Leslie Delatour
Encyclopedia
Leslie Delatour was a Haiti
an economist
.
and at the University of Chicago
. Notable as Haiti's Finance Minister
and Governor of the Bank of Haiti, he also served as consultant at the World Bank
, the Inter-American Bank and USAID. He was dubbed as "all-powerful" in Le Monde Diplomatique
. He died of cancer
on 24 March 2001 in Miami, Florida
, United States. His widow has since married Haiti's President René Préval
and his family maintains influence in Haiti.
under the administration of Jean-Claude Duvalier
. Bazin became favoured in international circles for an anti-corruption drive that he held as Finance Minister but was removed from his post after five months. After Jean-Claude Duvalier was ousted on 7 February 1986, Delatour was chosen to be Finance Minister starting in April 1986 under the dictatorship of General Henri Namphy
. There, he subjected Haiti to neoliberal reforms and argued that as Haiti would always be dependent on someone so it might as well be dependent on the United States.
This was not popular in Haiti. Popular leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide
dubbed this the "death plan". In June 1986 five days of major protests took place throughout Haiti, the protesters demanding Delatour's resignation. Henri Namphy said that this led to "almost a civil war" and promised to hold elections as a result. A November 1986 general strike followed, again with Delatour's dismissal demanded. Namphy had believed that as he led a provisional government, that it had no business carrying out sweeping reforms. Delatour believed otherwise. These reforms damaged a peasantry that had already suffered the 1982 destruction of their Creole pigs by U.S. orders as a response to an outbreak of African Swine Fever.
In the 1960s François Duvalier
closed all Haiti's ports except that of Port-au-Prince
; Delatour had them reopened and contraband poured into the country. He reduced tariffs on imported rice and reduced the budget of the government agricultural agency in the rice-producing Artibonite
by 30%. He reasoned that Haitians were wasting their time with inefficient agriculture, that the law of comparative advantage dictated that Haiti move much of its rural population to the cities where they could serve as cheap labour for industrial assembly plants as part of the global supply chain. He thus accelerated the neoliberalism
introduced under Jean-Claude Duvalier whilst weakening the Haitian state arguing that he was removing the means through which corrupt officials could steal development aid and sabotage profitable planning. He argued further that his reforms were reducing prices for food and other essentials.
Haiti's sugar industry was hit hard by his policies as Haiti's sugar company Hasco was shut down in April 1987 days after the Usine Sucrière des Cayes announced it was closing; these two events cost over 40,000 jobs. Delatour had shut down both state-owned sugar mills; the Usine Sucrière Nationale de Darbonne in the Léogâne
area in the autumn of 1986 and also the Usine Sucrière Citadelle in Cap-Haïtien
. The flooding of contraband Dominican sugar into the Haitian market promoted by Delatour's policies helped seal the fate of Haiti's sugar industry.
His decision to open the country up to subsidised American rice helped drive domestic producers out of business and to the capital, Port-au-Prince, and most notably in the rapidly expanding shantytown of Cité Soleil
. They could not all be absorbed into the cheap labour industrial sector so many ended up working in the informal sector, most notably in the charcoal
trade helping to denude the hills further. The new imports of U.S. subsidised rice were protected by military convoys to protect it from peasants who tried to stop its transportation, part of the unrest his policies were causing.http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/217.html For this, the New York Times described him in 1987 as "reviled" in Haiti but celebrated by the U.S. government and by the International Monetary Fund
and World Bank
.
As such, after he left his post in February 1988 upon the end of the provisional military government, his presence as an advisor to governments became an important consideration for international aid and loans to be made available. To appease these forces who distrusted him based on his left wing reputation, Jean-Bertrand Aristide
, who had previously denounced Delatour's "death plan", was compelled to make him part of his team in 1991 after he won the Haitian presidency.
In September 1991, Delatour openly condemned the coup d'état
that deposed Aristide and brought Raoul Cédras
and Michel François
into power. His support for the deposed president was a very important factor in permitting Aristide to be restored to office in 1994. Shortly before Aristide's restoration, Delatour and Leslie Voltaire had presented to the powers a plan titled the "Strategy of Social and Economic Reconstruction", a set of neoliberal reforms, dubbed in Haiti "The American Plan", which helped convince the U.S. to proceed with Aristide's restoration.
In October 1994, after Aristide was restored to the presidency, Delatour threatened to not be involved in the government in order to force the neoliberal Smarck Michel
, whose businesses included the rice importation that was damaging the Haitian peasantry, into the premiership.http://www.developmentgap.org/foriegn_aid/Democracy_Undermined_Economic_Justice_Denied_Structural_Adjustment_&_Aid_Juggernaut_in_Haiti.html After Aristide capitulated to this demand, Delatour accepted the post of Governor of the Bank of Haiti where he raised the interest rates consistent with his Chicago School
ideological position. The reform programme he started in the mid-1980s was deepened under President René Préval, elected in December 1995, with the rice tariff slashed to 3%. With his help, Haiti became the most open country to trade in the whole Caribbean area. The cement factory and the flour mill were privatised in 1997 under the terms of his plan; both were since shut down, leaving Haiti without a flour mill nor with a cement factory. He left midway through President René Préval
's first term in 1998. He died in 2001. His widow is now René Préval's wife and his brothers Lionel Delatour and Patrick Delatour occupy important roles in the Haitian economy.
country inculcated with neoliberal ideology
, most notably at the University of Chicago, who had returned home to implement this ideology backed by American power. He has succeeded in weakening the Haitian state and permitted the replacement of that state with Non-Governmental Organisations, NGOs, and has further strengthened the country's elite. In 2007, Haiti's most valuable state-owned asset, Teleco, was privatised for a mere $59 million and 2,800 lost their jobs. Haiti is now described as "the most privatised country in the world". The collapse of Haitian agriculture and the expansion of Port-au-Prince
's population is one of his most lasting legacies, and the mass casualties in the 2010 earthquake
and the enfeebled government's inability to cope with it thus were brought about with his help. Haiti no longer produces cement so it is forced to pay to import cement from abroad for its reconstruction. The new plans for rebuilding Haiti are all drawn up according to Delatour's own frameworks and his brothers have key roles in executing these plans. Delatour's pro-globalization
anti-nationalism
and Haiti's economic decline under his influence also helped in promoting nostalgia for both Duvaliers and their respective regimes. As a result of his policies, in 2000, Haiti's per capita income had declined from to $329 from $600 in 1980 during the height of Jean-Claude Duvalier's dictatorship. Haiti also lost its self-sufficiency in rice under his influence and it became increasingly vulnerable to international food price fluctuations as it was required to import its food. The 2008 food riots caused by international speculators too is part of Delatour's legacy.
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
an economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
.
Background
Born in 1950, he studied at Johns Hopkins UniversityJohns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
and at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
. Notable as Haiti's Finance Minister
Finance minister
The finance minister is a cabinet position in a government.A minister of finance has many different jobs in a government. He or she helps form the government budget, stimulate the economy, and control finances...
and Governor of the Bank of Haiti, he also served as consultant at the World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
, the Inter-American Bank and USAID. He was dubbed as "all-powerful" in Le Monde Diplomatique
Le Monde diplomatique
Le Monde diplomatique is a monthly newspaper offering analysis and opinion on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first created mainly for a diplomatic audience as its name implies...
. He died of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
on 24 March 2001 in Miami, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, United States. His widow has since married Haiti's President René Préval
René Préval
René Garcia Préval is a Haitian politician and agronomist who was the President of the Republic of Haiti from 14 May 2006 to 14 May 2011. He previously served as President from February 7, 1996, to February 7, 2001, and as Prime Minister from February 1991 to October 11, 1991.-Early life and...
and his family maintains influence in Haiti.
Power in Haiti
His first notable job in Haiti was working in 1982 for Finance Minister Marc BazinMarc Bazin
Marc Louis Bazin was a World Bank official, former United Nations functionary and Haïtian Minister of Finance and Economy under the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier...
under the administration of Jean-Claude Duvalier
Jean-Claude Duvalier
Jean-Claude Duvalier, nicknamed "Bébé Doc" or "Baby Doc" was the President of Haiti from 1971 until his overthrow by a popular uprising in 1986. He succeeded his father, François "Papa Doc" Duvalier, as the ruler of Haiti upon his father's death in 1971...
. Bazin became favoured in international circles for an anti-corruption drive that he held as Finance Minister but was removed from his post after five months. After Jean-Claude Duvalier was ousted on 7 February 1986, Delatour was chosen to be Finance Minister starting in April 1986 under the dictatorship of General Henri Namphy
Henri Namphy
Henri Namphy was a Haitian general and political figure. He served as President of Haiti's interim ruling body, the National Council of Government, from 7 February 1986 to 7 February 1988...
. There, he subjected Haiti to neoliberal reforms and argued that as Haiti would always be dependent on someone so it might as well be dependent on the United States.
This was not popular in Haiti. Popular leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a Haitian former Catholic priest and politician who served as Haiti's first democratically elected president. A proponent of liberation theology, Aristide was appointed to a parish in Port-au-Prince in 1982 after completing his studies...
dubbed this the "death plan". In June 1986 five days of major protests took place throughout Haiti, the protesters demanding Delatour's resignation. Henri Namphy said that this led to "almost a civil war" and promised to hold elections as a result. A November 1986 general strike followed, again with Delatour's dismissal demanded. Namphy had believed that as he led a provisional government, that it had no business carrying out sweeping reforms. Delatour believed otherwise. These reforms damaged a peasantry that had already suffered the 1982 destruction of their Creole pigs by U.S. orders as a response to an outbreak of African Swine Fever.
In the 1960s François Duvalier
François Duvalier
François Duvalier was the President of Haiti from 1957 until his death in 1971. Duvalier first won acclaim in fighting diseases, earning him the nickname "Papa Doc" . He opposed a military coup d'état in 1950, and was elected President in 1957 on a populist and black nationalist platform...
closed all Haiti's ports except that of Port-au-Prince
Port-au-Prince
Port-au-Prince is the capital and largest city of the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The city's population was 704,776 as of the 2003 census, and was officially estimated to have reached 897,859 in 2009....
; Delatour had them reopened and contraband poured into the country. He reduced tariffs on imported rice and reduced the budget of the government agricultural agency in the rice-producing Artibonite
Artibonite Department
Artibonite is one of the ten departments of Haiti. With an area of 4,984 km² it is Haiti's largest department. Artibonite has a population of 1,168,800 . The region is the country's main rice-growing area. The main cities are Gonaïves and Saint-Marc...
by 30%. He reasoned that Haitians were wasting their time with inefficient agriculture, that the law of comparative advantage dictated that Haiti move much of its rural population to the cities where they could serve as cheap labour for industrial assembly plants as part of the global supply chain. He thus accelerated the neoliberalism
Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the...
introduced under Jean-Claude Duvalier whilst weakening the Haitian state arguing that he was removing the means through which corrupt officials could steal development aid and sabotage profitable planning. He argued further that his reforms were reducing prices for food and other essentials.
Haiti's sugar industry was hit hard by his policies as Haiti's sugar company Hasco was shut down in April 1987 days after the Usine Sucrière des Cayes announced it was closing; these two events cost over 40,000 jobs. Delatour had shut down both state-owned sugar mills; the Usine Sucrière Nationale de Darbonne in the Léogâne
Léogane
Léogâne is a seaside town in Ouest Department, Haïti. It is located in the eponymous arrondissement, the Léogâne Arrondissement. The port town is located about West of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. The town was at the epicenter of the 12 January 2010 earthquake, and was catastrophically...
area in the autumn of 1986 and also the Usine Sucrière Citadelle in Cap-Haïtien
Cap-Haïtien
Cap-Haïtien is a city of about 190,000 people on the north coast of Haiti and capital of the Department of Nord...
. The flooding of contraband Dominican sugar into the Haitian market promoted by Delatour's policies helped seal the fate of Haiti's sugar industry.
His decision to open the country up to subsidised American rice helped drive domestic producers out of business and to the capital, Port-au-Prince, and most notably in the rapidly expanding shantytown of Cité Soleil
Cité Soleil
Cité Soleil is an extremely impoverished and densely populated commune located in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area in Haiti. Cité Soleil originally developed as a shanty town and grew to an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 residents, the majority of whom live in extreme poverty...
. They could not all be absorbed into the cheap labour industrial sector so many ended up working in the informal sector, most notably in the charcoal
Charcoal
Charcoal is the dark grey residue consisting of carbon, and any remaining ash, obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances. Charcoal is usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood or other substances in the absence of oxygen...
trade helping to denude the hills further. The new imports of U.S. subsidised rice were protected by military convoys to protect it from peasants who tried to stop its transportation, part of the unrest his policies were causing.http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/217.html For this, the New York Times described him in 1987 as "reviled" in Haiti but celebrated by the U.S. government and by the International Monetary Fund
International Monetary Fund
The International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...
and World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
.
As such, after he left his post in February 1988 upon the end of the provisional military government, his presence as an advisor to governments became an important consideration for international aid and loans to be made available. To appease these forces who distrusted him based on his left wing reputation, Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a Haitian former Catholic priest and politician who served as Haiti's first democratically elected president. A proponent of liberation theology, Aristide was appointed to a parish in Port-au-Prince in 1982 after completing his studies...
, who had previously denounced Delatour's "death plan", was compelled to make him part of his team in 1991 after he won the Haitian presidency.
In September 1991, Delatour openly condemned the coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
that deposed Aristide and brought Raoul Cédras
Raoul Cédras
Raoul Cédras is a former military officer, and was de facto ruler of Haiti from 1991 to 1994.-Background:Cédras was educated in the United States and was a member of the US-trained Leopard Corps...
and Michel François
Michel François
Joseph-Michel François was a colonel in the Haitian army. As Haiti Chief of National Police he participated in the 1991 Haitian coup d'état, which overthrew Haiti's elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The Haitian Presidential candidate Michel "Sweet Mickey" Martelly is known to have...
into power. His support for the deposed president was a very important factor in permitting Aristide to be restored to office in 1994. Shortly before Aristide's restoration, Delatour and Leslie Voltaire had presented to the powers a plan titled the "Strategy of Social and Economic Reconstruction", a set of neoliberal reforms, dubbed in Haiti "The American Plan", which helped convince the U.S. to proceed with Aristide's restoration.
In October 1994, after Aristide was restored to the presidency, Delatour threatened to not be involved in the government in order to force the neoliberal Smarck Michel
Smarck Michel
Smarck Michel was appointed prime minister of Haiti on October 27, 1994, occupying the post from November 8, 1994 to October 16, 1995. Smarck was President Aristide's third prime minister, and the first to be named after the President's return from exile....
, whose businesses included the rice importation that was damaging the Haitian peasantry, into the premiership.http://www.developmentgap.org/foriegn_aid/Democracy_Undermined_Economic_Justice_Denied_Structural_Adjustment_&_Aid_Juggernaut_in_Haiti.html After Aristide capitulated to this demand, Delatour accepted the post of Governor of the Bank of Haiti where he raised the interest rates consistent with his Chicago School
Chicago school
Chicago school may refer to:* Chicago school * Chicago school * Chicago school * Chicago school * Chicago school * Chicago School of Professional Psychology...
ideological position. The reform programme he started in the mid-1980s was deepened under President René Préval, elected in December 1995, with the rice tariff slashed to 3%. With his help, Haiti became the most open country to trade in the whole Caribbean area. The cement factory and the flour mill were privatised in 1997 under the terms of his plan; both were since shut down, leaving Haiti without a flour mill nor with a cement factory. He left midway through President René Préval
René Préval
René Garcia Préval is a Haitian politician and agronomist who was the President of the Republic of Haiti from 14 May 2006 to 14 May 2011. He previously served as President from February 7, 1996, to February 7, 2001, and as Prime Minister from February 1991 to October 11, 1991.-Early life and...
's first term in 1998. He died in 2001. His widow is now René Préval's wife and his brothers Lionel Delatour and Patrick Delatour occupy important roles in the Haitian economy.
Legacy
Leslie Delatour was a U.S.-educated leader in a Third WorldThird World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...
country inculcated with neoliberal ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
, most notably at the University of Chicago, who had returned home to implement this ideology backed by American power. He has succeeded in weakening the Haitian state and permitted the replacement of that state with Non-Governmental Organisations, NGOs, and has further strengthened the country's elite. In 2007, Haiti's most valuable state-owned asset, Teleco, was privatised for a mere $59 million and 2,800 lost their jobs. Haiti is now described as "the most privatised country in the world". The collapse of Haitian agriculture and the expansion of Port-au-Prince
Port-au-Prince
Port-au-Prince is the capital and largest city of the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The city's population was 704,776 as of the 2003 census, and was officially estimated to have reached 897,859 in 2009....
's population is one of his most lasting legacies, and the mass casualties in the 2010 earthquake
2010 Haiti earthquake
The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake, with an epicentre near the town of Léogâne, approximately west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. The earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time on Tuesday, 12 January 2010.By 24 January, at least 52 aftershocks...
and the enfeebled government's inability to cope with it thus were brought about with his help. Haiti no longer produces cement so it is forced to pay to import cement from abroad for its reconstruction. The new plans for rebuilding Haiti are all drawn up according to Delatour's own frameworks and his brothers have key roles in executing these plans. Delatour's pro-globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
anti-nationalism
Anti-nationalism
Anti-nationalism denotes the sentiments associated with the opposition to nationalism, arguing that it is undesirable or dangerous. Some anti-nationalists are humanitarians or humanists who pursue an idealist form of world community, and self-identify as world citizens. They reject chauvinism,...
and Haiti's economic decline under his influence also helped in promoting nostalgia for both Duvaliers and their respective regimes. As a result of his policies, in 2000, Haiti's per capita income had declined from to $329 from $600 in 1980 during the height of Jean-Claude Duvalier's dictatorship. Haiti also lost its self-sufficiency in rice under his influence and it became increasingly vulnerable to international food price fluctuations as it was required to import its food. The 2008 food riots caused by international speculators too is part of Delatour's legacy.