What if I told you Haiti can become livable in four months? I am tempted to say four weeks.
How, do you ask? The way every other country has: through responsible leadership. That simple. That fast.
We need ethical folks overseeing the police force and the Central Bank. We need responsible authorities to name impartial judges. We need conscientious civil servants to maintain accurate archives. We need honest officers in customs and the tax offices. We need just prosecutors. We need agricultural experts to help our farmers and our environment. We need decent agents in our prisons and compassionate professionals in our hospitals. We need visionary business owners who comply with labor laws. We need moral clergy men and women. And loving moms and dads who actually raise their children.
All of it begins with good political leaders.
Except we're too defeated to believe that's possible. Too afraid to demand it. We are convinced we would need guns. Or money to buy guns. Or to buy the people who have the guns.
Which brings us to the Montana Group.
They tried. They really tried.
For more than 18 months, starting to meet well before the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, those Haitian citizens from various backgrounds saw a steaming volcano and thought they should defuse the explosion.
Haiti had not seen such a thing before. Teachers, union members, pastors and priests, Voodoo activists, former ministers, business professionals, politicians from opposite spectrums, rural farmers, urban youths—gathered all by themselves. No “technical support” or “capacity building” or laptops from any "partner." Just a bunch of Haitians who said to one another, “you know, we’re here; let’s propose something.” And they kept it going!
At the hand of the UN, such an initiative would have swallowed USD 2,500.000 whole. Imagine the material and equipment budget lines! And the costs associated with experts, all from lands not Haiti. Workshops and the “baseline survey” alone would have sipped the first million.
Reactions to the Montana Group echoed in rounds.
First, there was the Prime Minister’s tweet: “the Haitian constitution does not grant a small of group friends the right to gather in a hotel and elect a president.” Brilliant!
There should have been a straightforward rejoinder: “Indeed. On the other hand, the Haitian Constitution does grant to small groups of foreign officials gathered in embassies the right to choose a prime minister.”
I ached to launch the hashtag #omwenseAyisyenyoye. #atleasttheyareHaitians. But I didn’t. (See above.)
The actors supporting Ariel Henry chimed in: “the MG is a failure, an utter failure”; “Fritz Jean had been a serious person, but his involvement with the GM was political suicide. He’ll never, never, never amount to anything ever again”; “Magalie Comeau is just as responsible as Ariel Henry for where the country is today”; “the whole Montana thing is finished, done.”
As for the international community, they proved Ronald Reagan’s prescience when he warned, “trust but verify.” Between an illegitimate and duplicitous (criminal?) prime minister and a group of more credible Haitians, they chose the former.
Then there was the Haitian population. Punch-drunk from blow after blow by politicians of all stripes, they yawned at the initiative.
That was the Montana Group’s first mistake. They did not have a strategy to rally public support. The courtship would have been arduous, but they stopped at hello. They thought their awe-some-ness sufficiently obvious and alluring.
Their second mistake was less forgivable: they accepted bread crumbs for cake from the kingmakers (read: the international community) and realized too late they were never really invited to the feast.
Still, oversized egos and credulity are not crimes. Not in a country that faces drug trafficking, kidnappings, and hordes of uncontrolled guns.
So, yes, chapeau, Montana!
Congratulations to you all, especially the leaders. How brave you were to start this journey, with no money and no security guards. Not having been "convened" by foreigners.
You must have anticipated the invectives and the contempt that would come your way. Did you at least manage to ride around Port-au-Prince in armored Patrols?
This Haitian heart gives grace for all of you. For a while, and perhaps yet still, you showed the beauty that is possible when woven by Haitian hands.
That model fed my soul.
Thank you and blessings.
