Judging a very likable person

Jean-Max Bellerive is the former prime minister of Haiti. In addition to that position, he was also the head of the all-powerful Ministry of Planification and the co-director of the Interim Commission, tasked with the responsibility of reconstructing Haiti.

To hear Mr. Bellerive, President Preval and he did not only do their best in the wake of the 2010 earthquake, but they did the very best that could be done under the circumstances: things were understandbly chaotic and there were very few resources at their disposal. Moreover, he reminds everyone, many of the top government officials were themselves affected, from the loss of homes and ministries to the loss of colleagues and children.

It is hard to reject such eloquent arguments, especially from a clearly eloquent man, one who, by all accounts, has led a moral and orderly life beside.

Except, his argument is, and this is hard to say because he is likable, hollow. One look around Port-au-Prince, 20 months after the earthquake, evidences what media stories have described in painful details: Haiti has been badly served by those whose job it was to respond to the disaster.

That lack of results debunks Mr. Bellerive's words.

To accept them, one would have to believe that the millions spent, the 1000s of meetings, the high "expertise" levels, and the countless compromises and agreements reached, all of that could do not lead to improved results.

Mr. Bellerive's basic explanation is the following: "I know you could not tell, but trust me: we were good leaders."

By some standards, he may be right: how well he can speak or knows the "dossiers"; how well he got along with Haitian politicians and international players alike; how personally upstanding he is.

But Haiti needed a visionary, reassuring leader who would have painted for us a picture of a country reborn from the "decombres," and would have marshalled good will and resources, first at the local and national levels, to make it a reality.

No one in the government did that. And as it was your government three times over, Mr. Bellerive, I respectfully dissent.