Street scenes of downtown PAP (courtesy of the Guardian):
Haiti is just one in a pretty large list of countries currently experience food demonstrations/riots due to the explosion in prices of basic food commodities such as rice, beans, maize etc. Others on the news include Egypt, El Savaldor, Indonesia, Vietnam, Ivory Coast, Senegal... From the National Commission of Food Security, over the last year in Haiti, prices for:
- imported rice has increased by 50%
- beans by 25%
- flour by a whopping 80%
What makes things even worse over here is that, for a developing nation, there is surprisingly little subsistence farming: depending on seasons and economic/geographic area, Haitians purchase 50 to 80% of their food needs, and more than 50% of that is imported - facts which really shocked me when I first heard them as it seems more in line with post-conflict/natural disaster. Increased prices for fuel, vigorous crackdowns by the government on contraband/informal markets, decline in remittances due to recessions in the US and DR, and poor local harvests due to flooding in 2007 are also blamed for exacerbating the situation.
Anyway, there's obvious widespread hunger: I've heard people here refer to hunger as "Klorox", a local bleach, to describe the feeling of pain in their stomachs - something that just moves you to tears. What's less clear is how much, if at all, opposing political factions are fuelling the crisis for their own ends. From what I gathered, simple food demonstrations are normally not sustainable as protestors simply cannot afford to keep protesting. Also, the violence - the attacks on the Presidential Palace, the burning of buildings and petrol stations, the attacks on MINUSTAH (the UN Protection force) could point to something potentially more destabilising for the government. On the other hand, they could just point to more or less spontaneous outbursts of frustration. It's difficult to really tell - especially for someone who doesn't really have a grip on the politics of this place.
In terms of how it's touched us - it was only really this afternoon that the situation really escalated for us in Petionville. We obviously knew of the rioting in the south (round les Cayes) over the last week and the demonstrations downtown in PAP today but didn't really realise how violent it had become. I spent the morning mostly struggling to go through the huge number of revisions to existing budgets while being plagued by power outages to the extent when I gave and decided to go home over lunch to grab my laptop. Once there, I had calls from a number of people to stay put as there were huge demonstrations going past the office. I later gathered that the demonstrations were close enough that the tear gas used by the police made its way through our office compound. If I'd left it slightly later, it's pretty certain that I would have been caught up in those protests - something to think about...
There's a part of me that is immensely relieved that I was not stuck in the office during what was, to all accounts, a very tense situation. However, it was immensely frustrating not being able to hear what was going on and not being able to support my team. From my flat, I could hear the rioting and see the clouds of smoke but felt very cut off. When the streets grew quieter, we managed to start sending all our staff home - it sounded pretty chaotic with the setting up of shared rides for those who rely on public transport and trying to figure out the best way to get past the worst affected areas - my Head Accountant had to walk home due to the amount of debris on the streets. But I know that all my team made it back so can sleep tonight. Anyway, the office is closed for at least tomorrow and we expats are under curfew until further notice.
With all this going on, not sure if the cashbooks got finalised today...
- imported rice has increased by 50%
- beans by 25%
- flour by a whopping 80%
What makes things even worse over here is that, for a developing nation, there is surprisingly little subsistence farming: depending on seasons and economic/geographic area, Haitians purchase 50 to 80% of their food needs, and more than 50% of that is imported - facts which really shocked me when I first heard them as it seems more in line with post-conflict/natural disaster. Increased prices for fuel, vigorous crackdowns by the government on contraband/informal markets, decline in remittances due to recessions in the US and DR, and poor local harvests due to flooding in 2007 are also blamed for exacerbating the situation.
Anyway, there's obvious widespread hunger: I've heard people here refer to hunger as "Klorox", a local bleach, to describe the feeling of pain in their stomachs - something that just moves you to tears. What's less clear is how much, if at all, opposing political factions are fuelling the crisis for their own ends. From what I gathered, simple food demonstrations are normally not sustainable as protestors simply cannot afford to keep protesting. Also, the violence - the attacks on the Presidential Palace, the burning of buildings and petrol stations, the attacks on MINUSTAH (the UN Protection force) could point to something potentially more destabilising for the government. On the other hand, they could just point to more or less spontaneous outbursts of frustration. It's difficult to really tell - especially for someone who doesn't really have a grip on the politics of this place.
In terms of how it's touched us - it was only really this afternoon that the situation really escalated for us in Petionville. We obviously knew of the rioting in the south (round les Cayes) over the last week and the demonstrations downtown in PAP today but didn't really realise how violent it had become. I spent the morning mostly struggling to go through the huge number of revisions to existing budgets while being plagued by power outages to the extent when I gave and decided to go home over lunch to grab my laptop. Once there, I had calls from a number of people to stay put as there were huge demonstrations going past the office. I later gathered that the demonstrations were close enough that the tear gas used by the police made its way through our office compound. If I'd left it slightly later, it's pretty certain that I would have been caught up in those protests - something to think about...
There's a part of me that is immensely relieved that I was not stuck in the office during what was, to all accounts, a very tense situation. However, it was immensely frustrating not being able to hear what was going on and not being able to support my team. From my flat, I could hear the rioting and see the clouds of smoke but felt very cut off. When the streets grew quieter, we managed to start sending all our staff home - it sounded pretty chaotic with the setting up of shared rides for those who rely on public transport and trying to figure out the best way to get past the worst affected areas - my Head Accountant had to walk home due to the amount of debris on the streets. But I know that all my team made it back so can sleep tonight. Anyway, the office is closed for at least tomorrow and we expats are under curfew until further notice.
With all this going on, not sure if the cashbooks got finalised today...
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