarm armed gangs and reinsert their members into civilian life, known as DDR. How is that working?

• A: We have spoken to the gang leaders and they have turned in guns. And today, they not only have turned in guns, but they have sent people into the DDR ... There are 110 people in the program.

• Q: There is definitely a stepped up police presence in Port-au-Prince.

• A: The police recently entered (the long-violent slum of) Cité Soleil and the population was happy. This was done with an accord of the gang leaders and the population. It was not done in confrontation, but in dialogue. You will see in the metropolitan zone there are a lot of policemen in the streets. But we have to give them more materials to do their jobs; that means more cars, motorcycles and more radios. There are 500 new police recruits preparing to graduate. There is already a significant diminishing of insecurity. The police are giving people an increased sense of security.

• Q: You've said strengthening the police and justice systems are top priorities. What are your plans?

• A:We are going to do a reform of the police with vetting, with the changing of certain commanders and giving them more means to do their jobs ... We need to improve the conditions in which they eat, improve their health insurance and in the future, increase their salary. A police officer now receives $200 a month, which means he can just barely pay his house. This salary makes it easy for police to be corrupted.


• Q:What about judicial reforms?
• A:You have to strengthen the justice system. The prosecutor is working with the police to make sure when the police makes an arrest, it is done so correctly. He's working with the police in building their cases. We have to make an effort to put kidnappers and thieves before the law.''

• Q: What about corruption?

• A: This is a government pushing transparency. For example, each month we will publish on the Internet all of the money that comes into the government, and all of the money spent by the government. Even the (presidential) palace will have to say how much the president's trips cost.

• Q: In addition to the various commissions investigating corruption complaints, what else is the government doing to address this?

• A: We have a law we are going to introduce, where the president, ministers, everybody who has authorization to sign government checks, will have to declare every year their assets. Do you have a car, a house, jewelry, bank account, investments? All of your assets, you will have to declare. It's one of the weapons against corruption.

• Q: What about the state-owned telephone company, Teleco?

• A: Today Teleco is losing money ...We are going to have Teleco ... become a mixed company, government/private-owned. When you are doing telecommunications you want someone who knows what they are doing and who has money to invest in it ... No deputies, senators, ministers, are going to put their people in there because the private sector won't accept it.

• Q: Teleco and others government workers who were fired during the previous transition government continue to demand their jobs back.

• A: The people who were fired during the transition, we won't leave them behind. We will talk to them. Those who are inside Teleco right now, we are going to make a lot of them leave as well. So we arrive at the necessary amount of people at Teleco ... We are not going to do demagogy or partisan politics, to put people in so they can shout Long Live Préval!''

• Q: Haiti has been called one of the most corrupt places in the world. Do you believe you can change this?

• A: We are underdeveloped in everything, and we are underdeveloped in corruption too. If they are looking for a country that has corruption, I don't believe Haiti is the model of corruption. I believe Haiti has a weakness in fighting corruption but it's petty corruption; it's not big corruption ... If you put it proportion to the problems of the country, it resembles big corruption. But if you look at other countries, we are not yet strong in corruption.

• Q: Why do you believe it's so hard to get foreigners to invest in Haiti?

A: It's not insecurity that makes people not come and invest in Haiti. There is an inordinate amount of kidnappings, if not more, in other countries whose names I won't mention. The problem in Haiti is a lack of political security ... Once you can guarantee that there is political stability, that another government is not going to come and change the game, there will be investments... It's a problem of the image of Haiti. Once we change it, people will return to invest.

• Q: During your U.S. visit earlier this year, you lobbied on behalf of the stalled HOPE trade bill that could bring thousands of apparel assembly jobs to Haiti. Do you believe the U.S. Congress will approve it?

• A: It's one of the things that can help to create job and stabilize the political situation, by removing the economic pressure. I hope the U.S. congressmen and the administration will understand the importance HOPE has for Haiti...I've done all the lobbying I can.''

• Q: Critics charge that the shift of about $3 million in the government's budget to study the creation of a better-armed ''policing'' group may be an attempt to re-create the army, which was abolished in 1995. You've said it isn't.

• A: For me, the public (security) force that we need is a (defense force) to survey boats, the frontier and intervene in natural disasters. Protection of the airport, the ports, that's not the work of the police.

• Q: Sixty-five percent of the $1.6 billion budget Haiti recently adopted relies on foreign aid. What are you doing to ensure that promised foreign aid actually arrives?

• A: Money has been promised, but a lot of that money is going into the non-governmental organizations. That is the first problem. That is why we insist right now they give us budget support. Even if they they say the money is earmarked for specific projects, it's the Haitian government that will decide how to divvy up the money ... Because the government was weak it had no choice but to go through the NGOs. But eventually the government needs to take control of the NGOs without (alienating) them ... They have to do things in conjunction with the government, otherwise it won't be effective.

• Q: Some peasant organizations are demanding land reform. Do you have any plans to address this?

• A: The problem in Haiti is, if you take the titles to property and put them next to each other, you would find that Haiti is five times bigger than it is in reality. And all of those documents are valid. They are official. They are good. But that leads to fights. You have to resolve the question of property in the rural zones. Who really owns the land? If a person doesn't have assurances that the property really is theirs, they are not going to invest in it .... You see all of the houses in the (slums), there are no titles for them. It's dead capital because the person cannot sell it, they cannot take a loan out on it at the bank ... We are going to work on this.

• Q: You definitely have better relations with MINUSTAH than the interim government. What happened?

• A: What has changed is Haiti right now has a legitimate government and this legitimate government has a will to take the country by the hand. That's why at the donors conference, we were the ones who did the documents. We didn't say give us what you have or what you want, we put together the documents and said 'here are our needs.' And with MINUSTAH we said here is what we would like for you to do; they meanwhile did what they were able to within the limits of their mandates. I believe they are really happy to find a government that says what it wants.

• Q: The government has been criticized for giving each of the 129 members of parliament a $15,000 stipend toward the purchase of a car.

• A: The deputy is someone who comes from the province .... Just like the president has a car, same as the ministers have a car, he needs a car so that he can go home, go to work and return to the province .... He doesn't have any money. Now we have two choices. Buy a car for every deputy, a car that costs $40,000 ... We gave them $15,000, toward the $40,000 to buy a new car. The government has already saved $25,000.

HAITI

Préval maps out road to improvement

BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@MiamiHerald.com


PORT-AU-PRINCE - In a sparsely furnished sunroom in Haiti's Presidential Palace, René Préval's vision of the future unfolds in color: pink for what has begun, red for what is and what he hopes will soon be.

''This,'' Préval says, standing in front of one map of the country showing a meager few red lines, ''represents the roads, those with asphalt, currently in Haiti.'' He points out the pink lines. ``These are the roads currently under construction.''

Then he pauses, as if to give his point time to sink in, before showing a second map with a much larger web of red lines covering Haiti -- roads the president, only five months into his five-year term, hopes to build. ''This is what Haiti should look like,'' he said. ``Without roads, there cannot be development.''

For Préval, roads have become the cornerstone of his quiet -- some say too quiet -- but determined effort to bring economic prosperity and political stability to a nation of eight million people racked by abject poverty and barely recovering from a revolt in 2004 that saw President Jean-Bertrand Aristide toppled, hundreds of people killed and dozens of businesses destroyed.

''The people are not looking for a miracle,'' Préval, 63, told The Miami Herald in an interview last week. ``They only want to see an improvement in their lives.''

NO SMALL FEAT

But achieving even this minimal objective will be no easy feat even though Préval was reelected in February -- in 2001, he was the first president in Haitian history to finish a full term and hand over power to an elected successor -- with the overwhelming support of the poor.

He has raised great expectations, but the reality is one of unprecedented crime; poor government services; the stench of corruption; and tepid enthusiasm among foreign investors and aid donors. Nearly everything, from medical care to hot meals for schoolchildren to security in the streets, is being provided by the international community.

With only 10 working state-owned garbage trucks in the capital, streets are littered with trash. After a relative calm, fighting erupted again last week between gangs and U.N. peacekeepers in the volatile slum of Cité Soleil. Government workers fired by the interim government that replaced Aristide took to the streets again last week to demand their jobs back.

Critics also note that Préval's low-key leadership style is creating frustration among Haitians who do not see him wielding power. Even foreign diplomats have expressed concern to him about his refusal to hire an official spokesman to publicize what the government is doing.

''I thought things would have moved faster,'' said 33-year-old Excelent Jean-Baptiste during a Préval visit last week to the central town of Marchand Dessalines, the country's first capital. ``We are waiting for several promises, and we don't see anything happening.''

During the visit, the crowd surged toward the president, who, in turn, waded into their waiting arms -- evidence that despite the frustrations with the slow pace of progress and other complaints, Préval remains personally popular.

Foreign diplomats living in Haiti and others who have visited recently indeed give Préval and Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis high marks for the strides they have made in returning a sense of order and putting the country on what everyone hopes will be the path to reconstruction.

''I'm very encouraged by the way things are going on,'' said Edmond Mulet, head of the overall United Nations mission in Haiti, noting that Préval has delivered on vows to form a coalition government and to rule by consensus. In response, Mulet said, the attitude of Haiti's political leadership has improved.

''I think they are kind of tired of all the squabbling and the infighting and not moving forward,'' Mulet added. ``And I think they do have a sense of a window of opportunity, and are putting aside many of their differences and histories and making an effort to work together.''

The president now meets routinely with lawmakers and members of various political groups. But Préval, who wound up dissolving a hostile parliament during his first presidential term, will need to maintain that rapport if he is to accomplish some of the major tasks on his agenda.

None are easy, and almost all will generate some controversy, perhaps even violence.

Earlier this summer, Préval and Alexis canceled all foreign travel to focus on the country's security problems, meeting with commanders of the 9,067-strong U.N. force and 4,000-member Haitian police force to coordinate efforts to reduce a spate of for-ransom kidnappings and disarm or crack down on the armed gangs terrorizing the capital.

Among other critical tasks: judicial and police overhauls; downsize and partially privatize the government-owned telephone company, a major source of public revenue; require anyone handling government money to disclose personal assets annually; change the constitution to give Haitians living abroad a voice in public affairs; and crack down on corruption and contraband.

Préval also has been preparing for a conference in Spain next month of Haiti's main foreign aid donors, at which his government will push to win a stronger voice in all decisions, rather than allowing foreign governments and nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, to set the agenda and spending plans.

''Haitian law says when a nongovernmental organization does something, it needs to do it with the government. But we've yet to achieve that,'' he said. ``Eventually, the government needs to take control of the NGOs . . . so that people are not doing a bunch of things without oversight. They have to do things in conjunction with the government.''

BUILDING TRUST

Préval says he remains optimistic, despite the challenges.

''There is an atmosphere of trust from the side of the international community and the Haitian population,'' he said. ``They see the government isn't practicing partisan politics, and they see this is a government pushing transparency.''

Foreign observers in Haiti tend to agree.

''There is a strong commitment on the part of the leaders of this country and a strong will; the vision is clear, they want to reconstruct on a strong basis,'' said Canadian Ambassador Claude Boucher. ``Now the challenge is to get the critical mass to mobilize behind them and implement the vision.''

But that implementation will depend to a large degree on foreign aid -- and not just promises of aid, but money actually delivered.

The Bush administration has asked Congress for $198 million as part of a $500 million, multiyear commitment of aid to Haiti. And in July, a group of donors meeting in Port-au-Prince pledged $750 million over the next 14 months to help rebuild the dilapidated infrastructure. The government's current one-year budget, which includes the pledges, is $1.6 billion.

At the donors conference in Spain, Haiti plans to ask for an additional $180 million for road construction. So far, there's $210 million worth of road construction already taking place, and another $280 million in financing pledged. The new roads will not only make traveling faster in this country, where the roads have Jacuzzi-size potholes, but also allow farmers to get their crops to market faster -- and make a better living.

Haiti, about one-third the size of Florida, has about 626 miles of paved roads, according to the World Factbook, a Central Intelligence Agency compilation of data.

Meanwhile, Préval keeps plodding along in his low-profile style, even refusing to campaign on behalf of his Lespwa Party members running in the Dec. 3 municipal elections, because he doesn't want to create unnecessary political frictions.

''The people don't want to hear what you will do, they want to see you doing,'' Préval said during the interview with The Miami Herald, still energetic after a 12-hour workday despite speculation about ill health.

More public appearances will come, he said, when he has results to show, like those spreading red lines on his road maps.

''The other day I was reading a U.S. newspaper article, and it said . . . there was nothing happening in Haiti,'' he said. ``The fact there is nothing happening in Haiti is a good thing. It means there is no coup d'état, no protest. But it also means you've yet to feel like something [good] is going to happen in Haiti.''

Then, indicating that something is cooking, he said, ``When a chicken sits on an egg . . . one day -- a month, 26 days later -- a little chick appears, beautiful and young.''

Sur cete page du Miami Herald (version electronique), vous trouverez des cartes d'Haiti indiquant:

- les routes en etat actuellement en Haiti -> http://www.miami.com/multimedia/miami/news/currentroads.pdf

- les routes actuellement en construction ou en rehabilitation -> http://www.miami.com/multimedia/miami/news/underconstruction.pdf

- les routes que l'administration Preval prevoit construire d'ici la fin du mandat du president -> http://www.miami.com/multimedia/miami/news/futureroads.pdf