As some 500 000 Haitians still live in displaced camps, five star hotels are being built amid shanty towns.
As part of the country's "Reconstruction", The Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund recently invested $2 million in the Royal Oasis Hotel, a deluxe structure to be built in a poverty-stricken metropolitan area "filled with displaced-persons camps housing hundreds of thousands”. Royal Oasis belongs to a Haitian investment group (SCIOP SA) and will be managed by the Spanish chain Occidental Hotels & Resorts. AP reported in April that funds raised by the former US Presidents to help the neediest Haitians are now being used to build a hotel for "rich foreigners" including tourists as well many foreign NGO "aid workers" currently in Haiti. (Daniel Trenton, AP: New hotels arise amid ruins in Haitian capital, Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, April 29, 2012)
It is worth noting that Western governments have insisted that aid money for Haiti be given to NGOs and foundations rather than to the Haitian government, which they consider to be "corrupt".
In the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake, people in the US, Canada and the EU, who made donations to those humanitarian organisations and NGOs did not realize that their contribution to Haiti's reconstruction would be channeled towards the building of five star hotels to house foreign businessmen. Their expectation was that the money would be used to provide food and housing for the Haitian people. 
Royal Oasis hotel. More pictures at http://www.oasishaiti.com/
Royal Oasis Infomercial
The Royal Oasis as well as other hotel projects totalling over $100 million are, according to AP, “raising hopes that thousands of [foreign] investors will soon fill their air-conditioned rooms looking to build factories and tourist infrastructure” (emphasis added)
The “10-story building […] will include an art gallery, three restaurants, a commercial bank and high-end shops.
Construction on the Royal Oasis began before the earthquake and is
expected to finish by the end of the year.” The earthquake was therefore
a blessing for the hotel promoter and contractors, bringing $2 million
dollars originally raised to “go directly to supplying these material
needs [food, water, shelter, first-aid supplies]” (see add below). Among
the companies involved in the construction of the Royal Oasis two are Haitian, one is Canadian (Montreal) and the other American (Miami).
Foreign Aid: Who Benefits?
Foreign “aid” often benefits NGOs of the donor country as well as the local business elites in the recipient country. The Council on Hemispheric Affairs has blamed both Bill Clinton as well previous U.S. presidents for having maintained Haiti in conditions of "endemic poverty through a self-serving U.S. rice export policy […] By 2003, approximately 80% of all rice consumed in Haiti was imported from the United States.” (Leah Chavla, Bill Clinton’s Heavy Hand on Haiti’s Vulnerable Agricultural Economy: The American Rice Scandal, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, April 13, 2010.) Last January iWatch News reported:
According
to [U.S] government figures, 1,537 contracts had been awarded [to U.S.
Companies] for a total of $204,604,670, as of last fall. Only 23 of the
contracts went to Haitian companies, totaling $4,841,426. (Marjorie Valbrun, Haitian firms few and far between on reconstruction rosters, iWatch News, January 11, 2012.)
The
International Finance Corporation (IFC), a division of the World Bank,
has also invested $7.5 million in the project, claiming it will “create
employment, generate business opportunities for small businesses and
promote sustainable development.” Since 2006, $68.6 millions have been
invested by IFC in the Haitian private sector. Despite those
investments, the per capita GDP in Haiti
has seen very little improvement during that period. There is a fine
line between slavery and an average $2 a day salary, which ousted
president Jean Bertrand Aristide wanted to abolish prior to his
overthrow in a US-French-Canadian sponsored Coup d'Etat. (La
Société Financière Internationale (IFC) investit dans un projet
hôtelier en Haiti pour supporter les efforts de reconstruction, IFC, June 30, 2010.)
"The
good news" is that the project will create jobs for Haitians. The Oasis
foundation has also created a program to train workers for the tourism
industry. The project promoter, Jerry Tardieu told AP “the new
hotels will help more people get out of the camps by giving them jobs to
pay for rent on homes being rehabilitated by government and non-profit
organizations.” He says 600 people have been employed for the hotel’s
construction and once open and running, 250 to 300 new jobs will be
created. On top of the $2 million invested in the hotel, a modest grant
of $264,000 goes to the “Oasis Hotel’s nonprofit arm, the Oasis Foundation [...] bolstering the hospitality sector by reopening l’École Hôtelière Haitienne (the Haiti Hotel School) [...] (Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, Programs: Oasis). Basically
those funds are used to make comfortable hotel rooms, lounges and cafes
for foreigners and "train Haitians to serve them " in a congenial five
star environment.
While, Haiti
was lacking in hotel rooms in the wake of the earthquake and job
creation is a key to poverty reduction, a majority of the population
still live in makeshift shelters of cardboard, scrap metal and old bed
sheets. People struggle to have water to drink and food on their table —
and in many cases they do not have a table. Meanwhile, the construction
of luxury hotels for foreigners is a number one priority, in comparison
to "housing for the locals".
Tourism
Minister Stephanie B. Villedrouin “said all of those [850] hotel rooms
[destroyed in the earthquake] will have been replaced by the end of the
year [...] Villedrouin said Port-au-Prince officially has a 60 percent
occupancy rate but many of the hotels are too rustic for international travelers [including the NGO, World Bank and USAID staff on mission to Haiti]."(AP, op cit, emphasis added)
The "international travelers" are the unspoken victims of rudimentary and rustic hotel accomodation when on mission to Haiti,
according to Mariott's executive Alejandro Acevedo. "Marriott
International, ...is building a $45 million, 174-room hotel [in Haiti]
in partnership with mobile phone company Digicel Group." Marriott's
Acevedo complained that "even he had to share a room with his boss on a recent visit because of the dearth of hotel space.”
Camp near Royal Oasis (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Meanwhile, most Haitians live in overcrowded camps such as Champ de Mars camp in Port-au-Prince, “densely packed with shacks made from bed sheets, tarpaulin and scrap metal, which provide flimsy shelter for some 17,000 people.” Forced evictions also take place regularly, according to AlertNet. (Anastasia Moloney, Haiti's homeless face housing lottery, AlertNet, February 23, 2012.)  Champ de Mars camp. Photo: Haiti Press Network The Role of the Red Cross The AP report confirms that the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) bought land for $10.5 million and are also thinking of building a hotel: “The money came from donations raised by national Red Cross agencies for quake recovery, causing some to wonder if the money would be better used to house displaced people rather than aid workers.” (AP, op. cit, emphasis added). Where did the money come from? Where did that money go? Millions of people in the US, Canada and Western Europe donated part of their savings to their local Red Cross, which was then channeled to the IFRC, the world's largest humanitarian umbrella organization. The IFRC claims to be "providing assistance without discrimination as to nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or political opinions." (See IFRC website, emphasis added) This land purchase by IFRC not only violates its humantiarian mandate but also the trust of its constituent Red Cross and Red Crescent organizations worldwide. Red Cross donations should have supported the IFRC's stated mandate pertaining to "shelter recovery and settlement planning", in a post-disaster environment as clearly stated on the IFC website:
 Haiti's Comeback According to the AP report: "Signs of Haiti's comeback can also be seen in the 105-room Best Western hotel being built within blocks of shanty-covered hillsides." The five star Best Western project is worth $15.7 million and is located in the plush city of Petionville. The “first US hotel in Haiti” is funded by local investors but will be managed by a Dallas firm and is expected to create 150 jobs. (Ibid.)
While
several hotels are being built to provide "room and board"
for potential foreign investors, very few homes are being built for
locals and “the vast majority of construction has been temporary
shelters with a life span between two, maximum five years”, according to
Gerardo Ducos from Amnesty International. (AlertNet, op. cit.)
In
order to shut down the Champ de Mars camp, which would be tantamount to
the expulsion of more than 17,000 people, a controversial Haitian
government program funded by Canada has been offering 500$ to dwellers
who leave and find a home elsewhere. In practice this project leads to
the de facto expropriation of slum dwellers in high value central
downtown area of Port-au-Prince. While the amount is enough to pay the
rent for a year, Ducos wonders: “What happens to the people when their
rent money runs out in a year?” (Ibid.).
Will there be enough jobs for them in the hotel industry? Will the salaries be high enough to pay the rent? A lot of unanswered questions remain. Julie Lévesque is a journalist and researcher with the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal. She was among the first independent journalists to visit Haiti in the immediate wake of the January 2010 earthquake. |
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Global Research Articles by Julie Lévesque | ||
Sunday, July 1, 2012
HAITI: Humanitarian Aid for Earthquake Victims Used to Build Five Star Hotels by Julie Lévesque
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