Haiti as an embarrassment

I went to Haiti several times in the early '70s, and seriously toyed with the idea of setting up a diving business. It seemed, as they say, like a good idea at the time. The natives were friendly, the climate super, and the country has hundreds of miles of some of the best beaches in the world, most of them deserted, with the exception of a few fishermen. If I'd done it, who knows where the future might have lead.

But Haiti was very different in those days. Port-au-Price was dirt poor, but it was small, manageable and actually quite pleasant. A nice room in a downtown hotel, with an excellent breakfast and a gourmet dinner would set you back $10; even 30 years ago, that was chicken feed. The city was absolutely safe; you could wander anyplace at midnight, looking like an inebriated tourist and have nothing to worry about.

There were places to go and interesting foreigners on hand; I met Barry Goldwater at the Olafson Hotel (an old haunt of Graham Greene's) when we were both having dinner there. Goldwater is one of the few politicians in living memory for whom I have some respect.

That was then. Now there are no downtown hotels, for two reasons: First, nobody without a death wish would dream of being in a downtown hotel and, second, there are absolutely no tourists to stay in them. That's because tourists don't come to Haiti anymore. On my flight from Miami, which was full, I believe there weren't more than five other non-Haitians aboard.

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There are no tourists for several reasons: expense, a lack of entertainment and crime. It's expensive in the few remaining hotels and restaurants, partially because everything is imported and duties are huge; food in the local grocery costs double what it does in the US. And there's no volume to allow for lower margins. I must say, however, that the quality of the cuisine is at least as good as that in France, which is still viewed as the motherland by Haitians. But dining out at the few restaurants that are still open is about all that passes for entertainment these days; the lack of tourists and abundance of crime combine to severely limit possibilities. So does the fact electricity is predictably out at least several hours every day; every home and business must have its own generator.

And crime really is a problem. Just while I was there four ex-pats were kidnapped, in separate occurrences. In the old days Papa Doc's Tonton Macoute, a secret police force with overtones of Voodoo expertise, pretty well kept a lid on things. If nothing else, Duvalier at least recognized the value of the tourist trade, and if anything untoward happened to a tourist the perpetrator would only live long enough to sincerely regret it. But, as with the disappearance of the Soviet police state, the sociopathic 2-3 percent of society rose to the occasion.

And it's actually getting worse, because Haitian criminals who get caught in the U.S. are repatriated after serving their terms. That means 300-500 are returned each year with a doctorate in serious crime, issued after a few years in a U.S. prison. That would make the criminals among the most educated folks in this largely illiterate land.

Progress? How about survival?

A logical question arises when you realize that the country has almost no industry or commercial agriculture whatsoever. How do they survive? They make Barbencourt rum, there's a cigarette factory and they assemble some clothing that's imported and then re-exported. And some artists peddle wares of varying quality. That's it. It used to be that most baseballs were made here, but that factory moved out. I can only assume it was because the government made them crazy, because you can't find cheaper labor – and once labor is trained for a specialty like that, the last thing you want to do is move the operation and start all over again. So the country essentially creates nothing.

Almost all the people outside the capital are subsistence farmers; but not only are there no food exports, the country imports everything except locally grown vegetables. Nobody even bothers exploring for minerals, despite prospective terrain.

Where does the money come from? The main answer is that there are about a million Haitians abroad, mostly in the U.S. and Canada, supporting the 8 million Haitians in the country. The hope and salvation of every family is to get somebody to Miami in order to survive. Of course, that makes it hard for any but the most extraordinary emigrant to save enough to really get anywhere himself.

In addition, up to $500 million a year comes in from various NGOs. Some of them actually do some good. Most, however, are just bureaucracies, sending their policy wonks to drive around in new Land Rovers, survey the poverty, and write largely worthless reports that nobody reads. Half of the relatively few people who get regular paychecks draw them from the government; most of them are laughingly referred to as "zombie workers" for obvious reasons. Fortunately, that no longer includes the army, because the army has been abolished, in recognition of the fact that, typical of Third World militaries, it's sole purpose was to intimidate potential dissidents.

On the bright side, at least there's no direct aid to the Haitian government, due to the rare insight that it would mostly just get siphoned off to some people's foreign bank accounts.

The whole country is on welfare. It's like a rural Washington, D.C.

A charity

Of course, despising welfare, I'm also somewhat disinclined towards organized charities, as well. They tend to quickly become top-heavy vehicles for the politically correct to righteously play big shot with other people's money. At some point soon, I'll editorialize about the corruption charity often brings, and why those of you with plans along those lines may want to rethink it. So I was only marginally enthusiastic about the Foundation for Mercy and Sharing, founded by my friend Susie Krabacher, whom I accompanied on this trip.

Susie is a legend in Haiti; everyone knows her. An ex-Playboy centerfold and cover girl, she's done well in the world, and truly wants to help other people in thanksgiving; she picked the right place. I've seen poverty, I promise you, but what goes on in Haiti is a whole other level – and an excellent barometer of how far this place has fallen. Poor people regularly abandon children, already on death’s door, they can't care for. What happens is that they're basically stacked up like fire wood in an unrefridgerated morgue, before they die, and sometimes aren't buried for months after they die, because there's no money to dispose of them. It literally defies the imagination.

In any event, Susie has set up, on a shoestring, an orphanage for about 1,600 kids, and it is impossible to find fault with the small organization. And I say that as someone who believes most charities aren't worth the powder it would take to blow them to hell.

If you're so inclined, you can contact her by e-mail or phone (970-925-1492).

Property

Most Third World countries prohibit foreigners from owning islands, border lands and coastlines – ostensibly for "security" reasons, probably stemming from a fear of invasion, or guerrillas. Needless to say, Haiti has laws of this type. In theory, the beachfront owned by the state is available for acquisition by citizens; it can be leased for five years for a nominal amount (about $25 per hectare per year) and then, if development plans are approved, the legislature can grant title. I met several Haitians who've apparently done this. But, although it's simple in theory, it's exceedingly hard in practice.

Hernan de Soto, the Peruvian student of why Third World countries tend to remain basket cases, points out that Haiti is especially perverse in this regard: He documents how it takes an average of 19 years and 176 bureaucratic procedures to legalize the purchase of private land in Haiti – forget about getting it from the state.

And, unfortunately, the state probably (who really knows, since the country's records are a shambles) owns over half the land area of the country. That amounts to totally dead capital in a country that can't afford to waste a cent. In fact, it's worse than that. You can tell exactly where the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti lies by flying over it at 10,000 feet; the Haitian side has been totally deforested. People rarely do anything so stupid with their own property, but when it comes to state property, which is to say unowned property, anything goes. It's the Tragedy of the Commons come to the Caribbean.

Still, if I can get a few thousand idyllic, isolated acres for peanuts, I think there's some real opportunity. My feelers are out. But that's Plan B. My real attention is on Plan A.

Plan A

As totally disastrous as the country is, it makes the days when the Duvalliers ran it as something of a private plantation look like a halcyon time. Some people say the Haitians are capable of no better and are best off under some type of (hopefully) benign dictatorship. That's complete rubbish.

The reason the country, the first in the Western Hemisphere after the U.S. to go independent, is such basket case is simply a lack of property rights, and an efficient legal system to enforce them.

Aristide realizes he has a tiger by the tail, that this poor and overpopulated country is a potential time bomb. But he's at once too ignorant, too weak and now too corrupt to do anything about it. A pity, because he's both intelligent and charismatic enough to transform the place. Naively, he appears to think that making plans to sell the airport, promoting the artistic talents of Haitians and getting more foreign aid will solve the problem.

I spent some time with one of his cabinet and closest advisers, presenting a radical plan for change. This is a country with terminal cancer; band aids and gradualism are nonstarters. Out of 200 countries in the world, only about 25 are capital exporters. And out of the 175 importers Haiti is about the last on any capitalist's list.

What I proposed is a plan, which I've presented to autocrats running a half dozen similar basket cases, which would do three things:

1. Make him (and his cronies) legitimately wealthy. Even though he was once a priest ministering to the bottom of society, he's found that power corrupts. And money is the main reason people get into and around government anyway.
2. Put him on the front cover of every news magazine in the world in a favorable light for the next decade. No one likes being a pariah, or a laughing stock in charge of a country that's viewed as an embarrassment.

3. Make the country as wealthy in a generation as Hong Kong, Singapore, or Taiwan is today. After all, 50 years ago those places were as poor as Haiti. But today the world is much richer, and technology far more advanced.

This promise got his attention. "Tell me more," he said, which is the usual reaction. My plan basically contemplates the 100 percent elimination of all taxes and regulations; these things serve absolutely no useful purpose in any Third World country except to create sinecures for parasites. That part is simple, and obvious.

The twist is to take all government assets and put them initially into one large corporation to facilitate distributing 70 percent of the shares, pro rata, to every citizen now living, 15 percent in trust for the next generation to be born over the next 21 years, 10 percent for the folks who allow it to happen, and 5 percent to be sold in the world's capital markets. The money raised thereby would mainly be used to promote the fact the country is open for business in a way no country in the world has ever been. And the people, not the government, would be the direct beneficiaries.

There's much, much more to it. But, in essence, it's possible to transform a hellhole like Haiti into the kind of place you'd want to move to, no matter where you now live, regardless of other considerations. If there were ever a true free market country, the place would be so overrun with rich people that workers now making $1 a day would be in demand at $15 an hour (what I have to pay my maid in Aspen – in cash, thank you).

Could it happen? Well, in case you're wondering what my other hobby, besides polo, is, it's pitching this plan to Third World governments. They've bought every cockamamie scheme that's come down the pike since the days of Karl Marx. Why shouldn't they go for something that actually makes sense? Well, I can think of lots of reasons, but that doesn't mean I'm about to quit.

If you have a connection to a troubled head of state, I'd like to hear from you.

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