U.S. government official
You are the official that the president of the United States (Ronald Reagan) has
appointed to serve as the United States’ representative to the International Monetary
Fund. Since the United States is the most influential voting body in the IMF, your
appointment is a big deal. You love these conferences. When you walk in, other
countries’ representatives all want to talk to you. You hold the most power out of
everyone in the room, and you like that feeling.
Some might find you arrogant, but haven’t you earned the right to be? Out of the many
member countries of the IMF, the United States holds 16.77% of the voting power, which
is significantly more than any other country. Some think the imbalance of voting power is
unfair because poorer countries have less voting power, but frankly, you disagree. The
IMF is, after all, based on economic power, and the United States is leading the entire
world economically. It makes sense to you that the richest and most economically
successful country would hold the most sway over the IMF, even if your decisions have
major effects on poor countries and don’t affect yours too much.
You care about poor countries and international development, but you care more about
the free market system. You are a big believer in capitalism, which puts money in control
of private parties, not governments. The less governmental control (including over tariffs
and subsidies), the better, you believe.
You understand that Haiti is in a financial crisis, and you understand they need money to
help them out. But you also believe that if Haiti were more capitalistic and had fewer
governmental regulations, it would be better for the people in the long run. While there
might be some negative effects of the loan for some people, you firmly believe that the
loan and all of its conditions will help Haiti become a more modern, more developed
country. Capitalism works for America, so it should work for Haiti, right?
Plus, it is a big plus that the loan will also make your fellow Americans happy. If Haiti’s
government has to deregulate the economy, United States corporate rice farmers (which
are heavily subsidized by the government) will finally be able to break into the Haitian
rice market. Previously, the tariffs have been so high on US imports that US farmers did
not sell to Haiti. With tariffs gone, though, since US rice farmers produce rice much
cheaper than Haitian farmers, US rice will become a popular commodity on the Haitian
market. More money for corporate farms means more money entering the US economy,
which is good for American citizens.
Either way, the loan probably won’t affect you personally that much; you’re a banker, not
a rice farmer. Even though you won’t feel the effects of this loan, though, your president
has singled you out as the person to represent your country here at this conference. As
the voice of the United States of America, you are here to care first and foremost about
the economic interests of your country and the capitalist ideals the U.S. is dedicated to
uphold. Haiti’s decline is a concern, but it is secondary to these other things.
Haiti government official
As an appointed Haitian official, your primary concern is staying in office. You need to
worry about pleasing the government of Haiti so that you retain your appointment. What
decision will be best for your country, and for yourself?
Right now, Haiti is in the midst of a financial crisis. There is no denying it. Ever since
independence, your country has been in debt.
First it was to France, your former colonizers, which demanded payment for recognizing
Haiti’s sovereignty. In your opinion, this debt is illegitimate since Haiti’s entire founding
was based on a horrific slave trade, through which your ancestors toiled and suffered.
But France had warships and weapons ready to decimate your island if you refused to
pay the “debt.”
A century later came the Duvalier government, which were 30 years of corrupt rule
under two corrupt dictators. Jean-Claude Duvalier and his father, the 2 consecutive
dictators of Haiti until just last year, together stole billions of dollars from Haiti to use for
different purposes. Hundreds of thousands of it, for example, went to Duvalier’s wife for
a shopping trip in New York City.
It is cretins like that who make you ashamed of Haiti’s financial situation. It is one thing
for Western countries and banks to hold you in debt; it is another thing entirely for a
Haitian himself to steal from the country’s people for his own gain!
You are tired of corruption and ready to get Haiti’s government back on track, spendingwise. In order to do that though, you need money. Haiti desperately needs it. Malnutrition
rates have skyrocketed and poverty rates are through the roof. People will turn to
violence if the government does not meet their needs soon.
It drives you crazy that you are so dependent on international banks and rich countries
to bail you out in times of financial emergencies. Haiti only has 0.05% voting power in
the IMF. The United States has almost 17% voting power, to put your 0.05% in
perspective. So it’s not like you (or any other poor country) have any real control over
how funds get distributed. It drives you even crazier that you risk offending the IMF if you
question the conditions their loan imposes. You know these conditions will probably
prove detrimental to the rice industry in Haiti, but right now, you are more concerned
about getting the loan and not ticking off the people in power at the IMF.
Rice farmer in Stuttgart, Arkansas, USA
You are a rice farmer from Arkansas. You own a small family farm, and it is sometimes
hard to make ends meet.
You have a love-hate relationship with the US government. You are thankful for the
subsides they provide, but they’ve also been trying for years to get you off of your land.
You are one of a few plots left that the government is trying to buy to make room for a
huge corporate farm, or an agribusiness, where everything is mechanized and
dehumanized.
While these agribusinesses are seen as more modern and efficient, you appreciate the
old way of doing things. You grew up on a farm yourself, in Iowa. Your family still lives in
a rural area, not too far from the fields where your rice grows. You have a handful of
workers who are also like family, and you treat them well. You like waking up early and
walking onto your front porch, where you can see the sun rising over the rice fields in the
distance. You think there is something honest about farming your own land and helping
to plant your own seeds.
You like growing organic rice, free from the chemicals that agribusiness imposes for
“consumer safety” reasons (which you know are more related to mass production than
safety). You don’t want a large government operation built on top of the farm that has
meant so much to you and your family—the farm that has provided your livelihood for
your entire working life. Plus, where would you go if they built on your land? Farming is
your only skill.
You don’t know much about Haiti because you’ve never been able to get your rice on
their market. The tariffs have always been too high, and since you have to pay for much
of your own equipment and fertilizer, you simply can’t afford it. You think you might
benefit from an IMF conditionality loan in Haiti that gets rid of their import tariffs. Then
maybe you could afford to sell your rice there.
But you’re not under any illusions. You know the United States corporate farms will
benefit more. They get higher subsidies from the US government, so of course they will
be able to send more rice to Haiti. Plus, the sheer scale of their operations is so much
larger than yours, it is almost impossible to compete. You’ve been trying to hold out for
years, but it seems to you that it’s about time to give up hope.
You really don’t have a choice but to take a stance on this loan and pray that you can
hold out for just a few more years. Although you and your family have been working this
land for your whole life, the reality is that you will probably have to leave to make way for
“modernity”—modernity in the form of U.S. government-sponsored corporate farms.
Rice farmer in the Artibonite Valley, Haiti
Life is pretty hard for poor rice farmers like you, and if this loan passes, it will only get
harder.
You live in the Artibonite Valley, which is one of the most beautiful and fertile places in
Haiti, especially for growing rice. In this respect, the Artibonite Valley is rich, but the
people there are still very poor.
Since you are a rice farmer, you at least have some sort of income. Because you sell
most of your rice on the market, when there is a good year for rice, you live decently and
are able to provide food for your family. When there is a bad year for rice, you struggle to
make ends meet.
One major thing that helps you survive as a farmer is the subsidies the government
provides you for your farm equipment and fertilizer. Because you rely so much on
government subsides, this conditionality loan would be a disaster for you. You know
exactly what will happen if the loan is accepted. If the government is no longer allowed
to subsidize your equipment or fertilizer, you won’t be able to continue producing rice.
You just don’t have the money or equipment to compete.
Someone told you recently that in Arkansas, in the United States, rice sells for $170 a
ton. In Haiti, rice sells for $320 a ton. Those big farms in the US produce five times the
amount of rice per acre that you produce, and it is cheaper for them since their
equipment is so much better and faster. Also, the US government subsidizes rice
production on those big corporate farms.
Some of your rice you keep for your family, but most of it you sell on the market. If the
government gets rid of tariffs on United States imports, cheap US rice imports will
destroy your ability to survive as a farmer. If this loan passes, it will be a disaster. What
will you do? What will become of you and your family?
Already some of your neighbors have packed up and left for the cities, in anticipation of
the worst happening to their small farms. But your family has lived on this land for
generations, so you’re trying to hold out in hopes that the government subsidies will last
and this year will be a good year for rice. Besides, what will you do if you move to Portau-Prince, the capital? Live in a cardboard box and starve, like the other people who
have moved into the crowded slums? That is no way to live.
Your very being and identity are tied into this land in the Artibonite Valley. You cannot
imagine leaving. If you are forced to leave, who will you become?
Teacher in Port-au-Prince slum, Haiti
You are a teacher by profession. It has been 20 years since the first day you stepped
into a classroom in Port-au-Prince, the capital of your native country Haiti. Back then you
were nervous—as a first-year teacher, you weren’t quite sure what to expect from your
students. Even with butterflies in your stomach, though, you were sure you were going to
love your job. And you did. From day one, you have always loved teaching.
Until this year. This year you feel like you have reached the end of your patience.
Increased migration to Port-au-Prince over the last five years has turned your area of
town into a slum. People are migrating to Port-au-Prince from the mountains and valleys,
where they used to be able to make a living off the land. They are running away from
rural poverty—from their unreliable farms—but what they don’t realize is they will find a
worse kind of poverty in the slums.
The school where you teach used to have 250 students. Now there are 550, which
means that you have 60 students to a class instead of 30. Do people know how hard it is
to keep the attention of, let alone teach, 60 students at once? You’d like to see one of
those government officials—the guys who make all of the decisions that affect your life
without ever asking how you feel—come visit your school. See if they could control 60
kids all at once.
If these farms in the mountains keep shutting down, even more people will flood the
cities, which will make it unbearable here. The slums where they live will become zones
of lawlessness and violence, and schools will have way too many students to be
effective.
It might be easier for you if you had more resources for your classroom, but resources
are so scarce in this part of Port-au-Prince. People are so poor. Men and women who
migrate here from the mountains do not have anything. Their kids do not even have
shoes, so how are they supposed to worry about buying pencils and notebooks? What
can be done to help your students succeed?
Public schools are the last hope for this country, but they are quickly deteriorating. You
heard from another teacher that the government is thinking about cutting even more
funding for public schools in the next few years, especially if the conditions on this IMF
loan to Haiti pass. Apparently Western governments believe it is wiser to invest in private
businesses than public enterprises. They obviously have never seen our schools.
You’re not sure you can take any more of this, but you can’t quit. You need the money
you make from teaching to feed your own kids. But if the government cuts spending for
public schools, you are at risk of losing your job. What can be done to protect you?
Haiti Environmental Justice Coalition
You are a member of the Haiti Environmental Justice Coalition, which is made up of
groups and organizations working to halt the many damages being done to the
environment in Haiti.
With regards to this potential loan from the IMF, you’re not entirely decided on how you
feel. You are a little skeptical of the IMF, because they usually make decisions without
taking the environment into account at all.
Haiti is currently suffering from countless environmental problems—deforestation,
erosion, pollution, water contamination, and of course, natural disasters like hurricanes,
which tend to hit Haiti pretty hard every year.
The news often makes it sound like Haiti is just unlucky. Hurricanes keep hitting the
island, and the Haitian people can’t catch a break, they say. Your coalition is trying to
reverse that opinion, because it is largely untrue. Humans have played a huge role (and
continue to play a huge role) in damaging Haiti’s environment, and you want this to stop.
Since farmers have been working Haiti’s land for centuries, you have their interest in
mind. One of the main environmental problems Haitian farmers face is deforestation.
Since wood is Haiti’s main fuel source, deforestation efforts have increased over the last
decade, even in areas where rural Haitians have farms. Mountains that used to be thick
with trees are now completely bare. When trees no longer exist to hold down the soil on
mountains, erosion occurs, which is a steady wearing away of the soil on the mountains.
Erosion harms the farms in the valleys below, because nutrients are removed from the
soil and whole mountainsides are washed away, making it almost impossible to continue
farming. You want to restore farmers to their land, since they know how to take care of
the land—the same land that the government is raping for fuel and profit.
You also want to prevent farmers from leaving the rural areas, since their leaving
basically surrenders all of the countryside to the government to use however they
please.
You also want to prevent them moving to the crowded cities, where pollution is already
bad and environmental problems range from trash in the streets to contaminated
drinking water. Contaminated drinking water threatens the health of millions of Haitians
and often results in diarrheal diseases and malaria, so environmental concern is not only
important for the land on the island itself but also for the people who live here.
Right now, your main concern is that farmers stay on their land in the mountains and
valleys in order to stop or at least stave off more deforestation. This will also prevent
crowding in the cities, which keeps cities cleaner and less polluted. On the other hand,
though, if Haiti’s government got some money, maybe they’d put it into protecting the
environment by finding alternative sources of fuel so they don’t keep cutting down trees.
Ultimately, your concern is how this loan will affect the environment in the long term.
Corporate farmer in US
You are by far the wealthiest non-government official here. You are a corporate rice
farmer in the United States, where you make pretty good money for cultivating, growing
and selling rice.
You’re all for the IMF loan to Haiti because of the conditions the IMF has attached to it.
Any opportunity to break into a new market is a good one.
About half of the rice you grow stays in the United States, where it can be found in big
bags in your local grocery store. But the other half goes to other markets in Africa and
Asia.
If this loan passes, you will also have access to the market in Haiti. You know Haitians
consume a lot of rice, but your farm has never really been able to break into that market
because the tariffs have been so high on US imports. It’s not that you couldn’t have
afforded it; it’s just that it wasn’t really worth the price, since other countries’ tariffs were
so low.
If the conditions of this loan pass, then Haiti will have to lower tariffs, which will let your
rice into the country without a problem. Since it doesn’t cost you very much to produce
and export rice, you’ll be able to export millions of dollars of rice there every year! That
means more money for you and your family. Can’t go wrong there.
People might wonder why it is so easy for you to grow and sell rice while it is so difficult
for other countries. The short answer is that the government helps you by providing huge
subsidies to corporate farms in the United States. Every year the US government gives
literally billions of dollars to rice farms in order to help you pay for everything from seeds
and grains to fertilizer to expensive farm equipment.
Without the help of the government, this industry would not be nearly as lucrative as it is.
Thankfully, though, your government is rich and can afford to subsidize your farm.
Luckily, your corporate farm makes enough money to buy out smaller farms located
nearby, and the government subsidies help for that too. You are always looking for
opportunities to expand your farm. Even though it is sometimes sad to see family farms
go, you know it’s all for the better in the long run.
Corporate farms are taking over, and the small family farms might as well come to grips
with it. It is just easier and more efficient to grow rice (and most crops) these days if
you’re working with a large-scale agribusiness.
Student in Cité Soleil, Port-au-Prince slum, Haiti
You are a student at a public middle school in Cité Soleil, the largest slum in Port-auPrince, Haiti and one of the poorest, roughest, and most dangerous areas of the entire
country.
You moved to Cité Soleil 2 years ago when your father had to shut down his rice farm in
the Artibonite Valley because he did not have enough money to keep it running. The soil
had gotten so bad because of erosion that year after year your family grew less and less
rice. You could barely afford to feed yourselves, let alone put rice on the market.
Your family moved to Port-au-Prince to find new jobs, but it has been very difficult. Your
father works odd jobs from time to time, which is enough to at least feed the family once
or twice a week, and your mother has to stay home to take care of your younger siblings.
Home. When you say “home,” you still picture the lush fields of Artibonite, where your
house was tiny and you were poor but at least you were happy.
Your new “home,” which doesn’t feel like home at all, is a tin shack on the outskirts of
the largest slum in Port-au-Prince. Sewage runs in the streets, and your little siblings run
barefoot through the muck. When you were their age you used to run barefoot too, but
you ran through green rice fields, not sewage-infested dirt streets.
You go to school every day because you want to have a better future. You do not want
to live in the slums for the rest of your life. But you also are getting tired of all of the new
students coming to school. It seems like every day there are 3 or 4 new students in your
class, which makes it hard to find a seat in the crowded classroom and even harder to
pay attention to the teacher.
There are a few things you are concerned about with regard to this loan.
First, would it be possible to move back to the Valley and start farming rice again? You
are tired of living in the city, and your dad has become a completely different person. He
is now angry and impatient. It is like he lost part of himself when he moved to the city.
Second, if you must stay in the city, how will this loan affect your school? Will the
government be able to put more money into public programs like schools, or will the
money disappear like it has done under previous governments?
How can kids like you find hope and support?