Haiti on the Brink: “The Entire Country Is in Agony”

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, INTERNATIONAL HOST: Well, now turning to Haiti, a nation reeling from yesterday’s deadly earthquake that killed at least four people. Just after the devastating floods, which left thousands homeless and over 40 dead. These disasters only add to the suffering in a country already plagued by gang violence and government instability. Our next guest, Dr. Jean Pape says, without international help, the country could descend into a civil war. And here he is speaking with Michele Martin.

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MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Bianna. Dr. Jean Pape, thank you so much for joining us.

DR. JEAN PAPE, DIRECTOR AND FOUNDER, LES CENTRES GHESKIO: My pleasure.

MARTIN: We have a number of things to talk with you about, but how are things now? I understand that there was very serious flooding just within the last couple of days. How are you? How are things?

DR. PAPE: Well, we’re OK. You know, June 1st, start of hurricane season, and Haiti is one of the most fragile countries in the world. So, on June 1st, we have very, very bad weather that led to flooding where we are, including in my own office. But the country suffered the most. We have 42 deaths, unfortunately, and 11 people have disappeared. We have not seen any sign of them. And 10 of thousands of people who are homeless. We also have an earthquake yesterday in the south of the country that killed four people. So, that’s the situation. The country is very fragile.

MARTIN: For people who have ever been to Haiti or who have done work there, who have visited, they are well aware that your clinic, GHESKIO, has never shut down before. Are you able to treat people at the moment?

DR. PAPE: Oh, yes. Since yesterday, we were fully operational. Because we work this past Sunday to clean the place and things are good, we are completely operational.

MARTIN: That’s good to hear. Well, you wrote a very powerful and, frankly, very alarming piece for “The New York Times,” I guest essay saying that things are really dire, and you said this was the first time you really feel that Haiti needs outside help? Why did you say that? Why do you say that?

DR. PAPE: Well, this is correct. As you know, we’ve lived through political instability, 23 governments since 1986. We’ve lived through major hurricanes. We had two major earthquakes, 2010 in particular was devastating. But what’s particularly hard now is that we have a perfect storm. Because the political crisis as (INAUDIBLE), we had a president was elected, but this president had an opposition even before he got into power. With the country is being locked, that is closed for three months by the opposition at the time, where schools, even in the country, where 50 percent of people are illiterate, schools were forced to close, business is close, et cetera. So, this was very, very damaging to the country that could be related (ph) with assassination of the president this past to July 2021. And since that time, we have no elected person in government. So, this is the political part. Now, if you look at the economy, four the last few years the economy has been negative, just like the economies — or country at war. We are not at war with any country. We are at war with ourselves. That’s a problem. And, you know, the inflation is 47 percent, the local currency has been devaluated 50 percent in the last three years. Now, with this situation, we have a huge humanitarian crisis, because the price of food has increased a lot. But something new happened, and this is perhaps the most severe, the fact that gangs have taken control of the entry to the capital, both south and north. And because of that, you have crops being produced by (INAUDIBLE) in the countryside that are being rotten because they cannot bring them to the capital. So, that has also increased the price of food. And as a result, we have over 50 percent of people living in food insecurity. In our own center, as we are seeing more and more children, we’ve (INAUDIBLE) severe dehydration and severe malnutrition. With severe malnutrition, it’s associated with all kinds of infectious diseases. So, this is horrible. This is something that we don’t want.

MARTIN: Talk to me about but the gangs. I mean, is there any leadership among them? I mean, surely, some of their own members of these gangs are also experiencing these conditions.

DR. PAPE: Well, you know, I’m not an expert on gangs. I don’t work with gangs and I have not studied gang. But what I’ve seen basically is the fact that they have evolved essentially in a vacuum, because when we are occupied by the U.N. forces from 2004 to 2017, 14 years, the country was very stable, because at one point, they had the force of 9,000 people, mostly military people, with — very well equipped with tanks, et cetera, the country was very stable. There was nothing going on. But unfortunately, they didn’t train their replacements. For some reason, the U.S. decided to deactivate the Haitian army, and the Haitian army is the one that was in charge previously of doing everything, police and army. And then, they created — France, the U.S. and Canada, created these new police force. At one point, they were strong of 13,000, which was still much too little for a country of over 11 million. But now, at most, they are 4,000 fighting gates (ph). But they were never trained to do that. They don’t even have one tank. We don’t have one tank in our country. Can you believe that? And they struggle to get those armed vehicles that they are using now. And that the gangs are actually burning with Molotov cocktails. So, they are not as equipped as the gangs. And at the same time, there was an embargo for the Haitian government to purchase guns by the U.S., while actually 90 percent of the gangs, that’s what is being reported, the guns are coming from the U.S. So, this is kind of absurd. So, basically, there was never a large program for the youths, which are mostly unemployed. So, gang attraction became something very, very interesting because they were paid also. They were paid by the gangs to join them, and the gangs we’re making a lot of money. They kidnapped the poorest to the richest.

MARTIN: What is day to day life like for you and for the people who work with you? Can you just sort of describe what it takes to get through the day?

DR. PAPE: Well, I can tell you, we are resilient. We are motivated. We are optimist. So, we wake up in the morning with the idea that we could be kidnapped or killed, but we come in a convoy. We also leave in a convoy, because we feel we are stronger when we are together. But when we are here, you may — during our interview here some gunfire, because it’s usually unusual when you don’t hear them. They are all around us. And it’s been difficult because we have, on four occasions, members of our staff kidnapped. The pressure we put on the gangs is that we close the centers. When we close the center, from where I’m talking to you now, it’s in downtown Port-au-Prince, that has been abandoned by the U.S., by friends, nobody stays downtown, because it has never been rebuilt, it was destroyed by the earthquake. But we are close to the poor people, and they asked us to stay, and we stayed with them. When we close here, it’s a disaster. Because we receive on a daily basis 2,000 people get free care. So, even —

MARTIN: Two thousand people a day?

DR. PAPE: Yes, who get free care.

MARTIN: Every day.

DR. PAPE: So, the street merchants don’t even come home we close. So, the gangs released our staff without a ransom. We never paid ransom. But, you know, it’s still a huge traumatic experience, even if you are kidnapped for an hour or a minute, because it’s your freedom that’s taken off from you.

MARTIN: Yes. And we’ve heard of these really gruesome attacks on what police remain, and have members of your staff left the country just because it’s just too much, it’s just more than they can tolerate?

DR. PAPE: It’s not just members of our staff. There is a huge exodus. The largest ever, because of insecurity. The majority of them have left for the U.S. or Canada, Canada mostly. But, now, with the opening through the Biden offering, we have more people leaving, including policemen. Now, to understand, we have a staff of 600. We lost 200 of the best and brightest. So, this is the situation we’re in now, it’s desperate.

MARTIN: If this continues, would do you say that it is likely you will have to shut down, that you cannot continue under these circumstances? Is that a realistic possibility?

DR. PAPE: Yes. If this continues, we’ll have to shut down the downtown center, because where we are, it’s the most interesting part. Nobody wants to come down here. And for about 20 years, it’s been called the red zone.

MARTIN: If you were to close down there, what do you think the result would be?

DR. PAPE: Well, you know, it would have three impacts, because our mission is one of patient care. We are the largest center for HIV and tuberculosis in the Americas, one of the largest. So, that, we suffer a lot. And we also have a large center for cardiovascular disease, because this has become the number one killer (INAUDIBLE). So, we opened a center for that. And it’s really at the downtown site where I am right now. In terms of training, we are the largest postgraduate training center in Haiti. We also have the first master of public health program and nurse practitioner program with Quisqueya University. And also, a large community health program. And then, for research, we’ve published over 300 papers, and some of them have changed the guidelines for WHO on HIV, tuberculosis, cholera, and now cardiovascular disease. So, this is the impact that it would have.

MARTIN: One of the things you were telling us earlier is that the gangs have controlled — at least at certain point, they controlled access not just to, you know, major — of entire neighborhoods, but an access to the fuel depot and access to the airport. So, how are you even getting your supplies at this point?

DR. PAPE: From us, it’s a huge problem. The gangs, in fact, they had kidnapped a container that contain two extra machines that were going to be delivered to our site. When they learned it was for us, they let it go. So, I cannot complain about that for the downtown center. But for the rest of the country, it’s terrible. For a business person to have a container leaving customs, it’s a nightmare. So, the country — the entire country is in agony. I don’t know how long we can sustain this.

MARTIN: You said in your piece that you have never before called for international intervention, and you also made the point that, you know, no country would want that. No country wants, you know, foreign soldiers on their soil. But at this point, you feel that there is no other choice. What would that look like? What do you think would help the most at this point?

DR. PAPE: Well, honestly, what we need, we need a support to the national police, because they are fighting alone. They don’t have the proper guns. They don’t have the numbers but the population is helping them, because I think that the population alone has been now so desperate that they are ready to defend themselves, with whatever they have. Unfortunately, it’s not a solution either because innocent people could also perish in this. But the reality is that they’ve been so abandoned by the international community and the government cannot protect them, that now they have formed brigades in many neighborhoods where they are defending themselves to make sure that they are not the victims of gangs anymore. But this will not solve the issue. We need to bring back law and order. We need justice.

MARTIN: Do you have a message for particularly people in the United States and perhaps Canada or perhaps France who may be listening to this conversation and might be wondering what they can do to support you and your colleagues, and anyone who wishes to see stability and frankly, humanity returned to Haiti, because as you pointed out, that no one wants to live like this?

DR. PAPE: Yes. I think that an unstable Haiti is not good for anybody. It’s not good for a neighborhood, the Dominican Republic, it’s not good for the journalists, it’s not good for the United States. I think that France — we have strong ties with France, I think they can also help. I understand that there are some French and American trainers who come in Haiti to train the national police. We need a leaderboard in that. We need people on the ground that can direct operations. And we also need some support to invest in the youths. It’s not normal the youth has no future. That the only thing that they can think of is leaving the country. It’s not good for anybody. And I think that they are amazing, because what we offer them training ourselves in our vocational school, and it’s amazing to see what they can do. We also have the school here, on the premises from where I’m talking to you. And you should see how kids are eager to learn. So, we need to change the dynamic. For once, give Haiti a good chance. We never have that.

MARTIN: Before we let you go, and I don’t want to offend with this question, but I do think there are those who will be listening to our conversation who might wonder with your training, your international relationships, and the respect that you have, you know, around the world, I think there are those who wonder why you stay? Why do you stay?

DR. PAPE: You know, I’ve built with my colleagues this center. It’s unique in many ways. I’m an infectious disease person, that’s my specialty. But we have also set up a cardiovascular center, because this is the number one killer in the country. Here, we are making a difference. We’ve seen AIDS being the number one cause of death for treating (ph) kids, now it’s a (ph) seventh cause of death. Cardiovascular disease is the new challenge, and we are tackling that. And at the same time, when things are desperate, we are operational, we are going to present our results, the results of over core (ph) of 3,000 people that we followed for five years, we are going to follow them to 10 years. So, at the same time, the country is not working, we are fully functional. So, essentially, it would be a shame to leave all that we’ve built. And I think it would be a waste for the country. I don’t want to do that. It’s my legacy to my country.

MARTIN: Dr. Jean Pape, thank you so much for speaking with us.

DR. PAPE: My pleasure.

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