As noted briefly in an earlier report, after more than a year of filing and re-filing papers, the Haitian Orthodox Mission finally obtained official government recognition late last year. What does this mean, in practice? Mostly… an open door to more work, more bureaucratic procedures, etc. Of foremost importance is the effort to regularize the legal status of land and buildings owned by the Mission, a task greatly complicated by the general insecurity and confusion of nearly all such titles in Haiti. In the US, all land titles rest upon an initial theft from the Native Americans, whether by deceptive treaty or by force. In Haiti, they all rest on seizure by force from the French colonists (all the original Carib inhabitants of the island were exterminated, mostly by European and African diseases to which they had no resistance). To make matters worse, nearly all records even of those “titles” were repeatedly destroyed throughout the nineteenth century, as revolution after revolution burned the cities and their government buildings and all the records.
The result is that for much of the land in Haiti nobody can demonstrate anything resembling a “clear” title… a thieves’ paradise. Many pieces of land in Haiti have been sold more often than the Brooklyn Bridge, by people with no better right to sell them, and not at all infrequently several times by the same person to several different people. Confused? Most assuredly. In this confused mess, “right of occupancy” very often overrides “right of title” — at least until someone with enough power (political or, sometimes, violent) decides to turn the tables.
With respect to the property (the only
property currently belonging to the Mission) at Village Nerette, near
the airport… the best can be said with certainty is that “we are
there”. We hold what purports to be a deed to the land on which the
church has been built. It might not stand up in court (if anyone
challenged it). We have retained an attorney in Port-au-Prince to
assist in trying to solidify this title, but with no certainty that
this can really be accomplished. On the other hand… advisors (not of
the legal community), knowledgeable in “Haitian ways” and the current
political climate, assure us that our position there is secure… unless,
of course, there is another revolution.
In this murk, steps are
being taken to replace the existing “joint-tenancy” titles (unavoidable
prior to the legal recognition) with the best titles possible in the
name of the Mission as soon as possible. Neither Fr. Jean nor I wish
to be personal land-holders for the church lands!
Everything is immensely complicated…! In the same vein, the management of Mission funds (in Haiti… in the US, they are handled through the non-profit Haitian Orthodox Mission account) through a personal bank account must give way to a properly established religious organization bank account. This is the work of an hour or two in the US. In Haiti, it threatens to take a month or more! Legal notice to be published in an officially recognized newspaper…; letter of authorization from the state…; letter of certification from the Mission…; the list goes on and on.
Not so formidable, perhaps… until one applies to it an aphorism
I heard from the mouth of another of Haiti’s army of volunteer laborers
(68 years old, she also told me “I may wear out, but I refuse to rust
out”): In Haiti, if you get one useful thing accomplished in a day,
you can count the day well spent; if you get two things done, it was a
wonderful day…; if you get three things accomplished… it’s a miracle.