Haiti Info, Vol. 3, #24, 16 September 1995
With the focus on the impending privatization of state-owned enterprises, it is easy to forget Haiti has been undergoing similar measures since the early eighties, when the Jean-Claude Duvalier government began to apply some liberal measures, and with the big push for liberalization in 1987. The current privatizations are only one aspect of an over-arching program aimed at integrating Haiti more into the international market which, in Haiti's case, means the U.S. and its multinational companies...
Historical/Economic Background
Not long ago, Haiti was self-sufficient in rice...
Haitian rice production kept pace with its population growth over the years. The Duvalier governments kept the Haitian market more or less protected. Only one port, Port-au-Prince, was open, allowing control of imports and keeping the level of contraband down. Imported rice sold for about the same price as Haitian rice up through Jean-Claude Duvalier's flight in 1986...
In the seventies, however, the destucturation of Haitian rice began when the government imported tons of U.S. rice following a drought....
Despite the increased imports, in 1987 Haiti still produced three-quarters of its rice needs, but the U.S.-managed and -advised Henri Namphy regime and its whiz kid Minister of Finance, Leslie Delatour (now governor of the Central Bank) swiftly moved to liberalize the country by slashing tariffs, closing state-owned industries, cutting the budget of the government agricultural agency in the Artibonite by 30% and opening all the ports.
The 50% tariff on imported rice was not cut immediately, but a growing massive contraband of extremely cheap “Miami rice” was, at best, cynically overlooked by the government. U.S. rice has a faux low price, since the U.S. protects its rice (and sugar beet and other) farmers with multitudes of programs, so U.S. farmers produce rice for “less” than Haitian farmers thanks to massive subsidies...
In addition to legally imported and smuggled rice, food “aid” (corn meal, beans, soy, oil) also undermined and continues to undermine local products by driving all prices down. Tons of “aid” makes its way onto the market, legally or illegally, and is sold, thus competing with local products.
The breaking down of Haiti's rural economy through the flood of U.S. products, the destruction of the creole pig and other measures are not by hazard. They are part of the same neoliberal vision pushed by the U.S. and the multilateral institutions in all “dependent” countries.
By the early 1980s, the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), had decided Haiti should not grow its own food or develop any national industries. The international division of labor, AID and the other planners and bankers said, called for Haiti to do “export manufactur
and process agricultural products, but with a sharply growing need to import grain.”
Through Ronald Reagan's Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) in 1983, a vast increase in food aid and credit for agroindustries and other programs, during the 80s, “experts” worked consciously to dismantle the rural economy even though, according to authors DeWind and Kinley, AID knew that would cause increased poverty and “a decline in income and nutritional status...”
Although the programs started before Duvalier's exit, Haitian rice farmers felt the first big blow with the flow of contraband. The price of Miami rice fell below that of local rice as tons flooded into the country. In December of 1987, farmers associations organized protests, blocking highways and ports. In one clash, police killed a peasant and injured many others. Organizations like the Federation Nationale des Etudiants Haitiens (FENEH), the Association Nationale des Agro-professionels Haitiens (ANDAH) raised their voices in protest. Meanwhile, the military government looked the other way...
By 1990 and 1991, Haitian production covered only about two-thirds of the country's needs. Peasants grew 195,000 MT of rice and a total of 100,000 MT was imported. Under the Jean-Bertrand Aristide government, 50 peasant associations and unions got together and with officials to discuss ways to preserve the portion of the market Haitian's still controlled. The government discussed a plan to buy all rice (and thus stabilize the price) and also to manage the imports, allowing in only a certain amount, between local harvests.
But the writing was already on the wall. Prior to the coup d'etat, the Aristide government had begun to negotiate with the IMF, which opposes such non-“free market” policies, and the most powerful overseas dealer of U.S. rice, Erly Industries, had already laid the groundwork to set up shop...
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