Last year, dozens of "cooperatives" mushroomed all over Haiti as part of a "cooperative movement" encouraged by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In theory, the movement was supposed to "democratize" the economy by offering alternatives to the Haitian bourgeoisie’s monopoly control of key economic sectors, like banks and import/export companies. Most of the cooperatives spawned were unregulated banks and credit unions offering mind-boggling interest-rates of up to 15%, enticing inflation-whipped Haitians to deposit their meager life savings into accounts that seemed too good to be true.

They were. This year, the cooperatives, most of which appear to have been concocted by pyramid schemers, have begun to fall like dominos, throwing thousands of Haitian depositors into even deeper poverty and despair. Many of the cooperative directors have gone into hiding or fled to the US.

Meanwhile, an angry movement of fleeced depositors has emerged in Haiti. They are demanding why the government made no effort to warn the public, to apprehend fugitive directors, or to monitor the cooperatives despite the existence of a regulatory agency, the National Council of Cooperatives (CNC). In an effort to calm spirits, Aristide has promised to refund the millions of dollars which evaporated from cooperative accounts, although the Haitian treasury is penniless. He has pledged to do this by September, when families need money for the start of the school year.

On Jul. 18, demonstrators took to the streets of St. Marc to demand that the government act to arrest the directors of collapsed cooperatives and to prevent their flight from the country. "There is only one thing we can do if the government refuses to take hold of this matter," said one angry demonstrator. "Next week, we will shut down all of St. Marc, from top to bottom." Many cooperatives in that town have closed their doors, including BCI, BCCH, CADEC, SOFADEC, BEFEC, and CODESO.

In Gonaïves, similar demonstrations took place last week to demand that Aristide reimburse depositors as promised. "Aristide has to give us our money immediately," one demonstrator said. "We won’t wait until September. We are going to block all the roads this month."

Every day in Port-au-Prince, crowds form in front of the CNC offices where people file claims against cooperative directors to recoup their losses. "I have been standing here since this morning," said one forlorn man waiting on line. "I’m just trying to survive this life they’ve destroyed. Since I’ve been standing on line, a bunch of people have gone ahead of me. If you are not a policeman, you don’t get anywhere." Some cops have taken to reclaiming their money at gunpoint from folding cooperatives.

Meanwhile, Justice Minister Jean-Baptiste Brown and Finance Minister Faubert Gustave

held a Jul. 19 press conference with the heads of the Cooperative Initiative (INICOOP), an association of cooperatives formed in an effort to save the movement. They announced an agreement with the directors of failed cooperatives, but only those who had not fled or gone into hiding. They encouraged people to continue to file claims against fugitive directors and to be "patient." So far over 9000 claims for money lost in failed cooperatives have been lodged. Claims can be filed at the CNC offices, at the courthouse, or even at the Ministry of Justice, the officials said. The Ministers said they had taken various measures to protect the assets of the cooperatives, and they invited fugitive cooperative directors to return and make an arrangement with the government.

The INICOOP directors said that they had made a deal with the government and foreign firms to buy up the assets of failed cooperatives. INICOOP estimates that the Haitian state will have to reimburse about $240 million to swindled depositors, which is more than 60% of the national budget.

"We don’t think that the state, that is the Haitian people, should have to foot the bill," said Ben Dupuy of the National Popular Party (PPN) in a Jul. 9 press conference. "Those who are responsible, those who stole the money, should pay the depositors back. The state should pursue them. The state doesn’t even have the funds. People are dying in the General Hospital because there is not enough serum or medicine. All the roads in the country are disastrous; they can’t even afford to fill the holes. And now the government says it is going to compensate people right and left. It’s pure demagogy."



"Zepòl sou Zepòl" Ethnography
A Review of Jennie Smith's "When the Hands are Many"

by Danyel Peña-Shaw

When the Hands are Many is an effort to uproot the stereotypes cast upon the Haitian peasantry by outsiders seeking to rationalize its poverty. Jennie Smith tells us how the most marginalized in Haiti have organized themselves into work collectives and local associations -- such as atribisyon, sosyete, kominotè, and gwoupman tèt ansanm -- in order to empower themselves collectively and transform a world of exclusion.

Although more than 700 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operate in Haiti, far too few Haitians benefit from their so-called aid. According to different studies, between 79 and 90 cents of every USAID dollar bound for Haiti is actually spent in the United States, the author notes. So-called experts cannot help anybody in Haiti if they aren't equipped with the humility and spirit necessary to gain the confidence of the people they are there to assist. Because the "aid-intervention world is a site of tension-filled encounters between discontinuous and contradictory knowledges," we should invest in the Haitian people and the grassroots organizations they themselves have created, Smith argues.

One rural leader calls the notion of Western democracy Demo-krashe (literally "Democra-spit"). He points to the exclusionary and humiliating results that global economic development has brought to Haiti. "If I can eat and another person can't eat, how are we supposed to build a democracy on that?" he asks.

The only effective way to critique other models is to provide an alternative with one’s own actions. Smith lives among the peasants she is studying in the mountains of Haiti's southwestern Grand'Anse region, learning their language, forming a part of their everyday lives, and listening to their testimonies. The descriptions of the rural organizations provide the reader with images of the strength and beauty of an impoverished people surviving and battling forward.

Smith’s mission is to "re-present the Haitian peasantry" through their own songs, triumphs, tears, and aspirations. She provides fascinating case studies of different peasant organizations and work collectives that provide valuable insight into peasant life and the struggle for democracy. Refusing to glorify peasant social relations, Smith examines the root causes of the envy, competition and divisions that also form part of their everyday reality. She describes with sincerity her dilemma as she deliberates whether or not to buy more rum in appreciation for a kòve (cooperative work group) that her neighbors organized for her. Smith's practices Zepòl Sou Zepòl (shoulder to shoulder) ethnography. Grounded in solidarity, the scholar walks and grows alongside the people. The peasants recognize her humility and told her "that it was about time a foreigner had come to listen instead of lecture and to ‘discover the reality we're living in.’"

Smith brings hundreds of kreyòl voices and visions to the surface so that we too can listen to these messages from one of the most marginalized sectors of our global society. Her translation of a collection of hymns, songs, and proverbs is an invaluable contribution to the uplifting of Haitian kreyòl, a tongue that has been neglected and silenced. The ideas and proverbs that underlie the "yonn ede lòt" (one helps another) philosophy force us to reconsider how we look at one another and our own priorities within a world dominated by inequalities. When the Hands are Many will serve readers as an entry into this "underground spring" of hope and resistance that all of us must explore in order to begin to rebuild Haiti.

When the Hands are Many by Jennie M. Smith, Cornell University Press, 2001.

Mr. Peña-Shaw is a union organizer and an activist in the Haitian and Dominican communities.