1978–1979: (Government by Kleptocracy: The Pig Slaughter Along the Frontier, Duvalierist Land Grabs Without Cadastral Survey, Once We Exported Mahogany Now W…

1978–1979: (Government by Kleptocracy: The Pig Slaughter Along the Frontier, Duvalierist Land Grabs Without Cadastral Survey, Once We Exported Mahogany Now We Import Formica, 19,000 Hectares Ceded to Marie-Denise, the Cocoa Monopoly Frozen by a Marital Property Fight, the $1 Million Yacht on a $24,000 Salary, and $45 Million Unaccounted For): To try to stop infiltration of the swine virus, Haitian authorities acting on foreign advice cleared a wide swath along the frontier of all pigs, further devastating the rural economy; farmers elsewhere watched in trepidation as pigs were slaughtered wholesale for minimal compensation. What nature abused by man did not do, man did directly: the lack of a cadastral survey, long a disincentive to foreign investment, now encouraged land grabs by Duvalierists of plots held by families for generations — illiterate, unable to read what few pieces of paper attested to title, those who dared protest were beaten into submission and joined the throngs heading for the towns and the beaches where those rickety sailboats destined to become so familiar to the world were being built with the last few precious scraps of wood available. The regime, spurred by the international community, engaged in wholesale reforestation efforts, but it was too little too late — the president acknowledged in a speech: once we exported mahogany, now we import formica. The Northwest, always the most marginal agriculturally, by 1978 was virtually under caretaker status from international aid organizations. Once productive areas stagnated too: the regime announced the ceding of 19,000 hectares near Fort Liberté — the property of Port Dauphin, once the world’s largest sisal plantation — to Marie-Denise Duvalier for tourist development. Sweetheart deals to regime favorites, echoes of Estimé’s banana decision, strangled other sectors: cocoa exports, which had provided $3 million a year, dried up as deteriorating relations between Marie-Denise and still-exiled Max made their jointly held monopoly the subject of a marital property fight — we have stopped our purchases till this is cleared up, said one trader in New York. Ciment d’Haïti and other state companies were rocked with scandal as wholesale diversion of resources was reported by a partially but not wholly muzzled press. What writer Herbert Gold referred to as government by kleptocracy continued unabated: on a salary of $24,000 a year, the president purchased a $1 million yacht, ranches, and a $3 million villa in Monaco — years later, in an interview with Barbara Walters, Jean-Claude seemed genuinely puzzled at the notion that his money and state money should not be commingled. The regime, dependent on remittances from Haitians abroad and the goodwill of the international donor community, found itself hostage to international opinion as never before. In 1975 alone, the World Bank reported, some $45 million was unaccounted for — this at a time when the Haitian government professed itself unable to pay even its modest part of international projects. The abiding object of the donor community’s ire was the Régie du Tabac; calls for fiscalization were met with foot-dragging, but the international community was wising up. As bidding wars for projects were replaced by consultation between donors, aid packages came with conditions that François Duvalier had been able to reject as affronts to national sovereignty but which his son was increasingly forced to accept. Looking at the paucity of results in relation to sums expended, foreign officials increasingly admitted that Haiti did not have the infrastructure to absorb properly the amounts being funneled into it — we simply, said one foreigner, don’t know where it goes.