30187: Hermantin(News)Let's offer hope to Cite Soleil (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Tue, Mar. 13, 2007

HAITI

Let's offer hope to Cité Soleil

BY MARK SCHNEIDER AND DAMIEN HELLY
www.crisisgroup.org

The largest slum neighborhood of Haiti's capital has the charming name of Sun 
City in French -- ''Cité Soleil'' -- and thanks to the U.N. peacekeeping force, 
it is no longer under the control of urban gangs. But for how long?

The answer to that question may be found as much in Washington, Ottawa and 
Paris as in Port-au-Prince, because those capitals have promised rapid 
community violence-reduction programs as soon as security permitted. At least 
for the next several weeks, there is no excuse for development teams not to set 
up shop in Cité Soleil, hire local workers, use community decision-making to 
pick priority needs and begin finding ways to build schools, clinics and 
potable-water systems.

`Gangs are keeping quiet'

That needs to be followed immediately -- not after several months -- and with 
the Haitian government's blessing, by money funneled in and civilian boots on 
the ground to show the people, even those closest to the gangs, that getting 
rid of the violence also means getting jobs and services to improve their 
lives.

As a local Cité Soleil community leader told us in Port-au-Prince a few weeks 
ago, ``If nothing good happens for the people now that the gangs are keeping 
quiet, they will be back and the people will not trust the government or the 
international community.''

With the full support of President René Préval, the Mission of the United 
Nations in Haiti, known by the French acronym, MINUSTAH, has opened a second 
window of opportunity in Haiti's overcrowded urban capital. Its series of 
military movements behind armored personnel carriers into Cité Soleil have 
brought peace, at least for a while, to the neighborhoods. The first window of 
opportunity was Préval's election, his efforts to bridge the political divide 
over the past nine months with an ideological and class-based opposition and 
the bipartisan support offered in Washington and elsewhere.

Agencies must act fast

But insecurity -- from those urban gangs, from political spoilers and from drug 
traffickers -- had stalled any real chance for major investments in the 
impoverished communities that lace through the capital. Too many kidnappings, 
too many assaults and too many drive-by shootings had turned the capital into a 
no-go zone for all but the most adventurous development agencies.

The pledges had been made by donors, and now security is there as well -- at 
least for a while. But development agencies are going to have to act fast, even 
to take more risks perhaps than they would like. They also need to find ways to 
give the lead to a Haitian governmental apparatus with extremely limited 
absorptive capacity on moving longer-term projects forward.

Rebuild police stations

One way to speed action, particularly by the United States, is to take 
advantage of grantees already working in Haiti, but outside the city. Many 
humanitarian and development NGOs already have been working outside the city. 
The U.S. government and other donors should permit them to operate immediately 
inside Cité Soleil with existing funds, while nearly $20 million in 
stabilization and reconstruction monies that the U.S. Department of Defense has 
given the State Department to spend in Cité Soleil are being programmed, 
grantees selected and funding mechanisms chosen.

The United States also will finance rebuilding and equipping three Haitian 
National Police stations in Cité Soleil, and that would be a good thing, after 
making sure the police who staff them are clean of any links to the crooks. 
They might also take a page from the book of some Latin American projects and 
make those police stations one-stop centers for government services (known as 
Casas de Justicia -- justice houses). There are many pilot projects that 
various groups have authored in other countries in post-conflict settings and 
even in Haiti. Those experiences should be ''airlifted'' into Cité Soleil on an 
emergency basis -- perhaps funded directly through the United Nations and the 
Haitian government.

Community infrastructure

Now that the urban gangs have been put on the defensive, community 
infrastructure investment is needed. If the donors are unable to meet that 
challenge, this window of hope will close, the gangs will return and it will be 
even harder to stir trust and hope in the people of Port-au-Prince in the 
future. If it all works, then the same tactics should be transported to 
Gonaives and a few other cities where gangs still make life miserable for 
Haitians.

Mark Schneider is a senior vice president and special advisor on Latin America 
at the International Crisis Group, where Damien Helly is a senior analyst based 
in Haiti.

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