Land Reform - Haiti Observer Blog

Born a member of the gens de couleur libres, Alexandre Sabes Petion (1770 - 1818) began life between two worlds. It is a dichotomy he would continue, further marking his legacy as an instrumental force behind the struggle for independence of two lands, his own beloved Haiti, and the republic of Gran Colombia.

Alexandre Petion began his career, after an expensive education in France, by joining the fight to force the British out of Saint-Domingue between 1798 and 1799. He would subsequently fight on the side of the mulattos against Toussaint L'Ouverture and the blacks, and was exiled to France when the rebellion ended; he returned soon after with General Leclerc and his assemblage of warships and troops. In 1802, he joined the nationalist force and gave his support to Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the future proclaimer of the Haitian Independence and self-declared ruler for life of the newly formed country.

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Many reasons exist as to why reconstruction efforts in Haiti are dragging: pledges reneged on, mis-spending, and lack of transparency. The latest obstacle to reconstruction projects is leniency in Haiti's National Land Registry Office (NLRO) regulations.

The problem with land-registry procedures began in 1804, the year of Haiti's independence from French rule. Haiti's second president, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, urged land reform as part of his platform. But in intervening years up until the present, a loophole in the NLRO's procedural guidelines has indirectly caused stalled road reconstruction and other infrastructure projects in Haiti.

Protocol for land transfers includes inspection, notarization, and fulfillment of tax assessor requirements. Bypassing bureaucratic red tape and exorbitant fees, land owners have devised their own land-transfer strategies.

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